by Amelia Burlingame
Nothing was going right that day. I had missed the school bus so Iheaded to the library to use the pay phone to call home. I dropped my
35 cents into the slot and heard my dad's voice. "You have reached the
home of Burl, Mary, Amelia and Kate Burlingame. We can't come to the
phone right now..." I kept wondering where my mom could be; it was
already a quarter till five. I had never actually walked all the way to
my house in Enchanted Lake from the Kailua library. But there's a first
time for everything. I put on my headphones and prayed that The
Offspring was in my CD player. It was. But even with the music, this
wasn't fun. It was hot, muggy and after fifteen minutes my legs and feet
began to hurt. Then, suddenly, I was saved. Justin and Shannon, two high
school friends, pulled up in Justin's truck and offered me a ride. A few
minutes later I was home. I even beat Mom home. No need for lengthy
explanations of my whereabouts.
About 10 minutes after I got home mom arrived and started the nightly
ritual.
Mom: "Do you have homework?"
Me: "Yes."
Mom: "Well, get to it. I'll start dinner. It's hamburgers tonight."
And like clockwork, she turned on the TV waited for the 6 o'clock news
to come on.
We ate our dinner on trays that night. My little sister, Kate, and I
were in the kitchen fixing our dinners. From the kitchen we could see
Mom was already in her special "TV-watching" chair. Kate and I walked
into the living room just as the commercials ended and newscaster Joe
Moore appeared on the TV screen. The lead story stopped us in our
tracks. "The owners of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin have decided to shut
down the newspaper after 118 years of publication." I could actually see
the blood drain from my mom's face. After a silence that seemed like
forever, Kate finally spoke up. "Why did he say that, Mommy?" she asked.
"I don't know," my mom replied.
How could they be closing the Star-Bulletin? The paper was like our
second home. Dad has been a writer there for 20 years and Mom, an
editor, for 12. I practically learned how to walk in the Star-Bulletin
newsroom.
Mom hurried to the phone and dialed dad's work number. No answer. Then
she called a couple of her colleagues at home. No answer there either. A
little while later we all heard the door slam. It was Dad. He had tried
to hurry home to tell us before we heard it on the news, but he was too
late. They kind of just stood there looking at each other, like they
needed to do something but didn't know what. Then my parents sat my
sister and I down in the living room and asked us how we felt about this
sudden news. We really didn't know how we felt. It just happened without
any warning. Mom said she didn't know what would happen but that we'd be
OK. I kept wondering if we really would. Would we have to leave Hawaii?
I didn't want to move away from my friends and family. I didn't like to
think about it because every time I did I would get sad and depressed. I
really wanted to change the subject.
Suddenly I remembered about the Open House at school. Reminding my
parents about it did change the subject, at least for a little while. My
mom let herself calm down for a few minutes and then we left. Throughout
the open house I kept looking at my mother. She was like a zombie - not
really hearing what my teachers were saying and wandering through the
crowd in the hall. I kept having to push her in the right direction.
Other parents who had seen the news that night asked us what we were
going to do. "We don't have a clue," Dad said..
It's been a year since that night. Miraculously, the Star-Bulletin has
continued to publish, kept open by a restraining order issued in an
antitrust lawsuit against the newspaper owners. The case is complicated
and I don't understand it exactly. I can't explain it. But nothing has
been quite the same at our house since that night. Our lives were put on
hold. Things changed. We didn't take a vacation this year. There were
fewer trips to the mall. Family decisions were put off. It seems like my
parents' favorite saying has become, "We can't decide that now." I
haven't liked living with my parents' up and down moods. I kept
wondering if our lives will ever get back to normal.