In My Mother's Time

by Guiliana Napisa

  She also complained about being open and defenseless. I wonder if this thought had anything to do with her time in the Army. Mother often went to peak at the little shack taking us along. She spotted a path nearby one day.

  “This is too man made to be a coincidence of nature.” Mom said looking around, “We will follow this path but in the woods parallel just in case,” She finished.

  Without a peep we silently stood in a row following her into the brush once more, as we’d done so often before. These day trips kept us healthy and wore us out. It was a family affair that would keep us bonded and strong. Later after her passing I would take long walks in the woods to feel nearer to her. Once a doe with two babies walked right out in front of me and I

  knew instantly that she was there reminding me that she was always there.

  At the end of the path was an open field but it was strangely rectangular. Straight across from us was another row of thick trees. I began to step out into the field when mother nearly knocked me over thrusting her arm out like a baton slapping me in the chest. She shook her head, No. she looked at me sternly.

  Mother turned south shooing us back the way we had come before turning

  180 degrees to the west making us parallel to the open rectangular field but far enough to its south that we remained invisible. She trudged on in that direction carefully maintaining her speed while watching closely for signs of life.

  Eventually she made it to the lip of the rectangle. It was at least a football field long we turned north and continued looking.

  We again reached the lip of the rectangle which now was an L shape from this point of view we saw a large hill that mother said was definitely man made and did not seem right it didn’t have much grass which means it was made fairly recently.

  She motioned for us to follow as she turned east continuing along subtly walking on soft step and in complete silence.

  She got about a yard when we all smelled the pungent odious smell of defecation and rotting flesh. We looked at each other horrified. I felt the bottom of my stomach and had the sudden urge to purge myself of urine.

  Mom motioned with both hands for us to sit and stay. As we began to crouch down and sit huddled together mother kissed us on the forehead reassuring us with her smile.

  Once again she tip toed into the distance slowly fading away. She came upon four men in a huddle making pigs of themselves upon one another when they spotted her. Mother said the smell was enough to make a woman furious, let alone four grown deranged and decidedly exposed men lunging at her with such ferocity.

  We heard three loud bangs and this time we stayed exactly where we were left with a heightened sense of hearing. We heard a man squealing and scream. Even on her death bed she never breathed a word of what happened after she shot three of the men. She

  always said it was between her and God, and he understood.

  She buried the men in a large hole and covered them in whatever was rotting in the air. For a month she would go to that spot collecting the filth she found and moving it far, far away. She buried it all, made her peace with it and let it go.

  Chapter 5

  Finally she would bring her children to that rectangular field. Mother smiled took our hands and with one exaggerated step we would as a unit step from the chilly shadowy forest into the bright airy open field she giggled steering us across the field and into the woods. Before long we reached a disparaged wall, or what was left of it.

  Mother maneuvered us around it and to our shock there was a huge colonial mansion. There was complete silence as we stood starring at the dilapidated exorbitant structure. We looked at each other than at her. Mother raised an eye brow grinned and nodded at the building. I shook my head.

  “What?” Mom said a little down hearted and surprised.

  “mom, it’s a dump” I said it’s not even a house its walls and a roof.” I finished with a dissatisfied scoff.

  “Don’t be so hoity touity Joseph” Mom said, “look at it like a templet” she smiled.

  “It’s bones with no meat and potatoes, mom.” I scoffed.

  “It is exactly that Joseph” she grinned, “bones and we will make the meat and

  be the potatoes” Mom giggled from her diaphragm.

  I shook my head with a grin and trotted off to the gigantic wood door with three single strips of what was sure to be lead paint and a large lion head door knocker. Mom put praying hands to her nose grinning and shaking her head with delight she said, “Would you look at that!”

  I hadn’t seen her so exuberantly pleased in half a decade. Her enthusiasm never failed to excite us. Though it needed a tremendous amount of work we had all the time in the world. The house was three stories high had a basement and a large scrolling staircase that had survived the centuries beautifully.

  Amelia and Theodore were completely enthralled in the idea of having a room with a bed and so was I.

  “Bones mom, good bones” I said, “I’m in.” I smiled.

  “I knew you would be” She said playfully.

  This simple house wife built us a house and a brick wall to surround it complete with a garden that she tended to every afternoon sometimes until the sun went down. We lived like kings we had everything we needed and wanted for nothing, well except electricity running water and sewage.

  The point is that we lived better than the people I used to see in movies struggling to survive. We were struggling to remember other people. She did her best to keep our spirits high

  and keep us intellectually stimulated. My mother wanted us to be smarter than any other surviving children. She believed brawn would lose to wit every time.

