[stylist] Influence of Others Gratefully Received

[Miss Thea]

I'm so grateful to have your help.
We all benefit from checking each other's work.

I'm reading a book by Diana Gabaldon, and she has a long list of 
acknowledgments, not least of which the members of a bulletin board, not 
dissimilar to our list.

-----Original Message----- 
From: Barbara HAMMEL via stylist
Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2017 4:19 AM
To: Writers' Division Mailing List
Cc: Barbara HAMMEL ; writingblind at yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [stylist] A Very Special House



I saw a few places where sentences didn't get capitalized and a number of 
spacing problems but overall, this was fantastic.
Barbara Hammel

> On Jun 13, 2017, at 21:08, Bonnie Mosen via stylist <stylist at nfbnet.org> 
> wrote:
>
> HI Thea, I haven't looked at the site so have no idea how accessible it 
> is, but the writers in my chapter of Romance Writers of NZ love a site 
> called Pronoun.com. Apparently it is very easy to upload books to the 
> usual suspects where ebooks are sold. Smile
> Look forward to reading your novella.
>
> Cheers
> Bonnie Mosen
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Miss Thea 
> via stylist
> Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2017 2:00 PM
> To: writingblind at yahoogroups.com
> Cc: Miss Thea <thearamsay at rogers.com>
> Subject: [stylist] A Very Special House
>
> Hi, folks.
>
> Here’s that novelette in 17 thousand words or more.
>
> I know it’s probably better if I send it in small chunks, but my hands are 
> very sore tonight; I beg your indulgence.
>
> Here’s the whole thing.
>
> I’d like to format this for Amazon Kindle. Any advice on formatting 
> something for publishing would be awesome, as I know some of you have 
> published works.
>
> Or maybe there’s something better than Amazon Kindle.
>
> I hope there’s nothing better than the following: LOL.
>
> It’s called “A Very Special House”.
>
>
>
>
>
> A VERY SPECIAL HOUSE
>
>
>
> 1
>
>
>
> Blood loss left me cold and terrified. It hadn’t been personal. Not this 
> time.
>
> Stray bullet. Wrong place, wrong time, and all because I came back.
>
> The last thing I heard was Marlene screaming at her drunk husband to call 
> 9-1-1.
>
> The last thing I felt was my temperature dropping, and such awful 
> weakness, plus a strange sort of thinning, as if I were melting into the 
> polished wood floor.
>
> The last thing I thought was, Who will find my journal, and how will my 
> kids know what I’d written for them to see?
>
>
>
> ***  ***  ***
>
>
>
> 2
>
> I remember the day Dr. Glasses told me to start writing in that journal. 
> He’s actually called Greene, but with that detached look, and those stupid 
> horn-rimmed things, I think Dr. Glasses a much more appropriate name.
>
> He assigned the journal, like a teacher assigning homework during our 
> third session, or maybe it was our fourth.
>
> His office boasted no carpet or couch, just a couple of hard-backed 
> chairs, for the clients, and the comfortable swivel chair behind his desk, 
> where he made notes on his computer from time to time. A bookshelf made of 
> dark wood—mahogany, maybe—completed the ensemble. They bespoke 
> masculinity, strength, no tolerance for weakness.
>
> “I’m back,” I said as I entered, swept the Spartan room with my eyes, “for 
> more fast food therapy.”
>
> “Hellow, Louise.” He didn’t respond to my sarcasm. He never did.
>
> “Where’s your couch, Dr. Comfort.” That went by him, too.
>
> “Dr. Greene,” he said, leaning back in his chair. He took off his glasses, 
> gave them a vigorous rub with a cloth, and replaced them. He regarded me 
> with no emotion I could define. “I’m not here to comfort you. I’m here to 
> help you. How have you been this week?”
>
> I shrugged. “Same old same old.”
>
> He looked at some paper. Notes from our last two sessions, I guessed. “I’m 
> here to help you move past this obsession with the place you call your 
> honey house.”
>
> “It was my honey house, and it’ll always be.” Straightening up to my full 
> 5-1 height in the chair, I stared at him, my mouth a red ribbon of 
> disapproval. “I can’t move forward, Dr. Grene. I’ve tried everything. 
> Yoga, meditation, meeting people online, you name it. I have to go back. 
> That’s all there is to it.”
>
> Greene shook his head. “I don’t think that would be helpful. At best, the 
> house is a memory. At worst, a fantasy. It’s no longer yours.”
>
> “I know that!” I snapped, and glared at him.
>
> He steepled his fingers and looked at me. “Louise,” he said in an even 
> voice, “suppose it belongs to someone else now? You’d be at risk for being 
> arrested for trespassing.“
>
> “I’m not going to break and enter! I just want to see it.”
>
> He shook his head again and rubbed his wrinkling brows as if trying to 
> quell an oncoming headache. At that moment, I realized he was human. Just 
> a man, albeit one with a lot of degrees hanging on the wall.
>
> “I can’t help it,” I whispered, hanging my head. “I’m stuck and I can’t 
> move on. Ray moved on. He died. The kids grew up and moved on. Me …” I 
> left the rest unsaid. No other words were necessary.
>
> Dr. Greene’s brows relaxed. “That’s good, Louise. It’s not easy to admit 
> you have a problem.”
>
> Then he gave me the assignment. I was to get a journal and write any 
> dreams about the house and my life there, plus any moods pertaining to it. 
> In this way, I could begin my recovery.
>
> I admit he looked more optimistic than I felt.
>
>
>
> 3
>
>
>
> I wrote in the first of the 3-ring binders I’d bought. I’d decided to 
> write to my deceased ex-husband. I could write better that way, if it 
> seemed like I was talking to someone.
>
>
>
> I saw you again last night, Ray.
>
> We were in bed, playing footsies, watching one of your John Wayne movies. 
> I snuggled into you. You rubbed my back. I stretched in your encircling 
> arms, aware of their warm strength. The lingering scent of that night’s 
> dinner enriched the air. The savory aftertaste of juicy pork, carrots, 
> potatoes, onions and garlic lingered in my mouth. The crockpot, filling 
> our honey house with its promise of comfort, had delivered its plain but 
> sumptuous promise. I lay surrounded by the walls of the sweet bungalow we 
> called home, breathing in the scent of crockpot and red Maui earth after 
> the rain.
>
> I rubbed my feet against the poofy goose-down bedspread your parents had 
> given us.
>
> “You going to sleep on me, there? You be careful I don’t disappear into 
> the show and jump that very attractive young lady’s bones.”
>
> “Oh no you don’t, cowboy,” I murmured as I reached under the poofy blanket 
> and the sheet to play with what I found there.
>
> You were rigid under my hand. I rolled on top of you. Best ride of my 
> life.
>
> You and the bedroom dissolved.
>
> I woke up crying again. When would these tantalizing night tortures end?
>
> I tried to pray, Ray, really I did. I tried to hold onto the “honey house” 
> dream, but I couldn’t, not with the humming of the fridge in my small 
> apartment and the disembodied voices of the local news station. I wrapped 
> up in the cold blankets. A couple more minutes, then I’d take a quick 
> shower and go to work. I shivered, cursing the cold of my home and native 
> land.
>
> Shutting my eyes brought Maui back. NO!  I shook myself. The white 
> bungalow on that pretty island could no longer intrude. I had to get up.
>
> On Maui, the birds would be singing. Here, there was only a traffic report 
> and a windchill factor.
>
>
>
> At work, the blind couple who always asked for me, Roger and Trudy, came 
> to my window.  I left my cage, asked them to follow me, and forgot they 
> couldn’t see where I was going. Feeling like an idiot, I apologized. Trudy 
> said that was quite okay, just keep talking and King would guide her, and 
> thanks so much for all your help.
>
> I took them to a table where they could sit down to do their banking. I 
> sat opposite them. “How’s Kingie today?” I asked.
>
> “Great,” Roger said, unsmiling, “and we’re fine, too. Thanks for asking.”
>
> “Roger …” Trudy scolded in a whisper. She offered me a broad smile. “King 
> is royal, and he knows it.”
>
> “Can we get on with this, please?” Roger’s frown deepened, his fingers 
> tapping the table impatiently while she fished the unopened mail out of 
> her purse for me to look at.
>
> While I said stupid things about the ‘blind institute’ sending them 
> Braille copies, and Roger corrected me sternly, she just smiled and said 
> it was okay that I didn’t know. King wagged his tail
>
> What a mismatch, I thought, while I told her which were bills and recycled 
> the junk mail. Brown hair framed her face. Bangs softened her face, with 
> its dancing blue eyes. Roger pulled angrily at his moustache and stopped 
> himself from banging his cane on the chair. He sighed a lot, while Trudy 
> and I went through the bills.
>
> “Now, Roger,” she said, getting up, King doing the same, “I think you 
> promised lunch at the Pickle Barrel? They have Braille menus there, 
> Louise.”
>
> “Okay, let’s get out of here,” Roger said, as if the whole thing was a 
> waste of time.
>
> She walked out of the bank smiling, her curls bobbing. He walked beside 
> her, sweeping his cane back and forth as if he’d like to hit someone with 
> it.
>
> The pall almost lifted from me when they were gone. Ray’d been like Roger, 
> when he was sober or just beginning a foul drunken mood. I shivered, and 
> had to remind myself that wasn’t Ray and me.  it had nothing to do with 
> me.
>
> I drove home, nervous. My vision was beginning to blur. It was dark this 
> time of year, but I didn’t remember having this trouble last year.
>
> One thing the empty apartment furnished was heat, for which I didn’t pay. 
> Grateful for that, I opened a can of Irish stew and nuked it. The fridge 
> hummed so loud, I couldn't stand the sound. Except for the fridge, the 
> silence deafened. The awareness of being alone surrounded me like a wall. 
> I could see it, touch it, bump into it. The one thing I couldn’t do was 
> make it go away.
>
> I passed some time reading Victoria Holt, my favorite author, but couldn’t 
> concentrate. The fridge’s hum frightened me. I thought there were rats in 
> the apartment.
>
> I drank my hot chocolate in silence. Scary walls slowly closed in, God, I 
> couldn’t breathe, and the fridge! I could almost hear words, but of course 
> that was silly. I couldn’t even tell what words I heard. My head ached 
> from reading.
>
> I took an Abilify, and worried about getting a whopping case of diabetes, 
> going blind, living in some hell hole on disability.
>
> Dear God, what’s happening to me? Am I going psychotic or something, being 
> all alone was no good for me.
>
> I gripped the arms of a chair that didn’t want me sitting in it. Its 
> hatred threatened me. I mustn’t call Greene. If he knew I didn’t always 
> take my meds …
>
> I went for a paper bag and put it over my face. Breathe, I told myself. 
> Breathe till the meds kick in. I wondered if it would kick in, since I 
> hadn’t taken one for longer than I’ll admit to.
