Where Is Mother? Where Is Father Going?

I haven't seen Mother since dinner Thursday.  I kind of spaced out and read my latest EW and fell asleep shortly thereafter, and maybe I heard the front door open and the minivan start.  Woke up early Friday morning and only saw Father, but I assumed Mother was out doing something.  Maybe that should have raised my suspicions, but it didn't.  They were raised that evening, when it was just Father and I having dinner.  Got back late from the Saints game last night, and I told myself that she definitely was home by then.  But I woke up early this morning (by choice; I got home a bit past midnight and conked off at 12:30), decided to get my spare bedsheet a wash, saw that Father was on the computer, saw that my parents' bedroom door was open, and through the door I heard ... nothing.

Oh, she's not here.  She's really not here.  So why isn't she here?  And I've got to tell ya, I haven't asked Father.  I guess I should; it seems normal to know where your maternal unit is when you expect her home.  But I guess I don't want to know.  I ask Father, and then he'll either run his mouth to the point he'll yell at me to, like, clean my room, or he'll tell the truth, and I won't be able to handle it.  So I haven't said anything.  Neither has he, and that kind of scares me.

Meanwhile, as we were having noodles for breakfast (mental note: Never have noodles for breakfast.  It's unnatural) he told me he had to go to work.  At The Store?  Thought about asking if he needed help, but I already told him I didn't have to go anywhere, at least this afternoon; if he wanted my help, he'd ask.  But then he told me he might be back late, and if I was hungry for dinner, there's pizza in the fridge.  Where's he going?  Is it -- gulp -- the last days of The Store?  Are they preparing it for (big breath here) sale?  Maybe I should have gone.

Couple days ago he wanted to show me how to operate the sprinkler system they had installed this week.  After he showed me what I had to do before and after winter in the backyard, he took me over to the garden, whose plants are growing at a very good rate.  We've eaten some of the beans they harvested there already.  Then he tells me that if I want to garden, go ahead, "Otherwise, just take care of the grass."  Wait, what does that mean?  Are they going somewhere for, like, a long time?  How long?  And when are you coming back?

Finally, as we're headed back inside, he told me he's planning on buying a snowblower .. for me.  Oh my God, you're not coming back, are you!  I know that I'm being a hypocrite; a guy who constantly complains of being hectored by his folks is now complaining that they're going away for a long time.  Father's saying I'll have the house all to myself, and I'm acting like I'm being abandoned?  Yes, that's how I feel.

In fact, do you know the first thing I thought about when I got back in my bedroom?  Maybe I should go to L.A. for grad school.  Yeah, as soon as Father told me he and Mother would be going away, I thought I should go away, too.  I'm a coward, I'm a pussy, guilty as charged.  But instead of the freedom I should be feeling, I feel the weight of a new kind of responsibility -- not one weighed down even further by my parents' expectations, but one shrouded in the fact that I'm alone in whatever I decide to do next.  And I will admit that I am kind of scared right now.  And hell, I'm scared of where Mother is right now, and whether Father is about to give away The Store for good.

I don't know what to do.  Shit, I don't know what I'm going to do this afternoon -- go to an art show or exercise or clean my room or just slip back into my bed and sleep these anxieties away.