One

by J. A. Laraque

  What I did not realize was just how much my mother worked not only to plan for the trip, but to care for me as well. She stayed awake with me almost every night and while a few days before we left I was well rested, she was not. We had reached New York and were about to turn in for the night when my stomach began to hurt. I had had this specific pain in my stomach before, it was whenever I felt something was very wrong or something bad was about to happen.

  I looked at my mother she was very pale and looked sick. I asked her if she was alright and she could barely answer me, but even so she forced out a smile and told me not to worry and to go to sleep. Something inside told me not to go to sleep and to get help. I called for one of the attendants I told them my mother was sick. She looked embarrassed as they asked her if she was alright. Though she denied feeling ill they decided to stop the train at the next stop, which was Buffalo, New York and called an ambulance.

  One the way there I wondered if I had done the right thing. My mother hated going to the doctor and to be taken by ambulance to the hospital was unthinkable. Sitting in that waiting room alone while the hospital officials tried to contact my father was horrible. The doctor came out and told me that my mother had a blood clot and that if I had not said something to the attendant she would have died. I just sat there frozen thinking about how close I was to just falling asleep. Even since then when I felt that pain in my stomach I have made sure not to ignore it.

  “I… I understand…I’ll, we’ll be right there.”

  The sound of my mother’s voice and the pain in my stomach told me something horrible had happened. The look in my mother’s eyes I will never forget. They stared blankly ahead; I could see she was scared, but also thinking about what to do next. I could not speak. I did not even know what was said, but I knew it was bad. My mother leaned over to hang up the receiver but she went limp and dropped the receiver to the floor.

  I jumped up from the bed and hung up the phone as my mother slowly sat up and just stared out her window. It felt like we sat there in silence forever. I felt my mouth begin to open when she turned around and looked at me. I knew what she was about to say would change our lives forever.

  “Your father…there was an accident. He was taken to Northwestern Hospital. We need… we need to go.”

  I was in shock thinking about what happened to dad, what exactly they told her on the phone. Images of sitting in that waiting room came back to me. My mother slowly stood then lost her balance. As I moved to catch her she wrapped her arms around me and began crying. The pain that night was the worst I had ever felt and it was just the beginning.

  Secrets

  I no longer wanted to be in her room. I stood and saw my mother’s laptop bag sitting next to her nightstand. My thoughts went back to what Christine wrote in her e-mail, about my mother asking her to stay away from me, that and secrets she was to keep. Mom’s laptop was out of power and there was no way to recharge it but I decided to take it with me anyway. I placed it in the bag, but it would not go in all the way. I reached into the bag and pulled out a small digital recorder.

  I shined my light on it and I set it to play from the beginning. Though hearing my mother’s voice on the phone recording earlier was painful I wanted to hear her again. I laid back on my mother’s bed as I pressed play on the recorder and looked out the window toward Lake Shore Drive.

  “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.”

  It was my mother reading from the bible. I remembered that after she stopped going to Moody church she began holding bible studies with some friends and often studied alone. She would record various passages from the bible and play them back at night. After the verse the phone rang. I could hear talking but it was to quiet to make out, then suddenly it became clear.

  “No, I haven’t told them yet. You don’t understand there is nothing else I can do, we have to sell. I told you, they won’t pay because of…”

  A knock at the door interrupted her mid-sentence. I rewound the tape trying to make sense of what my mother was talking about.

  “Mom, may I come in?

  It was Ashley’s voice.

  “I’ll call you back, Jackie. Yes, Ashley, come in.”

  She was talking to Aunt Jackie and talked about selling something. Jackie was... is... a lawyer and helped us with any legal issues we had. She dealt with everything regarding the death of my father including his estate. Though it was agreed that we would not actively follow the trial of the man who killed him she did keep my mother apprised of major events. There were many times I asked her for information, but it was always very general and vague. At that time I thought the only thing the conversation could be about was money.

  “Mom… I need to speak to you about Timothy.”

  “What is it? Is something wrong? Is he okay?”

  My sister talking to my mother about me was not surprising but to hear concern in her voice was. If the secret were about money issues then why would Ashley know about it and not me?

  “Yes…No… I’m not sure, that’s just it, Mom. Today he is okay, but if so then that’s just today. How long will he be okay, what if he…”

  “He will be fine as long as we continue to help him.”

  It was just like the night before this all began, with my mother and my sister worrying about me. There was so much going on in my life that I did not pay attention to much at home. Whenever I asked questions they would just give me a non-answer so I stopped asking. If there were a problem money-wise I most likely would not have known about it. Besides tuition, for which I received a partial scholarship, I did not spend much money. If there was a financial problem they could have talked to me about it, but instead they were having private talks about my wellbeing.

  “Are we really helping him, Mom? It doesn’t seem like we are.”