>
> Xanax would stop the palpitations. I took one. Twenty minutes later, the 
> walls went back to their places, and the fridge’s hum toned down. The 
> chair became inanimate once more. The Xanax took the sharp edge of terror 
> off my fear of going blind. Soon, I felt all the tension loosen as a 
> comforting drowsiness took its place.
>
> So, I’d had trouble driving. It didn’t mean I was going blind.
>
> 3
>
>
>
> Dr. Greene read my journal entries so fast I thought he was merely 
> scanning them. When he looked up, I knew I was in for it.
>
> “How long have you been skipping doses?”
>
> “Um …”
>
> He sighed and put the notebook down. “That’s what the Abilify is for, 
> Louise, to deal with those voices, and the terrors. If you’re afraid you’re 
> losing your vision, you need to see a specialist. Talk to your primary 
> care—“
>
> “I know the drill.”
>
> “Good. Now stay on your meds and follow up about your eyes. Now, about 
> your journal, not a bad start, Louise. So your late ex-husband drank? Tell 
> me more.”
>
> I did, not without tears. I told him about the verbal abuse, the black 
> eyes, and the split lip, and the bloody nose—beatings I’d never forgiven 
> him for, just as I’d never really forgiven the verbal abuse, except that 
> it had gone both ways. It was easier to forgive when I’d gotten a bit of 
> my own back.
>
> “Makes sense,” he said. “You got even verbally at least, since you couldn’t 
> get even physically.”
>
> I nodded, guilt washing over me. I had gotten even physically. I started 
> to cry. If good old Dr. Glasses thought I was crying because of Ray’s 
> beatings, why disabuse him? Still, I felt like a proper heel, not telling 
> him the truth.
>
> At session’s end, he told me to keep up the good work.
>
> “And stay on those meds,” trailed after me as I walked out the door.
>
>
>
> “Hi, Louise.”
>
> I nodded at the yoga instructor. Donna wore baggy pants and oversize 
> sweaters. No makeup or jewelry. Her buzz cut was growing out, but her red 
> hair was still very short.
>
> I greeted her, said hi to the other women, and dropped my mat in front of 
> me.
>
> When Donna closed the door, she called for quiet. We did our breathing and 
> stretching exercises.I found the music relaxing, almost hypnotic. Soft and 
> lush, it helped me focus on Donna. As she instructed, I lifted my arms, 
> palms facing up, bent forward, bent backward, inhaled, exhaled, and 
> brought my hands to prayer in front of my heart. From downward-facing dog 
> to the slither of baby cobra, I moved smoothly, inhaling and exhaling as I 
> bent, leaned this way and that, pointed my toes in and out, folded 
> forward, and fell on my face.
>
> “Woops,” I said.
>
> “No problem, Louise.”
>
> I smiled, the first real smile in a while. “I’m not a lithe young thing 
> anymore.”
>
> “Lithe young thing? What’s that?” an older woman said to general laughter. 
> “I’m about as lithe as a wooden board.” She did her yoga from a chair, 
> since she could no longer get up and down on the floor.
>
> “You’ll love this next exercise. On your bellies, ladies.”
>
> When it was time to sit on the front of our mats, I noticed the effects of 
> the exercises, just like Donna said I would, only they weren't exactly the 
> quiet euphoria she'd  promised. My lower back hurt. Even through the 
> breathing, I had trouble finding peace. The silence only made my thoughts 
> louder. First, the back ache. Then the heartache, and it was my own fault.
>
> Long ago, I had held a lithe little thing in my arms, so supple and 
> flexible, she could have taught Donna a thing or two, except she was an 
> hour old.
>
> The group broke up right after the exercises. It seemed no one stayed 
> around to socialize.
>
> Back in the apartment, I turned on the radio. A piano etude played.
>
> The phone didn’t ring, nor did I expect it to. There’s a threesome at work 
> whom I imagine are joined at the hip after work, too. I bet they’re out, 
> or on the phone to each other, or in a chat room.
>
> I took two sleeping tablets and went to bed, hoping for a neutral dream, 
> or better yet, a dream unremembered, for a restful night and no 
> journalling at 5 AM.
>
>
>
> 4
>
>
>
> Little painful pulls inside told me my womb was healing, as Kathee nursed 
> in my arms. I held her hand. Could anything so perfect be so tiny? Resting 
> my cheek next to her head, I smelled perfume coming from it. Her natural 
> musk made me giddy. I breathed it in. My fingers played over the 
> pipe-cleaner fuzz on her round little head. I couldn't stop stroking it. I 
> breathed in the perfume again and again. I brushed my cheek against that 
> perfect, fuzzy head.  I barely resisted the urge to lick it, as a mother 
> cat might her kitten.
>
> The milk flowed. So did a warm, euphoric high. When I wrote "Kathee" on 
> her birth certificate, you patted my shoulder and asked me what that was 
> all about.
>
> It’s prettier spelled that way.”
>
> You smiled. “It’s different. How's it pronounced? Kathy?"
>
> "Not quite. Short A like in Kathy, but the 'th' sound is more like in 
> there or that. Emphasis on the first syllable, like Kathy. The only 
> difference is the 'th'."
>
> "When you’re done there, could I have a minute with my daughter, whatever 
> her name is?”
>
> “Nope.” I grinned.
>
> I put her over my shoulder and she burped some of the milk onto it.
>
> You took her from me. “’Scuse me, that’s my job.”
>
> I watched you bond with her, stroking her head much as I had done, taking 
> in great gulps of her perfume. When she cried for more milk, you gave her 
> back reluctantly.
>
> I breathed in her head-scent, and rubbed my face against the round fuzz 
> before latching her on to the other breast. I held her tiny hand.
>
> “I love you,” you said. “You, Len, and now our little princess, Kathee.”
>
> “I love you too, Ray,” I said.
>
> “Anything I can get you, my queen?”
>
> “Well, in six weeks or so, we can try for another.”
>
> Our newborn trained her blue, long-lashed eyes on my face. Our eyes met, 
> blue to brown, sending love and curiosity. I wondered what was going on in 
> that hour-old mind, or was it minutes old? I didn’t know. There was no 
> time, only one big, euphoric now. Kathee, so flexible, threw back her 
> head, threw her feet in the air, and cried “Aaaaah!” as if she’d won the 
> lottery. Flapping  her hands, she squirmed and wriggled in my arms, 
> talking a blue streak. “Aaaaaah”, “laaaah”.
>
> “Look. Oh my God, isn’t that cute!” She lifted her head and feet, rounded 
> her back, as if she were trying to fold herself in half. Then, she 
> stretched out to her full length with the snap of baby clothes and a 
> diaper.
>
> “Oh my God. Bendy-foldy Kathee,” you said. “Lithe as a cat. She’ll be a 
> gymnast or a ballerina one day.”
>
> You curled one of my tresses around your finger, never caring it was wet 
> from hours of labor.
>
> Love descended, surrounded, like a thick velvet.
>
> "How are we doing, Mrs. Lowe?" asked the    nurse who was suddenly there, 
> checking up on me.
>
> "I feel high as a kite. All warm and fuzzy."
>
> "The high you feel is from nursing. It's all part of the bonding process 
> between you and your newborn, caused by a combination of Oxytocin, the 
> attachment chemical, and endorphins, which means, endogenous morphine, the 
> body's natural opiates."
>
> I grinned at her. "Can I get some of that to go?"
>
> She laughed. Then suddenly, Lenny was with you, and the birthing room had 
> been replaced by a room with new moms and their new babies—more than a 
> real hospital room would have. I knew it even then. Surrounded by 
> Christmas-happy chatter, courtesy of our body’s natural bonding chemicals, 
> and the little princes and princesses, we passed around names and babies. 
> New moms and their babies surrounded my bed.
>
> "Isn't my son gorgeous?"
>
> "I'm in love with mine. He's so well-behaving," said one with a thick 
> accent.
>
> “Ladies, I wish to present Princess Kathee.”
>
> “And Prince Lenny,” piped up a little voice.
>
> Everyone laughed and hugged our son, too.
>
> “I bet you be the best little big brother, yeah?” said the mom with the 
> thick accent.
>
> Newborn faces cradled by mothers’ arms surrounded me. Some of the babies 
> were feeding, while others breathed quietly or made small, adorable 
> noises.
>
> "Whatcha doin', monkey?"
>
> Lenny had climbed up behind me on the bed. He threw his arms around me.
>
> Warmth bubbled up from within me. Tingling from Kathee's velvet head, and 
> the hugs, the happiness ... The laughter grew sweeter, warmer. I swore I 
> was floating. Suddenly, a nurse was at my bedside, cooing over my baby. 
> The doctor came in too, and told me what a cuddly baby I had there. His 
> voice sounded strangely warm, like something tactile. I wanted to touch 
> it, expected it would feel like Kathee's head. Then it all began to fade. 
> The laughter and the cooing grew strange, distorted, echoing in my head. 
> Shapes blurred. Kathee’s rose-petal skin was the last thing to melt away.
>
>
>
> 5
>
>
>
> The warmth surrounded me for a few seconds upon waking, then it slowly 
> dissolved. I started to cry again. It was gone, all gone. In its place was 
> the memory of a beeping monitor, me giving birth alone except for the 
> harried nurse rushing in between patients to check on me. The stark 
> hospital room where I convalesced and nursed alone replaced the room full 
> of adoring new mothers. And the doctor, brusque and in a hurry replaced 
> the warm-voiced doctor of my dream. . Worst of all, the fight we had the 
> morning I went into labor , the walls of our pretty, vine-covered honey 
> house ringing with shouts instead of the joyful expectation it deserved. 
> You stayed home with Lenny, while I bore down alone, and worried if you’d 
> get drunk.
>
> “What kind of a name is that?” you had yelled at me when your tired eyes 
> read the birth certificate. “That’s the stupidest name I’ve ever heard.”
>
> My pillow was waterlogged by the time I dragged myself out of bed. My 
> request to not dream about the house was granted, but with something 
> worse. The day I gave birth to Kathee presented itself in its most 
> tantalizing form, as what it should have been, not what it was. Dream and 
> reality stood side by side. The dream mocked me; the reality depressed me.
>
> I cried for Kathee. Where was she now? Oh God, where was she now? Guilt 
> washed away whatever warmth remained from the dream. Another fight in that 
> beautiful, honeysuckle house, because my Kathee, my 
> then-seventeen-year-old was pregnant. When I think of how I reacted, what 
> I did, shame covers me.
>
> I don't deserve the honey house. I don't deserve honey anything.
>
> ** ** **
>
>
>
> Dr. Greene read my latest entries, cleaned his glasses, set them back on 
> his nose, and asked, “What makes you think you don’t deserve ‘honey houses’ 
> or ‘honey anything’?”
