|
|
|
Welcome Home
My eyes fly open, lungs filling with quick gulps of oxygen as my fingers grasp numbly at the sheets. My teddy bear has fallen to the floor where I will not retrieve him until morning. The presence in the room is almost palpable. I shut my eyes in protest to what I know is there. It will not go away, not until it has what it has come for. I can feel a light brushing of fingers against the skin of my arm, a whisper of fetid breath on my neck. It is cold. I shiver and grasp the sheets tighter as the floor creaks next to my bed. I start to pray.
“Now I lay me down to sleep,
“But,” I thought, “I have to move. Now.” Alarm off. “Come on, Amy, old girl. Shove off.” The air was filled with expletives as gravity and warmth were beaten back by my tenacious nature. Java called to me, as a schedule full of tedious tasks lay ahead. I had a lot to do before my trip home. My first in a year. My muscles tightened in response to this contemplation and I forced them to relax. A moment to close my eyes, take a deep breath, and my mind was once again ruled by determination. I clutched my mug of steamy ambition and headed for the laptop. It lay where it had been abandoned after last night’s artless attempts at a goodbye forming for months. I always gave all my farewells face to face, but this black on white, too thought out, breakup had left me short on words. Everything else had gone smoothly. I’d given notice at work, supplied a stop date for all utilities and moved all the money out of my local bank account. Movers would be by that day to take away everything that wasn’t going home with me in the already overstuffed pickup. If I hadn’t allowed myself to get so attached, I’d have been walking away clean.
“Right,” I chuckled, “allowed myself.”
“Shit!” It had to stop. That afternoon had the town seeing the back-end of my truck for the last time. I couldn’t get hung up, on anything or anyone. What I had to face tomorrow, I had to face alone. There was no other way. Time to shut the laptop and stow it in my backpack. I figured the empty house would clue him in to the end of us. This was a goodbye that would not pass my lips. I had to finish my coffee and ready myself for what would greet me on my return home. Many hours later, as the last rays of the sun streamed through the burnished leaves of the sycamore on the front lawn, I was ready to go. Every muscle in my body was tightened with tension and my head throbbed as I climbed into the truck. Thoughts of heading in the opposite direction or of running to Michael to seek some kind of sanctuary were brutal and fleeting. There would be no sanctuary, not in his arms, not in any church, not anywhere on this earth. I had the scent of Death on me; in my blood. It wouldn’t be denied. “Let it go, girl, just let it go.” I begged myself for release from this place where I’d known contentment and peace for the first time in my life. But, my life had to be one of no commitment, no involvement, for the sake of everyone around me. This I’d learned from all too painful experience. I turned the key in the ignition, backed out of the drive and was on my way to gone. I heaved a sigh of relief. I’d almost made it. I should have known. It had been too easy. I was only half way down the block when a far too familiar jeep popped up in my rearview mirror. This, I didn’t need. I was already stretched, mentally and emotionally, as far as I could go. The horn of his jeep begged to differ. I’d have made a sailor blush with my next tirade. I knew Michael was as stubborn as, well, I am. I felt I didn’t have a choice. I pulled over, parked, and stepped out of my truck. He reached me in seconds. “Where in hell are you going?” I was a literal girl; I gave him a literal answer. “Home.” “This is your home.” Now, this was when I made a big mistake. I looked in his eyes. Worry, anger, and love were fighting it out in their depths. The warmth of his hands on my shoulders and the scent of him suffused me. I almost gave in. I wanted nothing more in this world than to fold myself up in him and forget tomorrow. I wanted to feel safe. But, this has always been impossible. More than my own safety, I wanted his. I had to tear myself away. “You have to let me go.” Before he could offer me an argument, I ran to the truck and got in. He was next to the truck in a few strides, grabbing for the door handle. I locked it against him. He splayed his hands on the glass of the window and pleaded with me. “Amy, you can’t do this!” “Wrong, I have to do this.” My voice broke. I have to do this. I turned the key and took off. I looked in the mirror and saw him standing in the road, watching. I kept my foot on the accelerator until I was out of town. I wept until I was dry. The road ahead was long, straight and seemed endless. My body was pumping all of its chemicals of survival into my bloodstream and I could barely sit still behind the wheel. As darkness descended all around me, I cranked Roy Buchanan‘s “Messiah Will Come Again” and felt myself burn with hatred and resolve. This would be the last time. If it took my death to end it, this would be the end. