by Anne Conley
“Son, I will never get tired of this. But I sense a weariness in you boys, and I realize that you’re not boys anymore.” He stopped Himself from continuing, and Uri knew better than to question Him. There was something else that was bothering him, though.
"The Deceiver. He's here. What does he want with her?"
The Boss looked at Uri long and hard, a sternness in His gaze. "He knows of my plan for you, and he's trying his usual tricks. Don't worry about him. She's an intelligent woman. One of the many reasons I chose her." Leaning forward, the Boss grasped his hand. “Just get to know her, you'll see that she's made sacrifices as well. Like you, she doesn't see them as sacrifices, she wouldn't have done anything differently, given options. You’ll find the destiny. I promise.” His index finger tipped His eyebrow, and He disappeared.
Uri sighed heavily, defeated, and waited for his pancakes.
Chapter 7
“How did you get in here?”
“I used my passcode, Mother.” Heather sighed. They had this conversation nearly every time she visited.
“Why did they give it to you?” Her mother was an older replica of Heather and Tiffany, tall, with dark hair that showed streaks of gray at the temples. Currently, she was sitting in a vinyl chair in her room at the home.
“Because I’m family. They give the security code to family members to come and visit you.”
“I don’t want you to visit me.”
“Mom…” Heather had been expecting this reaction. She got it most every time she came to see her mother.
“You put me here. I don’t belong here. This place is for old people, not me.” With her dainty fingers, she clutched the lap throw that Heather had given her for Mother’s Day last year.
Heather looked at her own hands, marveling at the similarities between her mother and herself, wondering as always, if her fate would be the same.
“Mom, I couldn’t take care of you anymore. Not the way you needed to be taken care of. Remember?” Heather was pleading, hoping that they wouldn’t have to rehash this again.
Her mother’s eyes narrowed at her, and she spoke quietly, with deliberation. “What I remember, is those people bringing me here. Because you called them to come and get me. How could you?” Her hands were twisting the throw in her lap, kneading the fabric between her fingers.
“Because you set our house on fire, Mama!” Heather explained in exasperation.
“I just wanted some fried cauliflower,” her mother said sheepishly.
“I know, Mama. And you could have made some, except you were home alone, and you were naked and you left the gas on and started a grease fire that spread through the house.” She was trying to be patient, but her mother didn’t remember the fire, or that she was the cause of it. She only remembered that Heather never let her do what she wanted. And that she put her in a home.
Trying to change the subject, Heather told her usual lie, “I saw Tiffany the other day. She’s doing really well.”
Her mother’s eyes brightened. “Oh that’s lovely. Is she still infatuated with that boy? Daniel?”
“No, Mother. Daniel was ages ago. She’s single now and loving it. She’s got a job in the accounting department of one of those oil companies downtown.” Heather didn’t mind lying to her mom. The truth about Tiffany would upset her too much, and she wouldn’t remember anything Heather told her, anyway. This way, Heather hoped her Mother would at least have a good feeling about her visit when she left.
Her Mother’s eyes glazed and turned sad. “Why haven’t you talked about Bryan." Her glance began darting around the room. "And where’s Buddy? How come he never comes to see me here?”
Heather knelt before her mother and sighed heavily. Looking straight into her flitting eyes, she said, “Mom. Dad and Bryan died in a car accident years ago.” Her heart broke a little every time she had to say the words aloud.
They had had this same conversation so many times over the past few months. Sharon had been doing alright living with Heather. At first, the early-onset Alzheimer's hadn’t done much more than make Sharon a little quirky. She wore her clothes inside out, put her wristwatch on her ankle, started eating mustard on everything, stuff like that. Then things started getting worse: midnight strolls, forgetting to put on clothes or telephone calls to Asia. When she had set the house aflame, Heather knew she couldn’t leave her at home alone anymore.
