The Lovely Shadow (25 page)

Miss Lilly looked puzzled again, but decided
that the note was probably up on a shelf and the breeze had blown
it free, where it floated down onto the table. I thought that
seemed like a reasonable explanation, but still wanted to know what
the note said.

“Well,” Miss Lilly said, “de note be sayin
‘sadness washes de soul, but sadness can wash away de soul’.”

I scrunched up my brow as I tried to ponder
out the full implications of the phrase, but its meaning seemed to
be just out of my grasp. I understood all the words but when strewn
together in that particular sequence, the phrase seemed to be
contradictory.

“What do you think that really means, Miss
Lilly?”

“I tink it mean dat it be okay to grieve for
de people an’ tings dat be lost, but if you spend too much time
tinkin’ bout how sad you is, an’ how much you miss dem tings, den
you be getting lost in de sadness.”

Miss Lilly handed me the slip of paper and I
absentmindedly stuck it into the back pocket of my jeans while I
pondered Miss Lilly’s interpretation.

Thinking back to the depression I had been
feeling right before the note appeared, the words on the paper made
perfect sense to me; however, it made the appearance of the note
seem far less random than a breeze blowing it down off a shelf.

I was just beginning to dwell on the matter
when I heard June pull up in the driveway and decided that the
matter could wait.

As I was headed out of the kitchen Miss Lilly
hollered after me, “Supper be ready in abou’ ten minute, Boo, so
don’ be runnin’ off too far.”

“Ok, Miss Lilly thanks.”

I made it into the living room only seconds
before the door opened up, and though I considered doing another
flying superman leap into June’s arms, I decided that it would
probably be in both of our best interests if I did not do that
again.

It was good that I had decided on restraint.
When June came through the door I could sense immediately that
there was something terribly wrong. All of the joy was out of her
eyes, her shoulders were slumped, and she was dragging her feet.
She looked like she had just seen her best friend die of a heart
attack while watching him kick her favorite dog.

I could think of nothing to say in the midst
of the storm of sadness that seemed to be surrounding June, so I
simply walked over to her as she closed the door and leaned back
against it, and gave her the biggest hug I could possibly deliver
with my small body.

June did not lean down to return the hug, but
she reached down and stroked my hair and began to cry.

We stood there for several minutes, until
June managed to siphon back her tears and sniffles, and wiped her
face dry. Then she broke our embrace and got down on her knees in
front of me so we were eye to eye.

One more diamond leaked out of the corner of
her left eye and I watched it as it struck a crooked path down her
cheek to her chin, where it hung for several seconds before finally
dropping off.

“What’s wrong June?”

June inhaled deeply; apparently unsure of her
ability to make words. She held the breath in for a second before
releasing it in a deep sigh. Then she said, “Johnny…Honey… I just
left the hospital. I went to the police station to talk about…well
it doesn’t matter why, but they asked me to go there to identify…
well… it’s your mama, Johnny. She’s dead.”

I stepped back away from June in shock. I did
not know what to say, or what to feel. But I felt like my head had
just exploded, which was ironic in a way. My mother had often
intentionally given me the impression that my head was exploding
while she was alive, and now, in death, she’d managed to pull off
that trick one more time, though unintentionally.

I just stood there, blinking at June and said
the only thing I could, “Dead?”

June nodded, her lower lip quivering, and
whispered, “I’m so sorry, Baby. I’m so sorry.”

“Dead?”

June nodded again; the tears streaming freely
once more down her face. I could see a myriad of reflected lights
in each tear, turning the world upside down in each reflection.

I blinked a few more times and realized I had
been holding my breath, I exhaled deeply and nodded my own head and
said resignedly, “Dead.”

I was lost in a sea of various emotions so
deep that it threatened to pull me down in the undertow. I was so
inundated with feelings that I overloaded and became desensitized
and numb. I looked at June and dispassionately said, “Miss Lilly
says dinner will be ready in a few minutes. We should go wash
up.”

