When I was 7, in
the house at the end of the road lived a woman, an elder, with hair the color
of a wilting rose and a smile that made you happy, despite the absence of teeth
she had probably forgot to put on that morning. I used to visit her every year
on Christmas and so did her grandchild. She was a year older than me, a serious
girl for her age and between her and her grandmother, I very much preferred the
one with no teeth. But I spent every Christmas along her side until I was 12
and she was 13. She was solemn and always looked exhausted. Her grandmother
told her she loved her, and she did not respond. The first time around I thought
it was just a misunderstanding, as if she had not heard her. But once the event
was repeated once, twice, three times, all my doubts vanished. She was peculiar
and even though we were both girls of the same age, we never spoke, only stayed
silent and sat in each others company through those icy December s .Her
clothing fit her personality and as I looked her up and down I caught a glimpse
of a glistening necklace. It spelled out her name in cursive letter on top of a
shiny, thin, slate of gold, the letters were big and the necklace contrasting
everything this girl was. The Christmas of 1980 she was gone and I never saw
her or that necklace ever again. In a way I wanted her to say goodbye, in a
summary say that maybe I meant something to her and that I wasn’t just the
little girl that came over every Christmas.
6 summers after it
was time to go to college, except, not for me. That year I moved into her
grandmother’s house instead, to take care of her. I had lain her down to sleep
and just as the moon took its place in the night sky a solid knock was heard at
the door. I slowly turned the door knob and pulled the heavy wooden door open. Rapidly
but probably too obviously, I looked the figure standing at the entrance up and
down. Her shorts were rolled up one more
time then needed, her shoes breaking from the soles and the bags under her eyes
pronounced to the point where her fierce green eyes got lost in translation. She
looked quickly at me; I saw recognition in her eyes and a strange look of
almost affection. As if reading my mind, she pulled out something from under
her shirt. I watched as it caught the light from the lamp outside the porch,
the glistening of the gold and the big cursive letters that spelled out her
name. She did not speak and neither did I, but I moved away from the door and disappeared
inside the house, leaving the door wide open. I sat at the kitchen table and
watched as she hesitantly came in and stared at the leather chair that her
grandfather used to sit on all day. She remembered
how eagerly her bony old grandfather would call her name from across the house
and whistle to her and even then, she moved through the house, slowly, step by
step, lingering at certain spots of the house. Maybe she thought of that when
she stared at the chair, or maybe all she was looking at was a plain old
leather couch.
I had gone to
sleep and at some time in the early morning I heard a door shut and a car
outside. I lay in my bed; she was gone, and the elder with hair the color of a
wilting rose was gone too. I didn’t have to get up to know it and I didn’t have
to get up to know that she was never coming back either. I had felt her come in
my room in the middle of the night and I felt as her fierce green eyes stared
at me. But I lay there and felt the soft touch of her kiss upon my cheek and
felt the moist single drop of water, she whispered the three words I had never
heard her say to her grandmother and with that she walked away and within those
three words I knew, she had spoken more than she ever did during the Christmas’
when I was 12 and she was only 13.
