Sleeping Awake

by Noelle, Gamali

  She pinched my nose. “I also felt an uncontrollable urge to run into his arms…”

  “Please tell me that you did not,” I said, sitting up.

  “No,” Maman replied, slowly shaking her head. “I cried instead.”

  Cienna rolled her eyes. “He’s a real rain man, isn’t he?”

  For the first time since my fight with Camelea, Maman laughed. She laughed so much that tears began to run down her face and she had to hold the edge of the table to steady herself. Despite my efforts to resist the urge, I began to laugh as well. Soon, we were clinging to each other and I could no longer tell whether the tears belonged to her or me. It felt good.

  Cienna pushed her chair closer to Maman’s and snuggled into her chest. Underneath the Number 5, I could smell the faintest waft of the lavender shampoo that Maman used. I sighed.

  “I don’t want you to die,” I whispered.

  “Neither do I,” Maman replied, kissing my forehead. “But if I go, I won’t be happy knowing that there is still a rift between you girls and Philippe.”

  Cienna sighed again. “Maman, how can you expect me to get over what he did?”

  I sat up and turned towards her. “I’d like to know the same. It was easy for you, because you were in love with him. It’s not the same for me.”

  “But it wasn’t easy,” Maman contested, taking my hand. I struggled not to look away as she looked into my eyes, imploring me to believe her. “I won’t get into the details, but it was very hard. I struggled to the point of self-torment over whether or not I should allow myself to believe him when he said that he regretted what he had done and wanted to start over. He stayed away out of shame and because he thought that he didn’t deserve a second chance. I also had to think about you girls and what you would think of me. I didn’t want you to think that I had betrayed you.”

  Had the situation not been so sad, I would have laughed. I had in fact thought that she had betrayed us. I knew that Cienna had felt the same way.

  “What made you decide to believe him?” I asked.

  “I woke up one day and realised that I had two choices. I could either hold on to the past and let it define me, or I could move on and hope for the best.”

  I didn’t reply. Instead, I leaned over, kissed her cheek and got up to wash the dishes. I wasn’t sure if I could take the same stance on the matter as Maman had. She was in love with Philippe and had never gotten over it; I had let my anger at being abandoned fester and consume my life so much that I could no longer remember a time when I wasn’t either upset or miserable. Maman came over to the sink when I was putting away the last dish.

  “I’m going to run a few errands,” she said. She pulled me closer and kissed my cheek. “I should be back in time for dinner.”

  “I’ll be here,” I whispered. I didn’t bother to ask where she was going.

  I thought about calling Bryn, but that would have meant discussing Nicolaas. As much as I missed him, I wasn’t ready for that. I decided to clean my room. I cranked up the volume on my stereo and began dusting the furniture.

  I sang along as Alanis Morissette sang about everyone making up for things a little too late. She was right. Philippe only got the courage to show up when Maman was dying. Maman knew where he was, and yet only called him to get him involved in our lives once it seemed as if she’d be exiting stage left. I pushed Nicolaas away when he finally told me that he loved me. He, who knew my flaws and still found perfection; he loved me. Was it too late? Bryn claimed that it wasn’t, but what did he know? Who was he to give advice when he had his own mess to clean up?

  Maman wanted me to be nicer to Philippe? Fine. I’d be civil to the bastard. I was tired of letting my anger at what he did control my life. I played “Forgiven” on repeat and screamed along as I bailed ship. I had no anger left in my veins, no energy left to lash out and let him know what I thought of him, and my tears were all dried up. I felt as if I’d been sleeping awake. Once I decided to absolve Philippe from his sins, I became lucid.

  When I was completely satisfied that there was no possible way for a dust mite to have survived my attack with the duster, I vacuumed the carpet. By that time that I was finished, I was on a roll. We’d been gone for well over four weeks, and I hadn’t changed my bedspread. I was on my way down to the laundry room, Alanis Morisette blasting my declaration of independence into the hallway, when I heard the front door open.

