Three

Three
(Oxford, Mississippi)
One more swallow of the pink milky substance, and the nurses finally left the room. With the lights flipped off, she rolled to her right and like a bandit, made for her purse across the tiled floor. In the secret pocket of her rickety leather Coach purse, she stored an antique painted tin container, which held three wedding rings from all three of her failed marriages. Ironically, the tin was a gift given to her by a now forgotten fiancée. Resolving to stay awake a little longer, she pried open the tin container to pull out her golden treasures. At home when she was lonely, she liked to turn off all the lights and hold each ring up against the wall to see how the diamonds sparkled. In this dark room, a delightful display of shimmers encased the room as she took turns twirling each individual ring. Usually after a fifteen minute episode, she would slide the rings back into the tin, stuff it back into her purse before drifting off to sleep. She enjoyed sleeping because it was while she slept that she dreamt. And it was the dreaming process which allowed her to rummage through the happier memories from her former marriages. In them, she imagined what it would have been like if she had stayed.

She is sixty-five, smokes three and a half packs a day, regularly applies Lancome lipstick, and has two friends. They died. Emily lay in bed listening to the beeping sound of her monitor. She had been admitted to Oxford Mississippi's area hospital after falling down her front steps. She laughed when she saw the no-smoking sign hanging outside her door. Emily took up the habit at the age of 12 in her pink bathroom, while living in North Dakota, believing that a cigarette before trampling out into the snow was good for the soul. The layers she wore to bear the cold always muffled the smell of the smoke. Emily's parents were successfully naïve; she was never caught.

As a teenager, she watched Woody Allen films instead of going out. She painted her nails the same dark brown color to match her chestnut hair for five years straight. Her favorite childhood memories consisted of riding with her father on the way to school, listening to NPR and always stealing half his cup of Folger's robust coffee. A NPR morning meant a half hour short of snow and a heater that promised to give fifty percent of the time. She continued to smoke up into her late teens and early twenties but eventually exited the bathroom and made it a habit of smoking with her mother in the kitchen, listening to her discuss recipes from the Joy of Cooking cookbook with their next door neighbor, Thelma.

Parties in North Dakota were none too plenty. One time in particular, at the age of five, her parents invited her entire class to a birthday celebration in the Ronald McDonald caboose, and the one boy who showed up wore pants that reached his shins. The two of them sat with matching hats, listening to the oversized red clown blow his horn in her face again and again. Emily cried that day. Her friend told her parents he was ready to go home.

Emily developed an aversion to parties.

By twenty-eight, Emily had moved to Alabama, was teaching special education and had already been through two divorces. She still smoked at the kitchen table with her mother, who no longer discussed organic food recipes but who gained forty pounds after taking to fried chicken. Black was Emily's favorite color because she looked good in it. She hired a regular nanny to watch her children so she could work, go to the gym, and watch episodes of All My Children. Two divorces, two kids, an overweight mother, a thousand and three cigarette cartons later, Emily was still the somber Woody Allen fan who feared answering the phone and couldn't make up her mind about men and the world around her. She didn't believe in negotiation and took it upon herself to always be right.

She divorced her second husband after a Sunday dinner for personal reasons. She stowed away the ring and decided to move on again and within a few months time, she married a wealthy pilot who shared the same number of failed marriages. Her children watched her smoke her way into dark and sticky situation. Realizing that their mother had perhaps gone off the deep end this time, the eldest daughter chose college in Alabama, and the youngest chose her father in Houston, Texas, where she took up a full-time waitress position.

Emily filled her wardrobe with black dresses, pants, blouses, panty hose and heels. She lost touch with colors, her children, and no longer remembered NPR mornings with her father on those snowy days. She touched the radio dial and now thought of nothing. A lifetime of Camel Lights and a number of empty years found her three days before Thanksgiving alone, lying in an unattractive hospital gown on a hospital bed in Oxford, Mississippi.

