Coming Home

by David Lewis

  She awakened some time later to the sound of footsteps. Groggy, she leaned up, listening. The sounds seemed to come from across the hallway, her mom’s room. She pulled herself over and nearly fell back into the mattress. Pausing a moment at the edge of the bed in order to gain her equilibrium, she wandered across the room, then out into the hallway and discovered the door ajar.

  She stood there for a moment, taking it in. Am I dreaming? She squinted to focus better. It was open. She crept forward, listening carefully. Was someone still in there? It seemed to take forever to cross that short distance. She slowed again, straining her ears.

  When she was a foot away, she pushed on the partially open door. It creaked softly and she peeked inside. No one was there, and the air seemed charged with static electricity. The shades were drawn, but filtered light illuminated the bed and she detected the faint aroma of Charlie. Her mother’s room at home had always smelled of the lovely fragrance.

  Jessie stood in the entryway, taking in every detail. Just as she had remembered. Her mother’s grade-school years had been preserved forever. Crossing the threshold, aware of the slippery feel of oak flooring, Jessie recalled overhearing a conversation between her grandmother and her father.

  “I did it for her,” her grandmother had said. “Olivia told me that her grade-school years were the happiest of her life. So I re-created it to look just like that. We had plenty of photos from that time. I replaced the rug, the bedspread, the curtains, repainted the walls. Some of the stuffed animals had been thrown away, of course. Finding those was more difficult but not impossible. As you can see, stepping in here would have been like going back to the happiest time of her life.”

  Jessie stood in front of the closet. She reached for the knob. It creaked open and she saw her mother’s clothes, a collection of colorful outfits, and then … the yellow dress, almost hidden within the variety.

  She reached for it and the fabric felt smooth between her fingers. Noticing something beneath the hanging clothes, she knelt and saw a backpack, light blue-green and nylon. The one Andy used to carry for her on the way home from school unless he was carrying his own backpack. Why would Grandmother keep it? she wondered.

  Jessie unzipped the backpack, the contents startling her. Her old things had never been removed. A spiral notebook. A math book that had never been returned to the school. Pencils and a couple of children’s books. A real time capsule. She shoved it back toward the closet wall, then stood up, gathering her wits. Touching the footboard of the bed as she rounded it, she tiptoed to the dresser, noticing the narrow top drawer was slightly ajar. She reached for the white knobs and pulled. Instead of gliding, the drawer rasped on the wood.

  She held her breath as she appraised her mother’s photo albums inside. Reverently she lifted the top one—blue cloth, no label—and just before she opened it, she saw the next one, right below the first. The Oregon scrapbook.

  She removed that one instead, trading it with the first, setting it on the bedspread, then kneeling before it. She traced the cover with her fingers … Oregon Coast … and then the date. She would have been five years old. She opened the first page, suddenly remembering the last time she’d seen it. She had been with her mother on her sick bed, reliving happier moments. In the last months before they took Mom away, she had spent a lot of time with these old scrapbooks.

  The first page contained the origins of the trip, a picture of her mom holding what seemed to be three airline tickets, hugging

  Jessie’s grandmother and mugging for the camera. As always, Grandmother looked stiff. But Mom seemed to ignore that.

  Another pose at the Portland Airport. Her mother was smiling in front of the blue rental car, gripping a travel brochure. Little Jessie was holding on to her mother’s leg, smiling up at the camera. Next page, pictures of Astoria. Apparently, they had traveled northwest before beginning their coastal drive south. None of this was familiar. An assortment of coastal photographs—Cannon Beach, Tillamook, her mom and dad in swimsuits, and several of Jessie: building a castle, sitting on her dad’s shoulders in ankle-deep water.

  Jessie’s eyes filled with tears. The whole Oregon fantasy made sense now, and she couldn’t help but wonder how much of her life had been dominated by things she no longer remembered.

  Finally a little close-up of her holding an iridescent butterfly shell and her mother’s written narrative beneath the pictures: Little Jessie holding a favorite “shell.” You asked me, “Mommy, is this where butterflies come from? Are they hatched?” I told you that it’s no coincidence that butterfly shells look just like butterflies. God’s mark is on the smallest details of creation and on the tiniest details of our lives. He puts clues into nature and even into the ordinary routine of our lives, clues that seem to have nothing to do with each other, like shells and butterflies, and yet are connected by a common Creator. You had such a look of wonderment! You just nodded your head and I was so amazed … my smart little butterfly girl.

  Jessie closed the album and blinked her eyes. Hold on … The last line of the Oregon scrapbook read: You cried when we left. You talked about it for months afterward. I promised you we’d return someday. And you said, “Okay, Mommy, but when?” Soon, my sweet butterfly girl, very soon.

  Instead of looking at another album, Jessie began sorting through the drawers, starting at the top left one. She immediately came upon some old letters wrapped in a rubber band. From the handwriting and the addresses, she realized they’d been written by her mother. Strange. Did her grandmother ask for her daughter’s old letters to be returned? Jessie wouldn’t put it past her. Then a single envelope at the bottom of the drawer caught her eye. Written in her mother’s handwriting, it was addressed simply: My dearest Jessica, and just below, in smaller letters, Please open on your twentyfirst birthday.

