September 4, 2008
"Okay, well, your room is here," Kayla told me, opening the peeling red door. She stepped back to let me inside, taking my box of things out of my arms and setting it on the dresser. We stood there awkwardly for a minute as I looked around.
"Well, I'll just let you get settled then. I'll have Candace get your bag of clothes out of the car," Kayla said quietly, touching my arm as she left.
When she closed the door behind her, I walked slowly to the bed and sat down on the light green floral comforter. It was obvious that the room was last redecorated in the sixties or seventies, with its vintage cream colored floral wallpaper and old wooden floor. The pink curtains were pulled back on each window, one facing the side yard, the other facing the front. I picked at a loose thread on the comforter until I heard the stairs squeak again.
The door swung open a few seconds later to reveal Candace, my nine-year-old cousin, dragging my clothes bag over her shoulder. "Here you go," she said brightly, smiling as I took it from her.
"Thanks," I said softly, closing the door as she left.
With slow deliberateness, I unpacked the small amount of clothes I had gotten in the past month, a week's worth of t-shirts, two pairs of jeans, some sweats. I had left the dress from that night at my grandparents' house. All together, they only took up one and a half of the drawers on the dresser. Then, with the same carefulness, I emptied the box of the few objects I had managed to gather. A stack of books that my grandmother had lent me, an old watch from my grandfather that still worked. Gently, I set an alarm clock on the bedside table, along with my cell phone.
I pulled the last thing out of the box slowly, taking it carefully over to the bed, where I sat down with a sigh. I held the photo album cautiously, the past heavy in my hands. For a long minute I sat and stared at the plain green cover, wondering what I would see when I lifted it. But at last, with a sigh, I got off the bed and kneeled down, shoving the album under the bed and throwing the bed skirt back over it, as if it had never really been there at all.
My eyes were heavy as I walked into the kitchen the next morning. The night before, Jada had been up all night crying and my Aunt Kayla had been incapable of calming her back down. A few times throughout the early hours I considered getting up and going to help, but in the end I fell back against the pillows and tried my best to ignore it.
"Good morning!" Kayla said cheerily as I sat down at the wobbly table. Jacob sat across from me, eating his Lucky Charms quietly, looking up at me every once in a while before quickly looking away.
"Did you sleep okay?" Kayla asked as I poured myself some Frosted Flakes. "I'm sorry about Jada, I don't know what got into her last night…"
"It's okay," I replied, adding the milk. "I had a lot on my mind anyway."
"Oh sweetie, I know you do," she said softly, coming over to give me a hug. The scent overwhelmed me suddenly, the same perfume clinging to Kayla's sweatshirt as to what her sister, my mother, always used to wear. I felt my eyes sting and just let myself sink into the embrace.
"Do you think she's okay now?" I whispered into Kayla's shoulder, feeling again like a little kid when my dog had died.
"Oh yes," Kayla murmured. "I know she is."
I'm sorry it's been so long and that this one is so short. It was tough trying even to write this one, but I needed some sort of bridge...anyway. I'll be posting the next one very soon, it's the one I've been pushing to get to. -zoomie