House of Cry

by Linda Bleser

  I turned my back on the sad coffin and walked toward Maya, noticing again how few people were here to give their respects: my sister and father, as well as a few coworkers from the bar. The lack of mourners was in stark contrast to all the friends surrounding me when I’d been married to Bob. Only now did I realize how barren my life had become, how few people I’d let inside.

  If I had another chance at life, I’d change that. I’d reach out and be a friend to others, and accept their friendship in return. I wouldn’t push away people who mattered for a past that no longer did. I’d come out of my lonely shell and experience everything this wondrous life had to offer. If only I had another chance.

  I noticed Diane standing in the doorway. She started to come inside, then stopped and shook her head, sadness and regret etched across her face. I reached out, knowing I couldn’t touch her. She turned and walked away. It was too late. I’d never be able to apologize or renew our friendship. She’d spend the rest of her life wondering why I’d betrayed our friendship when she’d needed me most.

  Cassie’s voice drew my attention. I turned and saw her addressing the room. “This is one of my mother’s poems,” she said. “Jenna had it in her hand when she died, so it must have been important to her.”

  I closed my eyes, knowing exactly what poem she was going to read.

  It was too much. I’d been through so much, only to find myself in the place where I always feared I’d end up. I found my way to the row of seats where Maya waited. I sat beside her, ashamed to meet her gaze. “I failed,” I murmured.

  She reached out and closed her hand over mine. “There is no failure, only branches that have been prematurely pruned and some that have withered and died. But there are other branches that will spread out and reach full maturity.”

  “What happens when they’re all dead?”

  She tipped her head and gave me a mysterious smile. “Then you have a full life spectrum to look back on. Every choice, every single outcome will have been experienced. There would be no regrets and no road left untraveled.”

  “But why don’t I remember them all now?”

  “You could if you tried hard enough. But your brain has been taught to follow memories in a linear path rather than a circular one.”

  I nodded. She was simply confirming everything I’d come to understand. Our lives consist of every choice ever made. Success and failure exist simultaneously, and we live with the consequences of both choices.

  I thought back to my conversation with Lorelei and realized I’d been wrong to imply there was only one end to turning your life around. Death didn’t necessarily mean it was too late. Even if we were stupid enough to try to end our lives, we still would have a second chance to get it right. That wasn’t true only for myself, but for my mother as well. We don’t lose people; they are simply moving along parallel paths.

  “I don’t care about the other choices,” I said, my voice quivering. “I just want to get back to the life I remember living. There’s so much more I understand now. So much more I want to do.” I glanced back at my sister. “I want to keep the promise I made to Cassie. I swore I’d never leave her.”

  I was embarrassed by the whine in my voice. If being dead hadn’t taught me a lesson, then nothing would. I straightened my spine. “I have to get back to the secret room somehow. I have to find my way back.”

  “You don’t need the house or the secret room,” Maya said. “They were simply symbols that allowed your mind to travel in a nonlinear fashion. The power was inside you all along.”

  I glanced at Cassie, not surprised to see the old figurine clutched in her hand. “Like Dorothy?”

  Maya nodded.

  “So what do I do now? Click my heels and repeat, ‘There’s no place like home’?”

  “You could,” she said. “Or you could simply close your eyes, concentrate, feel the flow of your life, and choose the path where you want to be.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Try it.”

  I closed my eyes and took a slow, deep breath. I tried to relax, but felt my concentration being pulled in different directions. My mind jumped from one idea to the next. The harder I tried to find my way home, the more it eluded me.

  I opened my eyes, about to ask Maya for more guidance, but she was gone. Everyone was gone. The room was empty. Shadows were forming in the corners, lifting and spreading and threatening to overtake the entire room. I knew I had to leave now.

  I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and let go as I exhaled. I stopped fighting and let myself sink deeper and deeper, letting go a little more with each breath. I stopped struggling, and as soon as I stopped trying to find it, the magic found me. I felt my consciousness pulled and lifted, setting me adrift along the flowing life stream.

  A voice whispered through my consciousness. It might have been my own but seemed to come from a different place, farther back and to the right. It’s time to go deep, time to find the secret room inside you, always so tantalizing and just out of reach. Delve deep. Open your mind. Listen with your heart and embrace the knowledge.

  I had no sense of time or place, only a vast, infinite space. The temptation to simply let go and float forever was so great I almost forgot my mission—to get back to Cassie and the timeline in which I belonged. I had to resist the siren call of this infinite in-between and find my way back to Cassie. I focused on the sound of her voice, her sweet smile. Over and over I repeated the promise I’d made, holding the promise tight like a lifeline. “I’ll never leave you, Cassie. I’ll never leave you all alonely.”

  When I opened my eyes, I was in my own bedroom. Everything slipped into place, like pieces of a puzzle. I didn’t have to ask. I knew I was home.

  My heart swelled with gratitude. Although I’d tried to make things right in other timelines, this was where I truly belonged. My life wasn’t perfect, but it fit me comfortably, like a well-worn pair of slippers. This was where I had things to do: apologies to make and promises to keep.

