[stylist] A Very Special House

[Shelley Alongi]

I found the story very interesting. I didn't know if the last part of it was a dream or reality or her own reality so I guess you accomplished your goal by making us wonder what was really going on. I don't think I would've guessed the ending. Next line if you want to publish this online and want help I know you were asking about that earlier, there is a company called Draft2digital Who will convert your document into a PDF so that I can be published online. They do all the work for you. You send in your document so basically you do all the editing have someone do it for you and then they do the layout work for you. They only demand a certain percentage after you sell $10 so if you don't sell anything they don't ask you for money. They also have a new audio program which will help you find a way to get your book recorded. They will do a paper bag layout I think you are responsible and they will put it on create space. I put my paperbacks through lulu.com but I may switch this. We are checking into that. I am set to release my novel next year if I stay on schedule. My books or online and they did all the work for me. I have someone that does the cover and then submits the work to be put online. But they do all that part. Now it's my responsibility to market it because I think I haven't had much sales in electronic format. I have sold more paper bags and I have done that through face-to-face I don't mind the work because I can take it at my own pace. But that's my story.
I liked reading the story very much. This is a great size to be put online because I've seen some books that are pretty small and it might get a great reception. I would check into that when you get the time and energy to do so. Best of luck. I know we are all out there pursuing our  dreams.

Shelley, Queen of bells out!
 Purchase my ebooks and paperbacks including Trespasser and Brave Pilot t 
Http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/Queenofbells712

> On Jun 13, 2017, at 8:59 PM, Miss Thea via stylist <stylist at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> 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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