LUMP

by Claire L. Fishback

  He makes it dark here. Mom had said at mention of Doug. Yes. Yes, he does. Her phone rings. Cora answers. It’s the home.

  “Your mom has taken a spill, but she’s okay,” a man’s voice says in a gentle voice. “She has a couple bruises but nothing more serious than that. She tripped over the flagstones in the garden. We already have plans to smooth out the walkway.”

  “Thank you for letting me know.” Cora looks up at the sky, toward the higher power some people preach about. A lone goose flies by honking with such despair she scans the sky for the V of his family, but none are there.

  She hangs up and stands. She examines what was once her dream house, now a residence full of dread. Doug picked Mom’s home up north, claiming it was the best and most reasonably priced. Cora knows it was another way to separate her from her family.

  In the divorce, he gladly signed the house over to her. At first it was a relief. Where else would she live? She couldn’t bother Ben or Jamie. They gave up on her years ago after their warnings went unheeded. After she sold Mom and Dad’s property.

  Cora calls her real estate agent.

  “I don’t care about making money on it. Sell it as is, furniture included.”

  MOM

  I’m awake and it’s night. I know where I am. A home. I was put here because . . .

  My daughter reads Harry Potter to me in the shade of a tree. Jamie and Ben run around with water guns. Albert prunes the rose bushes. He brings me a fully bloomed flower. Pink with darker edges. My favorite . . .

  Albert is gone. My heart aches for him. For his smile. His touch, so gentle despite rough, working hands. Where is my family? Where are Ben and Jamie and my little butterfly?

  Cora is sad, but I don’t know why. I must go to her.

  CORA

  Cora tosses and turns, trapped in a dream that makes no sense. The kind that changes point of view, location, and companions at an unsettling rate. People yelling. A sense of hopelessness. Driving a car from the backseat at night and the headlights keep going out. A dream in which there is fear, but nothing real to be afraid of.

  Her ringing phone pulls her out so abruptly she’s disoriented and can’t make sense of where she is.

  She gropes the nightstand. It’s the home calling at two in the morning.

  “Hello?” Her voice, though groggy, is full of fear of the worst. The fall must have been worse than they thought. She broke a bone and is bleeding internally. They couldn’t stop it in time. Cora shakes her head.

  “I’m so sorry to call so late.” It’s a man’s voice, and he identifies himself as a staff nurse.

  “It’s fine. What’s wrong?”

  “Your mother is gone.”

  Cora can’t breathe. No. She’s not ready for her mama to be gone. Tears flood her eyes. A sob builds in her chest.

  “When? How?” she manages to choke out.

  “We aren’t sure, but we think she must have sneaked out during the shift change. We’ve searched the premises but can’t find her. We have the sheriff’s department looking for her.”

  “Oh, my God,” Cora says. She touches her forehead and relaxes. “I thought you meant she was dead.”

  “Oh, I am so sorry. That is completely my fault,” the nurse adds, his voice sincere. “No, she’s missing. I guess I should have said that.”

  Cora lets out a breath, stands, and struggles into a pair of jeans.

  “Do you know where she might have gone?” the nurse asks.

  “I . . . I’m not sure what she even remembers.” She slips into a blouse. “I’ll think about it on my way there.”

  Once in her car she calls Ben and gets his voicemail. She leaves a message: “I’m sorry it’s late. Mom snuck out of the home. She’s missing.” Cora doesn’t expect her other brother to answer her call either.

  Cora had been the closest to Mom out of the three of them. She was the youngest and the first to get married. She was too young, she knows now. Doug was an older man. Made promises he failed to keep. Though she came out okay in the divorce settlement, she could never get those years of her life back. She’d missed out on precious moments with her family. With her mom.

  Off the freeway, she scans the sidewalks, on the lookout for a little old lady in a nightgown and slippers, thankful it’s summer and still warm outside.

  She arrives at the home. Ben is already there. She falls into his brotherly embrace.

  “Thank you,” she says.