She could still remember the look in the firefighters’ eyes when she made it home. Pity. When she hugged her mother, whose soot-blackened faced held the look of the lost, one of them had slipped her a pamphlet for this place.
The smell of it really got to her. It didn’t smell antiseptic, like she wished it did. There was an antiseptic smell, but underneath that was the disturbing odor of feces, medicine, and something she would rather not name. It reminded her a lot of her sister.
There was a place, not too far away from this one, Piney Meadows, that was a state-of-the art facility. All the rooms were extremely nice, and the residents got top-notch care. The doctor to resident ratio was extremely low, and conditions of the residents didn't progress as quickly as Sharon's had. And it didn't smell like this place did. Unfortunately, she just couldn't afford it.
She watched her mother weep silently for a moment, and knew the rage was not far behind. Her mother remembered who she was but had forgotten about the car accident a long time ago. Every time she was told about it, she went through the stages of grief, rather quickly, all over again.
As exhausting as it was for Heather, she knew it was a nightmare for her mother. She couldn’t imagine having to re-live the news of her husband and son’s death over and over again. Each time was the first time for Sharon.
Because she never remembered.
“Why?”
“I don’t know, Mama.” Heather said, her voice a whisper, anticipating what was next.
Sharon’s voice became shrill. “Why don’t I know this? What has happened?” Her hands on the lap throw became agitated again, pulling and twisting the fabric.
Heather tried to put her hands over her mother’s, to still them. “You have Alzheimer’s disease, Mother. That’s why you don’t remember. That’s why you’re here and not at home with me.”
The words sent her into a fury, and Sharon stood abruptly, sending Heather backwards onto the floor.
“No! I’m not like that! I want Buddy! Buddybuddybuddybuddy!” Her hands went to her hair, and grabbing fistfuls of black and gray, they pulled. Heather stood and held her mother’s hands, trying to extricate them from the tangles.
“Mama, no. Please don’t hurt yourself.” She said, as calmly as she could manage.
Having heard raised voices, a nurse entered the room.
“Mrs. Calloway, I have something to make you feel better and help you rest.” She deftly injected something into Sharon’s hip, through the fabric of her housedress and helped Heather steer her toward the bed.
The nurse checked Sharon’s pulse before leaving. Heather pulled the covers up to her mother’s chin and kissed her on the cheek, now that she was unconscious.
“I love you Mama.” She said quietly, before turning to go, exhausted.
Riding the bus home, Heather couldn’t help but remember the way her life had been, before Dad and Bryan had died, before Tiffany had started using drugs to deal with her grief, before her mother had begun forgetting.
She was twelve. They were on a family vacation, driving the RV to the Grand Canyon. It was an ancient Winnebago. Dad was immensely proud of it, his canoe and five bicycles strapped to the roof.
Dad drove, sitting behind the enormous steering wheel with a silly grin of anticipation on his face, planning out things for everybody to do during the vacation. Their mother would read or crochet during the drive, quietly listening to everybody’s talk, interjecting only occasionally. Bryan was in charge of navigation, since Mom got them lost every time she tried to read a map. Tiffany and Heather sat in the back, singing songs at the top of their lu
ngs, doing their best to annoy the rest of the family…
Fried ham, fried ham, cheese and baloney
And after the macaroni, we’ll have fun with
Pickles, and Pretzels, and then we'll have some more
Friedhamfriedhamfriedhamfriedham
Same song, second verse, underwater acts and a whole lot worse…
The family took a vacation every year, because as Dad was fond of saying, “The family that plays together, stays together.”
If he only knew.
The Grand Canyon had been spectacular. The immensity of the giant chasm took everybody’s breath away, especially Heather’s. She would stay at the edge looking out over the precipice for hours at a time, waking up before dawn to watch the sun rise over it and going back to watch it set. The enormity of the experience made her feel small, like she was insignificant, and for some reason, she relished that insignificance. The idea that her B in Math, whether or not Tim liked her or the fact that she couldn't quite nail the latest move her dance instructor was trying to teach her, wasn't really all that big a deal in the grand scheme of things. It reassured her. The colors were spectacular, and Heather committed them to memory, going back to relive them in her mind during the dark times that lay ahead.