The doctors diagnosed her with lung cancer yesterday and asked why she had waited so long to come into the hospital. They told her it would be wise to contact her family and that she would be lucky to survive the next two months. Perhaps because death was certain and because she lay still for the first time in her life, she unwillingly began the reviewing process--of her life that is. She winced as the clean air from the oxygen mask rushed into her head. It felt as if the air was blowing open doors she had intentionally closed off.

Husband number three croaked over a teal ashtray and failed to finish his last cigarette. She took the final blows for him as he lay with his forehead bleeding on the table. After taking his last exhalation of smoke, she slowly stood up and called for assistance. He wasn't just unconscious; he was dead with a black lung. She remembered this scene and wondered if she would face an ending similar to this. To her, the image of him lying atop his favorite ashtray, where he spent hours each day pressing his butts, was almost romantic. She wondered which ashtray would be her last and if she would find it with her on a train to Birmingham or seated on a toilet at home in her living room. Would there be someone there to watch her die? Would they pass her by and let her cigarette's burning embers burst into flames? Such thoughts will lead to madness, she thought. Although the doctors allotted her with three months to live, she still smoked, sticking to her belief that smoking was good for the soul.

Emily's next door neighbor, Imogene, with curlers in her mousy hair, witnessed the old Emily crumble down her steps on the way to check her mail. Because she woke a little early this morning, fate had planned on Imogene gazing out into this wintry morning to see the fall. Pressing the snooze button only twice this morning, Imogene rolled out of her husband's burly arms before rehearsing her early morning routine, which consisted of two cups of coffee, CNN for 20 minutes, and ironing her suit for work. Waiting for the iron to heat, she went to stand by her window to see how much snow had accumulated overnight. While staring at the white, she was made aware of a slow movement to the right. She heard the sound of Emily's door squeak open and watched old Emily hobble out, looking more grey than usual, go to take one, two steps before dropping forward. Imogene, stared for a couple of seconds, went to unplug her iron as if by instinct, before sprinting towards the kitchen to dial 911. After speaking with emergency services, she grabbed her coat hanging at the door and crossed her lawn to go to Emily's aid. Emily was by now turning an unsightly blueberry color and was clawing at her throat, as if she were a cat who had swallowed a nasty hairball. It was apparent that she couldn't breathe. Imogene squeezed Emily's frail hand and observed a lifetime of trouble etched in her many wrinkles. Holding her, she proceeded to pat her back, not knowing what to do. While feeling the sharp bones of her back, Imogene wondered how long ago God had abandoned this crazy old bird. The two women had never been friends and never once called to borrow a cup of sugar. Emily and her dead husband had been too liberal for Imogene's tastes, and Imogene spent many wasted hours venting to her husband about the cigarette butts she found in her bushes from next door.

The two women sat in silence. Emily saw Steve crash onto his ashtray on that train ride they took for Birmingham. Falling down the stairs wasn't exactly what she had planned for the end. She assumed fate would be a little more interesting. She kept coughing, now a Veruca Salt color but by the will of some black mysterious force, she stayed around until the ambulance arrived to take her away. Imogene let go of her hand and watched as they strapped an oxygen mask to the old woman's wrinkled face. The service men lifted her corpse on the stretcher and placed her gently into the car. The doors slammed and Imogene was left standing in her neighbor's yard. Emily regained her breath and returned to her usual grey tone. She went to pull off her mask to ask if she could bum a smoke from anyone.

The siren wailed. They laughed from a surprising sadness.

"Listen young man. I'm fine I tell you, she said.

Imogene turned and retraced her steps back to her house. Her robe was now half open and a few curlers hung limp at the side of her face. Upon entering the house, she proceeded to remove her curlers and was unsure whether to wake her husband David. Walking towards the kitchen to fetch a cup of coffee, she added cream and sugar and tried to contemplate the appropriate move. She felt as though she had just discovered a baby on the street and felt guilty for delivering it to adoption services. She hadn't taken the time to get to know Emily. Although she had wasted a good deal of frustration over finding the cigarette butts over the years, she reminded herself that Emily was a human and a widow. She would go next door in her spare hour before work and search for a phone book, from which she could call someone from Emily's family. She made it a mental note as of last year, after noticing that Emily's house was the only one without white Christmas lights and whose driveway, a week after New Years, was the only bare one when the garbage men came to collect the trees. Emily didn't leave her house often and Imogene couldn't recall seeing anyone entering. As seen by her state of collapse, someone needed to be there for her.

