The Lovely Shadow (35 page)

She began to come unhinged then. Her selfish
nature had for her entire life up to that point, assured her that
she would always get her way. When tragedy proved that assumption
wrong, she went a bit crazy and began building up defenses that
would insulate her from the rest of the world. She wrapped herself
in a little mackinaw of security where she had complete control
over all events. She drew comfort from the skewed idea that nothing
could take anything from her unless she wanted it to.

Then I came along. One bad night for her; one
night where she let her defenses down and drank herself stupid and
found comfort in the embrace of a stranger. Time slung another
stone through her glass house.

She unhinged further, and became more
determined than ever to control every aspect of her life.
Unfortunately for her I was a constant reminder that she did not
have complete control. I was a reminder that things would not
always go her way, and when she looked at me she saw only the
leering face of Time, waving back at her with a slingshot in his
hands.

The final nail in the coffin of her sanity
was Joe’s death. Already she’d been struggling to keep the Sickness
contained, flitting back and forth between her strictly regulated
reality and the realms of delusion that threatened to engulf her,
and Joe’s passing pushed her into the void.

I honestly believe that the only reason she
had resisted the sickness in the first place was because she
understood that it would strip her of complete control, and she
cherished control above all else. Control was the one way to ensure
that she always got her way.

When Joe died, however she let go of her
control and instead dived headlong into a world of insanity where
everything was perfect, John and Joe were alive, and I was the only
imperfection on the otherwise spotless walls of her glass
house.

As I sat in the waiting room ruminating on my
past and coming to revelations about my mother’s Sickness, I still
had no way of knowing if the sickness was a byproduct of her
selfishness or whether it was congenital. But I was more firmly
resolved than ever, not to control my world, but to control my
sanity, no matter the cost.

After six hours of introspection, no sleep,
no food and constant stress and worry, I began to wonder if sanity
was really worth the effort of maintaining. I was beginning to
think that life would be a whole lot easier if I were to become a
drooling idiot, swatting at invisible bats while singing Amazing
Grace to the tune of The Star Spangled Banner.

Finally a nurse came into the room and told
me that June had come through the surgery just fine and was
currently recovering from the anesthesia in a recovery room and
that I’d be alerted when she was moved to her private room in
another hour or two.

In my hazy mind I understood what was
happening and thanked the nurse in a voice that sounded distant and
hollow to my ears, and sat back down to wait another hour or two. I
had only vegetated on the couch for a few minutes when I was
suddenly pulled back into the real world by the overpowering scent
of roses.

It should not be odd to smell roses in a
hospital since everybody seems to think that sending flowers to the
sick and dying somehow brings them back to good health and fortune,
but this was a particular rose scent with which I was comfortably
familiar.

I was sitting on a couch in the waiting room
and though to the eye I was the only person in the room, I knew I
had been joined. I felt the cushion beside me sink down as if
someone had sat on it, though there was no visible evidence that
the cushion was occupied.

I smiled, in spite of my misery, and said,
“Hello, Elle. It’s nice to see you out of the house. Well, not see,
exactly, but you know what I mean.”

“I have not left that house for over one
hundred years, Johnny. I sat at the very window that you so often
sit at and watched the men haul my body away, and in that house I
have remained ever since. It is good to be out, though I am
uncomfortable.”

I was amazed by the amount of details Elle
was suddenly giving me about herself, since she had previously
remained so reclusive.

“I’m glad you came, Elle,” I said, while
daring to reach a hand across to where I assumed she sat and laying
it on her invisible and impossibly cold leg. “I could use a friend
right now.”

Elle remained silent for a time and I had the
impression that she was summoning courage to speak and so I
remained silent as well, not wanting to interfere with whatever she
was struggling to say.

“Johnny, I died in sadness. I lost all hope
that the sun could ever shine in my life. The man I had pledged my
heart to, and to whom I gave the one gift that a woman can give
only once, fled from me into the arms of another as soon as he
gained the gift he sought from me.”

“My father disowned me when he discovered my
promiscuity with the man I meant to marry and he blamed me for our
severance. But he maintained good relations with the young man
because the man’s father had considerable influence in the
community.”

“My mother died while giving birth to me and
so I had nowhere to turn in my despair. I had many friends but was
too ashamed of my own shortcomings to turn to any of them. In the
end I decided that life had no hope of redemption for me and I…I
lost the will to live, and so I died.”

I understood what Elle had not been able to
say. She had killed herself. In guilt, loneliness and despair she
had lost all hope and decided that she did not deserve to live, nor
did she desire to. My heart broke for her.

“I went crazy with despair before I…died. I
lost all sense of who I was, who I hoped to be, and who I should
be. I have no memory of dying. My last living memory was my father
coming to me in a rage, screaming at me; telling me that I ruined
his hopes for prosperity by breaking the heart of the son of the
biggest landholder in the county. He called me a whore…that broke
me, and I have no memory of anything after that until I died.”

“When I died, I found myself in what appeared
to be an antechamber with exits on each end. Each exit distorted
the view of what lay on the other side, like looking through a
waterfall to see the world beyond, but I could see clearly enough
to know that one exit led to eternity, and the other led back to
this world.”

“And you chose this world over eternity?” I
asked, somewhat incredulously. “This world; with your uncaring
father, with the man who stole your virginity and then ran out on
you; this cold, hard, cruel world, Elle. Why?”

I could see no sign of Elle’s presence but I
could imagine her as she sat beside me, baring her soul, struggling
to get all her words out before she lost the nerve to tell the
story of what had happened over a hundred years before.

“Because I was afraid… When I found myself in
the antechamber, I was not alone. Beside me sat an infant. A baby
girl who had my eyes, my nose, my lips…I understood that I had not
killed only myself that day, but I had also killed an innocent who
had not yet even been born.”

