When You Were Young
When I was a little girl, my mother would take my brother and me to the old church down on the corner of South Elm. It was the oldest building in the city and mossy vines had begun to creep up the old castle-like river stones. The giant clock tower seemed like it reached straight up to God himself, and its church bells sent a baritone ring reverberating throughout the city streets every Sunday at 9 am sharp.
My mother would spend all of Saturday night pressing my little white eyelet dress, and all of Sunday morning rolling my reddish hair into sausage curls. I'd wake up to the smell of my brother's starched dress shirts and mom's sweet, sweet perfume. She'd bribe and threaten my brother until he wriggled his way into a dress shirt and tie. Mom never took care of herself much, but always made sure her bobbed hair was sleek and straight and would swipe on a layer of coral lipstick before she hurried us all out the door. She would dress us in matching colors, and much to my brother's dismay that meant that we sometimes were dressed in pink."It's so they know we're family." She'd say. "And family always sticks together"
My brother would have his shirt untucked and his tie skewed nearly a block before that old stone exterior came into sight. The older ladies in the wide brimmed hats would talk to momma about how they were praying for her to have strength. God would save my father's soul, they said. And Jesus would heal me, because he had healed the sick before.
Perhaps I didn't have enough faith, or perhaps I was beyond healing. For as far back as I could remember, I was in one hospital or another for one of those hard to pronounce medical labels that they tagged my charts with. I had been born three months premature, with underdeveloped lungs and a poor immune system.
I never had health, so I couldn't really miss it. However, I was also born with retinopathy of prematurity. As twisted as this sounds, I wish I was born blind. Perhaps that would take away the sting of watching my world slowly grow black from this cruel disease. My colors faded and became less vibrant. The sharp edges of objects became fuzzy, and faces became one flesh colored blurry circle. I had sight in the technical sense up until I was 14 years old. I was legally blind since age ten.
So in every Sunday morning of my childhood, I'd sit patiently in the second to last pew, and wait for Jesus to come save me. Of course, I wouldn't be able to see him, but I could imagine his presence. I could imagine that he would speak like a gentleman - a deep, kind voice offering sanctuary to all - and he'd smell like the entire natural world in one spicy, earthy scent.
But today instead of a cozy, warmly-lit church, I'm sitting on the cold dock outside of the city limits as the daylight dies and gives birth to night. Icy winds blows in from the ocean, cutting through my jacket like knifes and sending chills up my back. My nose and cheeks are painted cherry red from windburn and my nose is running a bit.
I let my eyes wonder to my brother. He's some twenty feet away from me, shouting into a decrepit old payphone next to a crumbling whitewash warehouse. His blond poof of hair is the only pop of color in this urban jungle of faded grays and muted whites. He slams his fingertips down on the rusted coin return button. His face twists with frustration
As of now, I'm officially homeless. I mouth those words to myself, diligently letting the bitter finality of each syllable roll across my tongue. I reach into my jacket pocket, digging past the crinkling cellophane candy wrappers and balls of fuzz. My fingers wrap around smooth metal. It's warm from my body heart, even though the wind has made me cold. It's the key that I thought would open to door to my home, to my mother, and to a possible chance at a normal life. Underneath that is the paper that that took that chance away.
13 October 2008
To Ms. Serenity Michelle Wheeler:
As you know, Lillian Paige Wheeler died on August 12 2008. At the time of death, Ms. Wheeler accumulated debt totaled $71, 983.64. Approximately $59,843 was in medical bills for her minor child, $10,096 for mortgage through Domino Banking, and $2000 for miscellaneous.
As the next of kin it was your legal right to first claim her estate. However, the three months grace period has terminated, and the numerous attempts to contact you have failed, and this is taken as a decline to claim. Under this refusal, the remainder of her estate has been reclaimed as payment for her debts.
Sincerely,
State Attorney General
It had all happened so nonchalantly. As soon as I had planted one foot on solid ground, a tall and expressionless man with a Kaiba Corp lapel pin placed this sealed envelope in my hand without a word. There was no fanfare. Instead of even wondering about its contents I just folded it haphazardly and shoved it into my pockets before turning back to Mai and Teá for more giggling about those pictures Mai took of Duke and Tristan sleeping in the same bed together. It wasn't until we all kissed each other on the cheek and I walked back to my brother did I even think about checking what the note said.
If I had known then what I know now, I would have opened it immediately. It wouldn't have changed the message within. The bold printed words would have still sketched the picture of a dark dissolution, but I would have felt that it was one last honor to my late mother. I could have put her before childish chatter. She had put me before everything and everyone for my entire life and I couldn't even be bothered to be told that I had missed her death.
I still don't know how she died.
.As another gust of wind blows, I place the paper flat down on my palm and watch as the currents of wind lift up the corners like it's a tiny parachute. It's so blustery near the docks and my ratty hoodie isn't doing enough to counteract the fact that I'm wearing threadbare shorts.
I don't know why I keep staring at the letter. It's not like the words are going to change. The print is still just as stark against the creamy parchment, the message just as bleak. I just can't help but study it all, and try to feel something. My mom had buried herself in nearly 100,000 dollars in debt, for my medical bills, and I haven't even cried. I don't even feel connected to my own body.
I release my grip on the parchment, instead offering it to the world. I watch the letter twist and turn with the wisps of wind before blowing into oblivion.