(First call)
Dawn saw her secretary out of the corner of her eye as she came and tapped on the window during Dawn's meeting with an important client. Deborah, her meek secretary, almost never interrupted a meeting and avoided knocking on closed doors, except for the occasional latte delivery. Something about seeing her secretary's urgent and spastic hand movements made Dawn pay attention. A little nervous from last time, Deborah had received a call from her dry cleaners saying that they had accidentally given her clothes to another customer, who after calling denied receiving the wrong clothes. Thursdays were big days because in the evening, Dawn made her regular televised speech as spokeswoman for the Hollywood Director's Guild. Dawn was compulsive, intimidating but successful.

Dawn, who used to stand on top of her bed with a green plastic microphone in hand spoke to herself in the mirror with a very serious expression and a voice that hardly wavered in tone. She kept her hair neatly trimmed and was elected president of the debate team starting in middle school up until her junior year in college, after which she was asked to work for a group of producers in Hollywood. After receiving a recommendation from a top producer who had once taught a public speaking class back in Oxford, Mississippi, where Dawn grew up, they hired her at the age of 20 and flew her up to Hollywood. Having lived there since then, she now wears black Armani suits, panty hose, and professional makeup. The city's finest bachelors comprise her dates each Friday night. She is now a twenty eight year old business tycoon, foreign to commitments and a compulsive smoker, like her mother.

Things changed after she turned around once more to look at her mother's house as the cab took her away.

Today, she counts her success in five figures. But at the age of 12, she prized her father who brought home a book from the used bookstore from around the corner each week. Right before dinner, her father would rap gently against her door and slip it under so she could fetch it right away. Always inside the front cover was signed, "To a dreamer, love dad.

On a Wednesday at approximately 5:45, when she stumbled out of her room to head for the dinner table, she found a shattered plate at her dad's spot. A porcelain trail ran down from the table, littered his seat and formed a line stretching into the kitchen, where beef stew was bubbling a little over the top. Pieces stretched towards her parents' bedroom straight down to the end of their blue carpeted hallway.

Her mother's vexing screams seeped through their hardwood bedroom door and hit Dawn uncomfortably in the ears. Dawn sat down in her chair at the table, hoping that if she waited patiently enough, the door would open slowly and she would see two resolved smiling faces exit, ready to eat. They would pass the piping bowl of beef stew around until their bellies were content. A tumultuous thirty minutes passed during which Dawn's bum grew hard before a red faced father opened the door. Following him in slow motion flew a stack of books. Her mother yelled full of venom, "You can give these to her you bastard. I'm fucking sick and tired of you not thinking about anyone else besides her. Who I am? What am I to you? I knew you stopped caring once you started volunteering extra hours at the firm. You wanted to get away from me, huh? You just couldn't stand me?

You don't care about me!!!!! David!!! I hate you! I hate you, you bastard!

And so he passed, a father who looked too ready to go to notice his silent daughter sitting next to his empty spot at the table. He walked to the key rack by the door with a smile on his face, with her purple veiny mother at his heels throwing book after book. He took the keys to his 1972 Porsche, left the door open so the cold air met Dawn's feet and he left. He left on a Wednesday evening in December and wasn't there to see her mother's pot boil over. A week later, Dawn opened up a book with a letter from her father. He had planned on leaving. This did not just happen. He said he needed a different life away from her mother but that it didn't mean he loved his daughter less. At the bottom read, "To a super star. I love you.

Apologizing and asking her client for five minutes, Dawn gets up to meet Deborah outside the glass wall to hear what she has to say.

"I'm so sorry about this, Dawn, she said, 'but it's a lady calling from Oxford, Mississippi who says there's been an emergency concerning your mother. Now I've never heard you mention her and she's not listed on your emergency contact list but I thought it might be important, if it is your mother.

