Two Books in One - Ominous Love and Paradox - The Angels Are Here (21 page)

Chapter 7—Tick, Tick, Tick

The clock kept ticking on the lounge room wall—a constant reminder of the quickening time. Hours became days, the days turned into weeks, enforcing the knowledge that her father was not coming back—ever.

Grace wanted everything to stop, just for a minute, so she could take a breath. So she would have time to remember her father, before her memories of him spun too far away and out of her reach. But nothing stopped. Everything kept going and going and going.

She had the same nightmare every night. She was living on a spinning carousel. Dead flower petals fell from the sky like rain. Brightly coloured horses were racing faster and faster around her. The organ grinder’s music became louder and louder. She was losing her balance, grasping the thin air trying to hold onto anything fixed in place to balance herself. However, everything she grabbed onto kept slipping out of her hands.

There was a six-foot circus clown with a wide grin and gleaming yellowy barbed teeth riding one of the carousel horses, laughing at her. In a blink, he would vanish.

Then he would reappear, floating above her with narrowed yellow eyes glaring down at her. Then suddenly he fell, straight toward her. She spun around; it took forever that simple task. And then she ran—in slow motion.

She screamed out for her father, who was standing off in the distance, to stop the carousel, so she could get off. But he couldn’t hear her screams above the music and the laughing clown, so he never came to her rescue.

Every turn of the carousel bought a faceless, shirtless man carrying a bunch of balloons on a golden thread a step closer to her. The balloons were the most beautiful she had ever seen. They glistened like giant soap bubbles that reflected all the colors of the rainbow.

Finally, when he was close enough to the edge of the carousel she would reach out and grab the bunch of balloons from his outstretched hand. The glistening balloons would carry her up into the sky, out of the falling petals and into the clouds, away from the laughing clown.

She would look down from her vantage point above at the faceless man below as he walked away. On his bare back, she could see a fearsome eagle with outstretched wings.

She was too heavy for the balloons to carry her very far away, and one after the other, they would burst, and she would begin her descent toward an earth that was covered in a layer of dead petals. She would wake up just seconds before the deadly impact to find herself twisted in her bed sheets, completely exhausted.

With the passing days, the beautiful flower arrangements delivered following her father’s death started to wither and die. Petals faded, shrunk, let go and fell onto the kitchen bench. Then further still, until they rested on the tiled floor below. One after the other, they gave up their fight for survival, until all that was left was twisted, shriveled stems. Grace gathered up the dead flowers and put them in the trash outside and tipped the foul smelling water from the vases down the sink.

Blobs of the soggy stems and leaves clogged the drain. She jabbed her finger at them, pushing and squishing them until they had all passed through the plughole.

She could imagine her father’s body progressing in a similar state of erosion under the mound of dirt that separated him from her.

She collected up the horde of sympathy cards covered in angels and flowers and put them in a shoebox with a signed booklet from the mourners that had attended the funeral. Her mother would want these. She tied up the box securely with a white satin ribbon that she had removed from a decaying bunch of flowers.

Kate had thanked her and put them in the bottom of her wardrobe for safekeeping. She would read them at another time, when she was stronger.

The days continued on regardless. Tick, tick, tick shouted the clock on the wall as she sat and glared at it. She wanted to stand up on a chair and smash it. Instead, she remained seated and watched her mother dish up her dinner that had been supplied by the neighbors—again. Her mother did not prepare a plate of food for herself. Grace could not remember the last time she saw her mother eat. She chewed on her bottom lip; she started to worry about her mother.

Although Kate was now getting out of bed most days, she still didn’t appear to be coping with her grief. Even with all the extra food in the house, Grace noticed that her mother continued to grow thinner and started to fear that her mother might die, too. She began taking mental pictures of her mother for safekeeping.  She paid more attention to the little things. Like her mother’s scent, the sound of her voice. Her laugh, if she was ever to hear that again. The warmth of her mother’s arms as she wrapped them around her, pulling her close. She would memorize them all, just in case her mother was taken from her, too.

She would imagine coming home from school one day, and as she came through the door, standing by the kitchen table, would be a policeman. He would say to her, “Grace, there has been an accident.” And she would just let herself fall to the floor, wanting to die, too.

Grace slid off the kitchen chair and walked over to her mother who was washing dishes in the sink. She wrapped her arms around Kate’s slender body, squeezing her, a little tighter than usual, just in case. “I love you, Mum,” she said, forcing back tears. A few still managed to spill over and run down her cheek. She quickly buried her face in her mothers un-ironed t-shirt to wipe them away, hiding them.

Kate dried her hands on her jeans and put her arms around her daughter’s shoulders. “I love you too, sweetheart. You and I, we’ll be okay, you know that, right?”