  Not surprisingly, Philippe stood in the doorway. Cienna rounded the corner. I stopped shy of being in their view and waited to see what would happen.

  “You’ve got keys to the house?” she observed.

  He had absolutely no remorse on his face as he looked her in the eye and replied, “Yes.”

  “It’s you,” she said.

  He closed the door and turned towards her. “I beg your pardon?”

  “It’s you,” Cienna repeated. Her voice seemed to rise higher with the strength of her conviction. “You’re why all of this has happened.”

  Philippe’s shoulders hunched as he rubbed his exhausted eyes. “What are you talking about, Cienna?”

  “I don’t care if you’re tired. I’m tired as well. Noira hates herself, did you know that?” Cienna continued. “She doesn’t think that she deserves love. She pushes us all away and likes to pretend that she doesn’t need anyone, but I think that she’s scared to need us. I don’t even think that she knows how to love.”

  “Cienna.” Philippe took a step forward, as I sank to the floor under the gravity of Cienna’s words. Though I knew that she was right, hearing that someone else had been in on my secret made me realise how foolish I was to think that I and I alone was invincible and in control.

  Cienna backed away from him. It was as if she was a leaky pipe that could hold no more—everything was spewing out. “And Camelea … She won’t admit it, but she has abandonment issues. That thing that she does with the boys, it’s because she runs in the direction of any form of attention. She strives for perfection so that people will notice her, and yet she does everything that she can to blend in so that you won’t notice her. It’s because she’s scared that people won’t like the real her; she’s like a chameleon...You turned her into a chameleon.”

  “Cienna, listen to me.”

  “Don’t you touch me!” She slapped his hand away. “Don’t you come near me, Philippe Saint Clair. I hate you, do you hear me? You are the literal contents of a cesspool!”

  He froze.

  “I’m angry all the time. I’m so fucking angry, and it’s because of you!”

  I could see the tears welling in Philippe’s eyes.

  “Why didn’t you stay?” Cienna continued. “You could have told Grand-mère to go to hell and fought for us. Everyone is screwed up because of you, and I hate you for that! There is a perfectly sane guy, who for some reason, puts up with my shit, and I’m scared to like him, because I’m waiting for time to run out and for him to leave like you did! You were entrusted with my heart and you ripped it out and smashed it into a million pieces. And then you have the gall to come here and expect me to just receive you with open arms! How dare you?!”

  Cienna kicked the end table as she finished. The vase that was on it crashed to the floor. She began to scream. The years of frustration and deep, resounding pain came rushing out of her and into the open where they belonged. Had I not been crying, I would have screamed along with her.

  Philippe closed the gap between them and suddenly, Cienna was in his arms. It had been eleven years since I’d seen them in that position. She tried to push him away, but he held on, stuck to her like sap.

  “Désolé,” he murmured. He brushed away her hair and kissed her forehead. She didn’t push him away again. “Je suis très, très, très désolé.”

  I was sorry as well. Sorry that life hadn’t been the fairytale that I’d imagined. Sorry for Cienna, and for Camelea and for Maman. And so very sorry that I was no longer one of daddy’s little girls. He took her away when he left, and she would n
ever come back.

  “Je suis tellement désolé.”

  I sensed that he knew all along that he’d lost us. I wondered if it tore him up at night knowing that his relationship with us would never be the same. Knowing that if he’d only done what was right, everything would have been fine and we would have never gotten to this point. Maman would still have gotten cancer, but everything else would have been different.

  “Désolé,” he murmured for the last time.

  Cienna pulled away. He stumbled a bit as she struggled to get out of his grip. He looked so innocent, like a little boy. For the first time, I saw him for what he really was; a scared little boy who didn’t know any better at the time and still didn’t know what to do in order to repair the damage that he’d done. I decided to hold his hand and help him.

  “Stop crying,” Cienna whispered, demanded really.

  The sniffling stopped; he looked as miserable as a man who’d been to Hell and back.

  “I accept you,” Cienna said.

  “What?”