Dawn watched her fumble with words and tremble slightly as she spoke. Dawn always loomed in black and silenced her employees as she made her rounds throughout the day to get updates on information about her clients. Deborah was her go to girl and was not used to interpreting family matters. But now it was Dawn who was afraid of Deborah. Emily, her mother, was the one part of her life that success didn't cover.

(Atlanta)
Brittany took her position at the register and kept her focus locked on the lonely older man sitting at the booth against the wall. He had arrived over two hours ago with a pad and a drenched raincoat. As he took his seat and began his coat's peeling process, he made it seem as though everyone in the restaurant was being forced to wake up to this very bad dream of his. She delivered his menu and walked away with an order for coffee along with a short stack of pancakes. He didn't smile or look at her. He was enamored by a blank page sitting in front of him. She imagined that by the time coffee was served, there would be a few scribbled lines. He was a writer for sure, who had just left a family gathering and had come here to make some sense of a squabble. Brittany believed in his smell, his lack of communication, and the busied look of his expression. She brewed extra strength coffee and focused all her attention on the wet man who had arrived with a set purpose. Not because she was attracted to him by any means, but she knew what it felt like to feel something so deeply that it had the ability to freeze the world.

A feeling reasoned her to make a journey via a Greyhound eight years back in time with the intent of knocking on her lost father's door. If she were lucky, the bus wouldn't clamor; her father would smile brightly at her arrival and place her favorite tiara atop her head like he did when she was a child. Then, of course, he would ask her which song she planned to sing today. Brittany departed before her sister, leaving her mother to her cigarettes and quiet nights kept locked up in her room watching reruns of All My Children and charging up her credit card on boxes of Kleenex, depression medication, and needless amounts of painkillers.

Five years ago, she took a bus and asked the driver to stop in Atlanta, where it was rumored that her father now lived. Grabbing the ends of her tan faux fur coat, she stepped over the puddles and ventured into the nearest gas station. There, she retrieved an area phonebook from the attendant and found Dave, her father, listed on page 287, line 13. She decided she wouldn't dial the number but would walk the few blocks in the rain to his apartment for a more dramatic arrival. His door ended up not resembling the one at home in Oxford, Mississippi. Instead of classic hardwood, she found a steel one in place. She pushed the fancy buzzer and was greeted almost immediately by a thin, elegant blonde lady who was disarming in her red sweater. Brittany wanted to say that she should always wear that color but after exchanging glances, Shell smiled at Brittany, brushed her wet bangs from her forehead and called for David. "He mentioned he had two daughters before. I know he'll be surprised to see you.

Brittany sat down to a feast of low mien and moo-goo gai pan and was stared at for a good while before attempts at conversation were made. She made little inquiry into the past because this was so pleasantly and unexpectedly new.

She did learn that her father left and decidedly made a career for himself as a successful architect. He later married Shell with a million dollar ring, and lived happily, in their modern two-bedroom apartment in Atlanta. He said his life felt clean.

After yawns were exchanged, Dave showed Brittany to her room. Hanging on the wall along the hallway were two pictures. One was of a photo of Dawn at the spelling bee where she won first place. Dawn, no more than eight or nine, looked sublimely happy here with her plaid school uniform on and her compulsively white, oversized buck teeth. The second picture was one she had never seen. It was a profile shot of her, taken while she was sleeping. She remembered that it was the night after an unsuccessful and dateless middle school dance. She went straight to her bedroom still with that outrageous shiny blue eye shadow on her lids and sad tiara still clinging to her hair. There were no pictures of Shell. It seemed as though he didn't actually move on.

Brittany took note of the expensive looking furniture and stood unsure where to place her things. Dave took her bags and showed her the empty closet. He then kissed Brittany on the cheek and embraced her so that her ear was by his lips. He whispered, "It's good to have you home sweetheart. I'm sorry I didn't have a tiara to give you but don't you worry, we'll find you one soon. We can start all over.

"I promise.