Grace squeezed harder, a frown creasing her forehead. She didn’t know that. She didn’t know anything, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t pretend to, so as not to worry her mother. She would do anything if it would help stop her mother from leaving her, too.

There was a rap on the door. Kate kissed Grace on the top of her head and headed toward the front door. Through the screen door, she saw Officer Wade standing on the doorstep with a box in his hands and a solemn look on his face. She pushed back the screen door and ushered him in. She offered him a coffee and a seat at the kitchen table opposite Grace. He pulled out a chair and sat down, declining the coffee with a shake of his head.

He placed a brown box on the table hesitantly, stalling. Scrawled on top of it in bold handwriting ‘Brian Connors—deceased’.

Kate sat down rigidly at the end of the table and eyed the box. Wade slowly pushed the box across the table toward her. For a moment Kate just looked at it, re-read the words. A tightness gripped her throat, her stomach lurched. She took a deep breath and held it. Slowly, she removed the lid to reveal the precious contents neatly packed inside.  She reached in slowly and ran her fingers over the items. She let out her breath, let out her tears, silent tears that ran down her face shamelessly.

She took out folded t-shirts and jeans and placed them on the table beside the box. She found Brian’s gold wristwatch and turned it over in her trembling hand. She silently read the elegantly engraved words, ‘My eternal love always, Kate.’ She placed the watch carefully on top of the clothes folded on the table. Underneath another t-shirt was a mobile phone, toothbrush, hairbrush, Bvlgari aftershave, and a black notebook. Her eyes darted around the emptying box. Her frenzied fingers probed eagerly between the folds of fabric, the corners of the box. She began to search more urgently, searching pockets, seams. Nothing.

Kate’s search was proving fruitless. Her husband’s wedding ring was nowhere to be found. A sudden sob escaped her lips and she covered her mouth with her hand to stifle those that would follow.

Wade raked his fingers through his hair, feeling guilty for making her cry again. He so badly wanted to reach over and console her, but he refrained, fearful of what might happen if he did.

Grace walked over to her mother and put her arms around her in an effort to protect her against the fresh, consuming grief.

Kate nodded. “Its okay, really…I just need to…I’m sorry…” she said, standing.  She quickly refolded and placed Brian’s belongings back in the box and replaced the lid. She stood there a moment, willing herself to be strong.

Wade stood and took a step toward her. “Kate-“

“Don’t,” she snapped, then felt instantly guilty for the bitterness in her tone. “I’m sorry, I can’t…” she dragged the back of her hand across her wet cheeks, picked up the box, walked out of the kitchen and down the hallway to her bedroom.

They stood there and watched her go, watched her disappear into the darkness of the room as she closed the door quietly behind her.

Kate sat down on her bed and placed the box beside her. After a moment, she pulled a folded shirt from the box and buried her face in it. She pulled in a long breath, filling her lungs with Brian’s familiar scent. She could hear him teasing her for being silly. Like when she would cuddle up next to him on the sofa, burying her head in his chest, because she had been crying at a sad movie. “I can’t do this without you,” she sobbed into his shirt.

Wade wrestled with the urge to follow Kate, put his arms around her, hold her close to his heart, and tell her he would be there for her. Instead, he walked over to the kitchen bench, picked up the plate of food that Kate had prepared for Grace and put it on the table. “Here Grace,” he said gently. “Sit down and have something to eat.” Grace sat down submissively, picked up a fork and watched as her tears dripped, then ran down the lip of her plate.

Grace never thought to question Wade being there. And why would she?  She needed someone – anyone - that would care for her while her mother could not.

Wade busied himself with making coffee, then sat down opposite her and watched as Grace pushed the food around on her plate with the fork. It looked enormous and cumbersome in her tiny hand. Her little face with the big watery grey eyes broke his heart. He knew he deserved to suffer the pain that tore through him. He alone had broken the hearts of this mother and her child.

That was when Wade, against his better judgment, decided to stay, for just a while. He would try, as best he could, to put some of the broken pieces back together again. He owed them that much. The truth though, could only do more harm than good, so that, he would keep to himself.

He wasn’t sure how long they sat there like that. Listening to the heartbreaking sounds of Kate’s sobbing drifting softly down the hall.

Chapter 8—Kali and Bongo

It was a cold wretched Sunday morning in June when Grace woke to yet another wet colorless day. It had been raining consistently for weeks without any hint that a change was drawing any nearer. Grace felt agitated by the smothering grey sadness that had shadowed her constantly since her father’s death.

She decided that she had had enough of her miserable existence behind the cold steel bars of grief. And that it was up to her alone to make the necessary changes to rectify this problem.

She pushed the blankets away and swung her legs enthusiastically over the edge of her bed. Her pathetic life, coupled with the gloomy weather, had become too depressing and predictable.