  “Ashley, you need to understand. You remember how he was before, how bad it was. God has helped Timothy, but we must do our part as well. All I want is what is best for you both and if that means…”

  The tape went silent. The way they talked about me it was just like what Christine wrote, how she described me. How can everyone look at me and see something so different from what I could see. Even with the issues, I have and the many I discovered since this began it still did not add up to the way they talked about me.

  I played the tape over and over hoping to get something more out of it. To have something in your hands that could have given an answer but just created more questions angered me. I wanted to smash the recorder to pieces but instead I took a deep breath and placed the recorder in the bag.

  I took the bag into my room and threw it down at the foot of my bed. Normally being in my room, alone in the dark, would bring me comfort, but that night comfort was not what I felt. Outside my balcony, the fires continued to burn from Old Town through to Lincoln Park. All it would take to end everything would be a step over the ledge, but for all I knew it could also take me deeper into the nightmare.

  I kept thinking about what Dr. Leafs told me, if I went with his story of my history then perhaps the tape would make sense. The only problem was they talked as if something was wrong and then was corrected. In my dream, or hallucination, or whatever it was I was still in the hospital. No matter which version I used there were still pieces missing.

  I slumped down onto my bed it was then that I decided to write down everything that happened including my thoughts. I hoped that by writing everything down I would be able to look back and review what I discovered in the future. I also hopped that it would keep me from going insane.

  Everything I had written up to that point was written after that first night. I made a promise to myself that I would not edit or change anything. This record would not just be for me, but for anyone else who may ever read this. If all this were a dream or something else then I would gladly accept that all this work was for nothing just to see my family again.

 
After documenting everything I could remember my arms were sore from holding the flashlight steady. As I drifted off to sleep on my own I whispered a silent prayer asking if I could wake up in the world I once knew. If God were to choose to hold a grudge against me because I turned my back on him and decided to take me in my sleep I would consider it a mercy killing.

  All for Nothing

  You would believe that waking up from your sleep with no recollection of your dreams would be a good thing. In the past when I would wake up not knowing if I had dreamt the night before it was just a fleeting curiosity that quickly left my mind. When the nightmares began, I would sometimes awaken drenched in sweat, heard pounding, but without any memory of my dreams. Like the stain of a nightmare, the imprint left on you after waking up in that state and yet remembering nothing was just as horrible.

  Similar to the feeling deep inside you when you believe something has happened to someone close to you, the weight left on your soul when you wonder what terrible images you must have experienced that were so damaging that your waking consciousness kept them from you. Those thoughts would stay with me throughout the day plaguing me, that is, until night came.

  “Dad!”

  I awoke screaming. I ran to my balcony and upon opening the glass doors, I already knew I was still there. The skies were a dark grey, thick from the smoke of the ongoing fires burning across Old Town and Lincoln Park. I backed away from the patio door and slumped onto my bed. I just laid there staring at the floor. I knew I had dreamt that night, but I could not remember what I was dreaming about. My body felt as if it had been beaten during the night. While my watch told me I had slept for six hours my body felt as if it had been six minutes.

  Part of me actually believed that falling asleep on my own accord would wake me from this nightmare, but that part usually ended up being disappointed. While only my second day I felt as if I had been trapped for years. I knew that I had to continue searching for answers, sitting in my room would do nothing. I searched for some cleans clothes. Blue jeans and a jogging shirt would keep me warm and would not slow me down if I needed to run. I had to chuckle as I wrote that. I wished I would have someone to run from.

  I left my room, entered the bathroom and stepped into my shower. The water was cold, but my body quickly adjusted. Even if the power was out across all of Chicago there would be some records I could access downtown. My thought was if I could look into my father’s death then perhaps that would be the answer that would provide my exit. I was ready to accept the possibility that the man who killed my father was set free.

  It was the only information I had to go on and the more I thought about how my past nightmares worked the more I realized how it was possible to be exposed to so many different possibilities. However, at the moment I did not want to look into my theories. I just wanted to leave my apartment and get back outside.

  I dried off, dressed and took my mother’s computer bag and my backpack with me. Downstairs I prepared a few sandwiches, ate one and stored the others. I could not shake the sickening feeling I had that this could all be a hallucination and there I was preparing like a Boy Scout, but to not be prepared would have been foolish. I always believed it is best to deal with what you know and to disregard what you do not.

  As I left the apartment instinctive routine caused me to lock the door; it almost made me crack a smile. The long trek down the stairs that was just as dark in the day as the night before reiterated that this world would not be a place where joy could be found. I quickly walked through the lobby into the garage. I sat on my bike for a moment and looked out the garage door toward Lincoln Park. There were no flames to be seen just a moving cloud of smoke. I pulled my helmet on and started my bike eager to leave.

