by Avery Kirk
He came to sit next to me on the bed. I was staring into my coffee cup trying to figure out what to say.
“I don’t want to go to the hospital for my cut.” I said, softly. “It will be fine.”
Kevin just looked at me for a moment and opened his arms to hug me.
“We don’t have to talk about it yet. But, Mel, I don’t want you to do that thing you do.”
“What thing?” I said.
“Where you lock away your thoughts until you’re ready for them.”
I didn’t answer. I laid my head on his chest. We stayed still for a few minutes. He took his hand and brushed my hair off my face and moved it to behind my shoulder.
“You OK?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Because I have an idea. It’s our last full day in California, right?”
“Yeah….” I sat up to look at him.
“Let’s rent a convertible and drive to Malibu. We’ll drive along Pacific Coast Highway. I heard it’s one of the most beautiful drives in the world.”
I didn’t feel like it. What I really wanted to do was stay in bed and watch home improvement shows and action films. But, I made myself do it. How do I know when I’ll be back in California? Might be my only chance to see it.
“OK.”
“Really?”
I nodded.
“Want me to get your clothes ready for you?” he asked.
“No, I’m OK.” I might have been lying.
Kevin walked over to the bathroom and turned the shower on. He was in there for a few minutes before he reappeared next to the bed.
“I put a towel on the toilet seat for you. It’s stupid, right-because they’re hanging right there.” He said in a lower tone, shaking his head once he realized it. I’d been standing at my suitcase and looked over at him with a half-smile.
I nodded. “I appreciate it.”
I walked into the bathroom and noticed that he’d lined up my toothbrush and toothpaste parallel to each other and filled a glass with water and placed it next to my toothbrush. He also put a neatly folded washcloth next to that. My hairbrush was on the other side of the sink with my lip gloss lined up parallel to it. I smiled.
My stomach twinged as I looked at the towel on the toilet seat where Kevin had cleaned me up. As the shower began to steam, the bathroom reminded me too much of the night before. I immediately grabbed the water temperature dial and turned it to cold. As cold as it went. I needed something different from the last time I had been in there.
I took an ice cold shower. It distracted me from my thoughts enough that I was comfortable closing the door. I felt very slightly proud of myself.
Kevin located the phone number to the rectory while I was in the bathroom and spoke with Father Liam. They’d brought Chloe to the hospital by ambulance just a few minutes after we left. She had still been unconscious. They had no other update.
While Kevin was in the shower, I grabbed one of the spare bags from the ice bucket and threw my bloodied jeans and shirt from the night before into their own bags. I also washed the rag that had been stained with blood until the water ran clear. I tossed the bags into my tote bag.
We upgraded our original rental car for a convertible Camaro. It was black and it looked tough. My mood lightened. I made it a point to throw away my jeans in the rental car’s company’s outdoor trash bin-just in case. I just didn’t feel like explaining bloody clothes to a TSA agent at the airport.
We spent the entire day driving. We took turns driving along Pacific Coast Highway so each of us could enjoy the view. It was about 82 degrees and sunny and I couldn’t imagine paradise itself looking any better than this.
We stopped at a beach and lay on a folded towel looking at the ocean. Kevin fell asleep for a little while, proof that he hadn’t slept well the night before. He slept with his arm extended, holding the belt loop on my shorts. I didn’t notice it until I tried to sit up. I gently slid his finger out and held his hand until I was sure I hadn’t woken him up.
I hugged my knees and looked around. So this was California. The ocean had depths of blue that I’d never seen before and seemed to hold secrets far below the surface that most would never learn of. I felt comforted by it and the idea that I was similar in that way to this magnificent ocean. I pulled my ponytail out and let my hair fling around in the wind. I understood why people risked earthquakes to live here.
We got back in the car and headed toward the hotel. After a while, we stopped to get gas and I threw my other bag in the garbage at the gas station. We ate roadside tacos and found a park bench where we could watch the sunset while we had tacos and pop.
The day was remarkable but it was equally unremarkable; unremarkable was good.
That night at the hotel, I dreamed of fireflies again. I knew it was a dream right away so I tried to enjoy the fireflies in my hands and control the movement of my arms. I felt myself smiling.
The night sky became as black as a void and the fireflies left my hands. They flew into the velvet black sky and kept their form in a complete circle as they flew higher and higher. The center of the circle was left unlit by the fireflies and was perfect blackness. I watched them closely although they were too far away for me to touch-I tried. Their lights lit and faded at different times which made them appear to twinkle as living stars moving just slightly around the void.
