Shades of Eva (14 page)

 Mom took off her sweater and spread it
out over the cushion to cover the glass. Goosebumps grew up on her
skin, but she ignored them. I gathered my courage and sat down on
the sweater beside her and tucked myself into her side. She held on
to me tightly. We sat rocking in the silence of the room feeling
the air of River Bluff roll over us, listening to the hum of the
wind and the cars fleeting by, listening to the distant barking of
dogs and children laughing somewhere down the block. 

That night, Mom’s heart beat its
last
beat. She was but thirty-four-years-old. It’s a hard night to
recall, because the night she died in her sleep, I had fallen
asleep in her arms.

I see flashes of it all every now and then,
usually in shades of purple. I remember wrestling myself free of
her hug. It was a smothering, rigor-mortic embrace, but now what I
wouldn’t give to be caught in her arms, again, if only for a
moment. I remember trying to rouse her beneath the lavender quilt
where we had lain. I remember a purplish pool of blood that had
collected in her downside cheek, and purplish eyes that wouldn’t
open. I remember the jolt of electricity from the shock of it all;
a sensation that felt, literally, as if I’d touched a live
electrical wire. It was similar, yet more intense, to the repulsive
fury I’d felt from her the night of the Elms shooting.

I knew enough to call 911, but hadn’t the
courage to cross the room and perform something they called CPR on
her. She was so cold, and so purple, and her energy was telling me
to leave her alone. It was the last thing I remember of that house,
a memory I would like to have forgotten, but never could. Now I
can’t quite seem to remember it well enough.

***

Shadow Journal,

Entry 42 August 26, 1995

Amelia didn’t have to search for me. Her
mother just asked her to look into a few things. She didn’t ask her
to do what we ultimately did. She didn’t ask her to hurt anyone.
Amelia wanted some artwork her aunt created, and wouldn’t you know,
it was as hard, if not harder, to find that art than to find Fred
Levantle? But Amelia had nothing to lose…she’d lost almost
everything.
 

April 20, 1995

We got my things together, which weren’t
many: a wallet, keys, and bloody clothes, and found our exit from
Neah Bay General at eight o’clock that morning. I’d been blessed
with fresh bandages for my stitches, a wrap for my bruised ribs,
and a wish-you-well from the attending nurse. She also gave me a
few over-the-counter Tylenol, which I tossed into a wastebasket on
my way out the door. I had a better painkiller in a bottle back at
my cabin.

We proceeded to Amelia’s rental car. She
clicked the automatic unlock to a golden Grand Prix. We threw our
gear into its back seat, climbed in, and sped off toward the
coast.

I had agreed to return to River Bluff, but I
could have changed my mind at that point and let the whole thing
go. A part of me wishes that I had just let it go. But I couldn’t.
I didn’t. My uncle’s fortune was sitting with me like an eyelash
that tickles the eye.

This whole thing was more of an annoyance at
that point, but one laced with a hint of promise, and one I
couldn’t ignore. If I let things go, something told me that eyelash
wouldn’t fall away, that there’d be no end to the itch, save the
end as perceived by my rich, fat uncle, sipping drinks overlooking
Lake Michigan, laughing at the memory of his teary-eyed nephew who
never bothered to inquire as to how he really afforded such a
lifestyle.

Amelia and I spent the next few hours
touring along the coast and essentially breathing. Sometime around
noon, we stopped at a seaside pub called The Pearl and went
in. 

Amelia seemed to relax easily, at least more
easily than me. Her mind seemed to work opposite mine. She seemed
present, as if focusing on one thing at one time was easy for her.
She listened to me. She gave me thoughtful answers to my questions
despite my detached concern. She worked at eye contact, something
I’d never given much thought to do. And she didn’t mince words.

I was the opposite. I struggled to form a
sentence, lived in the past and worried about the future, split
between those two dimensions of time like two drifting sheets of
torn paper falling through space. Sure, I’d shed my name and moved
2500 miles away to forget, which should have been the break that
spawned my healing, but distance and things like aliases don’t seem
to bring about healing—they don’t seem to heal anything.