In the afternoons they played chicken foot, and Bryan and Dad took the canoe and hiked down to the bottom of the canyon, spending one night, canoeing the river, then hiking back up, exhausted, but proud of their accomplishment. The women made fun of them for not just renting a canoe at the bottom of the trail, but Dad was vehement that he had bought the ultra-lightweight canoe for activities just like this.
Bryan was sixteen, and it would be his last family vacation. That November, he and Dad left for a hunting trip and never returned.
Heather got off the bus at the stop closest to her house, and walked the rest of the way home, lost in her thoughts.
When she got to her door, a huge, beautiful bouquet of blood-red roses was waiting for her. She stooped to pick them up, as she let herself into her apartment.
Not finding a card, she wondered who they were from. She wasn’t seeing anybody and hadn’t dated any men in a while. She racked her brain to think of who might know where she lived and couldn’t come up with anything logical. The only people she could think of wouldn’t be sending her flowers. Certainly not without a card showing who they were from…
Shrugging, she put the mystery behind her and displayed the flowers prominently on her small kitchen table before taking a shower and getting ready for work.
As Heather showered, she reminded herself why she still danced like this, as if visiting her mother wasn't enough of a reminder. She had no professional skills and no college education. Uri's questions in the back room of the club came back to her. She was almost twenty-seven, and Heather knew that once the dancers hit thirty, they just stopped making money no matter how good they still looked. What would she do with her mother and her sister, when she couldn't afford to pay their bills anymore? She would have to start saving some of her tip money. It wouldn't be too hard, if she kept having nights like the other night, with two rich guys getting into a pissing contest over her.
She smiled at the memory of dancing for Uri, the feeling of abandon that she had felt as she spun around to his humming. A tightening in her belly heralded lusty images that swirled around her brain. She wondered briefly what it would be like to kiss him, feel his warmth all over her. His warmth…
Chapter 8
Uri sat in the Japanese garden, much like the one in San Francisco, waiting for Heather to show up, as he knew she would. Sitting in the Lotus position, his eyes were closed, and he stilled his senses, willing an answer to come.
Why exactly was he here? What was he supposed to do with Heather? What was her destiny?
He felt a whisper of wind on his skin and tried desperately to filter out the sounds and smells of the city so he could focus on the sounds and smells of the garden. He tried to hear the trickle of the water flowing over the rocks in the man-made river, over the sounds of traffic in the distance. He finally managed to concentrate on the scent of the cherry blossom trees and other flowers and grasses instead of the exhaust and smog of the city.
Feeling a focal center, finally, he asked his questions again, only to hear her instead.
“Hello there, Uri.” It was Heather. He had been so focused on his meditations that he hadn’t felt the white-hot heat, but it was there now.
He opened his eyes, to see her standing over him, in front of the sun. It made a slightly disconcerting halo around her black hair, making it shine almost blue.
“Hey there, Heaven.” He said, rising to stand in front of her. “You out walking Taco?” Of course she was, and he knew it.
Her eyes squinted at him quizzically, as if questioning something. “Yeah. Are you meditating?”
“Yeah, I was.” Looking around, he said, “This is a great place for it, don’t you think?”
She looked around too, as if seeing the place for the first time. “I guess. I don’t have much time for meditation, though. And I’m not sure Taco would leave me alone long enough to get any real ‘zen-ness’.” She smiled as she looked down at her chihuahua, and bent over to let him off his leash. The tiny canine took off with a jump and ran to chase a couple of small birds that had landed in the grass a few feet away.
Heather laughed as she watched, and Uri noticed that her laugh was a low, throaty affair and quite pleasant to hear.
“Birds are Taco’s mortal enemies. He wants them all to stay in the air where they belong.”