  “I don’t forgive you, but I accept you for the person you are and the amends that you’re trying to make.”

  As I had done earlier, Cienna finally released herself from the burden of hate.

  After a moment, he nodded. “Je comprends.”

  With trembling hands, she wiped away the tears from his stained cheeks and leaned forward. She kissed his cheek.

  “Je t’aimerai toujours,” he said.

  “Je sais,” she replied.

  As foolish as he was, my father still loved her…loved us. As he said, he’d love her forever. I wondered if we’d ever get to a place where we could coexist without being plagued by the shadows of the memories of our mistakes. The pain of what he did wasn’t gone, but in that moment, I knew that I could start to forgive him.

  I went back to my bedroom and opened the bedside table. Gently, I opened the gold box and removed the necklace. The heart-shaped pendant was ice cold against my skin. I closed my eyes, remembering Nicolaas walking away from me time and time again. He always came back. It had been almost three weeks. He hadn’t called, emailed or texted me. Bryn insisted that there was still a possibility, but I wasn’t sure if that was the case. I held on to the pendant knowing that when my heart stopped, Nicolaas would be the first to know.

  **~*~*~**~*~*~**

  ¯CHAPITRE QUINZE¯

  ORIGIN OF LOVE

  There used to be a Japanese cherry tree by my bedroom window. In the spring, the pink flowers blossomed. I liked to pretend that I was in an enchanted forest as the pink rained from the sky and set the ground on fire. The tree was my favourite in our garden.

  One weekend, Bryn and I went to Martha’s Vineyard with his mother and grandmother. When I returned, my tree was gone. On the outside, it had looked healthy, but in reality, it was marred, eaten alive by a fungus that had gone undetected. There was no way to save it.

  Maman was going to die; the treatment in Switzerland had done nothing for her cancer. The doctors had predicted two months before she would be gone.

  I wasn’t going to cry. Crying was exhausting, and my eyes stung after a while. I didn't need any more pain than the one that I was feeling. Outside, the faintest breeze blew and the trees sighed. By the same time the following week, I wouldn’t be able to appreciate the beauty of Maman’s work in our garden. She had wasted no time in preparing a list of things to do before she died. The first thing on the countdown to death was to visit Jamaica, the place that she loved most. Next, we’d be on a one-way flight to Paris, where Maman planned to draw her last breath.

  Our God really was an awesome God. He giveth and He taketh with absolutely no regard for the feelings of others and how they would survive without their loved ones.

  *~*

  I stood in the parlour of Bryn’s house waiting for him to tell me that it was all a joke. He hadn’t lied to get me out of my house that night.

  “I decided to give you a few days to get over yourself,” he’d said when I answered my phone. “You know that I would never really abandon you.”

  I’d smiled, so relieved that I still had my best friend. I didn’t notice that his voice had taken on the casual tone that it usually had whenever he tried to lie.

  “Come over to my house and let’s makeup,” he said. “It’ll just be the two of us.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  Bryn was all smiles when he answered the door. I let him lead me to the parlour. As Nicolaas’ eyes went wide in an alarm that replicated mine, I knew that the both of us had been deceived.

  “You two need to make up,” Bryn announced. He then proceeded to grab a bottle of wine.

  I stood in the entryway, paralyzed by my fear. I wasn’t sure what Nicolaas thought as he watched me unashamedly watching him. He had an amazing gift of deciphering my emotions and masking his from me. It was an unfair advantage that I could do nothing about.

  “Noira get over here and stop acting as if you left your brain behind you in the car!” Bryn barked. “Now who’s in the mood for some music?” Bryn asked. Without anyone replying, he turned a remote towards the surround sound system. Astrud Gilberto began swooning about the gentle rain. There was a torrential downpour in my stomach as I took a sip of my water.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake! Do I have to tell you everything? Go and sit Noira.” Bryn waived me away like an annoying fly.

