by Agnes Musa
Chapter 10
Mother is visiting again, conversation with mother.
Mother: “Your father is impossible.”
Me: “Men generally are impossible mother.”
Mother: “They should not be when you’ve lived with them for forty-five years. Forty-five years is a long time, yet your father never says thank you for anything I do for him.”
Me: “You could teach him by saying thank you for what he does for you.”
Mother: “When did your father ever do anything for me?”
You father had nothing to show for his life when I met him.
Mother: “Your father had nothing to show for his life when I met him.”
He didn’t take his money to the Bank.
Mother: “He didn’t take his money to the Bank.”
He had no furniture, not even decent clothes.
Mother: “He had no furniture, not even decent clothes.”
I cleaned your father up. Then I propped him again and again when he couldn’t stand on his own two feet like, a proper man should.
Mother: “I cleaned your father up. I did that. Then I propped him again and again when he couldn’t stand on his own two feet like a proper man should.”
Me: “You should have left him mother.”
Mother: “After leaving another man? Are you finding it easy with men, now that David is no longer here? How many of them want to have anything to do with Hugh?”
I know one but I will not tell mother.
Me: “We are all grown up. You could leave him now.”
Mother: “And who would look after your father? What sane woman would put up with him and his loony behavior for a single day?”
Me: “Do you think dad is really mentally disturbed mother?”
Mother: “You should come and spend time with him. I tell all of you children that your father is crazy and not one of you believes me.”
Me: “Has any doctor confirmed this?”
Mother: “How could any doctor confirm anything when he only goes to the one since the day I set eyes on him? You know your father’s doctor.”
Me: “Dad is still consulting Dr. Mondiz?”
Mother: “Same”.
Dr. Mondiz helped bring most of the family into the world. That’s children from mother’s second marriage and he also took over care of those from the first.
Me: “So Dr. Mondiz won’t confirm dad’s condition.”
Mother: “Sometimes I don’t know who is crazier, your father or his doctor.”
I laugh. Mother and Dr. Mondiz don’t have any love lost between them. Dr. Mondiz is dad’s best and closest friend.
Another page scrawled in Natalie’s handwriting.
I need to cover a lot of ground becoz I believe I can and must do better. My big enemy is ignorense. I’ve to no what I’m up agenst.
I can’t be like a child who puts his head in the sand. I’ve to do something for myself. Muzic and recreation, that’s what this place needs.
Laughter and joy! The nurses sing once in a while but they need a cheerleader. Wait till I get up!
Why do hospitals not have cheer leaders on their staff?
David: “You’re being stubborn and unreasonable Lisa.”
Me: “I respect you too much to satisfy the desire of my flesh only with you. Besides, there’s the question of my conscience to deal with.”
David: “Conscience is a word abused to justify uncomfortable decisions.”
Me: “You happen to be wrong David and we both know it.”
David: “I suppose you’ve the right to go out with whoever you wish to.”
Me: “Who I wish to be with, I cannot be with but anyone else, they’re there for the taking, ha ha.”
David: “And I’m saying I’m here.”
Me: “Excluding you David. You’re married, to Dawn and you’ve a beautiful daughter called Catherine.”
David sighs.
Me: “Do you know that Hugh adores Catherine?”
David: “Yes I do. Catherine loves Hugh too.”
Me: “You really must thank Dawn for Catherine’s photograph. It’s the one gracing Hugh’s bedroom.”
David: “I didn’t come here to talk about Dawn. Lisa, let me stay with you tonight.”
Me: “Sorry David. Can’t do that. You’re married to Dawn now.”
David: “My marriage to Dawn didn’t seem to matter the other time.”
Me: “That’s because we acted without thinking David. It happens after people have spent and slept years together. It doesn’t make what we did right.”
David: “Now, you make my choices harder than yours.”
Me: “You make those choices David.”
David: “I had no option, but to leave you. I knew it was a matter of time before you left me so I did the smart thing and beat you to it.”
Me: “Why didn’t you say something first?”
David: “I tried, remember?”
Me: “Don’t seem to remember.”