Back at the downtown café where she worked, she brought the intense man his coffee and was disappointed to find his page empty and his head in his hands. Every customer was the same it seemed. After years now of being a waitress, she hoped she could become a master of people. But the closer she came, the more conversations she tried to strike up, the more distant she became. Dave never told her the real reason why he left. He seemed happy that she had searched him out but she arrived home to regularly find a note on the fridge indicating that there were leftovers. Notes and emptied apartments upon her return was not the father she knew. What happened to the sneaky father who would pry open her door after crying herself to sleep to capture with a camera the way makeup ran down her face?

After the man wrapped himself back up and paid for his coffee, she counted the tip before proceeding to wipe down all the tables. It was her night to close; she did it alone every Thursday night so her boss could go play poker, although he regularly lost what he brought going in. After the diner had been cleaned, she went behind the counter to add up the till. Fifty cents short, she went to grab her purse to make up the difference. Her phone was flashing red, which meant that she had either missed a call from Todd, her nuisance boyfriend or her father, calling to tell her whether or not there were any leftovers in the fridge. She flipped open her phone and saw a number she didn't recognize. Dialing her voicemail, she waited for the message to play. A woman with a wispy voice said she was calling from Oxford, Mississippi, hoping she would get this. Her voice was breaking in and out but Brittany distinctly made out something about her mother, Emily. It was something about her falling down stairs, being sick, and in the hospital room. After more static, she heard one final sentence, "I think it's important that you come to see your mother.

Imogene had found Emily's two daughters.

Upon hearing the news, Dawn excused herself politely from her meeting, told Deborah she would need a few days off. Grabbing her briefcase, she took herself to a nearby coffee shop where she chain-smoked five cigarettes and slowly came to the realization about what this meant.

"Fuck, she muttered to herself while watching a man unsuccessfully try to parallel park a few feet from her seat.

She couldn't just cancel on her mother like an unimportant client. She had paved her career out of being ruthless and controlling. For the first time in her life, she was afraid. This wasn't a speech she could maneuver to silence her opponent. No, she was being asked to be the quiet one and show up full of love and support. What would she say and better yet, what would you bring to a woman who was never satisfied with a single thing she got?

A specialty pack of cigarettes? No, can't go in that direction; it's most likely lung cancer, she thought.

Dawn left a ten dollar tip, walked a few blocks to the right past the rows of designer shops where a single dress cost three hundred and more and made her way to Anna Moore's. Anna Moore was notorious for its sweet smelling luxury soap and perfumes. She remembered her mother always smelling like rosemary. It would be a thoughtful gift; it was safe enough.

In two hours' time, she was on a plane to Oxford. First class, champagne at hand, cell phone turned off, Dawn had exactly seven hours from California to plan her opening conversation with her toughest opponent yet, her mother.

As the steward made his way back to her seat to refill her mug, she looked at him pensively and said, "Now tell me honestly. How does this sound? Hi, Mom. It's Dawn, your twenty eight year old compulsive neurotic chain smoking daughter. Let's forget about those seventeen hellish years, and make up for lost time. Care for a smoke?

Brittany was the irrational one. She was the one you could count for not being asleep in her bed at 3 a.m. on a school night. No, she was the girl whose hair flapped in the wind as she stuck her head out the side of a racing hot barracuda. She would return before sunrise, creep stealthily through her window, reeking of booze and cheap perfume. But even three hours later, with bags under her eyes, she was beautiful. Her chestnut colored hair that shimmered with protein, legs that spread for days, and a manner that captivated anyone who crossed her path.

She acted more quickly than Dawn. Closing the dark doors to the café, she turned the lock, and instead of pacing the five blocks back to her father's apartment where she was sure a plate of spaghetti rest along with soggy French bread, she made her way towards the interstate, where she planned to hitchhike with her paycheck in bag, mascara, toothbrush, and spare pair of underwear back to Oxford, where she had left her mothers' only five years ago. She hadn't found what she was looking for with her father in Atlanta so nothing could keep her back. A random phone call was enough encouragement for her to leave the city and signal down strangers with the hopes they were heading her way, whichever way that was. Her journey's end was Oxford, Mississippi.

