My real crisis moment is farther along in the story, when my protagonist is on the camping trip and the spiders begin to fall, etc. My change moment would be what comes after that. However, I am not there yet in my story so I am writing about smaller crisis and change moments for the protagonist.
This is what my crisis moment was:
The last day of school worked its way slowly by. As three o’clock approached, I felt a deep feeling of nerves bubble up in my stomach. It felt like a loss of comfort. There was no place for me to be once summer began. I would become my grandmother after today: an aimless spirit floating through my days. How terrible.
I promised my mother I would leave for her trip tomorrow morning. I had my bag packed: clothes I didn’t care for in expectation that they would get dirty, socks, hiking boots, bug spray. My mother was beyond excited. I was not. As hard as it was to get yanked away from routine, it was even harder to think about being yanked into the middle of nowhere for a couple days with my mother who resented me.
For days I had tried to convince myself that this was a good idea. It would help our relationship, be good time out in the sun, be relaxing, and convince my mother to help me clean my grandmother’s house. All positive things, but my mind was stuck. How deeply I wished for another week of school. And then another, and another…
My classroom started to feel very hot. My algebra quiz was staring at me, eyes wide. I glanced once more up at the clock. It was screaming at me. I don’t want to go on this trip. It’s too much to handle after everything that has already happened. My mother is unstable, I’m unstable…nothing good could come of that. How easy it would be to start the summer off simple, and maybe I could begin cleaning Grandmother’s house on my own. I would start with watering the flowers, then work my way to the spider’s, then the big stuff once my mother came around to the idea. It would be okay, a trip wasn’t necessary to help things along.
Once again the clock ticked. Only a second had gone by since I last looked up at it. I could feel my classmates breath on my back. I could hear their graphite scrape against the fibers of the paper in front of them. My hair started to feel heavy on my head. I closed my eyes in hopes to find peace in the darkness. And then, it was 3 o’clock, and the bell pounded against my skull.
This is what my change moment is for where I am in the story:
The morning birds were giggling outside of my window. It was early, earlier than I was used to. My door creaked open as it usually did, my mother’s blue eye peeking through.
“I’m glad to see you’re up!” she announced before opening the door wider. “Are you excited?”
“I’m hungry,” I responded. After noticing my mother’s smile fade, I grinned regretfully. “And yes, I’m excited.” I concluded. The birds were still laughing.
“I’ll make eggs.” My mother said, her figure slipping away down the hall.
I made my bed carefully and thoughtfully. I assumed my future self would be pleased to come home to a neat space, a place where my thoughts could quiet and everything was back in order. My packed bag sat next to the door. It gleamed at me. Its zippers waved and the straps were excited for adventure. I left it behind as I walked towards the smell of eggs.
“What time are we leaving?” I asked as I approached the kitchen.
“After breakfast,” my mother responded. Her back was turned towards me. I sat down at the large dining table. It was placed under the big window that overlooked the front yard. Birch trees played with the birds outside. Butterflies gossiped with the vegetable garden.
“Here you are,” My mother placed my breakfast in front of me. Eggs and fruit salad. Simple yet effective. She sat across from me, eyeing her meal for a moment before picking up her fork and indulging. She looked fresh this morning. Her red hair was pulled back with a bandana. She had dressed herself in a purple tank top and hiking shorts.
She seemed to replicate herself perfectly when she had me. I have the same hair, the same complexion. We gain the same look on our face when we are angry. We cry the same. Our hair gets frizzy in the humidity and our knees get dry easily. When we laugh our nose scrunches and our cheeks apple. I am her only child. Her perfect carbon copy. As similar as we were, my mother has never related to me. She doesn’t know my mind like she knows my temper, or my dry skin, or my humid-feared hair. That has always been okay. Today it felt less okay.
“So it’s a four hour drive there. We have to drive through the logging roads. I have a map. Then we park our car and it’s a ten mile canoe to our camping spot.”
I nodded, trying to seem enthusiastic. I pictured myself sitting on her leather seats, my legs burning under the summer sun that was glazing through the window. I could already feel the sweat gather under my thighs.
I glanced over towards the front door. My mothers backpack, coolers for food, and a tent were ready to be transported. I realized then I had assumed my mother didn’t want to go on this trip with me. I was assuming that her hate for me was so grand that she invited me out of pure joy for how miserable it would make me. As I looked at her neatly and thoughtfully packed things, I started to feel the guilt creep back.
My grandmother was standing above my mother now, her hands petting my mother’s ruby red hair. Strands fell gracefully back down onto her shoulder once my grandmother had successfully run her fingers through them. My mother’s eyes shut painfully, as if she was thinking hard about something sad. She had her fork in her left hand, raised near her mouth with a piece of egg still clinging on. Then, she opened her eyes harshly, and my grandmother had gone.
My mind began to wander to the framed pictures that riddled my grandmother’s house. Pictures of them holding hands: my mother is small and innocent, my grandmother is much younger, her hair is red again, her cheeks full and flushed. My mother’s first prom: she wore a poofy purple dress and her hair was done up in ringlets. A picture of my grandmother hugging my mother from behind during Thanksgiving, my mother looked like she was around my age. She was smiling ear to ear, accepting her mother’s embrace. All of my life I have seen these pictures, I can picture them so clearly now. Moments captured and then lost in time. My mother’s wrinkles had outgrown them. My grandmother’s death had no use for them anymore. But as long as my mother was alive, those moments still mattered to her.
I realized I had been staring at my mother for some time now, as she attempted to eat her eggs in peace. She gave me a funny look and took her plate to the sink.
“I’m excited to spend time with you,” I mustered. She continued to wash her dish without a gesture of hearing me.
“Me too,” she said softly.