Then I turned and started for the stairs. On
my way, I saw my socks lying at the bottom of the steps where I’d
tossed them before heading outside earlier that day. It felt like
several lifetimes had passed between that moment and this one.

I bent down and grabbed the socks and thought
that they felt strange in my hands. I attributed the weirdness to
the strange insurrection my emotions seemed to be having, and
continued on my journey to the upstairs bathroom to wash my
hands.

I could hear June calling after me, but only
faintly, as if she were a mile away on a stormy night and the sound
of her voice was only barely being carried to me on the wings of
the wind.

Her voice had no source and seemed to come
from everywhere, and nowhere at the same time. I did not bother to
search for her. I needed to wash my hands; and maybe look for a
word in my dictionary that could accurately describe how I was
feeling.

I stopped by my bedroom only shortly; long
enough to deposit my socks on my bed, and headed for the bath.

I closed the door to the washroom and turned
on the water at the sink and began mechanically washing my hands. I
was aware of my surroundings and what I was doing, but I felt
detached, as if I was not really inside myself.

I felt almost the way I had felt just the day
before, down in the basement; as if I did not really exist. The
only difference being that I was well aware of my existence this
time. I knew I existed but I felt removed from my existence, like I
was on the outside of myself, watching me, rather than inside,
controlling me.

I finished washing and headed back downstairs
for supper. I did not stop to read my dictionary on the way because
I knew I did not want to be late for Miss Lilly’s super Cajun
chicken gumbo. That would be a mortal sin on par with beheading
babies and making lampshades from the skin of dead puppies.

When I reached the middle of the stairs I saw
that the table had already been set and the big pot of gumbo was
the steaming centerpiece to the artful arrangement of bowls and
spoons. ‘Miss Lilly is a model of efficiency, fo’ sho’!’ I thought
to myself when I saw the table.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs and
had a broader view of the room, I could see June and Miss Lilly
standing together looking at me with concern etched deeply into
their faces.

“Are you ok, Hun?” June asked
tentatively.

“Sure, just hungry. I can’t wait to try your
gumbo, Miss Lilly. Is it very spicy? I like spicy foods, but not
when they’re so hot that they blister my eyeballs.” I replied.

My emotionless voice did nothing to ease the
concern of the ladies, nor had I intended it to. I didn’t intend
anything. I was lost inside myself and did not think that anybody
would be able to toss me the lifeline I needed to pull myself back
from the void.

Miss Lilly opened her mouth several times and
then closed it without uttering a sound. She seemed to be at a
genuine loss for words, which I almost found amusing, as it was a
circumstance I would never have believed possible if I had not been
there to witness it myself.

I walked past my governesses to the table and
sat down. I looked at them and said, “Come on ladies…June, Miss
Lilly, the food is going to get cold, and that would be a
travesty.”

In the back of my mind I realized that I was
reverting to using large words again and wondered for a second if
it was some sort of defense mechanism, or if my brain, in its
addled state simply could not find other words to use in place of
the big ones.

The women shared a quick concerned glance,
unaware that I was well aware of their mutual concern. They walked
stiffly and uncomfortably towards the table; towards me. I realized
that I was the source of their discomfort, and I felt bad for it,
but I still had no idea how to snap out of my numbness to make them
feel better.

They both sat opposite of me, where they
could watch me. They had given up trying to speak to me, and I
thought with some measure of discomfort ‘I am making them miserable
because I don’t know how I’m supposed to be feeling… I don’t even
know how I am feeling. I bet they think I’m going crazy…CRAZY! I
will NOT be crazy!’

The mere idea of insanity was enough to snap
me from my daze and images flooded into my mind of all the wrongs
my mother had been guilty of; the senseless beatings, the verbal
lashings, the insults, the fear, and of course the abandonment in
the basement.