“The innocent one looked up at me and smiled.
It was the purest, most sincere smile I had ever seen. Then she
looked towards the entrance to eternity and she got up and walked
through the doorway. I was too ashamed of myself, and too afraid to
follow. I knew I deserved an eternity of hopeless despair for all
my transgressions, which now also included the murder of an
innocent babe.”

I didn’t know what to say as Elle went
silent. Her story was pitiable and sad. I didn’t know how to make
her understand that she was not responsible for the death of the
innocent, nor was she responsible for her lover fleeing her, or her
father’s selfish wrath. She was guilty only of loving too much and
bestowing that love upon an undeserving man.

“Elle,” I said as tenderly as I knew how,
“you can’t be held responsible for things that were beyond your
control. The man you gave your heart to did not deserve you, your
father’s anger was not a result of your actions, but of his own
selfish ambitions coming to ruin due to the boy who used you. Your
heart was too big, too trusting, for their selfish ways. It is not
surprising to me that you lost your mind in the face of such
betrayal.”

Elle placed her cold hand over mine, which
was still resting on her cold thigh, and as she spoke I thought I
detected a slight warming in her invisible flesh.

“You are kind Johnny, for saying such things.
But the fact remains that in my despair, I killed the innocent girl
who had only just come to live in my womb. And that is a sin for
which I have never forgiven myself, and never will. The door to
eternity follows me, always in my sight, always within reach, but I
fear that I shall never enter it.”

“However, though I may never go through the
door, you have offered me the hope that I may one day forgive
myself for my other transgressions.”

“Me? How, what have I done?” I asked,
honestly perplexed.

“When first you entered my home, nearly ten
years past, I saw your soul long before I saw your flesh, and it
shone brightly. Dear God it shone so sweetly. It was the purest
light I had seen since entering the darkness. June and Lilly had
souls of light as well, but even theirs did shine so bright.”

“Then, as time went on and you began to
profess your feelings to me, I could see your soul and knew there
was no deceit in your words. Lies create dark spots in the soul of
those who tell the lies, and you never had a dark spot. Your love
for me gave me hope. You loved me when I found myself unlovable,
and because of you, I have been less frightened and ashamed,
but…”

“But what, Elle?” I asked. When I got no
reply I pushed the issue. “Elle, you’ve told me so much already, so
much that I desperately wanted to know, but couldn’t ask. Don’t
stop now. Get it all out, purge yourself of all your guilt and find
joy.”

“I have been less frightened and ashamed, but
I have been afraid that when you discover me for who I really am,
when you know my past, when you know that I am a whore, and a
coward, and a murderer of helpless babes…I have been afraid that
you will abandon your feelings when I confide in you. That is
all.”

I felt Elle pull her hand off mine, and I
thought I could feel tension building in the ethereal muscles of
the invisible leg beneath my palm, as if Elle was preparing to flee
at the slightest hint that things were not going to go her way.

I took a moment to gather my thoughts before
I spoke, knowing that this one moment was going to be the one
chance I had to make a difference in Elle’s life.

I could imagine spending a lifetime in
misery, I could not, however, imagine spending an eternity in
grief, and I wanted to make sure that I said just the right things
to Elle in order to make her as happy in her afterlife as was
possible.

“Elle, look closely at my soul right now and
know that I speak only the truth. I love you. You are The Lovely
Shadow in my life. You are guilty of nothing except love. You need
not fear the door, and as much as I want you to be in my life, I
think you will only find true joy and peace on the other side of
the door.”

I was surprised to find that I had started
crying as I spoke, for I did not realize that my feelings for Elle
were quite so strong. I was even more surprised to hear a choked
and muffled sob coming from Elle.

There was nothing more for me to say and I
knew I would have to wait for Elle to respond to my words before I
would know whether or not my words had had a positive impact on her
or were instead detrimental—whether I could scatter ashes in this
place or not.

Elle and I sat beside each other silently for
several moments before she placed her hand back over mine one more
time. There was no mistaking the warmth of her touch this time. Her
hand felt as soft and as warm and as real as any living human
being’s hand had ever felt in mine.

I was still waiting for her to speak when I
was startled by another voice. I had been so focused on Elle that I
had almost forgotten that I was in a hospital waiting room, waiting
for June to get out of the recovery room so I could visit her.

“Mr. Krimshaw?” the voice repeated.

Elle whisked away so rapidly that I could
almost imagine a swirl of dust or smoke slowly dissolving from the
place where she had sat. I blinked at the empty space for another
second before turning towards the nurse that had been calling
me.

I rubbed a hand down my face and blinked my
burning, bloodshot eyes a few times before replying. “Yeah, sorry,
I kind of zoned out there for a minute I guess. Is everything
ok?”

“Yes, Mr. Krimshaw. Everything is fine. I’ve
just come to inform you that they’ve moved Miss Devon to room
five-one-seven, and you may go see her, though I must warn you that
she is still groggy from the anesthesia.”

I leapt to my feet, suddenly feeling
rejuvenated and positively buzzing with nervous energy. I barely
had time to thank the nurse as I bolted past her on my way to the
elevators. I looked down the hallway and saw the elevator doors
closing.

‘Damn it!’ I thought to myself. I didn’t have
patience to stand there and wait for the elevator to make its slow
journey floor by floor until it could come back and carry me up a
few stories so I turned left at the elevator and kept running down
to the end of the building, where a nondescript door stood closed.
Beside it, a small blue and white sign declared “STAIRS” in
letters, raised Braille bumps, and a pictograph depicting a flight
of stairs.

I burst through the door and ran up four
flights of stairs until I reached the fifth floor. I burst out of
the stairwell, nearly killing the poor nurse who was standing
perilously close to the door as I slammed it open.