David: “Don’t expect you to what with the moods, the auras, and the tea thing. I knew towards the end that you dreaded seeing me come through the door.”
Me: “You never liked my friends David.”
David: “How could I, when I had to steel myself to come home, to always see one or the other of them there. It was my home too Lisa.”
Me: “But David, those friends were there before I met you.”
David: “I know. And everything got worse after Hugh. If you were laughing or doing something gay, you immediately stopped once I stepped through the door.”
Me: “You resented my friends David.”
David: “I was your husband Lisa. Husband. Do you know that there came a time when I parked the car and peeped from outside the windows? You were happy. You, your friends and Hugh.”
Me: “David! I had no idea.”
David: “And now? Now, my conscience, character, emotions and feelings are all mixed up. It sounds corny but I love you Lisa.”
Me: “I believe you David. Isn’t it funny we never talked this much when we were married?”
David: “There was no time. And for the record Lisa? I didn’t want you to stop working because I wanted to stifle your freedom or take what you wanted for yourself.”
Me: “Then why David?”
David: “In my mind, I thought if one of us could bring the bread home, there was no need for the other to struggle.”
Me: “You could have given me some space, respected my choice.”
David: “Lisa, my mother, spent her life doing what my father should have done as the man of the house. She suffered.”
Me: “I’m really sorry about your mother David but life is not like that anymore. People evolve. Roles are different now. Needs dictate what people have to do.”
David: “I understand all that but the way I was brought up makes your desire belie my right and belittle my privilege to provide for you as my wife.”
Me: “You were difficult about money David.”
David: “That’s because of learning how tough it was for my mother. Always working so hard, scrimping and saving. It tore me up to see you come home tired after work, same as me.”
Me: “Inevitable.”
David: “And your friends, your way of life was important to you. You refused to share except when it suited you.”
Me: “You never wanted to listen except when it suited you David.”
David: “That is not true Lisa. Did it occur to you that sometimes, I was too tired to listen or that I had my own concerns to deal with?”
Me: “Honestly? The thought never crossed my mind.”
David: “You punished me Lisa, withdrawing your love, time and attention.”
Me: “David, I’m sorry. But maybe the problem was not so much having both of us work as in you trusting me enough to know that no matter how high or how wide I flew, I would always come home to you.”
David sighs.
&
nbsp; Me: “I knew where home was, and I knew to who and why I came back there each day.”
David: “I know that now.”
Me: “We tried. Thought routine and order, a well - run and regulated area where all the norms and graces were practiced and performed was what marriage was all about.”
David: “I wanted that, at least for a while, and then I noticed both of us start to feel strangulated and estranged. Why did that happen?”
Me: “You tell me. You’re the one who invested so much and took such pains to put everything in place - time, effort, the ideal life.”
David: “Home was the place I could take off the mask put on for the benefit of performing to the world. You were supposed to be with me whenever I needed you. Had I not seen you want to fly away, I probably would not have changed a thing.”
Me: “But home is not a theatre David. Home is a place to give, get, love and be loved.”
David: “I’m an old fashioned man Lisa. I can only be what I am.”
Me: “So why did you marry Dawn?”
David: “I had to, I cannot survive by myself.”
Me: “Now you want her, and me also?”
David: “I want you back. There’s a difference.”
Me: “David, David, David, when you took your vows, in sickness and in health, did you mean them in duplicity?”
David: “Lisa, I need you tonight.”
Me: “How do you think Dawn would feel or react if she knew the half of this?”
David: “She took a chance. Dawn knew the arithmetic.”
Me: “And her love for you David?”
David: “When I met Dawn, I had a need for company. So, I flashed a wallet-full of notes, proposed, next thing the woman agreed to marry me.”
Me: “Dawn loves you!”
David: “The woman loves an image of an ideal man like me she created in her head long before she met me. She knows nothing about the real me.”
Me: “Yet she changed you for the better.”
David: “I changed myself! Look Lisa, if Dawn’s attention was flattering at first, I now find it stifling.”
Me: “I don’t believe a word you’re saying.”
David: “She wants everything. My time, my money, my life, my dreams, my hopes.”