  “Jamie’s in New York,” he says. “He wants hourly updates, and if she’s not found before morning, he’s getting an earlier flight back.”

  “Any news?” Cora asks.

  Ben shakes his head. “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “Earlier today, well, I guess it would be yesterday now,” Cora says with a glance at her watch. “She called me Butterfly after I told her . . .”

  “What? What did you tell her?”

  “Doug was making me miserable. I just wish I could talk to her.” Cora realizes how selfish it sounds as soon as she says it. She looks up at Ben’s pained eyes and reads the same thing. “She said he makes it dark here.”

  “What does that mean?” Ben asks.

  “I don’t know,” Cora says. “I can’t decipher everything. When was the last time you saw her?”

  Ben dismisses her question. Cora’s shoulders slump. Ben walks away while tapping at his phone. Texting Jamie, probably. She watches his back, desperate to reconnect with him.

  Instead, she goes into Mom’s room and looks around. Nothing seems out of place.

  The stuffed kitty Cora gave her when she first moved in sits on Mom’s chair. The books on the shelf are a little crooked. She scans the titles, then rushes to the nurse’s station.

  “I think I know where she went.”

  MOM

  A truck coasts by, giving me a wide berth, then pulls over onto the shoulder. Tires crunch on the gravel. The driver’s door opens, and a nice, elderly gentleman climbs out.

  “What are you doing out here?” he asks. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m going home,” I say. “Will you take me home?”

  He nods and helps me into the cab. I set the book on my lap.

  “Are you at St. Mary’s Assisted Living, or that other one, what is it, Sunshine Estates?” he asks.

  “Neither. I live up the street here.” I point in the direction the truck is facing.

  “Tell me the way,” he says.

  I laugh. “Albert, you know the way.”

  “Name’s George,” he says. Maybe it is a game Albert is playing. I humor him and tell him the directions. He pulls up to the curb outside a park. I close my eyes and see our old house. The kids playing outside, the shade tree towering over everything. Watching over us.

  When I open my eyes, it all disappears, replaced by a gaudy playground. The shade tree is gone. A blank space in the night sky.

  “Albert,” I whisper. “Where is the house? The tree?”

  “Sorry, ma’am. Name’s George. House that used to be here was torn down when the city bought the land.”

  “Our children grew up in that house.” I look at him, but he isn’t Albert. I cringe away from him, grope for the door handle, slide out, and hurry across a lawn more immaculate and landscaped than Albert ever could have kept it. But that’s not true is it? Albert had the greenest of green thumbs. A panic builds in my chest, quickening my breath. I’m confused by the jumble of memories and thoughts. I turn around in a circle.

  A truck idles nearby. I don’t recognize the vehicle, nor the driver. Maybe he means me harm. Where is my Albert to protect me? Where are the children? Why am I here at night in—I look down at myself and gasp. A nightgown and slippers? At least I had the wherewithal to remember a shawl. With one hand I pull it tight and press it against my breast. My other hand holds a thick book.

  Another car pulls up, parks behind the truck. Before they can make a plan to attack and kidnap me, I back into the shadows. A pathway leads to a stand of young
evergreens.

  “Mom?” A woman yells. I know her voice.

  CORA

  Cora turns on her high beams and drives as fast as she can to the park named after her family. Guilt at selling the house and land to the city settles heavily in her chest. She wanted to live there but she let Doug talk her into selling. Ben and Jamie didn’t care as much as she did, preferring the city and foothills to the farm lands. If she’d fought Doug on it, she could have lived in the house now, closer to Mom.

  Cora had asked Ben to stay at the nursing home in case Mom turned up. She pulls up behind a truck, idling outside the park, and cuts the engine. She approaches the truck and knocks on the driver’s window. The driver rolls it down.

  “You here for the little old lady?” He asks, as if he isn’t a little old man himself.

  Cora’s apprehension flees in a released breath.

  “Where is she?”

  “She wandered off into the park. Was about to call the police to come help. She seemed awfully confused. Called me Albert even though I told her I’m George.”