>
> I sat there, silent and glum. “Because I don’t. Didn’t I just get through 
> telling you I hurt my Kathee? She got pregnant. She needed me. The way I 
> went on, you’d have thought she was ten. She was seventeen, going with a 
> boy I don’t think she knew well enough.”
>
> “And Ray? How did he react?”
>
> “He was passed out on the sofa.” I barely resisted the urge to spit.”
>
> “How old were you when you had your son?”
>
> “Eighteen.”
>
> “I’d turned eighteen the week before, and just graduated from high 
>  school.”
>
> “Did you know the father of Kathee’s child?”
>
> “I’d met him once or twice. He looked like a criminal in the making.”
>
> “How so?”
>
> “Insolent. The way he walked. The way he talked. The way he treated my 
> daughter without anything resembling love. At least Ray had loved me. We 
> had all kinds of dreams. The house we would live in, the kids we would 
> have, the happy family. Then work got the better of him, I guess. 
> Cocktails with clients became aperitifs before supper. The kids fought a 
> lot, about anything. Ray went downhill from there, and my illness didn’t 
> help. Like I asked for this fucking illness? I’m still mad at God. Lenny 
> bullied Kathee, physically, verbally. So when she got pregnant by this 
> bozo, I just reacted.”
>
> “Reacted. How? What did you do?”
>
> Tears followed each other down my cheek. I think a full minute passed 
> before I spoke again.
>
> “I … I … hit her. I slapped my Kathee in the face.”
>
> “Why?”
>
> I looked at Greene’s impassive face and hated him. He just sat there, the 
> idiot. Just sat there, waiting. I think he enjoyed watching me sweat. I 
> think he was getting off on it. A sliver of reason told me I was being 
> mean, but I turned it off the best I could.
>
> “Why did you hit her?” he repeated.
>
> “Because she was … she …” Realization, brought on by the dream, made 
> itself clear, waited in a corner of my mind. Waited to be voiced; waited 
> to be spoken, so that Greene—the whole world—would know what an immature 
> idiot I was.
>
> “Because she wasn’t mine any more. She grew up, and … and made the same 
> mistake I did.”
>
> Dr. Greene’s keying filled the silence. No judgment. No shouting from the 
> rooftops, just my shame at the realization. She’d stopped being my 
> fuzzy-headed little rush of comfort, and I was angry with her for that.
>
> Greene offered me a smile. “You know, it isn’t easy to admit these things. 
> Were you ever able to tell Kathee you were sorry?”
>
> I warmed to him then. He hadn’t asked if I was sorry. He knew. Maybe he 
> wasn’t such an idiot, after all. I shook my head. “The next week, she 
> moved into a friend’s place. That’s the last time I ever saw her.”
>
> “Are you still angry with Kathee?”
>
> “Of course not! I’m angry with me.”
>
> “Who are you angry with now?”
>
> I thought a minute. “At the time, I was insulted. Thought I’d brought her 
> up better than that, thought she’d have learned from Ray and I. After 
> that, I was mad at God for allowing her to make the same mistake, mad at 
> the driver across the road when I could see a contented woman beside him, 
> and hear happy kids in the backseat.”
>
> We said nothing for a minute. Dr. Glasses didn’t even touch his keyboard.
>
> “Was he there for Lenny’s birth?”
>
> I was taken aback. “Yeah, why? What does that have to do …”
>
> “Dreams are larger than life, and spring from our fears or our deepest 
> wishes, particularly the kind you’re having. When I read this dream, I 
> couldn’t help but note that Ray was there, and your room was full of warm, 
> happy people. But the reality is so different. Tell me about you and Ray 
> as a young expecting couple.”
>
> "We fought most of the time. I wasn't ready. Hell, I was only seventeen. 
> Ray was nineteen and in college. I was scared because I knew there was 
> something wrong with me. I just didn't know what. That complicated things, 
> as you can imagine."
>
> "In English, please."
>
> "What?"
>
> Damn Dr. Glasses, anyway. He seemed to know my mind before I did.
>
> "You're using general words to avoid the reality, Louise. Your disease 
> complicated things. What complications? What things?"
>
> "Now, who's playing dumb? Don't you have any imagination."
>
> "There's a method to my madness."
>
> I sighed. "Okay. I cried alot while I was pregnant with Lenny. Voices told 
> me to abort, and I nearly did. But I could feel him squirming around 
> inside me. Planned Parenthood can say what they like, but that lithe 
> little boy was alive, and there wasn't a moment when I didn't know it, 
> from morning sickness and all down the line."
>
> "Adoption?"
>
> "Nope. Ray wouldn't hear of it. The first time he slapped me was when I 
> mentioned it. He took it as a personal insult. Like, I didn’t want his 
> baby. His seed! I'm glad I didn't mention abortion."
>
> The doc nodded. “Can’t have been easy, for you or the kids. I realize your 
> depression is intractable, your BPD makes having relationships very hard, 
> and these voices and feelings you report are atypical.”
>
> “English, please,” I said and smiled. Another juvenile impulse.
>
> “Hard to treat. I’ve never met anyone with this kind of … attack. The 
> wordless yelling you hear, the feeling of things crawling on you. Quite 
> atypical. But you have to live with it.”
>
> “Don’t tell me how to feel! I hate this goddamn sickness, and I wish I 
> were dead.”
>
> I ranfrom the office, crying. I got into my car and drove slowly, 
> carefully home. I drove more carefully than I had as a student, because I 
> had to. I had to concentrate on what I could see in front of me.
>
> The panic attack came on full force, no warning. The car quivered with 
> hateful feelings toward me. It wanted me dead. Evil spirits crawled all 
> over my skin, yelled in my ear. Brain shocks accompanied the sharp 
> wordless sounds.
>
> I pulled into a parking lot, put my arms around me, and shivered.
>
> A cop stopped by and asked me to roll down my window.
>
> “You okay, ma’am?”
>
> “Yeah,” I gasped. “Just having a panic attack.”
>
> When it passed, I drove home, carefully, like I did when I was sixteen.
>
> I called my family doctor to arrange an appointment with an eye doctor.
>
>
>
> 6
>
>
>
> I ate my TV dinner to the loud, hateful hum of the fridge, and the 
> comfortless, disembodied voices of Talk radio.
>
> I tried to find something on TV. It played mindlessly. A commercial about 
> alcohol abuse came on, and suddenly I was thrown back in time, like 
> someone else had the remote control and was forcing me to watch and hear, 
> forcing me to relive every detail against my will.
>
>
>
> You glowered down at me in the hospital bed. "What the hell's this Kathee 
> all about? Let's just call her Kathy and be done with it. Kathee. It's 
> stupid."
>
> "I think it's pretty."
>
> "I wouldn't put too much faith in your thoughts, Louise. You're not too 
> sane. Why the hell didn't you tell me you were crazy? I would have steered 
> clear."
>
> "I didn't know."
>
> "How could you not know? Crazy and stupid? Do you think I hear voices?"
>
> "At least I don't slap people!"
>
> The only thing that saved me from your fist was the nurse, who was 
> suddenly there. "I think you'd better let your wife rest, Mr. Lowe."
>
> Swearing and spitting, you swept out of the room. Lenny was being looked 
> after. That meant only one thing. You were off to the nearest bar.
>
> The nurse looked at me for a second with pity in her eyes. "Mrs. Lowe, if 
> you need help, we can provide it."
>
> I cried all over Kathee's face.
>
> "Let me take her," the nurse said.
>
> I rocked and moaned and sobbed. "Why did I have to get pregnant by that 
> bastard?"
>
> She had gone with Kathee, who was also wailing. I'd frightened my Kathee. 
> This wasn't her fault, and I'd already frightened her.
>
> The cruel reality passed and left rage in its wake. God damn my mental 
> illness! God damn Ray's drinking! I raged around the apartment, angry and 
> guilty. Why this obsession with my daughter? I'd had a son, too, but 
> thoughts of him weren't as powerful. Of course, I'd given him a "sane" 
> name. There were no slaps or harsh words. Ray was proud to have a son. 
> After nine hours of labour, he celebrated, not with me, but with his 
> drinking buddies. I celebrated alone with my firstborn, Leonard Raymond 
> Lowe.
>
> I don't recall his head being so velvety-soft and perfumed. I recall him 
> crying alot. I was eighteen, and utterly lost. The other woman in the room 
> with me had a thick Polish accent, was much older, and stared at me 
> disapprovingly every time I pulled the buzzer in tears.
>
> The nurse took her time coming. Meanwhile, Lenny and I cried together 
> while his dad was out handing out cigars and buying drinks we couldn't 
> afford.
>
>
>
> Back in my apartment again, back in the present, I cried myself to sleep. 
> I was as old as that Polish woman had been, but still just as helpless as 
> the teen mom I had been.
>
> 7
>
>
>
> It’s official. I’m going blind. But I can still see to pour.
>
> The man in front of me, Phil, asks what’s new in my life. I feel like a 
> cheat. My online profile said nothing about mental illness or blindness. I 
> burble on about nothing, make up stuff about “Kathy”—no point in telling 
> him about my idea of how to name children. Kathy, I said, was a first-year 
> medical student. Her brother Leonard, a first-year law student.
>
> While we ate, I hoped it was true.
>
> He asks what I like to read. I give him a long list of books I’d recently 
> read, but say nothing about the headaches, and the fact that I’m rapidly 
> turning to audio books.
>
> After dinner, he asks if I’d like to go back to his place. I do. My 
> blurring vision shows me nothing unusual. His place is just another box 
> attached to identical boxes, an  apartment, like mine. He had a friendly 
> enough dog, though, and I enjoyed playing with him. We have a few more 
> drinks, and I climb in beside him. It was okay, nothing earth-shattering, 
> but comforting, and that’s all right with me.
>
> I like the feel of his back against mine, as I go to sleep.
>
> ** ** **
>
>
>
> I found myself again in the plush rocking chair you bought me for our 
> first anniversary, Ray. I enjoyed the motion, the smell of new upholstery, 
> and no squeak. It was new, yet, the kids were there. Lenny was nine, and 
> Chatty Kathee was five.
>
> The smooth glide and new smell should have been long gone, but the 
> air-conditioning circulated the newness throughout the house. It didn’t 
> even occur to me then that there was something wrong with the picture: the 
> kids school age, and the chair smelling newly built and painted. My 
> dreaming brain never questioned discrepancies.
>
> Behind his closed door, Len scored big with his computer hockey game. His 
> cheers made me smile. Kathee sat on my knee, watching Hercules. You hummed 
> and hammered in the little workshop we had built onto the house.
>
> “Mommy, what’s Daddy making?”
>
> “I don’t know, princess. Wish I did.”
>
> Her eyes shone as she turned her head to whisper, “Bet it’s a Christmas 
> present.”
>
> I grinned. “Maybe.”
>
> "Mommy, can we play tea party after this?”