  It took her a moment to realize what it was. Jessie placed the letter on the mattress and stared at it, a mixture of emotions flooding through her. When would she have written it? she wondered. And why didn’t my grandmother tell me? But the answer to that was obvious. Her grandmother surely had never intended to reveal it.

  Jessie began to open it, placing her thumb in the tiny crevice of the corner, but stopped. She was desperate to read it but nervous. Closing her eyes, she squeezed out the tears that seemed so close to the surface. It wasn’t the right place or the right time to read this special note from her deceased mother.

  She heard distant footsteps. Standing quickly, she slipped the letter into her pocket and considered her next course of action. Her first reaction was to hide in the closet. But no … she would finally face the music. She removed the letter and held it in her hands, suddenly emboldened by her growing anger. Waiting, she stood still as a rock.

  When Grandmother opened the door, she walked several steps into the room before realizing Jessie was standing there. “Oh, Jessica … I didn’t expect to find you …”

  Jessie placed the envelope on the bedspread in front of her grandmother. “You had no right,” she whispered.

  Grandmother frowned and her head jutted back in confusion. But when she looked down at the letter, recognition crossed her features. “Jessica—”

  “When were you going to tell me?”

  “I-I … forgot,” she sputtered.

  “This doesn’t belong to you,” Jessie said, her words measured and careful.

  The older woman had the look of someone who’d been ambushed, and it wasn’t until now that Jessie realized her grandmother was holding an envelope of her own. “Jessica, please …”

  “Why did you buy our house?”

  Another look of confusion. “You don’t understand—”

  “How could I?” Jessie shot back. “You’ve taken away everything that ever belonged to me. First you stole my mother—”

  “Oh no, Jes—” Her grandmother looked horrified. She put her hand to her mouth. “Your mother is …” And then she stopped.

  “Your mother was …” She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, her
face contorted with the effort. She began speaking before she opened them again. “You left … so suddenly, Jessica. I never had time to explain.” Her breathing was labored. “I never intended for … but … I’m so sorry… .”

  Jessie glimpsed movement from the doorway. Bill had come upstairs and now appeared shaken by what he was encountering. Grandmother turned and noticed him standing there.

  “It’s too late for ‘sorry,’ ” Jessie replied stonily. “I’m leaving tomorrow. I won’t be back.”

  Her grandmother flinched but didn’t reply. Bill opened his palms, a conciliatory gesture. “Jessie …”

  “Don’t …” she warned.

  Bill stopped and licked his lips as if reconsidering his approach. He turned to her grandmother and their eyes met. An unspoken communication passed between them, and it seemed as if her grandmother said no with her eyes. He nodded slightly.

  More secrets, Jessie thought angrily.

  She grabbed her mother’s letter from the bed and began walking past her grandmother. Bill stepped back to allow her to pass, but when she reached the hallway, he called to her. She turned quickly, preparing another retort, and saw the brown envelope in his hands.

  “You were asking about this,” he said. He extended the envelope, the one Grandmother had been holding.

  Jessie took it from him, avoiding his eyes, and strode to her room. She grabbed her keys off the dresser and stormed down the hallway. At the bottom of the steps she ran outside, and by the time she reached her car, she was shaking. She opened the car door and slipped inside but could barely put the key into the ignition her hands were trembling so. Tears blinded her vision.

  That was not how she had ever imagined a confrontation with Grandmother. The poor woman had wilted before her eyes.

  When Jessie pulled away from the curb, her tears came in torrents and guilt flooded her soul.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  JESSIE OPENED THE BROWN ENVELOPE at the stoplight. It was her mother’s death certificate, just as she had suspected—handwritten and faded. What was the point of going to the library now? Here it was—proof of her mother’s death.

  In the moments before the light turned green, she pondered her next stop. She checked the time. Almost two o’clock. She had three hours before Andy planned to pick her up for dinner.

  I’ll study this at the library, she decided, glancing at her mother’s letter, which rested on the passenger seat. The confrontation with her grandmother still echoed in her ears, including her cryptic half statement: “Your mother is …” Present tense.

  Jessie wasn’t the only person living in the past. In their own ways, neither of them had accepted the reality of her mother’s death.

  Jessie touched the letter, noticing the residual scent of Charlie—something she hadn’t noticed before because the entire room had smelled of the fragrance. Either the letter had been sprayed with the cologne or it had absorbed the scent of the room. She traced her mom’s handwriting with her fingers. Mom had still been alive when she’d written this letter. And, for a moment, Jessie felt as if she were still here….

  “My mother is dead,” she whispered. But those words never sounded emptier—not empty in the sense of sadness, but empty in the sense that the whole of her being still couldn’t say them and truly believe. “My mother is alive,” Jessie whispered next, and the statement felt true. Maybe Brandon was right, she thought, her spirits sinking. Maybe I need help.

  She steeled herself again. No. I’m okay, she thought, squeezing her eyes shut. I’ve come a long way since Friday.

  The traffic light turned green. I can do this… .