  “Thank you,” Cora says. She rushes off. “Mom?” She calls. “Where are you?” Fear that her mother won’t trust her sours her gut. Cora ducks onto the path through the trees.

  “Cora?” her mom says from up ahead. A street lamp shines its light onto the path. Mom is sitting on the ground beneath a sapling that, Cora realizes, is in the same place the old shade tree used to stand.

  “Mom,” Cora collapses on the ground next to her. “What are you doing here?”

  “Reading Harry Potter,” she says, though the light is too dim and the book isn’t open. She sets the book aside and peers at Cora.

  Oh no, here it comes. She’s gone again.

  “Cora, dear,” she says. “My butterfly.”

  Cora’s throat tightens. Tears blur her vision. She pulls her mom’s frail form into her arms. Mom laughs. The sound chases away Cora’s recent anger and depression and fear.

  “I’m sorry I sold the land, the house . . .”

  Mom pats her back, strokes her hair.

  “Oh now, butterfly. It’s okay.” Mom pulls back and looks into Cora’s eyes. “You were so sad. It was so dark and cold when I last saw you.”

  “It was? What was?”

  “Let me show you.” Mom takes Cora’s hands and grips them tight. “Close your eyes.”

  MOM

  I don’t know if it will work but I have to try. I can sense my tremulous grip on the here-and-now slipping. I hold my daughter’s hands and close my eyes. We stand together under the shade tree in the warmth of a summer day, a look of awe and wonder on Cora’s face. It reminds me of when she was young, experiencing things for the first time. Sometimes she had that look even if she had experienced something over and over. Like petting the rays at the Aquarium, or the first crocus in spring. Bird footprints in the snow.

  “What is this place?” she asks.

  “Remembra,” I tell her. “A place of lost minds. A place full of memories forgotten.” I smile and pat her hand. “I never forgot who you were. I only had to close my eyes.”

  William, the mutt Cora grew up with, runs by with Ben and Jamie chasing behind. Cora laughs and watches them circle the shade tree and bolt into the corn field.

  “I want to show you something,” I tell her.

  CORA

  Cora can’t fathom what is happening, but a great peace fills her. It’s the feeling only a mother can give her child. Protection and love. Security.

  Mom points. A montage of memories flash and flicker before her as if on an old movie reel. Her young self on a stage.

  “I want to be a ballerina . . . zoo keeper . . . candy store owner . . . when I grow up.”

  The image of herself matures with each rendition. Candy store owner becomes veterinarian becomes archeologist becomes veterinarian again becomes writer becomes . . . darkness.

  A dark cloud drifts over Remembra. Cora looks up at the sky, then back at her mom.

  “You met Doug,” Mom says. “You wanted to be his wife. Deep down you knew this darkness. I know you did.” Her smile doesn’t falter. “Love is blind that way, isn’t it?”

  Cora nods. She did know. Looking back like this, the voice in her head urged her to follow her dreams, her passions. Instead, she chose a man who didn’t appreciate or support her creative pursuits.

  Doug told her he’d read everything she wrote. He told her she was the best writer. He never read a word of hers other than texts and emails. He promised to take care of her while she wrote her first novel, and when it took longer than a month, he complained about having to work so hard to support her. She never went to college mainly because she couldn’t decide what she wanted to study. Writing was her passion. Until Doug. Doug became her life.

  “You wanted to travel and write about the world,” Mom says. High school senior Cora on the screen confirms this. Cora told Mom everything.

  Until Doug.

  The dark cloud turns black. The memories stop cycling through the land and fade away.

  “I’m so sorry,” Cora says.

  Mom shakes her head. “I didn’t bring you here for that, dear. I brought you here to remind you of the strong and independent woman you once were, full of moxie. You can be her again. She lives within you. Deep inside. It will be hard to dig her out, but she’s in there.”

  The cloud recedes. The memories return and run rampant. Mom reaches out as Ben runs by, a Super Soaker 500 in his hands. The memory unfolds.