>
> “Sure,  pigtails.”
>
> “Yay!” I thrilled at the adorable child’s squeak in her voice.
>
> The room dissolved. Kathee’s hand melted away.
>
>
>
> I woke up mad at God.  Why did he keep tantalizing me with this?
>
> “Want some coffee?” asked the sleepy voice beside me. I declined, with 
> thanks. I showered quickly and got dressed.
>
> “Hey, how about Friday night? You like country music?”
>
> “I like a little of everything,” I said. “Sure. Why not?”
>
> “I’m off to work. Call me.”
>
> “’Kay.” He snored before I left the apartment.
>
> It’s too dangerous for me to drive now. I can’t see the white lines very 
> well. Even taking the bus and subway to work was hard, since I can’t see 
> the numbers too clearly now either. Cold hail pelted me all the way there 
> and back.
>
> I baked a sheet of warm chocolate chip cookies. They smelled great, but in 
> the end, they were just cookies. Milk helpers. Nothing like when the kids 
> were little, and some Disney movie played in the background on one of the 
> rare nights when they weren’t fighting, nor were Ray and I.
>
> I went to bed with sore eyes and a swollen nose.
>
>
>
> 8
>
>
>
> I've let three months go by. My therapist is not happy. I don't see the 
> point in recording all this crap: my dreams, my feelings. What's the point 
> of reliving the torture of things that are gone forever, things I wished 
> happened that didn't? I work in a cage and live alone. That's reality, and 
> I'd better get used to it. I've certainly been doing it long enough.
>
> The fridge hums loud every day and night. The disembodied voices of the 
> radio don’t comfort me, so I turned it off for good.  I’ve quit yoga, too. 
> The darkness is closing in, and all I can hear is my eye specialist 
> saying, “Why didn’t you get your eyes checked earlier?” and my family 
> doctor telling me I’d had diabetes for a long time, and why hadn’t I 
> checked for that, why hadn’t I done this or that?
>
> I’m not allowed pets here, so Greene says I ought to move, then. He says 
> my need for connection is too great. Feeling disconnected isn't good for 
> me, blah blah blah. What does he expect me to do, create an instant 
> Family?
>
> I tried to connect with Phil. A few dates later, dates that ended at his 
> place, a few empty nights lying beside a stranger later, we called it a 
> day. His parting shot? “Look, I like you a lot, Louise. I just can’t 
> handle this.”
>
> I knew he meant my sight loss, but didn’t care about the relationship 
> enough to get mad and demand he use the right words.
>
> “Fine,” I’d replied. “It’s been a slice.”
>
> “Take care, Louise.”
>
>
>
> That night, I dreamed I was in front of my white bungalow. Lenny and some 
> of his friends were swimming in the pool in the backyard.
>
> You looked up from the grill. “Potato salad ready?”
>
> “You bet.”
>
> “Yay!” cried Kathee from inside.
>
> Opening the screen door, I entered the kitchen. “How’s the salad coming, 
> Kath?”
>
> “It’s gonna be good,” my eleven-year-old promised.
>
> I grinned. “Are there any cucumbers underneath all that creamy cucumber 
> sauce?”
>
> “Mom, there’s plenty of cukes in here. Watermelon, too.”
>
> The smell of cucumbers and watermelon filled the house with its freshness, 
> while outside husbands just like mine manned grills and filled our block 
> with burning charcoal and barbecuing meat.
>
> “Come and get your hamburgers!” you cried.
>
> Lenny and co. jumped out of the pool, raced across the grass, and gathered 
> around you, god of plenty, for a feast. Kathee and I brought out our 
> salads.
>
> I looked from the white bungalow to the picket fence and back again. I 
> thought that soon the night-blooming jasmine would fill the air with a 
> candy scent.
>
> I was suddenly inside, walking through the house, rubbing my feet in its 
> threadbare carpet. I paced the bedroom, went outside the cedar-covered 
> French doors onto our balcony, where I’d sat in the rocking chair, 
> watching the kids or reading a book, while the tiki-headed fountain 
> gurgled.
>
> The sun kissed my eyes with its evening colors. Peace, like a thick 
> velvet, bordered by a sparkling euphoria,  descended. I saluted the 
> colorful sunset with the flute of champagne suddenly in my hand. The soft 
> light fell on a bouquet of pink blossoms wreathed in babies’ breath.
>
> I picked up the card stuck in the basket. It read “Congratulations on your 
> marriage, sis. Love, Penny.”
>
> “Penny,” I said. “She died before I ever met Ray, in a car crash.”
>
> The French doors opened, and my sister stepped onto the balcony. A sea 
> breeze ruffled the tubular chimes hanging above, making them tinkle.
>
> “This is some house,” my sister said. “A real honey.””And a honeybear to 
> go with it,” I said.
>
> “It’s been a long time, Lou,” she said.
>
> “Yeah.”
>
> Already, my dreaming brain forgot she was dead.
>
>
>
> I woke up crying.
>
> The vivid colors of my dreamscape gave way to the blurred and fuzzy images 
> I now had to live with.
>
> Ray was gone. Penny was gone. My sweet-faced Kathee was, for all practical 
> purposes, gone. I never heard from my son, so that made him gone, too.
>
> The reality of that dream poured in. Yes, Lenny had had some friends over 
> for a swim. Yes, Kathee had made a salad. But instead of the peaceful 
> euphoria, an awful scene had broken out.
>
> “What the hell’s that?” Lenny had said, pointing at Kathee’s salad.
>
> “It’s a salad, stupid. What’s it look like?”
>
> “Looks like puke.”
>
> Before I could stop her, she’d thrown the bowl at his head, covering him 
> in cucumbers, creamy cucumber sauce, and watermelon slices.
>
> Ray had roared some incoherent curses at both of them, handed out a few 
> slaps, and sent Len’s friends home. Then some more slaps followed. Kathee 
> cried in her room, while Lenny raged in his, and I just stood there 
> feeling angry and helpless.
>
>
>
> 9
>
>
>
> Dr. Greene looked up. “How often did your kids fight?”
>
> “All the time. You could hear them shouting at each other halfway down the 
> block,” I began to weep. “You don’t know what it was like, doctor. Living 
> on that gorgeous island, in that pretty little bungalow … all that beauty 
> and emotional—“ I searched for the right word. “Emotional squallor.”
>
> “Did other people notice this?”
>
> I nodded. “People at the church we sometimes went to, people at their 
> school, Funny thing: They always blamed me. I could see it in their eyes. 
> The disapproval, as if … because I’m the woman, it’s up to me to hold a 
> family together, no matter what the family is doing.”
>
> “When and how did your husband die?”
>
> “Ray died following a stroke a year and a half after the divorce.”
>
> “When and why did you leave the island? Could you not have found a 
> similarly nice place to live?”
>
> “Another honey house?”
>
> He nodded. “If you like.”
>
> “I had to leave Hawaii. It’s very expensive to live there, and it’s no 
> place to be if you’re sick, mentally or physically. I needed psychiatric 
> help, you see.”
>
> He nodded. “What was your relationship like with Ray after the divorce?”
>
> “I was hoping we could be friends. He went to AA. But it never happened. I 
> even asked to come back. I thought we could work things out with him in 
> AA, but he said no.”
>
> “When did you start having the dreams?”
>
> “The first one happened on what would have been our sixteenth anniversary. 
> A month after I left. It was that day I asked to come back, and he said 
> no. I’ve been living with these dreams for ten years now.”
>
> “Every night?”
>
> “At first, it was every night. It’s tapered off some. But I have one when 
> I least expect it. Then it’s like I have to say goodbye to Ray all over 
> again. Ray, the kids, the house … Our marriage had a lot of problems, doc, 
> but when it worked, it really worked. I can’t re-create that with anyone 
> else. And now that I’m diabetic and going blind? Forget it. I can’t meet 
> anyone who wants to ‘take me on’, as they call it.”
>
> “Did you attend Ray’s funeral?”
>
> I shook my head. “Not only did I not have the money to fly back, but Ray’s 
> girlfriend wouldn’t let me.”
>
> “Wouldn’t let you?”
>
> “She threatened to call the police if I went near the house. The house 
> that Ray and I shared. The house that Ray spent money on, for me and 
> Kathee and Lenny. When his mom died, he used some of his inheritance to 
> pay it off. Now, Sharon’s living there, free and clear, and tells everyone 
> that she looked after my kids and I never compensated her.”
>
> “What?”
>
> “That’s right, doc.”
>
> Dr. Greene took off his glasses and scrubbed. “How old were your kids when 
> this Sharon came along?”
>
> “In their early teens. She managed to worm her way into their affections, 
> and my husband’s arms. Then she lived in my honey house, took my things as 
> if they were hers, took my kids … Then when Ray died, I got a thick 
> document from his lawyers. Sharon got everything, and so did the kids. I 
> got nothing. There was some statement saying … I was to be treated as if I’d 
> pre-deceased him, and I wish to God I had!”
>
> “You still wish that?”
>
> I nodded. “Sure, we had our problems, and sometimes I wanted out. But 
> mostly I wanted us all to go to therapy and work on stuff. Only they 
> wouldn’t go. So I went myself, till my shrink down there told me he needed 
> to see them, my family, and that we could go no further without them.”
>
> He nodded, as if to say ‘Go on’.
>
> “They came once. Ray wanted to bring Sharon into it. My doctor told him 
> no. Our kids just sat there, sullen. They never went again. I didn’t 
> realize how thick he and Sharon were till that day.”
>
> “And you confronted him?”
>
> “Damn straight I did! I told him it was either her or me.”
>
>
>
> 10
>
>
>
> I grabbed the bottle of Xanax, took a couple, and waited for sleep to 
> rescue and torture me. It didn’t disappoint.
>
>
>
>
>
> I breathed in the aroma of Kona coffee. There’s nothing like Kona beans 
> percolating.
>
> You sat in front of me. “Louise, I don’t want a divorce. I’m in AA now. 
> Let’s work on us.”
>
> I grinned. “I’ve found a great therapist,” I said. “You’ll like her.”
>
> My dreaming brain questioned nothing, until I awoke to the reality of what 
> hadn’t happened, what had no chance of happening. I awoke to realize that 
> you were gone forever, and the fuzzy images growing fuzzier.
>
> I was losing everything, even my sight.
>
> Closing my nearly useless eyes, I found the tortured relief I sought.
>
>
>
> The smell of grilling meat was so strong, and the feel of the grass under 
> my feet.
>
> “Happy birthday, Lenny, you teenager!” Kathee chased him through the 
> sprinkler. “Are you going to get a girlfriend now?”
>
> “I don’t know,” he said.
>
> “Are you gonna kiss her?”
>
> “Kathee, gross me out. Stop it.”
>
> “Are you gonna French kiss her?”
>
> “Okay, that’s enough,” you said, as you flipped the steaks.