Me: “I thought that is what you wanted from a woman David, total attention.”
David: “Dawn leaves nothing of me to myself Lisa.”
Me: “Maybe it’s because you don’t give her a chance to be herself."
David: "Have you met her Lisa? The woman doesn’t want to be herself."
Me: "What’s wrong if she’s content to live through you?”
David: “Good heavens Lisa. I feel diced, desiccated, grated and mutilated by an adoring party.”
Me: “I think you introspect too much. You know you love the woman.”
David: “I suppose in my own way, I love Dawn too.”
Me: “See, I told you and I'm happy for you. It’s good to know when a really good thing comes along and how to give it proper value and worth.”
David: “It must have been hard with that Graham fellow”.
Me: “Love lessons are painful, but I’m wiser.”
David: “I want to be the end of the line with you Lisa.”
Me: “You were the beautiful beginning, no need to be the bitter end.”
David: “I love you.”
Me: “Thank you David. Thank you for loving me. I think that should be Dawn coming this way. I asked her to come and get you.”
David shakes his head and smiles. I wave them off.
Natalie lies on a stretcher wearing her pink and white dress and the lovely brown sweater. The braids have been cut off and a brutal haircut is all that’s left of her beautiful hair.
Her face looks lighter, peaceful.
I touch her body. It’s cold and indifferent, the body of a stranger. She doesn’t turn her head to acknowledge my presence.
Natalie lies like some huge doll in a department store - with a tag. Only, the tag on her is not a price tag, but a name tag.
Natalie is dead.
I look at her body on the stretcher. It occurs to me that here is someone who taught me, to be myself.
Natalie helped me find myself.
I automatically start to recite a poem we used to recite with Natalie, one of the few times we truly got along when we were growing up.
My heart breaks with the death of some people
And mends with that of others.
I’ve seen with different eyes, through different people
A different death each day
For every coffin bearing hearse I see, I shed a tear
For in there lies some unique being no more.
It hurts too much to see. Instead I listen to Natalie’s ipod:-
“When you’re close to tears remember, some day, it will all be over, one day we gonna get so high.
Though its darker than December, whats ahead is a different colour, one day we gonna get so high.
At the end of the day remember the days when we were close to the edge and wonder how we made it through the night.
At the end of the day remember the way we’d slip so close to the edge, remember it was me and you.
Cause we are gonna be forever, you and me, always keeping flying high in the sky of love.
Don’t you think its time we started, doing what we always wanted, one day we’re gonna get so high... its easy when we got each other …..”
Words from a Family that Lights the House.
Ruth: “You were in there for a long time Lisa.”
Me: “I had to say my goodbye properly to Natalie. By the way, Ruth, how are you and David doing?”
Ruth: “You know about me and David?”
Me: “It’s alright Ruth. David and I are good friends now.”
You see the signs if you’ve been the dumped party one too many times. Ruth has been solicitously nice to Hugh and me since Natalie’s funeral.
Good, if that’s the norm in a friend. Not good if you know the friend to be the one and only Human News Network, alias Ruth.
Trish was away on business when Nat passed. She comes by and we hug and weep for Natalie.
Trish: “I will miss her terribly.”
Me: “I will too. Trish?”
Trish: “Yes Lisa?”
Me: “Will you please forgive me for that day when I followed you to your mother’s and I saw Isaiah.”
Trish hugs me and we both weep for Isaiah.
Me: “I think about him, Isaiah, a lot. Think of how special a person it takes to have someone like that in your life and love them like that.”
Trish: “God gives all of us crosses we are able to carry. No more.”
Me: “I don’t know if I would ever have managed like you did Trish. I am so ashamed about what I did that day.”
Trish: “Hey, Lisa. No need to apologize. Bernard couldn’t cope either and he was Isaiah’s father.”
Me: “You are special Trish. Thank you for being a true friend to me and thank you for taking such good care of Isaiah..”
Trish: “Isaiah taught me a lot about people and about myself.”
Me: “I can imagine.”
Trish: “And he was a truly special child. I miss him.”
We hold hands, then hug and smile.