  The house mother built was painted it brown, the same color as the surrounding earth. It was wonderfully revived, and when she got bored she would add details to each room like chair rails and hang paintings we had done our selves.

  Mother had said once that she believed the house was a forgotten historical relic due to the silver and gray mile marker nearby, that she had removed upon finding the place. She had thought the sign would attract attention. Mother thought someone up in heaven would be pleased she had

  used its old bones to create a fortress of peace and safety.

  Every once and a while she would just lay in bed and stare at the window. She silently wept in her heart, I am certain she found time to hide away and cry but we never saw it. My mother eventually built a huge barn and stables we helped paint it brown the same as the house.

  Mama said barns are red but in the end of times they are brown. She would find time to build a wraparound porch for our house and terraces from a few rooms the house was starting to look like a mansion from an old black and white picture show.

  The days and nights seemed to blur together for her. Teaching us biology mathematics and social skills in everything that she did she could find knowledge anywhere. My mom was the smartest. We were so thankful to have someone so soft and yet firm to guide us through the days following the fall of men. We thanked her and God every day for protecting us and making us feel loved.

  Chapter six

  One morning we were outside playing as my mother was pulling weeds from the garden when we heard chickens clucking. Puzzled we all arose to our feet and looked around. Immediately my mother knew which direction the sound came from and darted toward the entrance to our compound.

  Our home was not impregnable. My mother tried very hard to make it painful for anyone to come across our brick wall with broken glass and bits of sharp metal jutting out but she knew with determination and something as simple as a mat or sweet shirt an attacker could easily get in and take our house.

  I saw the man approach the gate with a cage. But I did not know who it was all I remember is my mother stopping as if she’d ran into an invisible force field and dropping to her knees. I ran to be next to her.

  “Mommy!” I shouted shaking her shoulders, “are you alright?” I asked.

  Her hand shaking approached her lips. Her eyes were wide
as tears streamed down her face and snot dripped from her nose.

  “It’s your father.” She breathed.

  My head jutted around and to my amazement the closer proximity allowed better inspection and I too recognized my father.

  “Daddy!” I screamed.

  My brother ran over to the gate as my mother stumbled to her knees like an old drunkard and she unlocked the chain. She stepped back and leaned against the wall allowing me to open the gate for my father.

  “Hi.” My dad smiled his cheesy smile, “did ya miss me” he laughed.

  “You asshole where have you been?” my mother cried clinging to his neck.

  “Baby your choking me.” He said, all the while clutching a few chickens and one roaster.

  “How’d you know where to find us?” my mother asked.

  “Ah come on you know me baby.” He smirked.

  It was as if god parted the literal screen of reality pushed him threw right at our door and sewed it shut.

  “Thank you god!” she said under her breath.

  My mother closed and locked the gate as we all talked his ear off struggling to get as close to him as possible without knocking him over whilst trying to make it to the house.

  We kissed and hugged and laughed and my mother made my father some food. She gave him a glass of water and kissed his for head, and when my mother turned around he slapped her

  butt and laughed as she jumped and squealed.

  We spent several hours exchanging our version of the night we were separated. My mother didn’t say much she just told him we got in a boat floated to his work and then came here and waited. After he ate we sat by the fire in the living room. My father just stared at us with smiling eyes.

  “You did good mama” he said.

  “I know” she said coolly back curling her long brown hair on her fingertips.

  My father laughed,” son come here.” He pointed to me.

  I rushed to be near him as he reached into his bag and pulled out a Lionel Hudson train. I remember the feeling of home spreading, peace rushed over me father looked at me with kinship

  and a promise we will run trains together again.

  He ruffled my hair and sent me to bed just as he had when I was but a toddler, train in hand. He pulled out a beautiful ruby necklace and smiled at my sister. She was next even though she was the oldest.

  “This is your birth stone” he said softly.

  “I know” she said, “mom had this ring on when we left.”

  It was a three heart ring and in the middle of each heart was a ruby she had said that she had daddy buy it in an antique shop when Amelia was a baby. She bought it in hopes of giving it to her one day.

  “That’s my girl so smart” he said kissing her head and sending Amelia off to bed.

  “Daddy I thought you were dead!” she shouted tears pouring from her eyes. My father grabbed Amelia with one big hand and hugged her tight he said, “I would never do that to you baby girl.”

  Amelia squirmed from his firm grasp and ran to bed, she cried herself to sleep. Amelia wasn’t unhappy he was home she was upset it took him so long to find us.

  “She’s right you know” my mother said, “Just when I’d given you up for dead you walk up to my gate.”

  “You should have known I wouldn’t die” he said.

  “Well what the hell took you so long to get back to us?” She fussed.

