Blue

    There is no up or down. There is only here, and here seems to be nowhere. If I stop to think about it, that shrieking thing in the back of my head pushes forward, so I don't think. I just float, waiting for something to happen, for some direction to make itself evident. I can't move, but what would be the point? Everything around me is blue. Blue nothing.

    That wasn't true. I don't just float. I spend my time reviewing memories, trying to remember why I am nowhere. At first I only reviewed happy memories, but I ran out of those too fast. Now, I'll review anything that comes along. Things I'd almost forgotten are right up there with things I wish I could forget. A sunny picnic with my father, sober for once, followed by the affair I had two years after Eric and I married. The births of my children and my mother pulling the hair from my head. If there is meaning in the order of these recollections, it escapes me. Between memories, I try to puzzle out the rules fo this place. What can I do to escape?

    One memory keeps resurfacing. It is the day of my mother's funeral. Becky is too small, we leave her with friends, but Ryan, at eight, needs to say good-bye. He is somber throughout the service. After, in a brief moment when I am alone in my father's kitchen, he comes to me with a question, but I can't remember what he asked. If I think too hard about it, it flies away and another memory, at random, takes over.

    There was an accident. I remember the semi, skidding through the red light, heading straight for us. Ryan and I are in the van, but I can't remember where Eric and Becky are. I see the semi and I yant the wheel and then nothing until I came to this blue place. I wish I knew if this were a prison or a healing place.

****************

    A new memory, one I haven't reviewed yet. Eric and I, after I tell him about the affair. He is crying and I am impatient with his tears. I want him to yell at me, to fight this out, but he won't and this, I tell myself, is why I had the affair in the first place.

    "Well?" I know that I am goading him. I want more of a reaction. Telling the truth is useless without a reaction.

    "What do you want me to say?" His eyes are red, wounded, and impossible to look at for more than a moment.

    "Anything. Say what you're feeling for God's sake!"

    "Feeling? I'm not feeling. I'm numb."

    I should be apologizing but I don't. I'm still blaming him for my crimes. In the end, he takes all the guilt and begs me to stay. What power I have over him, to make him the sinner while I stand there spouting my justifications. I stay because the other, the lover, will never give me such power. I did not know these things at the time, but they are so clear now.

    Is this it? Is this my punishment? Nothing answers, not even the shrieking thing. That surprises me; it has been trying to take over for so long, it seems wrong that it isn't pushing at me. Wrong sin. Try again.

    I laugh at myself, suspended here reviewing my sins. I don't believe in sins. I believe in wrongs and crimes, but sins imply a higher power I won't acknowledge. So I change the terminology. Wrong crime. Try again.

    Another scene, farther back but never really forgotten imposes itself. My mother standing in the door as I return from schoo, my diary in her hand. Her face is twisted in the rage I have be ducking for 16 years. This time, there is nowhere to hide. She is on me before I reach the door, one hand in my hair, the other slapping, pushing.

    "Slut! Whore! Get out of my house! Dirty creature!"

    So she has read my secrets, my dreams, my dirty little fantasies. I cannot fight back, so I endure until she pushes me down the stairs that lead to our apartment. I run this time, straight into my father's arms. Hi is bewildered as he catches me and looks to my mother for an explanation, but she is foaming at the mouth, her rage too far gone for speech. My mouth is bleeding and my lips are swollen, and I can't speak either, except with my eyes which beg him to take my side, just this once. There is an instant, a moment when he hesitates. Hope blossoms, only to wither as he grabs me by the arm and marches me back up the stairs. He will not assist her, but he will not stop her.

    Even now, I cannot blame him. His tragedy is that he loves her too much to risk losing her. Snap! The connection is made. Eric is my father and I am my mother. She and I lacerated our men and made them beg for the privilege. Like mother, like bitch. What a cliché' I am.

