Infinite Sky

Aunt Esmerelda or Auntie Esme as we were allowed to call her was something of a mystery to me. Occasionally I would go and see her without telling my mother. Esme had annoyed her elder sister by falling in love with, and then marrying a handsome Moroccan called Samir twenty years her junior. Mum's anger increased when Esme embraced Islam. At the mere mention of the name Esme her face would tighten, her lips reducing to a thin red line, eyes fixed and bulging with rage. I could almost see the smoke coming out of her ears. They had stopped speaking, and indeed all forms of communication with each other not long after Esme's marriage. Mum was determined not to have anything to do with Esme and I think Esme found this arrangement less stressful than having to constantly try and keep her big bullying sister on the right side of happy.

I'm not sure that I loved or even liked Auntie Esme but she intrigued me. She always wore a fine dusting of face powder and a perfume called “Rose of Medina”. She looked and smelled like Turkish Delight, and just like the said confection, she was exotically sweet inside, hiding under a frosty coating, but not to everyone's taste.

I was sad to learn that Esme was dying and decided to pay her one of my secret visits.

Samir let me in with a sad smile. His jet black hair now had tiny flecks of white creeping up on him.
“She hasn't got much longer”, he whispered and his smile disappeared being replaced by a dampness of the eyes that could very quickly have turned to tears.

I sat down next to my bed bound Aunt and tried to think of something to say. For some time all I could do was look at her. She wasn't the same. I'd never noticed the pinkness in her cheeks before. Her hair which she always kept a deep chocolate colour was escaping in wisps from the bandages holding her head together. She looked back at me, silently. Perhaps she too was trying to think of something to say.

“We're all the same,we're all different but we're all the same”, Esme said. “ Everything exists...everything exists somewhere It's all up there, everything. It's all up there”
Anyone would have thought that she was delirious and rambling but her steady hazelnut eyes said not. I stretched across and touched her hand. “How are you feeling Auntie?” I said.
“Better and happier than ever before”
Steady and calm she looked.
“Look up, It’s all there. Everything that has ever existed. Everything that will ever exist has always been there. I've always thought it, now I know it. Everything is possible, never forget it, everything is possible ”
I stroked her forehead. “Try to rest” I told her.
“I am rested” she said.
Silently I sat with her for a while.
“Samir?” her voice asked me.
I opened the door. He was already waiting there. His previously damp eyes were now wet with his tears. He sat by her bed and took her hand in both of his.
I closed the door and left them to their last moments together.

A few days later I sat in my room and rummaged through the bag of Esme's things that Samir had given me and brought out the perfume bottle. I squirted myself with “Rose of Medina” and went to the kitchen where my mother was setting the table for dinner.
The thin red line appeared on her face. “You've been to HER”
“She's dead” I said.
“You've got that stuff on. IT STINKS”
“She's dead” I said again.
Suddenly she changed. The tight face slackened and the bullfrog eyes started to cry. She slumped into a chair and wept. Auntie Esme was right. Everything is possible.
“The funeral was yesterday. She didn't want anyone there. Only Samir”. Anger flashed on mum's face as I told her this. “He loved her you know”
“What did she have to say for herself anyway, you know, when you went to see her?” blubbered mother.
“Not much, and yet many things. She said little, but she said a lot. She said nothing and everything. She spoke of everyone, heaven,earth, the past, future and......”
My eyes met my mothers as we exclaimed in unison “The Infinite Sky”.