Her (Episode 1/3)

friday, july, 14

MOM AND DAD are home. I busy myself around the kitchen, scrubbing pots and dishes that don't need any scrubbing, shining silverware with the dish towel, making a pot of tea though no one asked for it.

I'm restless and they know it. Dad stands with his fists on his hips, white hair combed neat, plaid shirt tight from his stomach that grows steadily rounder each time I see him. He drinks whenever we aren't looking but it's no secret at all. Mom is flicking through a Nora Roberts novel on her dog-eared couch. But every now and then I feel her blue eyes on me, with their bags of loose purple flesh. Her arms sag similarly in her white tee, but she's in relatively good shape from her long walks and swims.

I make some caesar salad, chopping lettuce like a machine and baking my own garlic croutons. I make fresh pink lemonade, too, from pureed grapefruit mixed with honey. As I drop three homegrown mint leaves inside the pitcher for decoration and taste, I recall my dream. My hands, though slightly smaller than small, were frighteningly close to that of the leaves in the pitcher. I cough, feeling something lodged in my throat. "You okay?" calls Mom.

"Yes," I snap. "Yes, I am okay. Why is it everyone asks me that?"

She looks hurt.

"I'm sorry," I say contritely. I drop the clear pan I was going to make my pineapple turnover cake with, frustrated. "Why can't Becky... Why couldn't she be here instead?" I huff.

Dad gives a dark look. His palms are still scrunched on his waists and now his face is scrunched, too. He shakes his head and turns to my mother. "When last has she seen Dr. Burrows?" His voice is crossed as if he's blaming her for something.

"Hello, I'm right here!" I bark, before making a beeline to the dipping stairwell. I descend into the basement, petulant. I assume I'm as red as beetroot. I don't mean to be nasty to my loving parents but I'm a little bit hypersensitive and am through with people treating me like I'm not an equal person.

Even my own parents. Even my own parents do it! Why do they have to watch me like that? Why did dad have to bring up the psychologist? I'll never take the meds whatever drug dealer he refers me to prescribes anyway. They are no good.

I plonk down on the floor beside a box of memorabilia. Dolls fill it to the top. Lots of Ken Barbies. I bet Becky is giggling at them. Most are painted metallic blue with a sparkly finish. I get to work on the rest, which is about ten more.

At the work table, where dad makes most of his art clients' custom lamps, chests, birdhouses, and jewelry boxes, I transform my Kens into perfect little blue robots. I get lost in my self-absorbed work, my mind finally winding down to complete Zen until I think of nothing. Absolutely nothing.

***

I fall asleep around one a.m. and my thoughts are a sound and beautifully pure blackness. I'm dead. I'm nothing (where do we go in this place?). Until I'm under a dark sky. One of my lucid dreams. What will it be this time?

I see I'm jogging. It is the wee hours of the morning and Becky is panting along with me. Our breathing is measured, paced, and is the only thing I can hear... until... until there are footfalls. I slow down to glance over my shoulder and I see a looming figure in the blue dreaminess.

There is a creepy sensation that chills my spine as he comes closer, and closer, his dark outline growing clearer. I pick up my pace but he's still gaining on me and now I can hear my pulse ticking at my temple. I keep my gaze straight ahead of me as my feet beat the paving of the walkway.

I realize I am running and I realize I want to scream. But I don't. I want him to catch up with me yet I feel unharmoniously terrified. I hear a sound like his breath, ragged and low in this throat. I spin around and he's gone, completely vanished, all but a gust of wind telling me that someone must have been there.