Cinnamon (Shooting Stars 1)

impenetrable crystals, twisting, turning and reflecting the sunlight. In fact, if it wasn't a day for the gardeners, and today wasn't, there was a look of abandonment about the place. Our cars were always left in the rear, out of sight. Two tall weeping willows on the northeast end painted long shadows over one side of the structure, adding to the sense of desertion.

There was a swing under a maple tree to the right on the west side. I noticed it was going back and forth, which made me smile. Anyone looking at it would be convinced there was a ghost sitting on it. I imagined one myself, one of the Demerest girls, smiling.

Fall had just lifted its head and begun to blow the cooler winds over the landscape, waving a magical hand to change the greens into yellows, browns and oranges. The grass, however, seemed happier, waking to heavier dews every morning. It was a deeper green, I loved the aroma of freshly cut lawns, the freshness traveled into my brain and washed away the cobwebs and shadows from my darker thoughts.

As Grandmother Beverly turned up the drive, she finally revealed the situation in detail.

"I was in the living room, watching a good Cary Grant movie. when I heard her humming in the hallway. What is she doing downstairs? I wondered. The doctor had specifically told her that if she was going home, she was to remain in bed, resting, getting stronger. I offered to be her nurse, to march up and down those stairs as many times as need be, so she couldn't use that as any excuse.

"But your mother never listens to wiser voices. She hears only what she wants to hear. Secret voices out of the shadows." she muttered.

"Anyway, I went to the family room doorway. At first, I didn't see her. Then I heard her talking to her plants."

She paused smirked and shook her head.

Mommy often spoke aloud to her plants as if they were her little children. She said when she was sad, which was far too often, the leaves were limp and dreary, but when she was happy, they were crisp and alive.

Anyway, I didn't think much of that.

"She's always talking to flowers. Grandmother. Many people do that."

"Naked?"

"What?"

"She was standing there in the hallway, watering those plants naked, and she was using a bed pan to water them," she said, her voice rising, "Who even knows if it was water?"

I felt the blood drain a bit from my face and looked at the house as we started around back.

"But that wasn't the horror of it. Cinnamon, 'What are you doing, Amber?' I asked, and she turned slowly toward me, a crazed smile on her face."

Grandmother stopped the car and turned to me before shutting off the engine,

"Over her stomach. with a stick of red lipstick, she had drawn the outline of a baby, a fetus!" she cried with a grimace. "I screamed. 'Oh, my God!' I nearly fainted at the sight, but she continued to smile at me and then went back to watering the plants, humming and watering.

"So. I got into the car and went for you."

I swallowed back the rock that had risen into my throat and got out of the car. All I could think of was Ophelia's mad scene in Hamlet. With my head down, my feet feeling like they had turned into marshmallows. I charged toward the rear entrance and quickly went inside, through the rear entryway and down the corridor to the stairway, gazing in each room to be sure Mommy wasn't downstairs.

Then I pounded up the stairs and paused when I reached the top. I could hear her humming and talking to herself. It was coming from the room that had been set up to be the nursery. Slowly. I approached it and looked in. It was just as Grandmother Beverly had described: Mommy was naked, the imaginary baby crudely drawn over her stomach in her apple red lipstick.

She was folding and unfolding the same little blanket at the side of the bassinet.

"Mammy," I said.

She stopped humming and looked at me.

"Cinnamon, you're home. Good. I was having labor pains this morning. It won't be long now," she said.

"Labor pains? But Mommy--"

"It's expected. I know, but it's still very difficult. Cinnamon. Most wonderful things are difficult," she muttered. "and worth the pain," she added with a new smile.

How could she have forgotten she had just had a miscarriage? It was so sad, so tragic, I thought, and then: Maybe that's why she's forgotten, She doesn't want to remember. She and I have done so much pretending in this house. This comes easily to her.

"Mommy, you've got to return to bed."

"I will as soon as I do this. I want everything to be ready when we come home with little Sacha," she said, gazing around the nursery.