I suddenly knew exactly how I felt. I was
pissed! I understood that even though I had forgiven my mother for
every horrible thing she had ever done to me, and though I
attributed it all to the Sickness that had taken her, I had not
allowed her Sickness to justify her actions and I still demanded an
accounting from her.

I wanted her to tell me, face to face, why
she had allowed the Sickness to take her, why she had allowed the
Sickness to beat me, why she had allowed the Sickness to humiliate,
torture, and abandon me.

And at that moment I understood with alarming
clarity that I would never get that accounting. I would never get
an apology, and I would never be completely free from the fears
that my mother had planted in my heart; fear of abandonment, fear
of the dark, and fear of impending insanity.

I banged my fists against the table so hard
that the bowl in front of me jumped up off from the saucer it had
been sitting on and landed back on it with a loud clink. June and
Miss Lilly both let out a yelp and jumped at least twice as high as
my bowl had.

“It’s not fair!” I screamed. “She should not
have died yet! She needs to tell me WHY! I need to know WHY she did
it all! It’s not FAIR!”

By the time I had finished screaming, Miss
Lilly and June were both out of their chairs and around the table
holding me tightly. Pulling me deeply into themselves, as if they
were trying to absorb my pain into their bodies and alleviate my
suffering. In fact, I think that is exactly what they were trying
to do.

Suddenly understanding that my greatest
desire in life was to have my mother give a full account for her
actions, and knowing that I would never have that satisfaction was
devastating to me and I could do nothing but scream out in
frustration.

I screamed out in anger until my throat was
hoarse. I had never before in my life been so angry. My blood was
pounding in my ears, my throat was lined with broken glass from my
screams, my feet hurt from stomping them against the floor beneath
the table, and I’m fairly certain that if my beautiful matrons had
not been there to hold me through the fit of anger, I would have
broken both my hands punching them against the table.

Eventually, seconds, minutes, or hours
later—I’m not sure how long—my anger was finally spent and I was
out of screams. My ears quit pounding, my vision was no longer
tinted with red, and my feet and hands lost their desire to lash
out. All I had left in me were tears.

I cried deeper and harder than I had ever
cried before. I cried for my mother. I hated my mother, I loved my
mother, I realized that I missed my mother and would never see her
again, but my tears were not for my loss, they were for hers.

I cried for her pain. I cried for the life
she lost long before she died. I cried for the husband and son that
were taken from her before they should have been. I cried for the
burden of guilt that she bore in me—her unwanted son and an
unwanted reminder that she had given herself to someone she did not
love.

I cried until the food was cold, and through
the entire time, June and Miss Lilly never let me go. They held me
as if my life depended on it, and in retrospect, it very well may
have.

As my tears finally began to dry up, and my
mind began to return to me the thought crossed my mind, ‘I’m
getting snot on them.’

For some reason, that struck me as immensely
funny and my sobs turned into giggles. I could not help it. I
giggled helplessly until I began to hiccup, which struck me even
funnier and I giggled even more profusely.

Miss Lilly and June finally relinquished
their straightjacket embrace on me and tentatively backed up,
looking at me quizzically, most likely waiting for me to explain
the discordant cycle of emotions I’d just gone through.

Finally regaining enough composure to speak,
I looked up at them and said, “I snotted your clothes, sorry. And I
think the food is cold.”

They were not to be satisfied with such a
simple explanation of my feelings, so I was forced to try and put
into words the entire dance routine of emotion that I’d just gone
through.

When I was done explaining, and they were
done trying to console me, we finally settled in to eat our cold
supper.

Miss Lilly requested that I say grace, and
though I had a shorter list of thanks than I’d had that morning, I
found it immensely comforting to realize that I had things to be
thankful for. That knowledge took some of the sting out of my
pain.

After supper, we were all pretty exhausted
and mutually agreed that it was a good time for bed. June asked if
I wanted to be tucked in, and I politely declined. I just felt too
weird to want any company at the moment.