Her Eyes
A sigh of protest escaped Rachel as she awakened. An automatic response broke through her grogginess as she weakly tapped her alarm clock with her fist. She was momentarily confused; the clock read only five-thirty. Usually, she didn't see her clock until its alarm greeted her at six forty-five. Rachel did not have time to ponder the situation before her jumbled thoughts were interrupted by a more urgent problem: she was going to be sick again. And very soon. Mildly panicked yet still reluctant to leave the cocoon of her bed, Rachel staggered across her bedroom and toward the bathroom. She was halfway there when her stomach rebelled against her. Exhausted from the sheer effort of dragging her body down the hallway and the exertion of throwing up, she fell to her hands and knees, gagging. When her body had finished rejecting last night's dinner, Rachel didn't move, weighing her strong desire for warmth against the distance between herself and her bedroom. As she wearily accepted the necessity of making her way back to bed, Rachel's mother emerged from her own bedroom, roused by the noises in the hallway. She stopped short when she saw her daughter huddled on the floor. Concern etched her face as she approached the obviously miserable girl.
Rachel, becoming aware of her mother's presence, turned toward her, face pale and breathing ragged, exhaustion evident in her eyes even in the dim light of early morning. Her mother crouched down beside her, stroking her daughter's hair and trying to hide alarm at Rachel's clammy, feverish skin. Naomi instinctively slipped into parenting mode, her words and actions flooded with the loving concern and affection of a mother desperate for the chance to love her daughter again. As she comforted her daughter, Rachel was not the angry teenager who slammed doors and isolated herself from her family. Nor was she the deceitful sneak who snuck out of the house late at night and broke promises to her sisters. She was no longer the reason for her mother's frustrated tears. No, that morning, Rachel was once again Naomi's little girl, whose eyes were not yet haunted by shadows. That morning, she was simply too ill to reject help, too tired to shun childhood, too desperate to deny her mother's love. She didn't protest, but instead simply leaned on her mother as Naomi guided Rachel back to bed. Once safely under her covers, Rachel again looked up at her mother, her eyes communicating the gratitude her scratchy throat would not allow her to speak. Looking into the eyes of her child, Naomi dared to hope that she also saw apology. Rachel's last sight before her eyes closed was a comforting smile and the tears in her mother's eyes.