[Daughter]
I stiffened in the chair, it was cold again, the fire had long gone out and the pale fire of dawn was burning the windows. My entire body ached I rubbed the back of my neck and tried to stand. My eyes hurt - just a bit too much light - but I kept them open anyway. Steadily, if not cautiously I got up, reflexively checking the waistband of my pants - the gun was still there. My stomach whined in protest, I touched it vaguely - soon my pet, soon we'd get breakfast. Brushing the hair away from my face, I checked on Jeffrey - he appeared to still be sleeping like a baby. The digital display on my watch read 5:43am. I stretched, hearing my back 'crick' morbidly. I was getting too old for this. Really. I stole a look back at the screen and the sleeper. Completely oblivious - everyone should sleep like that. Lucky Jeffy...in theory. I paused. My hands went numb. A peculiar feeling hovered for a moment. That 'someone dancing on your grave' feeling. As usual the hairs on the back of my neck and forearms stood on end. I let it ride, adjusting to it. It was familiar to me.
Once, to kill time, I'd gone to the cinema - not my usual thing but I'd gone anyway. Just to kill time. It didn't matter which film it was, I hadn't the faintest idea what any of them meant, who they starred or what genre - didn't care either. I remember the expression on the ticket girl's face when I said it didn't matter what film so long as it wasn't over two hours. I remember watching the aisles more than I watched the sceen. And I remember nearly spitting out the cola in my mouth when the kid on the screen said "I see dead people."
I turned around rapidly, redundantly whipping out the gun, to aim at the apparition in front of me. Then blinked, sniffed and relaxed simultaneously but I didn't smile. I think I have a way of looking when I see these things - its all grimace.
"Hello, Cassandra." I say grimly, before tucking the gun back into my waistband.
She doesn't say anything. And in my past few weeks of seeing her - she, like her son, never says a damn word. Just stands there looking all beatific yet strangely bereft. When I'm in worse humour I'm tempted to kick something. Today I'm satisfied to let her stand in her funny nightgown (hospital gown?), staring at and through me. Nevermind Mama Cass, they screwed us all over. Every single one.
***
Sometimes things can be right under your own nose, literally on your own doorstep and you still fail to see them. My mom was seeing someone. And maybe it had been going on for a while before I started to notice - it almost a year after my father died. I don't think I'd wanted to see it before but the changes were starting to be obvious. I was spending more time around Jeff than I was at home. When I was home the house stood oddly half-empty in the evenings, and I choked down on the creeps for a while before my mother arrived. Me being alone in the house didn't happen too often, but when it did I reminded myself of everything my father and Jeff ever told me about how to hold a gun.
Gradually, my mother's hours had lengthened. She'd come home late sometimes, the smell of cigarettes in her hair. And it still never occurred to me to connect the dots. Until one night, choking on the heat I wake up for the customary glass of water. The house is quiet, but I detect what I perceive to be movement in my mother's room. Nothing but dark under her door. I shrug it off - anyone would have trouble sleeping in this weather. Go to the kitchen get my water. Unable to sleep, I sit at the living room table. Listening to sound of the crickets hum, as it drifts in from somewhere. Watching the weird shadows spill across the ceiling whenever a car or jeep drives past. They make bizarre patterns within the glass of water while I sip it. Finally, feeling no more sleepy or cool than before I simply put my head to the table and drum my fingers. Which is when I notice the ash tray. It owns one half-smoked stub. I reach, not thinking, for the tray - my mom doesn't smoke but I can't entirely rule it out. She used to 'steal' one of my father's and just stand around with it in her mouth, unlit. Maybe she'd fledged a full habit and I hadn't even noticed. Maybe. I catch the stub in my fingers and hold it up to the light. Morley, it reads. My blood goes cold.
All the seminal events that I'd seen and not thought about uncoiled before me at that moment, like I was inside a spiralling labyrinthe with only a string to guide me out. It all made horrible, compounded sense. And the thing was, that as I slipped out of my chair like a ghost, I was terrified I'd fall back in it and wake them. And then, for what I thought was the first time, I had that peculiar sensation and out of the corner of my eye I saw the specter of my father. My hand came down across my mouth to stop what I felt was going to be a scream. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment thinking I was seeing things but he was still there. It was moments like this that I wished I had a tremulous disposition and could faint dead a way. But I couldn't and I didn't. I just walked as quietly and quickly as I could to my room and pretended I was crazy and hadn't seen a single thing. Not the ghost, not the cigarette. Nothing. As if to confirm my lunacy, when I looked back over my shoulder, he was gone.
***