>
> “Sweetie,”’ I said to Kathee, the ideal eight-year-old girl, the 
> perfection of her age. Happy, curious, and pretty, with a fetching touch 
> of tomboy.
>
> “Let’s shoot some baskets.”
>
> “’Kay.”
>
> I breathed in the evening scents. We smiled at each other. I watched as 
> basket after basket went over the hoop.
>
> “You’re good at this,” I said.
>
> “Thanks, Mom. Now you try.”
>
> I wasn’t bad. Not as good as Kathee, but not bad.
>
> The smell of meat sizzling outdoors was the first to fade. Then the B-ball 
> melted, Kathee’s outline distorted and disappeared.
>
>
>
> “Yes, there’d been a barbecue,” I said to Dr. Greene after he read the 
> latest entry, “but my kids had done nothing but fight all day. Len got an 
> iPod, and Kathee whined all day for one. Len wouldn’t let his sister try 
> out his.
>
> There’d been a pool party, and the boys had shut her out.”
>
> “Did you shoot hoops with her?”
>
> I shook my head. “I was up to my elbows in potato salad. I was filling 
> bowls of chips and homemade dip. I asked Kath to help, but she was moody 
> and … disinclined. I wish I’d shot baskets with her instead of making 
> homemade potato salad. I wish I’d bought a couple tubs from the store, and 
> shot hoops with her. I wish I’d jumped in the pool with her. It was a hot, 
> Hawaiian day. The water was so fresh. There were other times, of course. 
> Other barbecues. Kathee’s twelfth was one of the happiest days of my life. 
> We swam. Then, we swung. Ray had put up a swing set, you know with those 
> old-fashioned wooden swings. When we were dry, we’d jump into the pool. 
> When the trades came up, we jumped on the swings. Kath had a crush on some 
> actor or other.”
>
> He handed me a Kleenex. I hadn’t noticed I was crying. “Some of it was 
> good. So good. But when it was bad …” I let the sentence finish itself. He 
> nodded.
>
> “I see.” He looked at me as if he were weighing the benefits or harm of 
> whatever he was going to say next. Finally, he said, “I’m sorry, Louise. I’m 
> sorry your life turned out so harsh. When was your divorce?”
>
> “A year and a half before Ray died.”
>
> “I see. And you were together eighteen years?”
>
> I nodded. “Married sixteen, though we were separated by the actual day of 
> our anniversary.” Then I started talking about the house. I remembered its 
> hardwood floors, the cedar-covered wall in the master bedroom, the wooden 
> balcony just outside the French doors, the fountain with a Hawaiian tiki 
> head for a spout. Beyond the feel of carpet underfoot, or the green and 
> white fence, or the sound of fountain and wind chimes, I remember the 
> smells. The cedar, the wood of the house. “I swear the house was made of 
> honey and wood. The day I met my house …”
>
> “Louise, are you aware that a house is not a living thing? It can’t feel 
> emotion.”
>
> I stiffened, on the defensive. “That one on Maui did. It was magic.”
>
> He shook his head.
>
> “What do you know? I knew tough guys, guys who dropped the F bomb every 
> other second, and they called that island magical. Maui had a spirit of 
> its own. Now, I don’t care how many degrees you possess, doc, you’ve never 
> been there, and you don’t know what it’s like.”
>
> “You haven’t been taking your meds as ordered, have you?”
>
> “Well, most of –yeah, sometimes, you know. Look, I have diabetes, and that’s 
> why I’m going blind. Put me on something else, dammit!”
>
> I stopped, remembering I’d put that bit in my journal about walls closing 
> in and evil spirits crawling on my skin, and the yelling voice in my right 
> ear, accompanied by an electric shock.
>
> He leafed through my journal, looking for ammunition.
>
> “Let’s talk about this voice. What does it say?”
>
> “Nothing, really. It’s like a sharp ‘aaah!’, it’s male, and the yell is 
> sometimes accompanied by an electric shock feeling. I had it since I was 
> eleven. Scares the hell out of me every time.”
>
> “I’d like you to see a neurologist. You ever had epilepsy?”
>
> “When I was little, but not very often. I forget what a seizure is like.”
>
> “Still. And you stay on that medication, Louise Lowe. What if the next 
> time this happens, there’s no parking lot for you to pull into?”
>
> We spent the rest of the session arguing about side effects, especially 
> high blood sugar. I left with two things: a prescription for a new anxiety 
> drug, which he said was also an anticonvulsant and a mood stabilizer, and 
> a promise that we would look into other antipsychotics.
>
> For all the good any of this shit would do, I thought, but didn’t say. I 
> would be more careful about what I put in my journal. If the devil himself 
> came after me, I’d be damned if I told Greene about it.
>
>
>
> 11
>
>
>
> My week off from work was the pits. Barely able to get out of bed to eat, 
> I spent my days in my PJ’s. I couldn’t drive any more. I slept through the 
> audio books.
>
> In dreams, I find myself driving by my house, sometimes I’m inside it. I 
> wake up more and more disturbed, as if something evil is waking up beneath 
> the surface.
>
> I wonder how long I can keep my job? How soon will I be like that blind 
> couple I saw, except I’ll be alone. I wonder if they're still hanging in, 
> but I don't care.
>
> I hate the smell of myself. I can't get into the shower, too afraid.
>
> Soon I'll be living on the pittance they call Disability Support. Soon, 
> I'll ask someone to help me with my mail. Someone I've worked with, 
> someone I've known yet not known for years. At least, I won't see the pity 
> in her eyes.
>
> I heated up wieners and beans, ate them, washed them down with a glass of 
> milk, went for a walk after supper, but I felt unsafe. Who's around? 
> Muggers, rapists, drunks? Drunks just like you, Ray, that take all the 
> beauty out of life, all the warmth out of a marriage bed.
>
> I looked around the room for something to throw.
>
> Phil phoned, but I didn’t pick up. His message only made me more 
> depressed.
>
> “Hi, Louise,” he’d said. “Feel like getting together? I mean, just to be 
> together for the night. You know … Call me if you want.”
>
> Oh sure. I’d just love to be used by a lonely loser just like myself. Not.
>
> With the help of sleeping pills, I got into the time-machine of my dreams.
>
>
>
> I sat in our house again. You were there. You were sober. The 
> air-conditioning comforted me in the rocking chair that seemed to hold me 
> in its arms. I curled up in it, drawing as much of myself into it as 
> possible.You sat on the couch.
>
> Len played  one of his Muds. I loved listening to him chatting and playing 
> with boys his age from all over the world. Kathee was playing with her tea 
> set with Kylie, from next door. I smiled at Their girlish laughter. My 
> nnine-year-old Christmas princess, and her friend with the adorable squeal 
> she has when she’s excited. Kylie’s slightly adenoidal voice floated from 
> Kathee’s room. I smiled, listening to the girls admiring Kathee’s 
> Christmas haul.
>
> “What’d you get, Kylie?”
>
> You smiled at me. “That turkey smells good.”
>
> “Yup, it does.”
>
> “Santa get you everything you wanted?”
>
> “Oh, he did … a long time ago when he asked me to marry him.”
>
> You flexed your arms in the air, stood up, and went into the sun-yellow 
> kitchen that had known the smells of eggs and butter and coffee, birthday 
> cake, cookies baking, and many a Christmas turkey. “How ‘bout some wine, 
> Mrs. Santa?”
>
> “Let’s,” I said.
>
> My dreaming brain questioned nothing until your face began to distort. I 
> watched as your face grew ugly with drink, as you changed from a honey of 
> a husband to a beast.
>
> Blackness descended..
>
>
>
> I woke with a start, and fresh tears. God, can’t I dream of anything else 
> at all? Ever?
>
> Ok, this is pissing me off. No more sleep, no more dreams about something 
> that existed enough to tease, not enough to build a life on.
>
> You know why I left that beloved house, Raymond Lowe. Your bullshit drove 
> me out of that house. That, and two kids who couldn’t get along … not even 
> on Christmas.
>
> How many times had I come close to suicide in that beloved house?
>
>
>
> “I think that house, magical as it was, got jipped.”
>
> Dr. Greene’s eyebrows rose. “Why? How?”
>
> “It was a lovely house on a magical island. That house deserved a couple 
> in love with happy babies, a dog, a cat, and a parakeet in a cage by the 
> picture window where the sun shines in. A cage with a tinkly bell or two 
> on the outside.”
>
> “Can I say something crazy?” he said, quoting from a recent movie. Now, my 
> eyebrows rose.
>
> “Just for grins, let’s try replacing the house with I or Louise. So, you 
> would say, I got jipped. I deserved a happy home.”
>
> “Except I don’t think I do. The house does. I don’t.”
>
> “All right. Like I said, just try it on for size. You don’t have to 
> believe it right off the bat. Louise, being mentally ill, being unprepared 
> for the realities of raising kids when you’re ill isn’t a crime. It makes 
> life more difficult, and your husband had an illness of his own. Have you 
> tried to contact your children recently?”
>
> “Well, Len sent me an online birthday card four years ago. I’ve never 
> heard from ‘Thee.”
>
> “Thee. Your daughter’s nickname.”
>
> “Yes,” I smiled ruefully, “and she hates it. I don’t know where she is. I’ve 
> contacted her friends. She doesn’t want to be found. She’ll never forgive 
> me.”
>
> “You assume so. You don’t know so. Kids do forgive, Louise. And parents.”
>
> I looked at the dim shape of Dr. Grene and nodded. “I’m going to miss 
> looking at you. You, and those damned glasses.”
>
> “You mean, because you’re losing your sight.”
>
> “Yeah, that.” That was only partially true.
>
> 12
>
>
>
> So, I sat up all night drinking coffee, jumping at the fridge's hum, the 
> fight in the apartment next door. Not neighbors. Strangers.
>
> I told them at work about the blindness. I wonder how soon they'll let me 
> go. It's inevitable.
>
> I went to work jittery and irritable, reaping the jagged edge of caffeine 
> that I brought on myself.
>
> After work, I went to the pub some of the tellers go to, especially these 
> three women who seem glued together. They asked me to join them, then 
> bunched together, their heads close, laughing at jokes I didn’t get, 
> barely saying a word to me. When I told them about Phil, omitting the 
> breakup, they said “Sounds good,” and went back to themselves. They didn’t 
> notice when I left.
>
> ** ** **
>
> Sorry it's been a few months. Nothing to report, except I've been 
> officially let go, payment arrangements have been made. They call it 
> severance pay. Appropriate, somehow, don't you think? That's what I am, 
> severed. Severed from everyone and everything.
>
> I don’t dare shut my eyes. The house, the island, tantalizes my dreams 
> with vivid colors. In dreams, the divorce never happened, or else we take 
> each other back.