That was the nature of my ignorance in those
days—I wandered away to find myself and I ended up a man who lived
in two realms, seldom if ever present in either, and numb to them
both, one who’d found little but the bottom of a thousand empty
whiskey bottles in his travels.

Even in conversation with Amelia my mind
roamed to different ages. She noticed, and with the patience of a
learned teacher she waited for me to return from wherever or
whenever it was I had drifted. I returned to order a shot of
whiskey, straight up, and then another, followed by a Whiskey Sour,
and retreated to the universe of drunkenness my father had shown me
so many years ago. I intended to drink until the anxiety and the
memories Amelia seemed to stir in me all but wandered away.

But she wouldn’t allow me the pleasure.
“Mitchell?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m miles away when I
should be here with you.”

“I won’t hold it against you.”

“Why’s that?” I asked her.

“I read a book once called I Never Promised
You a Rose Garden, by Joanne Greenberg. This girl, Deborah was her
name, had an entire made-up world going on in her head: tribes,
political hierarchies, her own archaic language, economic classes.
She carried on conversations, debates, even wars, all in her
head—very complicated schemes—all entirely imagined. Her parents
ended up committing her to a state asylum, much like your mother
and my aunt were committed.”

“Was this girl dangerous or something?”

“No. That’s just it,” Amelia replied. “She
was only twelve-years-old or so. Fantasy was an adjustment she
made—a way of coping with her reality. Kind of a retreat.”

“A retreat, huh?”

“She had a tumor removed from her uterus as
a little girl,” Amelia explained, “and the surgery didn’t go so
well. She was in a lot of pain, bled a lot, got infections,
developed nightmares and insomnia, the whole ball of wax. She was
about as dangerous as a butterfly. It was a beautiful, intricate
world she created, but no one appreciated it. I’ve always found it
fascinating that some people tend to destroy the things they don’t
understand; and those who are misunderstood often try to destroy
themselves for lack of understanding. Do you understand?”

“I think so.”

 “The more they fought her, the deeper
this girl entrenched herself into this made up world.”

“Do you think that’s what I’ve done?” I
said.

“Escape?”

“Yes. Do you think I’m a coward for it?”

Amelia didn’t answer right away. “The little
girl held onto her make-believe world as a form of rebellion,”
Amelia offered. “She was strong in that sense.”

“But I’m not?”

“I think your uncle and your father beat the
make-believe out of you, Mitchell. You ran from your dreams. You
fight them. You haven’t constructed anything beautiful out
here—anything protective by running away and drinking. You’ve
created a box and you’ve climbed inside of it, but you’re sliding
down a cliff, and I’m not sure you even realize it.”

Here I thought she was comparing Neah Bay to
a rose garden. “So what is your point with this girl in the book?
She constructed a lie and wrapped herself up in it, and you call
her rebellious and brave. You call me ignorant for trying to do the
same thing?”

“It’s not the same thing,” Amelia said. “And
your mother never created an alternate reality. She held on to her
truths just like this girl hung on to her made-up world. They were
trying to preserve something, not destroy it.”

“Then what do you call Mom’s poetry?” I
said. “What’s with the returning killer sons, and the great
institutional fire? If that’s not a box of illness, I don’t know
what is?”

Amelia didn’t agree. “It was your mother’s
wish, Mitchell. What is yours beyond another drink? This girl
created a story because of what happened to her, like your mother
made up poetry and dreamed of justice for her family! If I thought
you were out here living a lie in the Northwest because of what
happened to you, I would be less judgmental—but you aren’t! You are
running from her tragedy, not yours.”

“That’s not true!” I nearly shouted. “You
can’t separate what happened to me from what happened to her. She
was there and I was there. She shot and killed a man because of me!
She was damaged for something I did and died for it, and I have to
suffer for that—just like she did.”

“No. Not like her!” Amelia said. “Nothing at
all like her! You know, I can separate you two even if you can’t. I
can do it quite easily because of one simple fact: she didn’t
abandon you. You abandoned her!”

