Breaker of Glass, Hearts, and Other Inconsequential Things

A short story by Ava Shaffer

They packed their bags at night. I know because I watched them through my small attic window, the thin white curtains dancing a waltz between my fingertips. If one of them looked up from their position across the street, they might see my silhouette. But no one did.

I thought he would. I truly thought he would.

-

The Murdock Family arrived in the summer, a Volkswagen van filled to maximum capacity with artists, photographers, models, painters, sculptors, and livers. That’s what I thought the first time I saw their turquoise dream on wheels pull up in front of the house across the street from mine. They looked like they lived their lives, more so than the rest of us. If the rest of the world’s vision on life was a blurry mess, theirs were crystal clear.

They had no moving van and no cardboard boxes. Just gorgeous fair-haired, spindly, blooming individuals with wide grins. Each of the five people who emerged gracefully out of the van carried one patchwork suitcase each, travel stickers and pins decorating them kindly. The family’s beauty radiated down the sidewalk, the cracks in the pavement mending together and the flowers standing up a little straighter for them. It was like the world healed itself when they were near. I wanted to be near, too.

-

I soon came to realize that the Murdock family weren’t just artists, they were creators. Each and every one of them.

Esther was the mother, although she was much more than that. Truly, deep down in her heart, she was The Sculptor. I often heard her refer to her creations (the flower vases and bowls and mugs) as her children. Over that first summer they were in town, I would watch her drag her pottery wheel to their backyard, only scuffing the wall with the large machine once. She would smack her red and brown clay on the wheel, take an edible and blast Talking Heads as she lost herself in her work. I would lose myself in watching her.

Raymond was the father, and he liked that title, living up to it in an almost comical manner. He wore socks with sandals, loved to grill, and could often be found watching Animal Planet documentaries about blue whales. He was also The Photographer. Raymond could capture the very essence of your soul in one portrait. One click of his camera lens, and there you would be- stripped down to your barest self and shining from the photo. These portraits showed your deepest desires, fears, emotions, everything you hid from the surface.

Desiree and Lily were twins, excellent tennis partners, and the most graceful girls I have ever met. Desiree was The Dancer, and her ballet recitals were attended by almost every resident in our town. I think God may have given her lighter bones than the rest of us, perhaps like the bones of a bird. When the ballerinas would jump, or temps levé, she seemed to float in the air a little longer than the others.

Lily preferred a different type of stage presence. As The Actor, she was the lead in every single school musical and play. She could cry on command. She could memorize an entire script in just under 10 minutes. She could bring an audience of lawyers and mathematicians and morticians to tears.

Claude was The Painter, and I still have his landscapes hanging up in my room. His favorite color was cerulean and he made sure to include it in every single one of his creations. Claude mixed his colors with his eyes closed, the shades knew him well enough to listen to which one of them should jump to his brush.

I can’t give a title to Oscar. He was simply and not-so-simply just that- Oscar. He drew like the rest of them, held his painting supplies in mugs he sculpted, and danced around the kitchen while they made spaghetti dinners. But after observing the entire Murdock family for a month, he was the only one I couldn’t pin a title to.

In every single photo Raymond took of me, my eyes were locked on Oscar.

-

I went to their house almost every day that summer. We had neighborhood barbecues, took day trips to the beach, and swam in the backyard pool. Where once the Murdocks felt like strangers -beautiful, tall, untouchable strangers- they now felt like my closest friends. Funny, how time tricks you like that.

-

“I have a secret to show you,” Oscar said one Thursday evening. We were laying on a red and white checkered picnic blanket in the backyard, sketching the shapes we saw in the clouds. I must have dozed off because when I sat up and looked around, there was nobody around except for the two of us.

“Okay,” I replied. I had never learned how to tell any of the Murdocks no, and I never really wanted to learn in the first place.

He grabbed my hand, his fingers warm in the summer heat. I think my heart grew an extra valve.

We walked for exactly 7 minutes and 49 seconds, I counted. Neither of us spoke the entire time, until Oscar stopped with a finality I knew could only mean we had reached our location. Surrounding us was an open alleyway, sitting snug behind the old diner and hardware store. We were hidden from the view of the road and the great wide grey walls in front of us stared at me with an intimidating glare.

Oscar walked towards a small table against the concrete walls, it was stacked with plates and glasses.

“They’re old dish-ware the diner used to use,” he said when I had not moved towards the table with him. I only nodded, then he spoke again.

“All we do is make, make, make. I want to break something.”

It was then that it occurred to me that perhaps not every Murdock was a creator. Perhaps one of them was just the opposite.

Oscar’s eyes flashed with a devilish flare, and his grin widened as his hand wrapped around the top plate on the table. He tossed the delicate white porcelain in the air lightly, catching it before it passed his waist. I gasped when I thought it would fall, and he tried to hide his laugh.

Eyes fixed on the wall, he took a step back. He winded his arm behind him and smashed the plate into the concrete with all his might. The shards flew by him, but didn’t dare nick him. His laughter, louder and more boisterous than I had ever heard before, echoed throughout the alleyway.

He smashed another plate into the wall. Another and then another. Each time, I flinched and closed my eyes before I saw the impact. But Oscar was staring right at the crumbled fractured mess, right at the grayish mark on the wall.

We went back there once a week, always on Thursday’s. Each time, he never closed his eyes when the shatter occurred. It was like if he held his eyes open enough, concentrated hard enough, he could see it in slow motion. Maybe in his beautiful mind he saw the fracture start in the edge of the plate, watched as the hairline chasms began to spread. Maybe he warped time with his focus and watched as each piece fell. One by one.

-

A piece of me broke a little bit when I heard the low, earth-shaking sound of their van rumble to life in the middle of the night. Another piece dented when the beautiful packed suitcases, the ones that were supposed to go into the house, not out of it, stacked on the porch stairs. All at once, pieces of me snapped and cracked in two as I saw the intestines of their grand tudor home bare and white. Perhaps their impending departure was making me lose a couple screws (the ones I needed to hold myself upright) because suddenly my knees buckled when I saw them leave the house keys under the doormat.

I didn’t know why they were leaving. Maybe they left the lives of others the same way they entered them, devastatingly and without warning.

Through the dusty window, I watched as the Murdocks piled their suitcases in the van, hopping into the seats without a second look back at their old home. A home that housed their creativity and art and love for almost a whole year. A home that I mistakenly thought housed me, too.

My eyes were locked on him, as they always were. I watched as Oscar turned to follow his family into the car. But as his grip found the handle, he paused. With his back turned but his mind’s eyes staring right at me, he waved.

Like he knew I was watching. Like he knew the first time he entered my life something deep and monumental inside of me shifted. Like he knew the sound of my heart cracking right down the tender middle. Like he knew I wanted to smash my fist through the window’s glass, shatter my bones falling from the third floor, twist my ankle running after him. Like he knew I would drag myself from the bushes, dirt and gravel caking underneath my splitting fingernails as I crawled after his ghost.

He knew how I would break for him, he just didn’t want to watch.