what she said

mother

For the first time, he could be himself around her. Her

sitting in that rocker staring out the window, gave him the space

he needed to breathe, to be with her without resentment and

anger. The baggage didn’t seem to matter anymore, and it all

seemed so futile. dad was gone, but she still sat in his mind and

stomach like a lead ball. He had been gone for years now, with

not so much as a postcard. Not a word. Barely a sound.

Staring out the window of her room, the heavy glaze of her eyes

reflected the treetops and traffic going by. Barely able to

see her stomach rise from simple breaths underneath her thin

housecoat. She was there. A couple of pictures on a desk.

A solo picture of Doyle lay out of frame, facing

up towards the flickering fluorescent lights. He didn’t seem to

mind.

Things had lifted off, and he was finally able to let go

and accept the reality of what was. She wasn’t coming back from

this one, and he had to move on. She was at the point where she

didn’t even recognize him anymore, and if she did respond to him,

it was usually to something that was floating around in her head

like a dream, a peacock or waiter at a restaurant. “Could I get

some more hot water, please, and a lemon?”

Val enjoyed sitting in the silence. In the surreal

quality of her company. It was a dream world where nothing was

quality in her company. It was a dream world where nothing was

remembered and all was new. Maybe she would make simple, obscure

requests to Val, asking him to shine her shoes or to make her a

chocolate egg cream. Only once since she had been in the

nursing home had the past surfaced, about a year ago, on the

anniversary of Eddie’s death. She jerked quickly from her chair

to her feet, launched from a place of silence to a place of

terror and screams. Tears came down from what seemed like

nowhere, to the outsider. What was inside her head at that

moment, know one could really know. She screamed at Eddie for

what he had done. What he did to her and her family. The evil

that he brought, and how she stood by and let him do it, let him

have his way. How he forced Jara to watch her do that, “how could you!” she screamed

through tears. How he forced Jara to watch him, take her, and her hatred of herself for

letting it happen, for wishing she was the one who was dead and not him.

The clarity of her mind seemed crystal clear.

As if when she finished, she might put her coat on, grab her keys, and head for

the bar.

But those days were long over, and after the fury,

after the storm, and her voice fell silent again, she sat back

down in her rocker. Trembling and staring out the hospital

window, wide-eyed and bloodshot.