I felt the cold on the edge of my nose. I knew if I opened my eyes and pulled back
the covers that cold would alarm the rest of my body. It would wake me. I needed to wake up. I did not want to wake up. I wanted to stay in the warm milky gray softness
of sleep, hiding from the cold that rimmed my nose.
For a minute I forgot the bed, the pillow, the cold
room. It was barely light enough to
recognize the walls of where I slept. In
that in between, that tempting moment to go back into the gray, I almost
thought I was back in the apartment, our little attic room… and I would roll
away from the chill into Dawn’s arms.
I pulled the covers over my head to hide from the cold
pillow beside me. I wanted that warmth
of the in between to shield me from remembering. Remembering the days of that empty
pillow. Of the room downstairs next to
the kitchen. Of all the empty unplanned
days before me.
The phone rang just as my eyes were about to succumb to the
tease of that gray. I swung my feet
around and startled the bottom of my heels as they hit the groaning wooden
floor. I found my phone vibrating on the
desk and managed a groggy hello.
“Bekah, I can’t come on Saturday,” my mother’s voice woke me
as harshly as the cold that nipped my nose.
“I need to go grocery shopping.”
“I thought Malcolm was coming up for the evening.”
“That’s why I need to go grocery shopping. So I can make dinner.”
“I have to do a re-shoot,” Carolina was articulate in her
unrelenting reply. “Go when the nurse
comes.”
“I…” I swallowed the words my not nearly awake mind wanted
to snark.
“Or ask Sarah Lawson.
She has offered to help. I don’t
know why you don’t take up her offer.”
“She’s too cheerful for me.”
“Well, the cheerful wouldn’t be for you. It would be for your grandmother. The time to get away would be for you.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“I’m sorry, Bekah.
I’m committed to this.”
“I know.”
“No changes I should know about?”
“No changes.” I saw my tired reflection in the mirror over
the dresser.
“Well, if anything does come up, call. Love you.”
“Love you,” I agreed to end the short wake up call. My mother was always alert and abrupt at the
crack of dawn. I imagined it annoyed her
students as much as it did me.
I set the phone down and looked at the mirror again. I saw the corner of the wallpaper that was
peeling away from the ceiling above the door frame. I noticed it before, a night when I tried to
read one of the books I took from the library.
I could probably put it back in place with some scotch tape. I liked the wallpaper with its vine pattern
of small flowers. I didn’t want to think
about any complicated process of replacing it.
I looked away from the curled edge and saw my reflection again. I looked old.
Much older than I imagined I should for just passing my 35th
birthday. I didn’t remember having
circles like that under my eyes. So many
parts of me had gone soft in the last six months. None of the right curves had filled out. Just the ones that reminded me how long it
had been since I went for a bike ride.
No wonder Dawn lost interest… that stupid nagging morning
voice echoed in my head. I
wasn’t going to think about that. It was
easier to fume about my mother messing up my Saturday cooking plans… forcing me
to have to call that vapid, too perky for a person to be naturally, Sarah
Lawson.
I went back to my bed and pulled the covers into place. I never used to care about making the
bed. After spending a summer at Evelynn
Manor it became my habit - even before I
got dressed, I made sure all the sheets and blankets were pulled tight with the
pillows arranged neatly at the head of the bed.
I think I started because I was in Helen’s house. She instructed me when I was a child to do
that every morning. She told me if you
make your bed first thing, you put everything right in your day. I don’t know if I believed that… but at that
point I was willing to try anything to get somewhat right.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Her eyelids fell. She
tried to fight them, heavily pulling her towards sleep. She fluttered them open again, but found the
struggle too overwhelming as the anticipation faded into the cloud of an
obscured dream. Then somewhere in the
grayness a light flashed. Aggie opened
her eyes suddenly and saw the reflection of the panes move across the
wall. She watched to see if they moved
again, but the distorted squares of light remained on the wall over her head.
She leapt out of bed towards the window. She barely noticed the cold on her bare
feet. The light – two lights – glowed in
the driveway below. She rubbed her eyes,
still seeing spots. Then she looked
beneath her as the shape of a long black car came into focus. The engine
stopped. A man in a dark coat stepped
out of the front and opened the door behind him. A woman in a long fur stumbled out of the
back seat and laughed as she fell against him.
She got her balance and looked up at the house, revealing the face
hidden by her cloche hat. She had short
hair like Miss Holbrook at the pharmacy.
She was prettier than Miss Holbrook.
She looked more like a picture from one of the magazines Mavis read
during breakfast.
Shadows appeared on the snowy lawn as the lights went on
downstairs. Aggie saw Mavis, fully
dressed as though it were day, walk over to the car. She spoke briefly to the man and another woman
with red hair who held a hat box. The
woman in the fur moved between them and took Mavis’ hand. She lifted her dark eyes again, the laughter
frozen as she looked at the house in the moonlight.
Aggie hid behind her curtain. When she looked back, Mavis followed the
woman and her red haired companion into the house. Aggie tiptoed across the
room and opened her door. She went to
the top of the stairs and strained to hear any noises that might make their way
across the house and through the kitchen.
There was an eternal silence when the cold started to numb her bare toes
and weigh down her eyelids. She
contemplated going back under her blankets when she heard footsteps and voices
on the second floor. Then she heard the
laugh. It was a carefree, low
giggle. Aggie’s lips curled mindlessly
at the infectious sound. She heard Mavis
direct them to the bedroom at the end of the hall. Then she gave directions to
the third floor. Aggie rushed back to her
room, closing her door quickly. She went
back to the warmth of her bed, giggling into her pillow as she let the heavy
eyelids pull her into the grayness of sleep.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I don’t want to open my eyes. It is warm.
Too warm. So easy to stay here in
the gray, orangey cloud. I feel the
weight of my book where I let it fall against my chest. My breath falls deep into my stomach beneath
it. It can stay there. I won’t move.
I won’t open my eyes. I like this
sleep. I feel like I’m falling, falling,
falling back into a dream I forget.
Something of a garden and a walk in the woods.
I feel the weight of my book. I feel the warmth of the room. My neck hurts from how I have turned my neck
on this old sofa and its dusty pillows.
The spell is broken. I sit up but
my head still feels the weight of my sleeping, the pull of that dream I
forget. I forgot. I can almost taste it, but it is gone.