  The room was the same as I’d left it but with subtle differences, as if a thoughtful houseguest had used it temporarily and put it back almost exactly the same. A notebook lay open on the table—brand new, pristine, and seductive. I brushed my fingers across the smooth surface.

  I’d always blamed writing for my mother’s breakdown. It was as if the words were cancer cells rapidly multiplying into deadly tumors. I could see now that her dark poetry was a symptom rather than the cause of her depression.

  There was no need for me to fear the blank pages spread out before me. Writing couldn’t hurt me. It certainly couldn’t kill me. If anything, it just might save me.

  I started slowly, hesitantly. One simple word followed by another, soon gaining speed until they began tumbling one after another in a slanting, downhill avalanche. I wrote about everything I could remember up to finding the House of Cry. Then I wrote about everything that had happened since. I didn’t want to forget a single thing.

  My childhood home was a place of bricks and dreams and long hallways to nowhere. A place where memories fell softly around fragile shoulders in billowing waves of sadness. Alone. Alone with my thoughts, alone with my shattered dreams, alone with my blood-spattered grief. Eventually I found myself recovering from a breakdown in comfort and solitude. And then I lost myself completely, one slender branch pruned before it could fully blossom.

  What I learned most of all is that the journey is inside us. To fully live our lives, we have to follow every conceivable path, experience the outcome of each choice, the here and not-here, the now and not-now. Each choice has its own destination, from beginning to end, and each choice has a lesson to be learned. This is the path I choose. I know that the memories will fade, and soon the other realities will feel like a dream, but the lessons I’ve learned will stay with me always. It doesn’t matter which path we find ourselves walking, for they all lead to the same place—a life fully lived, with every opportunity experienced and every doorway opened and explored.

&
nbsp; As it turns out, I was never really lost. I know there are other realities where my life is different, but this is the one I chose to be conscious. This is the one where I’m needed and where I need to be.

  The Doorway to Everwhen lies within each one of us.

  I don’t know exactly when I started crying. By the time I noticed the ink running with tears, my cheeks were wet, my eyes swollen. They were painless tears, however. Cleansing tears.

  19

  My keys were hanging by the door, where I always kept them. Who knew I’d be so happy to see something as simple as my own car keys? I jumped in the car and drove to the one place I needed to see with my own eyes before I could be sure I was back where I belonged.

  I made my way to the House of Cry, nearly weeping with joy when I saw it standing undamaged and whole right where I remembered. It was unoccupied but hardly felt empty. If anything, it seemed to be brimming with life. It wore the fading sunlight like a soft cloak, glowing with promise. The only thing missing from this picture was me.

  The for-sale sign leaned crookedly along the tree-lined path. My heart skipped a beat when I saw Bob’s picture in the corner above the realtor’s logo. The house wouldn’t be on the market for long. The house, like Bob, was meant to be mine, and I’d do whatever I needed to make sure it happened.

  I wrapped my arms around myself and twirled like a schoolgirl. Everything was going to be all right. No, not just all right. It was going to be wonderful. I stretched my arms out and raised my face to the sky. The setting sun painted the sky in shades of sherbet. Branches touched and intertwined, forming a living canopy overhead.

  Buying the house was only one of the many things on my mental to-do list. I intended to keep my promise to Cassie and let her know I’d never let her down. I’d find Parker and make him part of our lives. I’d make amends with Diane before it was too late. Most of all, I’d take the initiative and ask Bob out on a date. He had no idea that he was about to find his soul mate.

  I had one more stop to make before then, however.

  *

  There’s a moment just before dusk when the light angles just right, shimmering through the air and turning colors into a surreal tableau somehow brighter, more vivid, more alive, like an alternate universe seen through a fragile curtain laid over our own. It’s a teasing light, taunting us with the knowledge that no matter how perfect our reality, there’s something waiting just beyond our visions, forever out of reach and only glimpsed by accident.

  I made my way through the cemetery, seeing the graves with a new sense of understanding. Philosophers, theologians, scientists, and mathematicians all try to make it so complicated, when the answer is simplicity itself. We are, we were, we always will be. Every choice exists and every possibility is experienced until the final branch is pruned.

  I stopped at the weeping angel monument. Every time I’d passed this spot I’d been overcome by the sense of loss for a life cut tragically short. Now I smiled knowing that little Addie Rose lived on in a myriad of alternate realities. She’d live and laugh and love over many lifetimes.

  I moved on and stepped reverently toward my mother’s grave. The poignant notes and messages left behind filled me with hope rather than sadness. My mother’s life hadn’t been wasted. Even in death she managed to touch and inspire people. I felt a sense of peace knowing that she lived on, both here and in other worlds.

  I knelt on the ground. “I miss you, Mom,” I said, remembering both the woman my childhood memory had colored with black crayons and the one brimming with light whom I’d known for only a short while. “I miss the woman you were and the woman you could have been,” I said.

  I traced her name on the cool stone, Marjorie Parker Hall, focusing long and hard on her middle name. “I’ll find him again,” I promised her. “I’ll find Parker and make him part of our family. We’ll all be together, just like you wanted.”