  I knew where he wanted me to sit, but I sat on the other end of the couch. Even with the distance between us, I could still feel the heat radiating from Nicolaas’ skin, beckoning me over to bask in his warmth. I took another sip. Whoever said that cold water was good for lowering body temperatures was a blasted liar.

  Bryn went over to the bookshelf and took up a book. Low and behold, there were no pages, just neatly rolled joints waiting to be smoked.

  “I figure that it would help with the tension, you know?” Bryn announced, passing one to Nicolaas.

  “I didn’t know that you smoked,” I commented, watching as Nicolaas lit up.

  He took his time puffing away and making circles that any stoner would envy as he exhaled. “There’s a lot that we don’t know about each other.”

  It was as if he had punched me and broken a rib. I closed my eyes as I tried to ignore the pain.

  “Now, now.” Bryn waved his finger at Nicolaas. “Let’s play nice.”

  Nicolaas took another pull and handed it to me. “Tiens.”

  I took my time running my lips over it, absorbing what little of Nicolaas had remained. Between us, we smoked three joints and Nicolaas and Bryn consumed two bottles of wine while I stuck to water. The more that I smoked was the more beautiful that Nicolaas looked to me until finally, I pulled him off the couch and asked him to dance as “Fly Me to the Moon” started to play.

  “Dance the tango of love!” Bryn shouted, falling backwards. Red wine replaced white linen on the chaise.

  “That’s going to leave a mark,” I observed.

  “Oh well,” Bryn said, struggling to sit up. “Toss the fucking thing. I don’t know who told Nina to have a ‘white room.’ She knows the kind of son that she has.”

  “Do you know how beautiful you are?” I asked Nicolaas, looking up at him.

  “How?” he replied, dipping me.

  “You are exquisite.” I pressed myself firmly against him. “You should be a sculpture, moulded out of the finest clay and naked in all your breath-taking glory.”

  “Really?” he murmured. His lips pressed against my neck and lingered for a bit. His breath against my face made me flushed.

  “Mais si,” I replied. “And they shouldn’t put you in a museum either.”

  “Non?”

  “Non.” I leaned my head back so that he could kiss my shoulder.

  “Is that a moan I hear?” Bryn asked, sitting up with a look of intrigue on his face.

  Guilty.

  “They should sell you to me so that I could look at you and touch you whenever I want to,” I continued.


  “You can look at me and touch me right now,” Nicolaas replied.

  I took his hand, and I started walking.

  “Where are you two going?” Bryn called.

  “He’s mine,” I replied. “I’m going to look at him and touch him for as long as I want to.”

  “Use a condom,” Bryn called. “I don’t want any grandchildren.”

  I didn’t realised how much I had missed Nicolaas until he took me into his arms. It was as if I was finally resurfacing from a long period of time spent underground. He felt the same way as well. I could feel it in the way that he held me, and even more in the way that he kissed me.

  “Do you trust me?” he asked, pulling away.

  “Yes.”

  “Close your eyes.”

  I did as he asked. I heard a drawer open and something slid over my face, resting on my eyes. I felt the handcuffs as he locked them around my wrists. Being unable to see, I could on only feel. His fingers and his tongue worshipped my body in more ways than one. Prayers spilled out of them as they traced the holy terrains of my most sensitive areas. The sought after fluids of my temple were thick.

  My very core filled with heat that burnt at the touch but was ever so warm and inviting. Strokes towards heaven started slowly and became more and more frenzied as the destination drew nearer.

  Hymns erupted once the precious gates were reached and utopia became genuine, no longer a figment of my imagination. But it wasn’t enough.

  “Please,” I begged.

  “Please what?” His voice was hoarse, his breath every bit as frenzied as mine.

  “I need you…”

  I wanted to lose my sanity in his arms and never regain sensibility. I yearned to cry out until I could scream no more. I longed to feel the salty sweat that glued our bodies together as we moved to the same sultry beat.

  “Please…”

  In one fluid motion, Nicolaas had entered my gates. I arched my back to take all of him in.

  Suddenly, the blindfold was off, and I was staring into Nicolaas’ eyes.