I heard a voice. A voice in my dream. It was familiar.
“Mel?”
I looked around, but I didn’t see anyone. I felt wind and my hair moved.
“Mel, honey?”
The words were louder than I wanted. We were in my room now. My room at Grandpa’s house. There she was. I sat up on the bed to look at her. She sat on the end of the bed. My mother.
She smiled. “Focus on me, Mel. Please try to control your emotions because if you don’t, you’ll wake up. I know you can do it.”
The volume of her voice lowered now. I looked at my mom. Her golden brown hair was curly and hung to the middle of her back. The top of it was swept up off her face. She was wearing a yellow crew neck shirt with a necklace I’d never seen before. It was a silver dollar sized piece of blue glass that was wrapped in silver strands and hung from a silver chain. I felt an ache as I looked at her. I missed her so much. I missed just looking at her. I focused on her necklace to distract myself from her eyes because they made me sad. Her eyes were darker than I remember. But, clear green still. She looked just like she was alive. She wasn’t see-through or anything.
“I wanted to tell you that I’m doing fine. I wish I could talk to you for hours. I have so much to tell you. I don’t have long and I wish you could talk back to me, but you’ll be pulled from me if you do. Please don’t try. You’d think it would be easy for me to do this, but stuff is always more complicated than you figure it should be. It’s annoying even for me.
“Mel, you’re doing a great job with work and Grandpa is taking good care of you. I saw you the other night when you were out with Kevin. You were just lovely. Reminded me of you on your senior prom. I miss you and I love you so much.” She looked off into the distance and then closed her eyes.
“Wait, Mel, you’re controlling me. Don’t control what I say. Let yourself relax a bit. OK– there we go. Your mind is so strong. That is good for you mostly, but sometimes makes things difficult. And yes, that is all true. It’s just more what you want to hear than what I came to say.
“I learned more about you than I knew over there. Made me even more proud. I kind of suggested you for something important. Something I know you can do. I worry that it will impact your life more than I want it to, but you were selected by more than just me. I know you’re hurting. I can’t go into all the things I want to say and I do feel frustrated about that. I want you to know that we helped you when you saved the baby. It was us. There are usually three of us-sometimes more. I know it’s crazy and weird and I’m sorry about that gash you got. But, we see through your eyes too and you turned your head away.
&
nbsp; “I won’t always get to see you like this. I insisted this time because of what I need to tell you. You’re going to lose someone close to you again. I’m so sorry about that. Do your best to forgive and cherish those you have. They adore you, Melly. You are so very loved. Kiss your-”
I was yanked from the dream by someone shaking me hard.
To be continued….
Acknowledgements
This book began with an innocent seed of an idea while sitting at my kitchen counter. This idea waited patiently as I let several others tumble around in my brain. But, with those other ideas I was never as overcome with the need to get it down like I was this one.
I’d like to first thank my sister, Jenny, for reading each chapter about nine minutes after I finished it-without complaint-and then performing my first round of edits that she handed back to me in a brown handle-bag from a fancy vinegar shop, which I found memorable. I’ve never been to a vinegar shop.
I’d like to also thank my husband, Mark, for never getting visibly annoyed with me even when I read aloud for him countless blurbs of my pages to see his reaction. I appreciated how he closed his eyes sometimes as I read it so he could fully imagine the scene that I was hoping to create even though our sweet boys were in the background making a terrible racket.
Thank you to my boys, Jack and Sam, for tolerating my wandering attention and regular carryout. You constantly entertain me and I’m very proud of you.
Thank you to my mother, Marie, who read the first few chapters and who insisted that I am Mel. Although I insist that I’m not, while conceding that technically I’m every character (even the bad guy, Mom).
Sean and Jeff - thank you. I pulled on much experience from our interactions in the many years that we’ve been friends. I appreciate the answering of my questions in random phone calls in the early stages of the book and questions over dinner that began with ‘what would you do if…’ or ‘do you think you would…’ I’d also like to thank their wives, Jess and Laurie, for accepting our relationships and becoming my friends as well.
Finally, thank you to my favorite earth mama, Tina, who could have potentially been my most fiery critic with her perfect honesty-a trait that I love. When she told me that one section in this book gave her chills I decided that I had to write stories as a forever. Your feedback was life changing.
Here goes.