“He’s good at it.” Uri agreed.
Heather started walking, silently, and Uri wondered what she was thinking. He walked beside her, also silently. The Boss had told him to get to know her, and she wouldn’t see him outside of work. The club made him uncomfortable, though, so he had decided to ingratiate himself to her here. Sometime soon, he would need to talk to her, to tell her why he was here.
Except, he wasn’t quite sure, himself.
“Have you moved here recently?” She broke the silence.
“Yes. Why do you ask?”
“I haven’t seen you around before, and suddenly, I see you all the time. It’s not like this is a small town to be running into the same people.” She shrugged, then looked at him meaningfully.
“I’m new here.” He knew the look she was giving him. It said ‘I know you’re not telling me something.’ Uri decided to be as honest as he could with her. “But, I’ll admit that I want to know you better, and I’ve been contriving ways to see you again. I know that you don’t see people outside of the club, and I can completely understand the reasoning behind that. But I don’t intend to go to Bottom’s Up anymore.” He suppressed his disgust at the idea of the club. “So, I have been trying to see you in a different environment. Once I figured out that you came here often, I thought, ‘why not?’” He shrugged. It was worth a shot.
She seemed to think a little bit, which gave Uri hope that this wouldn’t be as hard as he feared. She was protective of herself. Finally, she stopped walking and looked at him, holding out her hand.
“My name’s Heather.”
Surprised, he shook the hand she offered, noticing how smooth her skin was. It was warm, too, and a jolt of something raced up to his elbow. “Are we starting fresh?” She nodded, hesitantly. “Okay, then. My name’s Uri. It’s nice to meet you.” He flashed her a smile, hoping to ease the obvious nerves that she had.
Her face flushed, and she smiled back at him. It really was a lovely smile. Reminiscent of the Mona Lisa, Uri thought. The breeze ruffled her hair, and he watched longingly, as she swept a tendril off her face. Uri caught himself wondering if it was a silky as it looked.
“How long have you lived here?” Heather asked. He noticed she was staring at his mouth, and it made him feel flustered for some reason.
“Just a few days.” Uri responded, licking his lips, his mouth suddenly dry.
Her eyebrows rose, an
d she drew her eyes up to his. “Where did you move from?”
He allowed her to ask the questions, knowing that the more she knew about him, the more at ease with him she would be.
“Cupertino, California.” He answered her truthfully. “I move around a lot for my job,” he offered.
“Self-help guru?”
He shrugged, a noncommittal gesture. Whatever name she felt comfortable putting to it.
They walked in silence for a while, Heather occasionally calling to Taco, to keep him near them.
Eventually she broke the silence. “You said the other day you wanted to be friends. Were you serious about that?”
Her question surprised him. Honestly, humans were so distrusting. “Of course. I have no interest in you, romantically, if you’re worried about that.”
Almost imperceptibly, her face fell, and Uri stifled an urge to touch her, to reassure her somehow. Maybe he had worded that wrong. “I mean, you are an attractive person, I’m just not looking for a romantic involvement.” He wished he knew what she wanted to hear. “I just need a friend in this new city. Someone to show me things, I guess.” Trying to gain her trust, Uri was attempting to act nonchalant. He would have thought he'd be better at it.
She seemed to think about it a minute, her eyes flashed through different emotions that he was familiar with seeing, disappointment, longing, resignation, and eventually, relief. He studied her face, watching her reaction. Uri had to admit, Heather's features were classically beautiful --- her vivid green eyes, alabaster skin, and dark, glossy hair.
Could it be that he was actually attracted to her? Was that what all these strange sensations were that he got when he was around her? Granted, he certainly felt impulsive around the girl, but surely he wasn't attracted to her? Uri wasn't created to be attracted to a woman. That would mean that he'd be able to develop feelings that would skew his judgment, hinder his ability to do his job. And the Boss had made sure that he'd always be able to do his job.