Reality

Most of it comes in flashbacks now, a spliced movie reel half in focus.  The wracking, muffled sobs travel through the darkness, an all too familiar sound and yet it drives in the anxiety of impending disaster.  Not again…  please.  The nightlight’s glow is a mocking consolation, promising comfort from the dark when all that is longed for is oblivion.  It comes, finally, in sleep, only to break apart a short time later before dawn, Momma already swinging the tiny suitcases back down to the front door.  Yesterday they’d arrived too late in the evening to unpack and it seems a fortunate oversight now.  The overhead light blinks on and the dull glow of the painted clown face seems cruel and macabre. 

Another dark splice and they’re in the airport, spinning circles around the luggage carousel.  Remembering it as though watching outside herself: the pale, dark-haired girl and her little sister are skipping to a child’s song, off-key and exuberant despite the early hour.  Nothing else is clear until the car ride. Sitting in the back left-hand corner, her eyes barely reach the window.  Her uncle sits in front of her, driving silently, his usual deep-throated laughter mysteriously absent. She examines the back of his balding head as the last piece of childhood’s ignorant bliss is ripped from her chest by her mother’s next words. 

“Your Gramma’s gone baby, I’m sorry.  Her heart stopped, it was sick, it didn’t hurt.”

 Please bring her back, I’m sorry.  I’m sorry.  She promised.

 “I won’t leave for a long time, I’ll see you soon.” 

She promised. 

“You know she loved you both so much,” Momma whispers, sobbing. 

“She’s with Grandpa now in Heaven.”

Like the rest… 

Spinning.  Dizziness.

The sun’s so bright that it blots out color, overexposing the picture, and heat is radiating like an oven on neat little lawns with clean pavement paths winding between cookie-cutter townhouses.  It’s a mistake, of course.  There’s the blue doorframe of Gramma’s house where she stood last, waving goodbye as they drove away just a day ago. 

She’ll be inside, curled up on the second-hand hide-a-bed couch, her long silver hair casually clipped up and away from her elegant face; a face that even a child can see is still striking after all her years.  She’ll be reading an Edgar Cayce book, or maybe Lobsang Rampa’s “Doctor from Lhasa,” absentmindedly twirling rosary beads between her long fingers, the rose quartz stones softly clicking above the hum of the air conditioner. 

The living room is a tomb: no life… no light… no noise…  A faint smell of disinfectant lingers in the stale air.  Panic slowly rises through the cracks.  She’ll be in the bedroom! Gramma likes to nap in the afternoon.  She’s just asleep!  No movie reel now, her vision enclosed in a dark tunnel, she frantically runs down the hallway. 

Find her, it’s a mistake!

Momma’s shrill cry rings out, “Janie, stop, please!” 

The deep burgundy bed sheets are gone, the matching comforter tossed on the floor.  She’s hiding!  It’s a game, Gramma’s under the bed!  Dust chokes her, burns her eyes.  No one’s here.  There’s no air. She can’t breathe. Under the comforter she clutches her knees to her chest.  Momma’s distant voice calls out, but the words mean nothing. 

She’s gone.

 Where did she go? 

Why did she leave me? 

 

She’s dead.