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Every year when I pulled up to the old house, I was appalled, but not surprised, that it still endured. Its grim demeanor was daunting enough to keep all but the errant rock thrown through a window from invading its walls. Within days, it would heal itself and stand, once again, gray and impenetrable. It had been in my family for a little over a hundred years and became mine upon the death of my mother, twenty years ago. I had belonged to it since I was a blue-eyed, little girl of four. As I walked up the path to the front door, I could feel it reach out to me. I drew back in revulsion and stood rooted with fear on its threshold. It waited, patiently. We’d played this game before. I closed my eyes and, in my mind, recited the prayer from my childhood, in all its futility. It was time. I moved forward into the evil embrace that had known me all my life. I hit the switch on the wall of the entryway and put my keys on a small ledge under an ornate, gilded mirror. Glancing briefly, I saw what I expected. I looked bad. My hair was wind-blown, my face pale, taut. My eyes were red with crying. The scene around me was always the same. The ledge my keys rested on was free of dust and their only companion was a dried, red rose. Welcome home. In silence, I climbed the stairs to my old room. Down the hallway I walked, past portraits of former residents. My family, photographs going back over a hundred years, lined the walls. I felt liking cursing them, but caught myself in the irony of that and barked out a short laugh. I brought my hand to my mouth as I choked back hysterics. A tear slipped through my defenses. I wiped it away in frustration. My bedroom was a step away. The door was slightly ajar and I gave it just the smallest push as I walked in. I thought to myself that anyone that thinks of hell as a place of unbearable heat and fire had never been there. It is a relentless cold. I closed my eyes and made my way over to the bed where my teddy bear rested on the pillows. Pulling back the covers, I clutched him to me as I burrowed beneath the soft, icy sheets. There was the slightest movement of air, then a weight on the bed, next to me. A felt a touch on my cheek and soon a familiar malaise seeped into me as if my body, itself, was beginning to freeze. I didn’t fight it. It would be easier for me if I didn’t. The time of reckoning would be after. Then I heard something, a sound that reached me, even through my stupor. “Amy?” Oh, God. Oh, my God, it was Michael. I opened my mouth to scream, to warn him away. Nothing. “No,” my mind cried. “Don‘t let this happen!” The sound of his boots on the stairs made me fight harder. My teddy bear dropped to the floor as I freed my arms from their unnatural stillness. I tried to scream again. My voice filled the house and brought Michael’s footsteps pounding towards me all the faster. “God, no!” I struggled to my feet as he flew through the doorway. “Amy...” He stood back in pure horror. I knew what he saw. It was all around me. It was me. Death shown from my eyes like a dark beacon and drew life to it like moths to flame. On this night, every year, it dwelled within me, nestled deep in the recesses of my body and soul. It sought asylum from its endless roaming, for a fleeting night, at rest. Death was less than pleased to see Michael when it longed to slumber. “Michael,” it was only a dry whisper through veils of exhaustion. “Michael, run.”
Michael didn’t run. He stood before me, weeping. He held out his hand. My hand
reached for it, but it wasn’t me that pulled him
“No, please, no.” I was all pain as Death pulled him into our embrace. “Amy,” he said, hushed, into my hair. “I love you.” “I love you, Michael,” I sobbed, as a last sigh left his lips.
“Goodbye.”
It was late November, almost a month later, when I sensed the life growing within me. It was the most bittersweet moment, looking down at the small, white stick with its little plus sign. I already knew it was going to be a girl. The children in my family have always been girls. Daughters that will never know their fathers. There was no question of having her. I cherished her presence in me both for the part of her that is Michael and because, with her birth, my time would grow short. When she is old enough, she will house the Angel seeking its yearly sleep. And then, finally, I will welcome their embrace. Jennifer Jordan |
|