  “Do you have any idea the chaos that ensued after the rain stopped” he continued, “rape, murder, men burning things, people steeling.”

  “They were like wild animals attacking anything that moved.” He said, “I had to wait for everything to calm down.”

  “As strong as I am, I am not bullet proof” he finished.

  Mother nodded her head from side to side as if to say, “yeah, yeah if you only knew”. And that was the end of the conversation.

  My mother said she knew he was right and that they had made love so feverously and with such passion she thought she’d die of euphoria.

  She said he was good for penetrating her soul when she least expected it but when she really needed it the most. My mother loved him more than life itself. If she could exist as one entity with him for an eternity wrapped in rapture she would morph into angelic energy and never come back to earth again. He was sometimes intensely passionate and always blowing things off with a laugh.

  Mother couldn’t help but smile when he’d fool around, she said his laugh was contagious. He could make the whole world smile with one grin. That type of guy you know is an asshole but he just had a fizzy personality that bubbled over. It was that naughty sweetness that had everyone consumed and addicted. He was a bad boy turned man.

  My father was very handsome. Woman became uncontrollably flustered in his presence and he made girls swoon. His eyes sparkled and glinted. His features were bold cuts specially engineered by god. He was one of a kind and could not be held down. Mama could never stay mad at him. He was really, really good, and he knew it.

  She missed him but something inside her kept her distant from him emotionally until he grabbed her and forced a kiss upon her lips she gawked at him in shock and relinquished her heart to him once more, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him passionately as no woman had done before. Love is such a small word in comparison to what they had no distance or time could unmake the

  bond created on the day her soul entered her body. She was made for him and he ruled her body and soul.

  Chapter seven

  For weeks my mother and father fought screaming and yelling at each other sending us outside to play. As if we wouldn’t be able to hear them screaming through the walls. Then my mother would come out much later smiling to herself.

  She told me they had gotten used to being alone, to doing things their own way. Mother said he was stubborn as a mule and powerful like an ox. Either way she thought he was an animal.

  When I caught her grinning she’d furrow her brow and tell me to keep writing until she told me to stop, and other times she’d say drop that pencil and come dance with me in the meadow. We’d spend hours napping in the posies and running through the yellow and orange tulips stopping to smell them and brushing them around with outstretched hands. I had not seen her smile in ages and now it was as if god himself came down and kissed her heart.

  When the rains came we’d all sit on the porch in rocking chairs listening to the booms and cracking snaps of the

  lightning. In the fall we’d plant crops and chop wood. In the summer we lived in the lake doing flips and laughing when the warm drizzle would sprinkle us under the bright summer sun. The sounds of the earth were like lullabies. My mom said the hippies would be jealous.

  Life was not easy but easier than before the end times. My mother pointed out to me many ways that living, after everything was destroyed, was better. She said maybe the earth would have time to heal and reaffirm itself in the universe as the most habitable. In a thousand years, she told me, everything that was will be something new. The trees that fell, the houses that crumbled, and all the man made things will be broken down and food for something else.

  It is harder for trouble makers to be trouble now that life was marshal law the people would be able to fight back and kill their attackers without penalty of imprisonment. In the old days they hung men for stealing horses for rape and murder. Sometimes the way mother talked frightened me but mostly I was intrigued. Sounded like an old western I half expected a gun toting angel eyes to come galloping by guns a blazing.

  My mother had a thing for a six foot blue eyed spaghetti western actor so she made us all watch his movies even though the movies themselves were older than her and the man was as old as my grandfather. Every time she saw him squint his beady eyes she’d fluster and say, my gosh he is handsome! She

  would miss movies most of all she had said.

  Chapter eight

  When she talked of new life I missed my old life. I missed the heater when it was cold it filled our
tiny house thoroughly unlike the fire you have to manually stoke up to keep the heat pouring out. The front half of the room would be baking and the other half would have a chill. Mama said we’d all catch our death if she didn’t stay up to keep the blaze roaring.

  I could see what it was that I was supposed to be appreciative of. I understood now what she said about honoring and loving thy parents. How could anyone not understand, just watching her grow old in front of me the lines the grey hairs the wrinkles, they were all because of us. All of the work she did to keep us comfortable. How could we ever measure up to this woman?

  Mommy said every woman was capable of being the best mother. Love is what makes a woman change her selfish ways to be what her children need.

  Amelia was starting to grow breasts and we both now had hair growing in places there had not been before. When I got upset my mom would giggle and

  say, “don’t worry it is all part of growing up.”

  I was afraid to grow up I wanted so desperately to have a child hood again to play with other children and go to school. I did not know of school all I knew was mothers love. I guess it was easier for me learning hands on the way I did, but I had to have something to miss, everyone else had, well except Theodore.