With thumbs bracing the icy wintry wind, she pulled over a truck in five minutes time. Having applied red lipstick to her full lips before leaving work, the driver with the burly mustache smiled as if he had won the lottery.

"Where's to little lady? he asked.

On her third pick up, she headed with the driver into the Mississippi Welcome Center to look for her mother a present. She passed rows of magnets, cards, and shot glasses. She passed the little boy racing his sister to the bathroom and smiled.

Dawn. She thought of Dawn, her sister. Would she be there?

Towards the back of the store, near the soft drinks, she walked up to the specialty liquor shelf. This was a special occasion but not necessarily a pretty one, so she did what she usually does after any laborious shift. She picked out a bottle of rum to make up for the demanding customer, for the fight with a lover, for her depression, and this time, for a trip to see her forgotten mother.

After paying the eight dollars for the large bottle, she held the package in her right hand and opened the door for the siblings with her left. The brother with a ketchup mustache held his sister's hand and told her that she had to follow him. She remembered Dawn and how close they were before she left to find her father. Dawn was the sister who let her crawl into bed with her after one of their mother's episodes, the one who consoled her after a breakup, but also the one to criticize her about her boyfriends, friends, and grades.

"I hate to see that you're going nowhere, Dawn told her.

But that was years ago. Brittany had moved on. Maybe Dawn would be happy to see her. Maybe she would approve of her life. They were sisters. And they could once again face their mother together. Brittany would serve a killer cup of coffee.

"We didn't move or speak for at least a minute. We stared at each other in furious disbelief. We're cowards, I said at last. This wasn't a dramatic mistake we made. It was just a stupid little one that got out of hand. What do they call them? Sins of omission.
-Michael Cunningham

By 6 a.m., the nurses had begun to make regular appearances into Emily's room. Once every two hours, they made their rounds, getting Emily to sit up to check her I.V. and blood pressure. After her arm received a good squeezing, they gave her a shot before letting her lay back down. While she was sleeping, a nurse brought in a bouquet of flowers from Imogene and set it on the table against the window. The note inside read, "Your daughters are coming. Hope you feel better. Best of luck. Signed, Imogene.

Emily slept, and slept. She didn't wake as the hospital gates opened for Dawn, who arrived first. After her long plane ride, she decided she would give her mother a professional smile to show her that she had her life in order. She approached the hospital's information desk in the lobby and asked if her mother was here. After telling the nurse her mother's name, the nurse told her to check third floor, room 309. Now that she knew the room number, she decided to delay her arrival with more coffee, so she found the cafeteria, ordered a tall cup of coffee, a doughnut and ate while reading a business magazine. She still didn't know what to expect.

Dawn's arrival announced the morning, and a nurse entered Emily's room to announce dietary, meaning breakfast. Emily, who took a cigarette and a cup of black coffee with granola for breakfast, was disgruntled by the mandatory bacon, eggs, and grits with a happy colored glass of O.J. She hadn't asked for this and didn't want it. But she was running low on cigarettes and decided to try a few bites to see if putting something beside a cigarette in her mouth would help reduce her cravings. She decided to go with the irrational belief that stopping smoking right now would keep her from dying. She was like Brittany hitchhiking for rides, failing to consider what her drivers would be like.