  I made my way toward Lake Shore Drive. I was forced to stop and look out across the lanes of road. The image from Ashley’s room did not properly convey the level of destruction I saw at ground level. Hundreds of vehicles of all shapes and sizes sprawled across the drive with various degrees of damage. I wondered if the reason I wanted a motorcycle and not a car was to be ready for this day. Only a bike would be able to navigate through the vehicle graveyard before me.

  About to continue on I found myself staring out over North Avenue beach. That night after Christine agreed to come to my house to watch movies we walked up and down the beach just talking. I told her that I did not want to hurt Jonathan by being with her. I expected her to drown me in emotional babble, but she was rational and said that I had not taken anything from him because she was not his.

  I did not think she believed Jonathan would be as upset as he was. We continued to see each other while at school, but did not speak. When we finally did talk it was on North Avenue beach during the festival. He had made new friends and confronted Christine and I. He felt that I had turned away from everything I had ever talked about with him. He called it a betrayal and then turned his back and walked away. Christine looked at me. She knew how important my friendship was with Jonathan. She expected to see the face of a devastated man, but what she found was the eyes of someone glad to be free of the burden of an exhausting friendship.

  It was here that I explained what my thoughts were to her, sometimes what I said would inspire her, and often it would frighten her. That beach was where she said she learned about who I really was. She never told me if it was for the good or for the bad.

  What lies Beneath

  The last time Christine and I came here together was after her Aunt died. She had suffered for months in the hospital battling cancer. Christine’s mother visited every day. We had just come from the funeral. Christine just needed some fresh air and someone to talk to. It was a cold afternoon, not a soul on the beach. After standing silently looking out into the water for what seemed like hours she finally began to talk.

  “I felt bad standing there. I had never seen my mother like that before. She was there when she died. I just don’t think I could do that, to sit there day after day watching someone wither and die. I didn’t even like Clara the much, but my mom loved her…I’m sorry, Timothy. I’m babbling.”

  “It’s pointless.” I replied.

  Hearing her pour out her feelings caused me to stop and think before continuing. She knew how I felt about various subjects and I was never afraid to let her know. This was different. This was about someone in her own family. I should have kept quiet.

  “What’s pointless?”

  “Sitting there, watching someone die.”

  There were times Christine would ignore me when I went into one of my, what she would call, tirades. I think she did it because when she did listen and found herself agreeing it made her feel bad about herself. That day she engaged me, she wanted to listen to what I had to say.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you think that people in that condition really want to be surrounded by people pitying them? No one wants to be remembered like that in that condition. We don’t do that for them, we do it for ourselves.”

  I could see that I was upsetting her, but I could not stop myself.

  “How can you say that? It has been proven that sitting with someone, talking to them, touching them makes a difference.”

  “A person who has the possibility to get well yes, this was not that case. You told me when they took your Aunt to the hospital that the doctors knew and she knew she would not return. What did your mother tell you, when she used to visit Clara?”

  She did not want to tell me and yet she wanted to continue the conversation. I wanted to keep going until I made my point.

  “She didn’t say much. Aunt Clara just stared up at the ceiling. She was so weak she couldn’t really talk. My mom would just read to her.”

  “No, she was reading to herself. Clara didn’t want your mother there and your mother didn’t want to be there.”

  Christine was starting to cry and there I was excited, engaged, I was making my point, hitting my marks. I was enjoying it.

  “You’re wrong! My mother loved
Aunt Clara!” Christine cried out.

  “She did and that love turned to obligation. Just like the people today at the funeral, they were there out of obligation and how it would look if they didn’t attend. When Clara checked into the hospital she was ready to die and wanted to die in peace, but because we cannot let go, because we are bound by our needless rituals and our sickening need to keep up appearances we take that peace away by standing over them, watching them die.”

  Christine began to walk away from me but I followed her down the beach. The wind from the lake was chilling but I could not feel it. Christine did not want to listen anymore but it was too late, I was not going to let her walk away, I was far from finished.

  “Clara was gone Christine and I am sure she had accepted that, but your mother had not. Since there was still an ounce of breath in her body your mother had no choice but to go. I guarantee you that when Clara finally died you mother felt a sense of relief that it was over, that she was free.”

  Christine stopped and turned around looking into my eyes. She was angry. I believed she was going to hit me.

  “Stop it! You’re not fooling anyone, Timothy! I know you care, you feel pain. You can pretend you push emotions aside, but I know that isn’t true. I know what lies beneath. What if it was your mother or father in the hospital like that, would you still speak the same?”

  “What I am saying is what I believe. If my mother or father was in the same condition I would have said goodbye long ago and remembered them as they lived not how they died.”

  She turned away from me again and bent over resting her hands on her thighs. I just stood there waiting for her to say something, to give me an opening. It felt like forever. I stood there like an athlete waiting for the sound of the gun, ready to take off.