mother walking back and forth above me in the attic. I
thought I wasn't imagining it. Then I realized I was at
my uncle and aunt's home and it was the two of them
walking. I relaxed, but I'll never forget the
disappointment I felt, too.
Now I lay back on the pillow and listened with
my eyes opened, and I thought that somewhere out
there, somewhere far away, my mother was asleep or
lying in bed as I was. Perhaps her eyes were opened
too, and maybe, just maybe, she was remembering
giving birth to me and wondering what I was like
now, what I looked like, and thinking about what she
would say to me if, we ever met.
I felt sorrier for her than I did for myself. Imagine not remembering you had lost
something, someone, so precious, and then one day
realizing it.
It would come like a hard blow from out of the
blue. It had to be terribly frightening. How do you forget something so traumatic and important to you? Maybe she began to shout and they had to give
her something to keep her quiet.
And maybe that caused her to forget again, and
just like a bubble popping, I was gone, lost to th
at
place where everything forgotten and never retrieved
is stored somewhere so deep down in the darkness
that even God had forgotten it existed.
I shuddered and closed my eyes.
Sleep surprised me like raindrops surprised the
surface of a lake.
Tyler was always up early, even before the sun
had risen. Both summers I was here, I found he was as