  Cora sits under the shade tree with Harry Potter in her lap. It’s her turn to read out loud. It’s book one at the very end. Cora closes the book just as Jamie jumps out and blasts Ben with his larger Super Soaker. Water splashes onto the book and Cora shrieks.

  In Remembra, Mom laughs. The memory ends with Cora joining the water fight.

  Cora sighs. She used to be so carefree, relying only on herself instead of asking other people permission for what she needed or wanted to do. Doug specifically. Doug always shot down her creativity. Stifled it. Could she really be that person again? Could she pick up her pen and notebook and write? Could she travel the world?

  “You must go now,” Mom says. “The world is out there, full of possibilities.”

  “No, please. Let’s stay a little longer.” Cora watches another memory run by.

  Mom takes her hand. “Remembra is a powerful place, butterfly. We must remember this is the past. You cannot live here.” She smiles, but her eyes are sad.

  “Mom?”

  “I’ll be staying this time, butterfly. You go on. Live your life. Live your dreams. And always remember, I love you.”

  Suddenly Cora is in the park under the sapling again. Mom is gone. The Harry Potter book lies on the grass, the pages warped from Jamie’s water gun. Cora picks it up and rushes down the path toward the park entrance calling to her mom, panic building in her chest.

  An ambulance waits at the street, lights strobing red-blue-red-blue onto the trees. Cora glances around and finds the paramedics huddled over her Mom. She rushes to them, but they force her back. They start chest compressions and pump a resuscitation mask.

  “What happened?” Cora can’t get a full breath. She feels her face contort with sadness.

  “We’re not sure,” the paramedic performing the breaths says. He squeezes the bulb. Condensation forms inside the mask. Does that mean she’s breathing?

  “George called us,” the other paramedic says.

  Cora looks toward the street. The truck that was parked there when she arrived is no longer idling. She scans the area for the man, finds him, and rushes to him.

  He holds out a hand to her. “Your mother, I reckon she is, came out of the woods smiling about five minutes ago and collapsed there on the lawn.”

  Five minutes ago? Mom was with Cora in Remembra five minutes ago. Wasn’t she? Cora blinks back tears. The sudden weight of despair makes her knees buckle. Helpless, she watches the paramedics stop what they’re doing. The one doing the compres
sions shakes his head. The other removes the mask and covers her mom’s face. Lifting together, the two paramedics load her body onto a gurney and wheel her to the ambulance. Cora sprints after them.

  “We did all we could.” The paramedic has the sad eyes of a Bassett hound. “I’m sorry.”

  “What happened to her?” Cora whispers.

  “Her heart,” he says. With a wince he adds something that sounds like, “it was too full of love,” but that can’t be it. She doesn’t ask for him to repeat himself.

  CORA, One month later

  Cora boards her flight to Italy with Mom’s warped copy of Harry Potter in her carry-on. She finds her seat, sits, and fastens the seat belt across her lap. She lifts the book and opens it. A piece of paper flutters out.

  My butterfly,

  Remember who you were, but don’t forget to live for today.

  Lump’s Dream

  LUMP LUMBERED OUT OF the forest with a black-haired woman slung over his shoulder. She hung limp and unconscious. With his thick, scarred hands, he swung her to the ground and lay her on the grass, cradling her head as he lowered her. He looked at her face, her smooth skin. He trailed his wide fingers down her cheek. He felt his own face. His fingertips travelled over the ridges and grooves in his flesh. He ran his palm over his scalp, over the lumps and scabs. The scars.

  He lifted the woman back onto his shoulder, the perfume in her hair, apple blossoms, touched his nostrils and he breathed in. His own stink mingled with hers, tarnishing it. He took her to a small stone house. He halted. His mother stood in the doorway.

  “Bring her inside.” His mother twirled away into the dark interior.

  Lump ducked under the doorway and lowered the woman onto the table. Her dark hair splayed out behind her. Again, he cradled her head in his massive hand.