Save My Soul

The Matthews [2]

 2.

The sound of rain wakes me up the next morning.

I lay in bed for a while, staring out the window, watching the raindrops patter against the glass of the windowpane.

Rain. I used to love it when it rained. When I was little, I'd sit on the front porch with my mother and a cup of hot chocolate and watch it turn the yard into a field of mud and the sky a smear of gray. Sometimes I could even convince her to go splashing in the puddles with me, and she would wrap me in a black trash bag from neck to knees, and then we'd go laughing into the yard. Dad would shake his head but he always sat and watched us. It wasn't until years later, after the day of the accident, that I came to hate rain. The sound of it, the look of it, the very smell of it. 

My room is cast in a dark gloom from the stormy skies outside. It turns the faded blue of the walls a dusky, depressing shade. The tree outside my window brushes its long branches against the side of the house and I shiver at the eerie, rasping sound it makes rubbing against the shingles.

I pull myself upright, keeping my covers wrapped tightly around me and glance at the clock on my nightstand; it flashes the time: 5:32 AM. I only slept two hours.

It's one of the few traits I share with my father. The inability to sleep for more than a few hours at a time. When I was little, my mother would make me chamomile tea and read storybooks until I couldn't keep my eyes open longer. If I woke up, I'd tiptoe to her room and she'd let me crawl into the bed between her and Dad, who was almost always up, sketching or carving wooden toys. He used to do it all the time... before she died, I mean. He would say that it relaxed him after a long day of work. But even as a kid, I thought it was more than that. When he was carving, a calm would steal over his face. The lines and taut pursing of his mouth would loosen and the stiffness of his body would seep out of him. It was late at night, after he'd been at it for a while, that I'd watch him as I lay curled on my side next to Mom; watching his fingers work the knife deftly through the blocks of pale wood. And sometime later, I'd feel the bed depress next to me and the light would go off and Dad's hand would slip the toy into mine; and we'd lie there, listening to Mom's light, easy breathing as she slipped off to sleep.

I reach out to pick up the old, framed photograph that sits next to the clock on my bedside table. I run my cold fingertips over the glass.

She looked like one of those fairy angels in the movies, the ones with the streaming hair and ethereal glow illuminating their faces. Her hair was the color of honey and her eyes were a deeper blue than the hyacinth flower; she was small and petite with milky white skin. When Dad stood next to her, it looked like he could swallow her in his height. I can only remember her vaguely now. That used to scare me but now it's just a dull ache. 

The picture itself was taken ten years ago, right after we moved to Alexandria from Chicago. She sat on the front steps of the porch, her long hair flowing down around her shoulders like a curtain. Her black coat was speckled with snow and she wore faded jeans and combat boots. I was sitting next to her, bundled in a red coat and scarf, looking up into the camera which Dad was holding. I was only six in the picture and my front tooth was missing. 

I wonder what she smelled like. I don't really remember anymore. I used to think, as a kid, that she smelled like the sun and flowers. But what would that mean? Flowery perfume, probably. The scent of clean laundry, hanging on the line to dry.

Maybe I meant that she smelled like the feeling. Like when you're stretched out in the grass, skin warm from the sunlight pouring all around you, and a playful breeze ruffles your hair. That feeling.

That was my mother.

I return the picture to my bedside table. I arrange it carefully, so that it faces me and then roll over.