  I bent my head in prayer, noticing the paper fluttering beneath a rock. I knew even before reading it what I’d find. It was my mother’s poem. I read it again with a new understanding, hearing my sister’s voice as she read the poignant lines at my funeral.

  HOUSE OF CRY

  From six pounds of squalling meat

  To six pounds of stone-cold ash

  How do you measure a man’s life between

  Do you count the people he loved

  Or those who loved him in return

  Is it measured in kisses or tears

  By peace or pain or candle prayers

  Is it valued for the lives touched along the way

  Or nothing more than the measure of time

  Lived and died in the House of Cry

  The words spoke to me now in a way they hadn’t before. I felt closer to my mother, with a better understanding of her pain and sorrow, her hopes and dreams. Had she made this same journey through the House of Cry? If so, had it finally brought her the peace and understanding she craved? Had she seen me grow to womanhood, cradled her grandchildren, and found new loves along each path?

  I placed the poem back beneath the rock. Maybe it would hold meaning for someone else who traveled this way.

  My reverie was broken by a familiar voice.

  “I was wondering when you’d get here.”

  It was Maya, but she was nowhere in sight. The voice came from somewhere inside me. I smiled with understanding. She’d given me the clues, hadn’t she? I simply hadn’t understood at the time.

  Like the secret room, Maya was simply a physical manifestation of my higher consciousness, the voice that lived inside my own mind. All I had to do was listen with an open heart, and she’d be there whenever I needed her guidance.

  “I’m here now,” I whispered to the wind. And I was, finally. Fully and completely here. “Thank you.”

  I knew this part of my journey was over. I’d seen my life through a series of choices and realized that I couldn’t blame anyone else for my own sadness—not my mother, my father, my sister or brother. I was the only one responsible for my unhappiness.

  That realization should have been depressing, but it wasn’t. If the only person to blame for my unhappiness was me, then conversely I was the one person who could change it. I had the power to choose whether to be happy or to dwell in misery. I controlled my own destiny.

  I knew that the rest of the journey was still ahead of me. There would be times when I stumbled along the way. Life was full of choices—some right, some wrong—but there’s something to be learned from each of them.

  I pressed a kiss to the cool stone, saying my final goodbye. My days of mourning were over. From now on I’d make the most of each day and enjoy it to the fullest.

  I stood with new determination to make my life the best it could be. Before I could turn from my mother’s grave, however, a new voice broke the silence, one I recognized like my own.

  “Here you are.”

  Cassie. My heart leaped. As I turned to hug her, my mind journeyed back to that long-ago day when she’d found me here at the cemetery and said those exact same words. But the person I was today was so different from the one she’d found here then.

  I wrapped my arms around her and held her close. I couldn’t help the words that tumbled out of my mouth as I held her tight. “Oh, Cassie, I’ve missed you so much.”

  She held my hug for a beat longer than expected before pulling away. “Yeah, because dinner last night was so long ago.” She rolled her eyes. “What’s up with you? You’ve been acting strange the last few weeks.”

  “I have?”

  “Well, stranger than normal.”

  The smile seemed to start at my toes and work its way through my entire body. Now I knew I was home.

  “I have so much to tell you,” I said. I wasn’t sure how much of my story I’d tell Cassie. Maybe the changes she saw in me would be enough, regardless of how or why I got there.

  She took my hand. “Well, you can tell me on the way to the realtor’s office. We’re going to be late.”

&
nbsp; “Late?”

  “Yeah, we’re making an offer on the house today. Did you forget?”

  I shook my head, realizing that everything was falling into place exactly as it was meant to be. “No, I didn’t forget. I just lost track of time.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to touch up your makeup?” Cassie asked, giving me a light jab. “Bob is going to be there, and I’ve seen the way you two have been looking at each other.”

  I felt a warm flush creep to my cheeks. I couldn’t wait to see him, but I knew if we hadn’t initially met that day at the House of Cry, we’d have run into each other somewhere else. Nothing is predestined, but opportunities show up every day. It’s simply a matter of choosing whether or not to take advantage of them.

  “I’ll touch up my makeup in the car.”

  We stood side by side. I glanced back one more time at my mother’s grave, feeling a sense of peace. I wanted to tell her that everything was going to be all right, but I knew that on some level she already knew.

  “Bob’s pretty sure they’ll accept our offer,” Cassie said.

  “They’ll accept,” I assured her. “The House of Cry was meant to be ours.”

  “House of what?”

  I almost repeated myself but stopped. Somehow the phrase no longer fit. There would be no tears here, only happiness. The House of Cry, like the lessons I’d learned along the way, was part of my past now. From this moment forward, I’d move toward the future.

  “Are you coming?” Cassie asked.

  “Yeah,” I said, reaching into my pocket and feeling the items I’d brought from the house. “I just have to do one more thing. Wait for me in the car, okay?”

  She gave me an unreadable look, then turned and walked away.

  I knelt down and dug a channel in the dirt at the head of my mother’s grave. “In the graveyard where they belong, Mom,” I whispered, then placed a black crayon into the shallow depression. I swept a handful of dirt over the top and patted it gently, burying all the darkness I’d been hanging onto most of my life.