“I abandoned her?” I responded, loud enough
to catch a few eyes. “She died! I’m just trying to get on with my
life!”

“Bullshit!” Amelia said. “You’re trying to
kill yourself and any chance she ever had at happiness for you or
for her! What about your brother’s life? You know who your father
is. What your last name is. Your brother couldn’t know! You’re a
drunk. Look at you. All you can do is sit here and bemoan the past
and drown your fears in booze. I’m offering you an opportunity to
do something for someone other than yourself, and you can’t even
get beyond where the money is! You’re pathetic!”

Maybe it was the alcohol. Maybe it was
Amelia’s condemnation. Maybe it was that torturous thing called
truth. Whatever it was, Amelia’s words left me feeling numb, if not
sick. Maybe I was finally coming to terms with the fact that both
my mother and my would-be brother were actually dead. Maybe it was
the sudden gray tint to Amelia’s eyes and the kind of fighting
young men and women engage in that had me feeling as if I couldn’t
feel.

Whatever had just happened left me with the
sensation that I’d just been drained of my blood, and I told Amelia
so.

She only shook her head.

In my own way, I was pleading with her to
try and understand me, pleading to simply be heard for once, a plea
I hadn’t offered anyone in a long time. I needed her to understand
me—not just understand Mom and her poems and her so-called
wishes.

“I want to feel something again,” I said,
“like I used to. I want to have a shred of the passion for life
that you seem to have. I want to be present.”

And in that instant, I could see Amelia for
the first time without looking through the lens of fear or shame.
She smiled at me and took another long sip of her drink, content
for the moment to have broken me down just that much. 

I knew almost nothing about Amelia
Hawkins
. In my stay in Neah Bay General I hadn’t bothered to
ask her much anything about herself. I knew what her legs looked
like, at least in a pair of jeans, and what color her eyes were
depending on her mood, but I hadn’t checked her ring finger, which
I was now noticing held no ring.

In my drunkenness, slapped back into
comportment, I watched the candle flicker between us until the mood
felt more solemn, until I felt able to ask.

“Is there somebody in your life?” I said,
downing the last of yet another Whiskey Sour.

“Somebody?”

“Is there a significant other?”

“No.”

“Have you ever been married?”

“Yes.”

“Divorced?”

“Widowed,” she said, dropping her gaze to
the table.

I apologized. The question seemed to have
agitated her. Or maybe it was the apology. She took another drink
and I raised my hand for the waitress.

To that point, there had been only one
tattoo I was aware of—the one that read Amethyst on Amelia’s right
arm. To that point, it was happenstance that I hadn’t seen her
other arm. It had been covered by the darkness of the hospital
room, or by the jacket she wore, or maybe she’d intentionally
concealed it, but that arm, too, bore a tattoo.

Amelia removed her leather coat. She
extended her left arm as if in offering, revealing the colored ink
depicting a man and woman, presumably her and her late husband,
dancing of all things. The mood of the tattoo was one of happiness,
something I didn’t know much about, but it was apparent in the
rendering.

Beneath the dancers were two names: Joe and
Abby, and a date: April 7, 1993, barely two years ago at the
time.

“Who’s Joe and Abby?” I asked.

“My late husband is Joe. Abby’s a
nickname.”

“Ah. Is that a wedding date? April 7?”

Amelia nodded.

I reached a hand out and took up the
opposite arm sporting the Amethyst tattoo, rolled her sleeve back a
little, and turned her arm over to study the ink. There was the
face silhouetted behind its letters, a face adorned with olive
branches or grape vines or holly or something, with hummingbirds
hovering around it. It was the face of a little girl.

“Who’s Amethyst?” I said. “Was she your
daughter?”

Amelia pulled her wrist back and took a sip
of her drink, and did not answer.

“Tell me about your mother then,” I tried.
“You said she asked you to look into things. Why did she need to
know about my mother if it was her sister who was a patient with
her?”

“My mother was dying. She needed to confess
something, more than anything.”

“Confess?”

“My aunt Emily had asked my mother a long
time ago to look into your mother’s case, but nothing much came of
it.”