***************

    Time for a break, for a happy memory. Becky's first birthday, bright and sunny, everyone on their best behavior. Dad is sober and Mom is on new medication. They tell her it's for pain, because she won't admit she has a problem. Whatever it takes, I think. I am so proud that day. Eric and I have fixed our marriage, we've remodeled the house and we have two beautiful children. No fights, no sniping, no unpleasantness to mar Becky's day. In my mind, I am writing a Hallmark commercial about this day, when Mom picks up a piece of cake and throws it at my sister. Within minutes my new dining room is coated with frosting and crumbs. I am hysterical and Eric puts me in our rooms while he throws them out and cleans up the mess. Beware of happy memories, they have no happy endings.

***************

    The time comes when there are no more memories to be reviewed. Every gut-wrenching horrior that I have committed or that has been committed upon me has been brought forward. Still, everything is blue and I am nowhere. It is time to confront the shrieking thing that is waiting just behind all the other memories. I'm too frightened to let it all out at once; I know how strong it is, I've been fighting it so long that I concentrate and give it a small opening, just a microsecond.

    Bad! Bad! Bad! Bad Mommy, bad baby, bad.

    I shove it away and take those words, trying to dissect them, but I know they are wrong. They are her words, not mine, and I refused to use them when I dealt with my own children. They are only on the surface and can't help me. Time to try again, to let it come forward a little farther.

    Why do you act like this? I love you!

    No, that's Eric, the words he uses when I am railing at him for some perceived misdeed. Poor Eric, I owe him so many apologies that I'm afraid to pull one out for fear that the pile will fall and smother me. Again, the words are useless, and although I can feel it gaining strength, again I free the monster.

    No, Mommy's busy. Go play. If I could wince, I would. Those are my words, my crime. Moments I could have cherished wasted on a career I hated and friends who only came around to hear me skewer someone. Still, this is an area already visited in the regular memories. I need to go farther, but can't. There is a new thing in my mind, a whimpering thing that can't face any more memories. It is begging me, without words, to forget this, let it go. It is strong, but not as strong as the shrieking thing.

    Of course, I lose that battle. The shrieker has had a taste of freedom and won't be denied. I can feel it battering the restraints, so I grab control to free the next thing. It is close, the closest of all, but again I win and shove it back to its hiding place.

    You never came to see her. What kind of daughter are you? My sister's voice and I wish I could double over. Things are beginning to fray at the edges; the blue is deeper, almost pulsing. In my immobile body, I feel an adrenaline rush. I don't want to do this. I have to do this. For a moment I toy with the idea of going crazy rather than facing this thing, whatever it is, but I still have hope.

    Mommy, where is Grandma going? This? This is the big thing? This is the question in my father's kitchen, after the funeral. Yes, I remember this.

    "Grandma is going to the cemetery, where they will bury her." I'm proud of my rational tone.

    "Auntie Bella says Grandma is going to Heaven."

    I snort. Trust Isabel to fill his head with nonsense. "No, Ryan, Grandma isn't going to heaven. There is no heaven. That's a silly superstition. You remember when we talked about superstitions?"

    He nods. "Like black cats and Friday the thirteenth."

    "Excellent." I turn back to the tray I am preparing.

    "If there's no Heaven, where do dead people go?" he asks.

    "They don't go anywhere. When you're dead, there's nothing. You're just dead."

    "Jesus, Rachel, " Eric speaks from the doorway. He looks as though he's never seen me before. "Hey sport, Andy and Tina are out front. Why don't you play with them?"

    Ryan scampers away, and for the first time in years, Eric confronts me. "What in the hell are you telling him?"

    "The truth."

    "He's too young for your version of the truth."

    "No one is ever too young for the truth. Drop it, Eric."

    "Be careful what you wish for," he mutters.

****************

    So this is my crime, telling my child there is no heaven? Telling the child who was with me in the van that death is absolute nothingness. The shrieking thing is gone, but the whimpering thing is growing louder. It is actually worse than the shrieking thing; I cannot control it or stop it. It cries in Ryan's voice. What is nothingness? I wonder as the blue fades to white and there is no up or down.