  Doris sat on her garden bench on the stone patio with colorful petunias and daisies all around. She looked out at the gazebo. The backyard was so peaceful and quiet, inhabited by finches and blue jays, surrounded by large, healthy trees. At the edges of her private paradise, the tall cedar fence eliminated all visibility.

  In the midst of the city she felt totally protected, separated from any sense of connection to the hustle and bustle of modern life. The yard was like a miniature Garden of Eden and yet, in spite of the calming beauty, in the midst of her well-planned environment, her world was falling apart.

  “Hi Mommy, I brought you some flowers,” little Olivia had once said when she came home from school. Doris had reprimanded Olivia for picking them, reducing her sweet little girl to tears.

  “If only I could have it all back,” Doris whispered to the memory.

  Her mind was a jumble of emotions. She’d always had the best of intentions, but she’d learned years ago that good motives don’t protect you from terrible mistakes.

  “You stole my mother,” Jessie had said and it was true. Doris had lived with the guilt of that. At times, she thought she had effectively submerged it below everything, buried it so deep within her it would never haunt her again. But it came up anyway, like the weeds in her garden.

  She had to keep culling her garden of regret, but while a few flowers grew to obscure the weeds, the soil of her life’s garden was basically corrupt. Staying ahead required exhausting vigilance, pulling them out one by one, but the guilt was never far away. There wasn’t enough clamor of life, enough busyness, to cover her pain.

  “You stole my mother.”

  She’d rehearsed it often in her mind, telling herself that she’d made the right decision. Surely, there had been no other decision to make. But the guilt of it all was nearly destroying her. And memories of the past were obviously ruining her granddaughter’s life.

  She sighed deeply, as if to exhale the pain, but it couldn’t be released that easily. Doris held her chest and her breathing was labored again.

  Olivia had once said, “Mom, no matter what happened when I was a child, I forgive you.”

  Doris had answered flippantly, “Livvy, please …”

  Olivia had discarded her religious roots and gone radical. She’d become a “born again” Christian. “I know you were doing the best you could,” Olivia had said.

  Doris had wept later, just as she did now. Sometimes she still stood in her daughter’s room and closed her eyes, and little Livvy was back again. Doris clearly remembered the little-girl voice: “Mom, look what I painted.” Life was still full of possibilities. Redemption was in reach.

  But nothing could erase that dreadful Tuesday. The people at the mental health center had called her in the morning. She’d known the moment the phone rang but refused to answer. Maria had been the one to finally pick up the phone.

  “Do we have the right number for Olivia Lehman’s family?” they’d asked her.

  “That’s correct,” Maria had answered, her voice breaking.

  They aren’t even sure of our number, Doris remembered thinking later.

  She was still sitting on her bench when Bill strolled out, his eyes worried. “You okay?”

  “I need to be alone.”

  He thumbed toward the house. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

  She nodded absently. He ambled back in, and her mind wandered off again.

  I’ve lost her, she realized. For the past decade she’d wanted to repair her relationship with Jessica, but in the end, she simply wasn’t capable of it. She thought of Bill, realizing how much she depended on him, and she wondered for the life of her what she would do if he ever left. And yet, how can I blame him?

  If he knew the truth about her, the whole truth, life as she knew it would be finished in a heartbeat. And yet … would that be so bad?

  Bill was at her side again. “Dory, please. Come inside.” He put his hand under her elbow, and this time she allowed herself to be led inside.

  “I’ve lost her, Bill.”

  He put his strong arm about her. “Everything will be fine.”

  “No, Bill. Nothing has ever been fine.”

  Jessie entered the silent world of bookshelves. Students sat in study cubicles; old men sat on couches reading newspapers from far away. At the front desk she asked for a letter opener. She found
a row of study cubicles, each containing a computer. Most were occupied, but one was empty. She sat next to a couple of college girls, giggling as they typed.

  Removing her mother’s letter—it was only one page—Jessie braced herself and began reading….

  My dear Jessica,

  If you’re reading this, then know I’m looking down on you bursting with pride at the wonderful young woman I’ve always known you would become… .

  Jessie closed the letter, unable to read any more. She held it in front of her so it wouldn’t become spotted with tears. Taking deep breaths, she exhaled slowly.

  She buried the letter within her shirt, then picked up the death certificate again, analyzing the details, as if she might actually sear the truth into her mind. The certificate included name, date of birth, social security number, level of education, last known residence, certifying physician, place of death—including the room number—time of death, and cause of death—in this case: dementia—and a plethora of other seemingly insignificant cold facts. Nothing about what a wonderful mother she had been. No space for the details that really mattered.

  Jessie studied the document for a while longer, noticing that several lines were left blank, including cemetery/crematory and method of disposition. So much for checking the funeral home, she thought.

  Actually, the whole thing seemed fishy. Why was the death certificate handwritten anyway?

  Imagination working overtime, she thought.

  She glanced at the computer. I’m here now, she thought, connecting to the Internet and typing in the El Paso County Department of Health and Environment Web site from Andy’s list. When the site loaded she clicked on Birth and Death Records and read the instructions. It offered hoop-jumping details for obtaining a death certificate, which Jessie didn’t need anymore. She wanted simple verification of this one—the one Bill had given her.