Night Encounter and Vapor: A Paranormal Duet

by Suzanne Jenkins

  John was in kidney failure from long-term use of lithium, and during one of his almost successful suicide attempts, his brain went without oxygen for just long enough to make him totally dependent on my mother, according to Faith’s reports. She prepared his meals and had to bathe and toilet him. Where the hell is God? I screamed when I got that message from Faith. Praying for healing led to this? I shook my fists at God, but then I thought, Who am I angry for? My mother? or myself….

  When I had the courage to call Faith back, I discovered that she wasn’t asking for anything from me. She just needed to talk. She needed someone to validate what she was going through. She had my mother to care for, which she did with love and grace.

  “I’ll do whatever Mom needs,” she said. “I feel honored to take care of her.”

  Her unselfishness drove me to tears, but I wouldn’t tell her, or acknowledge any of my own shortcomings. When it got around to John, I could tell she was less than thrilled about having to care for him, too. “What am I going to do?”

  I couldn’t offer any suggestions because I had wanted him to go away when he was healthy. What was the alternative now? I was glad I was on the other side of the continent. I thought of the annual Christmas photos with a disheveled John standing between Faith and her husband, her four children standing in a row, with our bird-like mother sitting in a kitchen chair in the front. One big happy family. John appeared more demented every year.

  I’d tried to be nicer to Faith, and at least be a sounding board for her. By June, I felt I should fly back to Maine to help in some way, or at least make peace with my mother before she died. I called to tell her I made reservations and John answered the phone. For needing complete care, he was certainly lucid enough.

  “Well surprise, surprise. Janice. Never thought I’d hear your voice again,” he said.

  “Can I speak with Mother?” I asked. I felt nervous talking to him, my throat felt as if it was going to close up as I tried to speak. “I’d like to give her my flight information if you’d tell her I’m on the line.” I heard a chuckle.

  “So you’re going to come back here and save the day,” he said. “Gone for six years, not a card or note, don’t return the old lady’s phone calls, but we better drop everything, because Queen Janice is about to arrive.”

  “I thought you were bedridden, or helpless. You sound fine to me,” I said. Why was I going back to help when John sounded perfectly capable?

  “Yeah, well whatever. I have my good days and my bad days. And I am doing a lot better than our mother is. Yes, I’d say I was doing much better than mom. Not that you would know.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I erupted. “You’ve been a ball and chain around her neck for the past twenty years. You can’t even kill yourself properly. Why not get up off your ass and get a job? I hear Faith’s husband even has to cut the grass.”

  “Mental illness is a real disease,” he said.

  I could almost see him smiling at the phone. He was a manipulative bastard.

  “You know, forget it, John. I’m not needed there. You’ve sure as hell played everyone for a fool, though. Gotta hand it to you. Tell me. Does mother still bring your meals in on a tray?”

  I could hear the dial tone after he hung up on me. I was relieved. In just a few hours, I would have been on a plane to Maine.

  Chapter 3

  Three days ago, Faith left a voicemail on my cell phone. Our mother died. She’d asked for me, and Faith told her I had wanted to come but was unable to do so. She made up a lie that would help our mother accept that her first-born wasn’t going to see her one last time. And the truth was I didn’t care that she was dying at the time. Now, with no chance to make up the loss, I had to confront what I had done. It was too late.

  Suddenly, as I lifted the teacup again, my gorge rose. I ran to the bathroom. And what had previously been an elusive emotion hit me with such force the visceral response was to projectile vomit.

  My mother was gone. Against my will once more, visions of a young schoolgirl, dressed in an exquisitely hand sewn dress, walking to school holding her mother’s hand filled my head. I remembered the eggs and buttered toast she prepared for my breakfast, and the little glass of orange juice she’d squeezed with the old glass juicer.

  In my minds eye, my mother appeared again and again, placing beautifully wrapped gifts under the Christmas tree, or staying up all night putting a bicycle together for me on my birthday. After my brother and sister were born, my mother continued to show me how much she loved me. Her time was divided, but she still tucked me in bed and said my prayers with me each night. She’d read to me tirelessly, encouraging me to read back to her. I give her the credit for my love of books

  I remembered the layer cake she made for my high school graduation; she cut and pasted the mortarboard in my school colors, which sat on the top of the cake. The kids in my class talked about it for weeks.

  I went to college at great sacrifice to the rest of the family. John’s issues precluded more school after high school, and Faith wanted to get married as soon as she turned eighteen. But even one education was almost too much for my mother, and although I got scholarship money and worked the entire time I was school, I know my mother, sister and brother went without so I could have that diploma.

  The worst memory was of the first time she found John after a suicide attempt. Until that evening, my mother was ageless and healthy. But afterward, she looked like an ill seventy-year-old woman. My resentment and immature selfishness began shortly after.

  Why did regret have to rear its head now? Wasn’t it easier to go through life angry and self-righteous? Anger would hide the horror that I had allowed my old mother to die without telling her a final time that I loved her. That I appreciated all she’d done for me.

  Urgently, I pushed the wood box away from the chair propped under the door handle, and grabbed for the flashlight, but it wasn’t there. I was sure I’d placed it on the metal table. The outdoors beckoned me, however, and I heeded the call. The moon was on the other side of the cabin now, the cloudless sky allowing its light to penetrate even the darkest corner of the woods. In my haste, I stepped on the flashlight, sliding in the wet grass, and fell to the ground in horrible pain. Gasping for breath, I tried to calm down, sure I had broken my leg. Unable to move, I lay in the middle of the yard and stretched my arms out, allowing the tears to fall.

  “I’m sorry Mom! I love you. Please forgive me,” I begged.

  The anguish I felt had the power to destroy me if I wasn’t careful. I was heartbroken. After minutes of calling out to her and to God, I felt a ripple of air near my left ear, and twirling around, the white butterfly reappeared, and gently swirled around my head.

  The End