>
> Then I wake to the cold reality of decreasing sight, and know there’s only 
> one thing to do. Go back. Maui is mad that I left. Not the people. The 
> island. He wants me back.
>
> I have to go back … to Maui … to my honey house, who waits for me.
>
> I cancelled my appointment with Dr. Greene, replacing it with an 
> appointment with Priceline.
>
> I've got the money. I'm going back.
>
> I trolled Priceline and Flight Hub for a few weeks, and finally settled on 
> a departure date. I bought a one-way ticket back to the land of 
> night-blooming jasmine.
>
> I packed one suitcase. I'm leaving the ghetto blaster, the toaster, and 
> happily, the winter clothes for whoever wants them. I packed only the 
> things I wore when I lived in Hawaii.
>
> The night before I left, there were, mercifully, no dreams.
>
> During the flight from Pearson to Vancouver Airport, I watched a movie I 
> could barely see. Then I went through immigration. Thank God I kept my 
> passport up to date.
>
> In the waiting area in Vancouver, the American side, the announcements 
> blared, jerking me awake.
>
> I rubbed my eyes a lot, swung my legs, and stopped trying to get any life 
> out of the dead book machine. Why the hell hadn’t I bought some damn 
> batteries? I glared at some kids who raced each other around the waiting 
> area. I could see their shadows, and those of the adults who weren’t 
> controlling them.
>
> I plodded to the restaurant, and made my way without enjoyment through a 
> burger and fries. They didn’t even taste good with the salt and vinegar I 
> loved. I yawned. The next leg of the trip was going to be hell.
>
> Seatbelt fastened, I fell asleep before the plane took off, courtesy of 
> Xanax and Trazadone. Not quite taken as prescribed.
>
> Sleep came without dreams.
>
> I waited for an hour in Chicago. Back in the land where they don’t do 
> fries and vinegar, (I was going to miss the smell of a Toronto street in 
> summer, fries with salt and vinegar floating from every open-air café). I 
> was not going to miss the winters or the bureaucracy or the long wait for 
> affordable housing.
>
> I slept on the plane, again, not by natural means. Who can sleep 
> naturally, with babies screaming and those cramped seats? Screw it.
>
> When I woke, the only thing I remember was the strong smell of the 
> sugar-candy fragrance that floods the plane when they turn off the cabin 
> air. I guess I’d been away long enough that it was a new scent again.
>
> We really had landed in Honolulu.
>
> Next stop? Maui.
>
>
>
> 13
>
>
>
> I closed my eyes during the short flight. A reverie stole over me, though 
> I didn’t fall asleep.
>
>
>
> It was nearing sunset on the magic island when I met my house. The trade 
> breeze carried the scents of ocean, coming rain, flowers, and wood to me. 
> Underneath my feet, not concrete, but red Maui earth. Living, sentient 
> earth.
>
> I walked into my house with Ray and looked around. The 
> soon-to-be-ex-owners were there, but I hardly noticed them. Ray talked 
> with them, while I took my shoes off and rubbed my feet against the 
> carpet.
>
> "What are you doing, Louise?"
>
> "Getting the feel of the house."
>
> “I love the heck out of the bay window,” I said. I could picture living 
> here, opening that window every day to the sun and birdsong, to the smell 
> of flowers. That window would announce evening with the smell of charcoal 
> and barbecuing meat up and down the block. Happy families would be doing 
> the same things as we, in their honey houses. Our kids would meet theirs. 
> When they were teens, Len and Kathee would be admired and crushed on by 
> their teens.
>
> I wasn’t noticing the color of the curtains, or measuring with my eye the 
> colors of this against that, the color of the walls, the changes I’d make, 
> like any normal woman would have. I was feeling the spirit of the house. 
> It wasn’t as if I had a choice. . Welcome descended, surrounded me. The 
> brown carpet purred at me, promised enormous comfort if I’d only lie down 
> on it. So there were stains. That only meant others had heard its siren 
> call: little kids with Kool-Aid, maybe, people sharing nachos while 
> sitting on the carpet in front of the TV. The welcome from the house was 
> powerful, solid, palpable, and nothing to do with its looks, or the 
> soon-to-be-ex-owners.
>
> I vowed the minute I was alone with it, I would do what it urged me to do: 
> curl up on the carpet and have a nap.
>
> I walked from living room to spacious kitchen--well, spacious enough for 
> the two of us--to the two cozy bedrooms for Len and Kathee,  to the 
> bathroom where the tub beckoned me then and there to a sensuous bubble 
> bath. Damn if the whole house wasn’t purring at me! I rubbed the 
> gooseflesh on my arms.
>
> I liked the hardwood floor. I love wood: the grain, the rich colors, the 
> feel, but mostly the smell.
>
> I’ve seen houses before, but never met one till now.
>
> The master bedroom would fit the water bed we were having delivered.
>
> At the end of the hall stood a great big mirror.
>
> I went back to the master bedroom. The walls were painted white. I could 
> swear they asked me for pictures to brighten them.
>
> “Don’t worry, little house,” I murmured, “I’ve got you.”
>
> Purr, purr.
>
> French doors opened onto a magnificent wooden balcony. Descending the 
> steps, I found myself in a large, verdant back yard. Alone, with no Ray or 
> real estate agent to restrain me, I found the pull of the house 
> irresistible. I took off my sandals and dug my toes into the grass and 
> earth as I walked. The lush birdsong wooed me, and I could swear one 
> called sounded like ‘stay here, stay here’. The rustling grass called my 
> name. Palm trees flapped their thin, long-fingered hands in the breeze. An 
> acknowledgement of my presence. An invitation? I rubbed my goosefleshed 
> arms. What was happening here?. Tuberoses and jasmine greeted me.
>
> "Like it?"
>
> I started.
>
> "Sorry," said the wife.
>
> "Like it? No. I love it. And I think it loves me, too. Could swear to it. 
> Does that sound nuts to you?"
>
> Chimes made a dainty sound when the wind played with them.
>
> "Nope. Maui's magical. It's not like any other place. It's alive. I'm ... 
> I'm sad to leave. I'd rather stay. But John's the head of the family in 
> our faith. What he says goes."
>
> "Mormon?"
>
> She shook her head.
>
> "Sounds paternalistic."
>
> "It is. But he's been transferred back to the mainland. Not much I can 
>  do.”
>
> I nodded in sympathy.
>
> "You treat this house good, okay, 'cause I'm leaving my heart here, as did 
> the previous owners, when we bought from them ten years ago."
>
> In slow motion, I saw her reach out a hand to lay on my shoulder. I knew 
> what she'd meant, because I'd already given my heart to the house.
>
>
>
>
>
> 14
>
>
>
> "Ma'am, are you all right?"
>
> I found myself back on the plane, a concerned stewardess looking down on 
> me.
>
> "Here's a Kleenex."
>
> “Thank you.” I mean, mahalo.” I wiped my wet cheeks. "It was just a 
> daydream. I dreamed about the first time I saw my honey house in Hawaii.”
>
> “That’s sweet. You’ll see your honey house again soon. We’re beginning the 
> descent.”
>
> Then the announcements came. I heard the ‘fasten seatbelt’ sign ding. The 
> plane drew, little by little, but inexorably earthward, as if it, too, 
> were being irresistibly pulled by Maui. a little bit, and a little bit 
> more.
>
> My stomach rose as my body descended with the plane. I made my way to the 
> bathroom. I emerged, dry-mouthed and shaking. I couldn’t disentangle the 
> emotions that had moved me so hard: the excitement, the loss, the 
> knowledge that my honey house was only the first of two stops. I had to 
> say goodbye properly. Then … then … No, I won’t think about the foaming 
> ocean and what waits there for me.
>
> Back in my seat, I noted that they'd turned off the air pressure in the 
> cabin. The candy-flower smell of Maui flooded my nostrils. I drank it in 
> for the last time.
>
> I could barely catch my breath when the plane met the tarmac. Maui. I was 
> back on Maui again!
>
> I collected my luggage and hailed a taxi.
>
> We drove from Kahului Airport.
>
> “Where do you go?”
>
> “Up country,” I said. “Well, heading that way.”
>
> “Okay, okay, auntie. I got you.”
>
> I gave him an address.
>
> We came into Paia, past the Bank of Hawaii, and the Moana Cafe, where Ray 
> and I used to have breakfast, at least when we were halfway getting along.
>
> "Where? Where?" the driver asked when we reached Hana Hwy.
>
> “Turn left here,” I said. I gave him a list of verbal instructions, and 
> felt the car turning left and right under me. The trades blew in from his 
> side of the car. I brushed back brown tresses every so often.
>
> My stomach churned again. Three miles of silence stretched between us, 
> till I said, “Are we at Baldwin? You turn right here.”
>
> “Okay, okay.”
>
> “My kids  and I walked to Baldwin Elementary every morning.  We used to 
> walk through puddles and everything. My first-grade son picked up a frog 
> and pocketed it. I didn’t know he’d done it till the teacher told him to 
> get rid of the filthy thing.” I laughed. “My daughter found a snail one 
> day, on the way home. There were always puddles on the way to Paia 
> Elementary.”
>
> He remained silent.
>
> The car turned right. We must be on Mahiko.I didn’t know whether I felt 
> sick to my stomach or was about to have diarrhoea. I prayed he didn’t get 
> lost in the cul-de-sac. Now would be a hell of a time for that.
>
> “Turn right on Kuanana,” I said, not meaning for irritation to show in my 
> voice.
>
> “Okay, auntie, why you not tell me till now?”
>
> “Sorry, sir, I’m losing my sight, and it’s really hard. I’m not used to 
> doing things by feel.”
>
> “Oh, sorry to hear that.” He’d almost passed Kuanana Street. “You took the 
> first right, I hope?”
>
> “Okay, okay.”
>
> “Well, did you or didn’t you?” I cursed myself for drowning in emotions 
> and my dwindling vision. I should have gotten half the fare, I thought 
> bitterly, since I was doing half his job.
>
> My heart jackhammered inside me.
>
> “Now we reach the street you want. Which house, auntie?”
>
> “Take the first right here, driver. The house is on the right. You know, 
> it’s been a long time since anyone called me Auntie.”
>
> “Old Hawaiian custom.”
>
> “Yeah, and a nice one.”
>
> I wondered if honey house knew I was coming.
>
> “There it is!” I cried. I could see something green waving at me. One of 
> my palm trees. I was sure of it.
>
> “Okay, okay.”
>
> My heart leaped at the sight of the green and white-trimmed haven, the 
> familiar fence, and sank at the garbage that littered the yard. I had the 
> sinking feeling the basketball hoop and the trampoline weren’t there.
>
> I paid the driver, grabbed my purse and luggage, and got out.
>
> "I'll call you later," I said.
>
> "Okay, okay."
>
> He drove off.
>
> Hello, Sharon. You’re about to get yours, I thought and waited for the 
> tramp that stole my husband, my life, and my house.
