Eggplant

It won't make a difference if I apologise for not having been around much lately, will it? It's not as if I am obliged to you, or anyone for that matter. But it does bug me some that I feel a little guilty about it. And it has been on my mind too, from time to time. There is no excuse, I know. Life has just been weird, that's all.

My mother decided to move to New York so she can keep an eye on Caro who dropped out of school because she met this guy in New York and, well, she is pregnant and married now. My dad freaked out about it, but my mother said her new son-in-law is really nice and perfect for Caro. He owns a restaurant and guess what? Mom now works for him and Caro is shopping for baby stuff all the time. Yeah, her friends here didn't know what hit them when they heard the news.

It all happened so very fast.

I'm officially to stay with my dad and his wife, but I am in our own house and at Granna's a lot. Caro took some of her old stuff with her and mom just kind of took one suitcase and said I probably wouldn't mind if she left the furniture behind. After all, it wasn't forever, like nothing is whereas my mom is concerned. And no, I don't mind. I love the place and everything in it. I love to have it all to myself now, I like the space. And quiet. I'm not afraid when alone. Because I'm not, not all the time. May sound weird, but I got this idea that Tommy is watching over me. I know he's gone, but I can really feel his presence at times, in the house. Or is my imagination just a little bit too lively? The other day Granna brought me some eggplants, she was going to cook them in my house. But then her phone went and she had to take one of her grandchildren to ballet or something because her daughter couldn't take them. So Granna went and said we'd be having dinner a little later than planned. No problem for me.

She left the eggplants on the kitchen table. I was making myself some herbal tea, when all of a sudden it dawned on me. It was a funny moment, like a shift in time or something, but I could see Tommy there in our kitchen preparing eggplant for dinner. He'd done this once for my mom and me when he was living over the garage.

He and mom were joking about and singing some silly song about cooking eggplant. I only remember some of the words, because of Tommy, he was singing them over and over. They got stuck in my mind like so many other little insignificant things stay with me until they pop up again, I don't know, to paint a memory or so?

Yeah. Eggplant was her game. Tommy was singing "I can't reveal her name but eggplant was her game."