I hear the crunch of my brother's dollar store sneakers on the pavement and his muddy soles come into view. I follow the creases in Joey's unkempt clothes up his body until my eyes reach his face. I thank god and the many doctors that I can see finally see him clearly, but why does he have to look so haggard? His eyes are dull, and face slack. I hesitate, not understanding the relevance. At this angle Joey looks less like the brother I remember, and more like a man that was forced to grow too old too soon. If he noticed the fact that I let our mother's death notification be swept away, he doesn't say."Any luck?"I attempt to make my voice cheerful, but it just sounds forced. I wonder if Joey can tell.
He shakes his head. "None. Tristan's mom isn't too keen on the idea of a girl staying with him, so that counts you out. Yugi lives above that little game shop, so he's only got the room for one of us and even then it's cramped. And Teá is going to be in and out of rehearsals and practices for the next month and she doesn't want a guy there while she's in her little skimpy practice outfits," Joey counted off on his fingers as he spoke. "So I was thinking, I can stay at Tristan's and you can stay at Yugi's for a bit, or maybe you could call Teá and explain -"
"No!" I cut him off sharply. "I don't want to be separated again!"I slammed my palms own on my knees like a spoiled child before I even realized what I was doing. I sounded like such a brat at that moment and he seemed confused by my sudden outburst. "Joey, I just lost mom, you can't make me lose you too!" I turned my head away from him like an agitated child.
Joey's breath came out in a vexed whoosh. I see by the way his jaw is tightened that he's grinding his teeth. "We may not have a choice," Joey crouched down until he was eye level with me. He put his palm to my cheek and forced me to look at him. His eyes are red and watery from stress and fatigue. "Sis, I love you, you know damn well that I do. I'm not going to be like Dad and let the one I love go without,"
"And I won't be like Mom and break this family up again,"
That came out meaner than I had intended but I don't apologize. Joey grumbled to himself as, he shifted his weight until he was sitting next to me on the cold sidewalk. "Too bad you don't have some of those painkillers from your last surgery. I could've slung some percs with some old friends,"
I don't answer. I don't know what some of those words mean, but I do know the implications. The streets in this city have never been "clean". Crime, drugs, despair, inadequacy – they are all just part of growing up in the city and as a child from the city, it makes sense for this to be my destiny: homeless at age sixteen, a dead mother, and a dead beat father.
This isn't at all how I imagined it to be – having no place to go. I remember being a little girl in the city, barely old enough to toddle behind my mother as she pulled me through the lunch hour rush of dark suited business men. I had been so frail and the winters so fierce that my mother would bundle me in a cocoon of down, wool, and flannel so thick that I could barely put my arms down. I would hide behind Momma's skirt tails, taking peeks at vagrants and old beggar men loitering around trash-can fires in alleyways. Sometimes I didn't even realize the heaps of urine soaked rags in the streets were actual people. My little pigtailed head couldn't fathom that horrific sense of isolation, the utter hopelessness of having nowhere to go and nowhere to turn to. The idea of being as unwanted the last kitten left in the give-a-way box sent literal aches through my thin chest. I remember tears sliding down my face and turning into red streaks against the cold wind. I would cry for the people that no one else bothered to even look at.
Now that I'm in the same position, I feel disturbingly numb. Shouldn't there be some feeling of depression? I had always expected to feel despair and violent self pity. It scares me that my heart is so empty.
"Hey, sis," Joey grunts. It shakes me out of my mental monologue and I see him studying the pavement. He kicks through the tiny bits of dead leaves, cigarette butts, and dust bunnies. A weird ball of dust and dead hair blew over the concrete like an urban tumble weed. My mother's death letter will soon become urban refuge as well. I imagine its creamy parchment coming to rest in a dusty corner, decaying, and crumbling. "Who do you think buried mom?"
"It's usually up to the state to put them away," I said simply. I wonder where mom is buried now. She'd probably wanted to be buried at that little church.
"Do you think they at least made her pretty?"
"It'd be impossible to not make mom pretty." I say, though I'd only seen her face a few times. I mostly say it for Joey's sake.
I close my eyes and say a short prayer to a God. It's the same prayer I have said every day since I was a little girl. God can have my soul. God can have my body too, even though according to most doctors it's too broken to be of any use to anyone. I would even relinquish my eyesight again, if God would just take me back to the days when I was child; when my mom and dad and brother would gather around the breakfast table in our little ran down apartment. I want to go back to those days before dad started loving booze and gambling more than us, and mom "fell down the stairs" on almost a weekly basis. I don't have much to give, but I would give it all, if God would just fix it to where I would be that little pigtailed girl again, trailing behind my mom to that church made of stones older than Abraham.
With the gust of wind, a rich spicy scent cut through the air in thick tendrils. My eyes shoot open, my brain scrambling scrambled for pieces of information, attempting to separate fantasy from reality, past from present, and trying to identify this new feeling. Euphoria, hope! That homey, warm cinnamon smell lingered with hints of comforting musk, a combination of all things earthy and safe. My heart beats in tiny, fearful beats, quick as a little rabbit's. This doesn't seem real, this seems like Christmas to a child who never thought that day would come.
Was this all a part of my delusional mind? I'm almost afraid to move, I'm afraid to breath. I'm afraid that any movement will jar me from this pleasant fantasy and I'll be back on that dock, cold and lonely and lost. I don't turn my head; I just stare out into the grayness of the warehouses and asphalt.
I hear a voice, a low tone filled to the brim with confidence and stability, and everything that I lack. A deep, gravelly voice, laced with hope.
"You can come with me," He says