Picking up the metal fork and sliding a mouth full of cheese eggs into her mouth, she stared numbly at an infomercial on the T.V. On the third bite, there was a knocking at the door. She didn't swallow; she felt as if she knew who would appear. Half expecting one of her daughters to enter the room, she knew there wouldn't be any proper preparation. It had been ten years since her daughters had left her; it had been ten years since she had spoken their names. Dawn would come first, she thought. It was Dawn who remained for a short while after the divorce and her sister's unannounced departure. Surely, there was some dedication in her nature. Emily visualized the entrance. Dawn, her eldest daughter would walk into the room hidden behind a purposely oversized bouquet of lilies.
Emily would be overcome with happiness but she would be filled with shame. She would want a cigarette. She would have much to say but no idea on how to say it. Her daughter would certainly look just like her father; David was her favorite and he was disarming. Emily felt hideous.
There would be so much to say, and Emily couldn't remember what it was.
"Emily, said the voice from behind the door. A nurse, most likely approaching her fifties, waddled in wearing a sad green uniform and was armed with a lazy and uninterested expression. "Good morning Miss. Your Doctor suggested I take you outside for a stroll. She said it would be good for you to get some fresh air into your lungs. Let's get you out of bed and into a chair.
"Dawn? Emily muttered under her breath. She was in a state of disbelief. She recognized a sadness; she wanted her daughters but realized it was probably too late. Why did I close my doors those nights? I just couldn't figure out how to make my life work. I wish I could explain.
As Emily rolled down an endless number of white hallways, Dawn finished her bit of coffee and snickered to herself as she watched an older woman spoon feed what appeared to be her irritable husband. Brittany sat quietly in the passenger seat of a stranger's car as she waited to be delivered to the area hospital. The mile marker from where she was at indicated that she had ten more exits to go. The three women were all in close proximity and had the same questions on the mind. Dawn drank down her mother with her cup of coffee. Brittany pulled out her compact mirror to touch up her powder and a lipstick, a color similar to the one her mother had been wearing for years. The nurse pushed Emily out into the cold wintry air and asked her which way she'd like to go. Emily spotted an aged oak tree and pointed in its direction. Tugging at her coat to keep out the cold from reaching her skin, she resolved to remain quiet and reflect.
The nurse traveled to the tree, told her she'd return in twenty minutes. "Press this button on your chair if you need anything. I'll be back.
Sixty-five, a widow, childless, wrinkled, her life had approached a stalemate. Alone in the courtyard except for a business woman chatting softly on her cell phone, Emily made a glance around to make sure no one was watching. She reached down to her sock and pulled out a cigarette. The nurses had complained about the smell of smoke the day before and confiscated the pack in her purse. But Emily had outsmarted them; she needed the cigarettes so she stuffed a few down into her thick socks. Didn't they know? Smoking was good for the soul. Or at least that was her inherent belief.
She pulled out her last Camel from her sock, and wondered if this would be her last. The wintry air, the dead trees, the absence of people felt like the appropriate finale. She wasn't on a train to Birmingham and no, she didn't have an ashtray but she had herself and a cigarette. Holding the cigarette between her aged hands, she stared at it for a good while. The doctors reminded her daily that she had lung cancer, and death was certain. "Now would be a good time to quit. There's no time better than now, the doctor told her. The cigarette was lifeless. Alone in the courtyard contemplating the idea of death, she allowed herself to think about what she would be leaving behind. She realized she had already left the world years ago, when she failed to understand herself and the people around her. Because she didn't know, she kept moving on. Divorce seemed like the appropriate option; weeping behind closed doors was a conditioned response; letting her daughters disappear made life easier on her for the time being. She went from job to job, husband to husband, city to city, and now nearing the end of her days, she found herself in a rural town with no one except for a measly cigarette.
Without drawing the cigarette to her lips, she let her hand fall. The wind swept away her fatal comfort. She would quit. There was nothing to lose. She had already lost what she at one time had. As the wind kissed the back of her neck, she sighed and let the cold embrace her. Her breathing slowed and she returned the wind's embrace with a quiet response. Send my apologies, she thought. Tell my daughters. "I'm sorry, she uttered as she began to weep.
The cold was quick. She blew like paper.
Dawn threw away her cup, stood up and pressed her skirt before making her way towards the elevator. Brittany thanked her driver profusely and told him if he was ever in need of a ride, she'd have her own car in ten year and could certainly return the favor. As Dawn, traveled up the elevator towards her mother's ward, Brittany waited for the next available one. They both traveled upward. Dawn found the empty room first. A nurse was collecting Emily's things and told her the news. Dawn, stunned, turned to walk out of the room but ran head on with her sister. They looked at each other, laughed, and embraced each other. "Is she gone? Brittany asked too naturally.
"Yeah, we just missed her, Dawn replied.
A pause.
"Let's take a smoke.