>
> The fence was locked. I banged on it, and smelled the rust on my fingers. 
> So, she hadn’t given anything of herself to this house—just took and took.
>
> “Hey there, pretty lady. Can I help you?” I started. That wasn’t Sharon. 
> That was some guy.
>
> I could make out a few features of the guy who came out. I could see 
> bright colors, and figured he was wearing an aloha shirt. The rest of him 
> was preceeded by a beer belly.
>
> "Just wondered if I can help you?" He gave me a smile.
>
> "Yes. I hope. I'm Louise Lowe. I used to live here."
>
> "Oh yeah?"
>
> My heart continued to race. I perspired in the Hawaiian sunshine, and not 
> because it was too hot. The fragrant trade breeze should have cooled me 
> off. I wouldn't even be allowed to do what I'd come here to do.
>
> "I was wondering. I-I was actually expecting someone else. Sharon, my 
> ex-husband’s …”
>
> He shook his head. “I’m Al.” We shook hands. “Louise,” I said and gave him 
> a hopeful smile.
>
> “My wife, Marlene, and I bought this house last year. Whoever lived here 
> before didn’t keep it up well.”
>
> “I have a lot of memories here. Could I trouble you for … Could I ... 
> well, see the house? For old time's sake? I really loved this house."
>
> He waved a fat hand. "This dump? Ah, what the hell. Sure. Come on in."
>
> Dump? Dump?!
>
> He unlocked the fence. “Let me help you with your suitcase. Here. It’s 
> right against the wall by the fence.”
>
> I remembered that brick wall; it adjoined the neighbor’s property.
>
> I could just see the sloping walkway under my feet. How many times had I 
> trodden this sloping walkway. “I see you got rid of the basketball hoop. 
> Don’t your kids shoot baskets?” I asked.
>
> “Don’t have kids,” he said shortly.
>
> I breathed in the fresh rainy wind, and the earthy smell that had haunted 
> my memories and ruined my sleep for years. The birds sang as usual, the 
> birds I loved, the ones who seemed to chirp “stay here, stay here”. They 
> chirped the same at me now, while the mourning doves trilled “woo, woo”. 
> All nature seemed bent on wooing me, just like when Ray and I spent our 
> honeymoon here. I thought back to the sensual Polynesian afternoons, the 
> swimming, the sunsets, and the happy evening feeling as tourists made 
> their way out to luaus and restaurants, and the kamaina made their supper 
> and enjoyed the island’s blessings.
>
> “Well? Come on in, Louise.”
>
> I shook myself. “Sorry. Daydreaming. Thank you. I’d love to see the 
> backyard first, if that’s okay.” He waved a hand, so I proceeded around 
> the house to the back. He walked beside me. “Getting alot of showers 
> lately?"
>
> “Quite a few.”
>
> I walked through the back yard and barely resisted putting a shocked hand 
> over my mouth. Where was the pool, the hot tub, and the flowered gazebo?
>
> The flowered gazebo, quiet, ready to share secrets of books and romance on 
> a scented afternoon or evening.
>
> The grass was brown. “What happened here?” I asked, remembering running 
> through the sprinkler, wet grass, soft earth, bare feet. I could swear I 
> heard Kathee’s childish laughter in the wind. The red earth of Maui seemed 
> to purr underfoot, as if to say Home. You’re home. Welcome home! Where’ve 
> you been? I was glad to be there, despite the squallor of neglect my honey 
> house had suffered at careless hands. Nothing in the world could feel this 
> right, and not be Maui.
>
> “Uh, well, we haven’t kept ‘er up like we should. My fault, I guess.”
>
> The hot tub and pool were gone, too. I stayed in the shade to keep the 
> flies from landing. Damn, but I’d forgotten the flies!
>
> Eternal summer meant the suckers never died, just kept multiplying.
>
> I walked closer to where the pool and hot tub should have been, staring at 
> memories. Christmas Eves after church, sitting in the hot tub, watching 
> the stars dancing in the sky, the way they might have on that first 
> Christmas Eve.
>
> Eyes closed, I could all but feel the heated bubbles bobbing up to my 
> chin, hear the hiss of the spray, and feel my family, momentarily enfolded 
> in Christmas Eve’s magic.
>
> Open-eyed, I looked at what I could see of the squallor, and reached for 
> my Kleenex.
>
> "Sorry about the dog shit. He was Marlene’s pooch. We had to put him down 
> last week.”  You okay? You want a beer?"
>
> I didn't, but it was the only way I'd see the inside of my precious house. 
> “May I use your facilities?”
>
> He nodded.
>
> I almost tripped over a root. He steadied me with a hand.
>
> “Sorry. I’m losing my sight. But what little I can see is nothing like the 
> house I remembered.”
>
> “Who’s that?” a woman yelled.
>
> “Just a lady that used to live here. She asked to use the bathroom,” Al 
> said. To me, he said, “That’s Marlene, my wife. Do you need my help 
>  there?”
>
> I placed a hand on his arm, and he guided me to the front door. I stepped 
> inside.
>
> “You still have the dishwasher?” I asked.
>
> “Oh yeah. Marlene, this is …”
>
> “Louise.” I stuck out a hand but the shape in front of me didn’t take it. 
> “Thanks for letting me …” What word could I use? See hardly fitted the 
> bill anymore, and for the first time ever, I was glad. I don’t think I 
> could have borne seeing my honey house in such disrepair. I finished the 
> sentence with “use your bathroom.”
>
> “No problem,” Marlene said without much warmth. “You’re blind, right? How 
> come you don’t have a blind dog?”
>
> “A blind dog?” I asked.
>
> “You know, a dog for blind people.” She sounded irritated, as if she 
> thought everyone knew what a ‘blind dog’ was.
>
> “You mean a seeing-eye dog, honey,” said her husband, “not a blind dog.”
>
> “Oh, I have some sight left,” I said. I was beginning to feel 
> embarrassed—an intruder, imposing, encroaching where I was not wanted. 
> Even the house seemed foreign, forbidding.
>
> “You still remember where the bathroom is?” Al asked.
>
> I nodded and made my slow way past the table and chairs.
>
> “How about helping her? She’s nearly blind,” Al stage-whispered. His wife 
> made an unpleasant sound whose meaning I couldn’t put my finger on. I saw 
> her outline, and felt her grab my hand. “This way, Linda.”
>
> “Louise,” I said. “My kids each had a room down this hall. Are the rooms 
> still there? Do you have any kids?” Belatedly, I remembered Al saying they 
> didn’t. Her lack of warmth underlined the fact that I was an intruder, so 
> I talked, tried to draw her out, to ease the unease in myself, if not in 
> her.
>
> “No, we don’t have kids. Those two rooms have old stuff. Books and junk.”
>
> “Oh, you like to read. So do I. Of course, I read audio books now. Maybe I’ll 
> have a crack at Braille some day.”
>
> She turned on the light. “Can you handle yourself in here?”
>
> “Sure. Thanks, Marlene.”
>
> I went in and closed the door. My knee contacted the tub, and I was glad I’d 
> learned to walk slowly. I sat on the toilet longer than necessary, 
> remembering kids asleep and me up to my ears in rose-scented bubbles, with 
> a book next to the tub, on a shag carpet. I remembered the wineglass 
> holders Ray bought me for my birthday, sipping wine or champagne from the 
> plastic glasses. I smiled, remembering Ray coming in to use the can, 
> sniffing the air and saying, “Smells like a French whorehouse in here.”
>
> I nearly laughed aloud. At the time, I had, saying, “And there’s your 
> French lady in here, getting ready for you.”
>
> Voices jarred me out of my reverie.
>
> “Al, we are not inviting anyone to stay for supper, certainly not a total 
> stranger, especially that one!”
>
> “Why are you always such a bitch? She used to live here, like she said, 
> and she loves the place. She’s going blind. Give her a break. And I’m 
> asking her to dinner whether you like it or not.
>
> Dinner? I felt like fleeing!
>
> Exiting the bathroom, I followed the wall, noting the spaces which led 
> into Lenny’s room and Kathee’s. Both rooms were dark.Filled with junk, 
> Marlene had said. Not Len’s and Kathee’s rooms anymore. Not my house 
> anymore.
>
> “Everything come out all right?” Al said, overly cheerful.
>
> I smiled. “As advertised. Listen, maybe I should call a cab and get out of 
> your hair.”
>
> “Nonsense! Sit down. Take a load off. Got a beer with your name on it 
> right here.”
>
> He showed me to a leather chair where my comfy sofa had once stood. He 
> turned on some country music in lieu of the sitcoms that were a part of 
> every peaceful evening after supper. Not that every evening had been 
> peaceful, but I wasn’t in a mood to travel down that hall.
>
> He gave me the beer. Al clapped his hands together once. “Who’s for 
> steaks?” He smiled at me. I smiled back. He smiled at his wife. She 
> glowered.
>
> “So where are you staying?” she asked while her husband was outside 
> setting up the steaks he’d defrosted.
>
> “I haven’t decided.”
>
> “Hold on. You don’t have a place to stay? You can’t stay here!”
>
> “I know,” I said, trying to stay calm. My pulse raced; I felt a panic 
> attack coming on.
>
> No one talked during supper except Al, who carried the conversation and 
> the cheerful mood. The steaks were good and juicy, just as Ray had made 
> them. Every forkful was a memory. But when I looked around, reality burst 
> my bubble again.
>
> The entertainment center and bookshelf I’d loved had been replaced with a 
> collection of guns. Their metal gleam promised no good for anyone in the 
> wrong place at the wrong time.
>
> Whatever spirit or magic had purred to me the minute I walked in so many 
> years ago had fled. I couldn’t blame it. I felt like fleeing myself.
>
> “Like ‘em? They’re all mine. This’s a 12-gauge, this one shoots hollow 
> points.” The man smiled at me as he pointed out his favorites. . “I love 
> to hunt, when I get the chance. Used to do a lot of hunting before the 
> company transferred me out to this rock.”
>
> “You don’t like Maui?”
>
> “’s’okay to visit, but livin’ here’s another thing. Guy could go crazy, 
> and Marlene’s always bitching about the price of things. Well, you know, 
> everything here’s more expensive, on account of this being an island and 
> just about everything having to be imported.”
>
> “And the house?”
>
> He shrugged.
>
> “What happened to the garden? Ray and I had a romantic little gazebo put 
> in there. I used to read out there nights, and when the kids were older, 
> they had their first kisses out there.”
>
> “Sweet,” said the man, who’d left the table while I was speaking. He 
> busied himself opening a can of beer.
>
> “You?”
>
> “No thanks.  Would you have any ginger ale?”
>
> He shook his head. “How about wine?”
>
> "No thanks. On second thought, another beer’d be great. May I have a look 
> at the balcony?"
>
> "Sure,” he said. He handed me the beer. “You have a place to stay?”