Me: “Hey Trish?”
Trish: “Yes Lisa?”
Me: “I’m taking a leaf out of the beautiful pages of the book of your life by inviting Hope and Graham over for dinner next week. Would you and Tom like to come too?”
Trish: “Are you sure you’re up to this Lisa?”
Me: “Yes, yes. I am. I’ll ask Ruth to come too. And David and his wife.”
They all come, Catherine too, and Hugh’s own guests, Craig and Penelope, my mother and father.
It’s on this day that I learn from Trish to make foggy days a little warm, and remember to celebrate life, for life it
self.
Weeks, then months go by. Without Natalie.
I never, ever imagined a time like this would ever come but isn’t it funny how life has a way of going on, even when we lose people we are really, really close to?
I’m wearing Nat’s sweater and laughing at the way she spelt in her notes, curled up on a couch. Nat never paid much attention at school.
Craig: “Hello, hello? Anyone home?”
Craig’s voice startles me.
Me: “Craig, come on in. The door is open.”
Craig: “I’m, I’m already inside. Found your key on the door. You should not leave keys where strangers can access them.”
Me: “I know. Just have a lot on my mind. Besides, Mr. Simon and Mr. Alexander are here somewhere.””
Craig: “They are not your sister Natalie are they? Hugh tells me the two of you were pretty close.”
I look away to refuse the tears that threaten to fall permission to do so. Craig comes to sit right next to me and takes my hand in his.
Craig: “Look Lisa. I’m old and mature enough to know what I feel. You’ve not done a single thing to encourage it, neither have I but it’s there. I talked to Penelope .....”
Me: “You did what?”
Craig: “Listen to me Lisa. Please. I’ve never been unfaithful to my wife and there’s nothing that I do that she doesn’t know about.”
I pull my hand from Craig’s.
Craig: “The first time I saw you Lisa, it felt like I had known you all my life.”
What did I tell you people?
Craig: “I laughed inside as my heart came alive. It might sound weird to hear me say this but I’m telling the truth Lisa.”
Me: “Does, does Penelope know you’re here?”
Craig: “She’s the one who told me to come. I understand the two of you met and spoke.”
Me: “Penelope asked to see me. I thought it had to do with Hugh and you and so I agreed to see her, only for her to interview me, like someone satisfying themselves about the suitability of a job incumbent.”
Craig: “That’s Pen for you. She is something.”
Me: “Penelope loves you Craig.”
Craig: “Penelope loves me in her own way … but she believes and loves what she’s doing more.”
Me: “I don’t think I understand.”
Craig: “I joined the crusade because of her. It was the only way I could think of to get her to notice me.”
Me: “Now that you came all the way out here, you want to abandon her?”
Craig: “Penelope and I both knew this was coming. We’ve had problems before this. It was one of the reasons why we came out here, to try and sort them out.”
Me: “Seems to me, you’re busy sorting out more of Hugh’s problems than Penelope’s.”
Craig: “Penelope’s the one who hooked me up with Hugh. She knows I want to have children in this life time. Now, she has filed for divorce".
Me: “Penelope did what?”
Craig: “She filed for divorce and I was in total agreement with her and since there were no complications, the divorce was quickly granted.”
Me: “I don’t, I don’t think I understand?"
Craig: “Lisa? You and Hugh both need a holiday and I need one too. Would you like to go away with me for a while?”
Me: “Craig, you, you’re not making sense.”
Craig: "Lisa, I love you and I love Hugh. Will you marry me?”
Sometimes you talk. Other times, dreams come true and you taste new sensations and explore previously charted territories.
Some maps leave out so much detail it’s unbelievable.
Our eyes, Hugh’s, Craig’s and mine, are full of joy, faith, belief, love and life.
Sometimes, people just have to lose, then wrestle life’s tangling webs to renew their innocence.
You can find where you fit right.
The End
***************
About The Author
Agnes Musa is the Author of:
“Trading Gossip”, a play published in the Anthology, “Of Money, Gossip, & Friends” by Hodder U.K.
She contributed to an anthology of poetry by African Americans published by Sachel in New York.