But something was already a little different about this morning, Grace sensed, with a hint of trepidation. She frowned when her stomach growled. She felt, something she hadn’t felt for a while. Really, really hungry, with an unyielding urge to find food and eat.

Grace felt instantaneously sick with hunger as she stood; her legs trembled uncontrollably. She crouched down onto her haunches to steady herself and grasped her stomach. She looked up toward the ceiling that started to vibrate and blur. Snowy white dots, like a television that had just gone off the air, filled her vision. 

“Oh no, not again,” she whispered in a frightened voice just before her legs gave way and she collapsed on her bedroom floor.

As Grace’s eyelids flutter close and her mind drifts into a fitful dream, my own eyes open and I realize that I am not the Juliette that I remember, but a younger girl from an earlier time and place.

My mouth and tongue are parched, devoid of saliva, and it hurts when I try to swallow. My lips are dehydrated, cracked and resemble an old worn-out brown leather belt.  A kitten meows on the ground beside my filthy bare feet.

“Bonga?” I say in a small raspy voice as I reach down to stroke the skeletal animal. I study my hand; it is bony, like it doesn't belong to me. I try to rub mud off my hand with equally dirty fingers. I gasp when I realize that it isn’t dirt that coats my body.

I search my memory for answers and realize that I have returned to Bengal, and it is 1769. I am re-experiencing the wretched suffering of myself as an eleven-year-old brown-skinned girl. An obnoxious stink assaults my nostrils, making me gag. I don’t smell good. Nothing, in fact, smells good. The soiled walls surrounding me emit a foul-smelling stench of excrement, urine and rotting flesh. I cover my nose and mouth with my grubby hand, but it doesn't help.

“Kali, stay here with your mother, I will return with food by nightfall,” a man says to me in a foreign language that somehow I understand.

I nod obediently. Maybe tonight he would bring home a rat and we would eat like kings. He is tall, softly spoken, and rakish thin, dressed in rags. Starvation has robbed him of his looks and his strength, leaving him haggard and defeated. Only the love and devotion he feels for our family keeps him alive, day after day. I know this truth about him, and it makes me love him even more. My heart is bursting at the seams with love, my stomach bloated but empty.

I remember a time, not that long ago, that he was handsome, strong, well-dressed and wealthy for a man of his station in life. A prosperous and respected merchant trader, trading in textiles, tea and exotic spices throughout
India and foreign lands. We had wanted for nothing.

I watch him now as he prepares to leave; intuitively, I know that I will never see this man again and it saddens me. A dirty tear runs slowly down and over my protruding cheekbone.

“Goodbye, Father,” I say weakly to his retreating back. “I love you.” He doesn’t hear me, the bustling noise outside has already swallowed him up whole.

My kitten Bonga shrieks loudly in protest behind me. I spin around in time to see a girl snatch the kitten up from the floor by its oversized head. The girl snarls and threatens me with her wild yellow eyes, her teeth bared. In one swift movement, she twists the kitten’s scrawny neck, breaking it. It dangles silently in her hands as the girl turns and flees quickly out into the dirty alleyway. My kitten, Bonga, will be an appetizing meal for four this evening.

A woman’s voice behind me says, “Kali, come.”

This woman who summons me, I know instinctively, is my mother. My heart swells with unbounded love for her. She is lying on dirty rags on the floor and looks like a beautiful skeleton draped in satiny brown skin. By nightfall I know my mother will be dead, and I will be alone in this place.

So would ten million other men, women, and children. They will starve to death during one of the worst famines in history during the 17th century. It will happen again.

I lay down beside my mother and close my eyes. I pray for a quick walk through the valley of the shadow of death. The Gods smile down upon my mother and me this night. We do not have to wait long before the child-like Angel with her crystal clear blue eyes and long flowing red hair that shines as though it is on fire, holds our hands and walks us home to a beautiful place far from here.

Grace slowly blinked and opened her eyes; she was lying on the carpeted floor in her familiar bedroom. She wiped the tears from her cheeks and thought about the thin brown-skinned girl, Kali, with her bloated tummy and her parents. They were all dead now; their brown bodies had decayed into the parched cracked earth over three hundred years ago. She thought about Bonga, the Bengali kitten, dangling from the hands of the yellow-eyed girl, its neck limp and broken.

Grace rubbed her eyes to erase the brutal images and memories floating in her mind. The dreams and visions that Grace had experienced from an early age were occurring more frequently now. The visions and dreams that had once dissolved as quickly as they had manifested now started to linger a little longer in her memory.

I need to eat,
Grace thought to herself standing slowly, her legs still trembling.

She inspected herself carefully in the mirror from head to toe. She pushed the long flannel sleeve up to her elbow, examining the color of her skin. She was clean, white, she was back — she was Grace.