>
> “Not yet,” I said.
>
> “We’ve already discussed that,” Marlene jumped in.
>
> “I just thought we could pull out the rollaway for you.”
>
> “No, Al. She’s not staying here. This is our house now. The walk down 
> memory lane ends now!”
>
> “Okay, okay,” Al said, trying to lessen the thick tension. “After she sees 
> the balcony.”
>
> “I really appreciate that you folks let me see the place,” I said. “This 
> is … was … my honey house. I lived here with a honey bear of a husband … 
> that is, when drink didn’t turn him into a grizzly bear. We had two kids, 
> and when they got along, and Ray wasn’t drunk and abusive, this house was 
> magical.”
>
> 15
>
>
>
> The master bedroom featured clothes all over the floor. I rubbed at the 
> cedar panelling. It had lost its fragrance, but I remembered the swoon I 
> went into when Ray first showed me into our bedroom, when it was redolent 
> with cedar. I loved the homey, old-fashioned fragrance. In fact, I just 
> plain loved the look of wood, the feel of it. No wonder the house felt 
> sentient. It had been made of the living earth, as far as possible. 
> Cracked glass and wood told me the French doors had taken abuse. I touched 
> them tenderly. “I’m sorry.”
>
> "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I kept whispering to the house, as I used the 
> sodden Kleenex.
>
> The present owners were too busy fighting to hear my sobbing apology.
>
> I walked out onto the wooden balcony and relief washed over me. The dainty 
> chimes were still there. Our comfy porch swing had been replaced by cheap 
> lawn chairs, but the wind chimes were still there. I would have kissed 
> each of the little metal tubes if I could have reached them. A trade 
> breeze blew. They tinkled, as if to say I love you, too. Welcome back.
>
> "I just came to tell you goodbye," I said. "and I'm sorry."
>
> The chimes tinkled. The breeze caressed my forehead, as if it understood 
> and forgave what I was about to do. My tears flowed. I whispered, “Thank 
> you.”
>
> The sound of the fountain, presided over by a tiki, slowed my heart rate. 
> I sat on a lawn chair, and pretended it was our porch swing. I didn’t hear 
> the man come out, till he touched my shoulder.
>
> I jumped.
>
> “Sorry,” he said. “I was just thinking.” He halted. “I mean, you like this 
> house a whole lot, don’t you?”
>
> I nodded. “If I had the money, I’d offer to buy it back.”
>
> “Well, thing is … You probably gather things between my wife and me are … 
> tense. Thing is,” he stopped, sat on the lawn chair next to me, and lit a 
> cigarette. “Thing is, she don’t like the place. She wouldn’t mind going 
> back to her folks in California. I don’t have any particular feeling for 
> the place either. When Marlene goes back, … well, … she don’t know it, but 
> I’ve asked for a transfer and gotten one. Honolulu. If you really wanted 
> to live here, I could maybe rent you the place. Can you still work? With 
> your sight and all?”
>
> Rent the house! I could have cheered. Take that, Dr. Glasses. Back in my 
> honey house! I could find a job doing … Reality burst my bubble. What 
> could I do? Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead! I’d find a job, dammit.
>
> “How          much?”
>
>          The balcony door whooshed open behind me. “How much what?” Even 
> from where I sat, I could smell the alcohol on Marlene’s breath. Hard 
> liquor.
>
> “And you’re not leaving me, Al.”
>
> “Not now, Marlene.”
>
> “Yes, now. Our guest is leaving. I’ve called a cab for you, Ms. …”
>
> “Lowe,” I said.
>
> “Ms. Lowe. You’ve seen your old home. Now it’s time to go.”
>
> I heard something click. My blood went cold. “Put that away before you 
> hurt someone, Marlene,” Al said. He stood up. “Come on. Give me the gun, 
> and we’ll talk about this like reasonable adults.”
>
> I heard the shot, felt the bullet. Both of them swore. “Oh well,” she said 
> coldly. “There’s another one here for you.”
>
> I was on the ground without realizing I’d fallen till now. I felt 
> strangely calm. The ocean wouldn’t get me, after all. The house would.
>
> “Call 9-1-1.” He said. He bent down beside me. “Louise, you’re gonna be 
> all right.”
>
> “Get away from her!”
>
> Danger. The woman was insane, I thought. Unstable. God, my head felt 
> light. I was wrong. This had been personal. Very personal.
>
> I’d walked into a hornet’s nest. Then I became aware of something else. I 
> must have fallen backwards. My head was wedged against the wall.
>
> Go into the wall! I commanded myself. Then I felt a strange thinning, as 
> though my arms became tentacles, my trunk part of the stone, my head part 
> of the wall.
>
> 15
>
>
>
> With amazement, I felt, or sensed, Al and Marlene, as surely as I felt my 
> thinning self distributing from stone balcony into wooden wall, and 
> through the brick and mortar, through the electrical wiring.
>
> “Oh God, you’ve killed her.” That was Al’s voice on the other side of me, 
> through the wall. “Louise? Louise, talk to me. Louise … Oh God! She’s 
> dead! You killed her!” His voice rose. He was on the edge of hysterics.
>
> Me, I found the whole thing hysterically funny. How else could I find it, 
> surrounded, as I was, by the life force that had been the magic of my 
> honey house.
>
> “Welcome,” it said, thought, visualized, and emoted at me. “Welcome back.”
>
> “Who are you?” I asked.
>
> “I.”
>
> “I? What kind of a name is that?”
>
> “I. You are also I.”
>
> Then I understood, though I’d be hard put to express it in the words I’d 
> learned, the words that assumed separation, the “I” from “you”. I was both 
> ultimate mother and ultimate baby.
>
> Protector. Nurturer. Nurtured. The hug that never stopped hugging.
>
> Warm as fur, twice as thick and many times as soft.
>
> I waited.
>
> Time passed, and I waited.
>
> One of my windows was broken. My grass stayed brown.
>
> Then I heard a car door slam. I perked up.
>
> People began working on me. New glass was fitted into my window frames.
>
> I sighed with relief as I both felt and heard the effects of a new 
> sprinkler system. My walls were painted, my floor carpeted.
>
> “Who owns this old place now?” I heard a workman ask.
>
> “Kathy somebody. Yeah. Kathy Lowe.”
>
>
>
> 16
>
>
>
> “Mom used to love this house,” Kathee said. “Come on, Jimmy boy, let’s go 
> see Grandma’s honey house.”
>
> “Hold on, darling,” said Jim. “Hold on, son. Let me help you.”
>
>
>
> I felt them coming in, walking my floors. I thrilled. That was my Kathee. 
> Somehow, she’d found me! Thee-Thee! Thee-Thee! Thee-Thee!
>
> I didn’t realize how much I was affecting the skin I now wore, the house, 
> until Kathee screamed. “Jim! The light! It just turned itself on!”
>
> “Nonsense, honey. There must be a wire loose somewhere.”
>
> “Yay!” Jimmy cried. “It’s haunted. Hi, ghosts.”
>
> “Mom used to call this her honey house.”
>
> “I’m real sorry about your mom,” Jim said.
>
> “Grandma died, right, Mom?”
>
> “Yes, Jimmy.”
>
> “Was she murdered?”
>
> Inside the walls and wood and wiring, I laughed. The child, my grandchild, 
> had a boy’s fascination with the macabre.
>
> “No, monkey. It was an accident. How’d you like this room? This was Uncle 
> Lenny’s.”
>
> “When are we going to see Uncle Lenny again?”
>
> “Dunno. Soon, I hope. He goes on business trips with Auntie Deb.”
>
> “But he bought us this house for a present, right, Mom?”
>
> “That’s right.”
>
> I wrapped myself around Kathee and the child. They couldn’t feel me.  At 
> least, I don’t think they could.
>
> But my daughter’s shoulders relaxed. My grandson ran into Lenny’s room, 
> jumping up and down till Kathee told him “no jumping in the house”, much 
> as I had done.
>
> Was this the child I’d scolded Kathee so harshly for getting pregnant 
> with? No, the timing was wrong. He sounded much younger. She must be … 
> thirty-six? Kathee walked into the master bedroom and sighed. “We’re going 
> to make this a real honey house. Not just a pretty bungalow with ugly 
> secrets inside. We’re going to make it everything you wished it was, Mom.”
>
> “Mommy, are you talking to the ghosts?”
>
> “Yes, Jimmy, I am.”
>
> He narrowed his little eyes. “Are they good, or are they mean?”
>
> “You, your dad, and I, and the new baby when it comes … we’re going to 
> fill this house with love. We’re the ghosts.”
>
> “Who’s for steaks and fries?”
>
> I heard and felt my screen door slam. The man had come back in, carrying 
> suitcases.
>
> “I am!” cried my grandson.
>
> “We are,” Kathee said. “I’ll make the salads.”
>
> “Cuke and melon?”
>
> “You got it.”
>
> “That’s my Thee-Thee,” he said. I felt the love between them as he kissed 
> her and called her by the pet name I’d called her when she was little.
>
> I couldn’t help it. My love overflowed.
>
> “That’s funny,” Kathee said. “I didn’t know your laptop was on, Jim. I 
> thought you turned it off. I thought you were out of power.”
>
> “So did I.”
>
> “Since when have you had old sitcoms on your laptop?”
>
> I shivered happily as he walked on my floor, into the livingroom, where he’d 
> set up his laptop on a table. They were silent for a while, listening to 
> the dialogue and the laugh track.
>
> “Well, I’ll be damned,” he whispered.
>
> “You said a bad word, Daddy.”
>
> “I’ll be doggoned. I don’t have anything like this on my laptop. Jimbo, 
> you weren’t playing with Daddy’s laptop, were you?”
>
> “Nope.”
>
> “You sure?”
>
> “No, Daddy. When’s supper, Dad?”
>
> “Right now,” he said, rubbing his hands and walking out the front door. 
> Soon, the evening breeze would carry the scent of charcoal burning and 
> meat cooking. Up and down the block, one house to the next.
>
> “Looks like we’ve got Netflix,” Kathee said.
>
> When she was alone, husband and child busy, Kathee walked into the 
> kitchen. “Hi, Mom,” she whispered.
>
> I thrilled, and wrapped myself around her.
>
> Hi, my Thee-Thee.
>
> I felt her thrill. I warm-fuzzied around her.
>
> Ten minutes later, her husband came in to find her lying on the carpet, 
> stretched out, rubbing her face in it.
>
> “Thee-Thee, what are you doing?”
>
> “Gads! This place feels like a womb! Carpet feels like a freaking Persian 
> cat! I can’t get enough of it … so soft.”
>
> “Me, too,” my grandson cried, fell on my new carpet, and began to roll and 
> rub just as his mother was doing.
>
> She arose. “Okay, time for salads.”
>
> THE END
> _______________________________________________
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