The Guardian (24 page)

       Dawn was alarmed by how sick Sylvia looked.  Every day, it seemed the dark spots in her face were spreading and her skin appeared to sag more than the day before.  When Sylvia’s hair fell out due to the chemo, Dawn commented how stylish her mother appeared, especially with her made up face and fashionable wardrobe. And as she leaned over to kiss Sylvia, she smelled her rancid breath and noted how crooked her teeth were.  Could her mother be the same woman everyone ogle-eyed when she entered a room?
       Back in the kitchen, she pictured Sylvia standing at the kitchen sink wearing her favorite jeans, looking back over her shoulder, smiling wide at her daughter and the kids pouring in for the weekend.
       “Philip, I’ve got your favorite beer in the fridge! Help yourself!”
       The scrumptious aroma of shrimp and catfish sauce piquant emanated, the glass dining table prepped for a family poker game of eight-hit-low – a fresh deck of cards still wrapped in the cellophane, Edward’s bank bag of coins, and Dawn’s waiting seat.
       But that seat would serve another purpose tonight. 
       And Sylvia wasn’t cooking, laughing and dancing to her favorite Zydeco. 
       Edward was seated at the dining table, welcoming cousins, aunts and uncles, and even childhood friends to say their ‘goodbyes’ to the hub of the family.  The one who brought the family together.  The constant parade of visitors felt more like a pre-funeral viewing and indeed that’s what it was.  Everyone knew Sylvia was going to die.  It was just a matter of when. 
       Then, the last person she cared to see finally made his entrance, talking loud like he’d just arrived at a house party.  She imagined a trap door suddenly collapsing beneath his feet and a green slimy monster with clawed tentacles dragging him down into the abyss, eating him alive …
       Unfortunately, it didn’t happen.

       Frank walked into the kitchen carrying several boxes of pizza. "I brought shrimp deluxe, Uncle Ed. Hope y’all hungry," he announced, vying for everyone’s attention. 
No one stirred. Not because they didn't appreciate the gesture but because their thoughts and prayers were with Sylvia.  Not on a damn pizza or his ugly ass.  Cancer was eating Sylvia alive in the next room.  How could anyone be hungry when she hadn't eaten solid food in days?  Months.
       Dawn glommed at him with hateful eyes.  Her stomach churned with disgust devouring any sign of hunger.  Why was he here? He was her father's nephew and held a position at the local university.  In what capacity, she wasn't quite sure, but she knew he'd rubbed elbows with the city's elite, even one of her own childhood friends of a distinguished status in the college town.  She'd seen pictures of them together on social media. Ginger smiled brightly beside her older husband.  And she seemed honored to stand next to Frank. Wonder what she'd think now if she knew she'd posed with a child fucker?  A fifty-year old with so many skeletons in his closet he could fill a graveyard. 
      
Everything's that done in the dark, will come to the light.
 
       Even the fact he still lived with his parents in the same dilapidated house he'd molested her in.  The property littered with inoperable vehicles and lawnmowers his senile father swore he'd repaired. 
      
Henry should be here any day to pick it up.  He owes me $1000! 
      
No one knew who Henry was.  Those units had been sitting there for years, rusting in the rain, cracking in the sun.  Overgrown with weeds and globs of decrepit oil.  Yet Frank refused to pay any bills for his parents, though his lucrative salary in medical supply sales offered six figures.  And for three years that house went without running water.  His parents too poor to pay and too ignorant to force his old ass out.

       “Sylvia and I will be married forty-five years in December,” Edward started as Frank helped himself to the first slice of pizza.

       “Then you’ve only been married forty-four years, Unc’.  She won’t be alive in December.”

       Dawn banged her fist on the glass table and felt the urge to slam her fist into Frank’s face and shove those cheap frames straight down his fucking throat, shut his child-molesting ass up for good.             
       “Shut your fucking mouth, you son of a bitch!  I ought’a cut your fucking throat!”
       “Sit down, Dawn!” Edward yelled.
      
“Sit down
?  You’re gonna ignore what this son of a bitch just said about Momma?” she waited for his response.  And when nothing came, she glommed back at Frank and with a burst of rage, she screamed, “Your ass is mine, motherfucker!” she reached over the table, wrapped her hands around his neck, choking him.
       Frank didn’t stand a chance against her fury.
       Dawn’s buried pain.
       Xavier and several other family members heard the commotion and darted into the room.  It took both Edward and Xavier to peel Dawn off of Frank.  She would have killed him had no one been there.  She knew it.  Felt it in her spirit.  And it didn’t even matter.  Because everything that mattered lay dying in the next room. 
       She got another good solid swing at him, smashing his glasses in his face, breaking his lenses and cutting his cheek, just missing his eye.  Her foot still kicking wildly cupped him right between the legs, jabbing into his groin.  Blood trickled onto his white starched shirt.

       Edward yanked her back and dragged her out of the room and down the hallway.  And as far as she knew, he hadn’t chastised his nephew for the comment; hadn’t defended his wife of forty-five years who lay dying on the other side of the wall.
       It didn’t take Dawn long to gather herself and walk into her mother’s bedroom.  Sylvia lay comatose on the hospice rollaway, positioned a few feet from her own king-sized bed.  She'd worked her fingers to the bone to buy that bedroom set, Dawn thought.  And there she lay dying beside it.   Her mouth hung grossly agape and the lower lids of her eyes sagged.  A black substance formed in her lower lid that looked like a pile of lashes.  Dawn never noticed, until now, how crooked Sylvia's teeth were. Why hadn't she seen a dentist? Edward’s retirement in education offered the best in healthcare.
       She gently lifted Sylvia's chin but it'd return to its slump position.  Muscles taut and decaying, too.  Again, she tried to close Sylvia's mouth, attempted to make her presentable to visitors despite her dire situation, but it was no use.   Her mother was dying right before her eyes.
       She felt some sense of relief after beating Frank’s ass, but knew she’d feel better if she walked outside and cleared her mind.  Didn’t share the same air. 
       In the backyard, where she built treehouses with Xavier as a kid, saw flying squirrels in the trees and stole wood from new construction homes, Dawn inhaled the humid summer air, and exhaled the sorrow of her mother’s condition with every breath.  But for the life of her, she couldn’t rid of her frustration at father, at her child-molesting cousin Frank, at Philip for not being there even though they were legally divorced by that time, and at herself for not coming home sooner.  When the hospice nurse called her name, she responded harshly: “I’m coming!”

July 18, 2012

“You were with your mother when she took her last breath, and she was there for you when you took your first.” ~ Barbara Arceneaux
Sylvia died on a Tuesday.
B-cell Lymphoma, the oncologist called it after the bone graft confirmed it wasn’t bone cancer.  “The chemo isn’t working,” he said with glistening red eyes.  “You and your family can choose to let her stay here, but I suggest taking her home where she can be comfortable.”  Dawn didn’t comprehend what he was saying.  It just didn’t register -- Sylvia was dying.
       “Her breath is short,” the hospice nurse whispered and patted Dawn on her shoulder, waking her.

       Dawn quickly rose from her mother’s bed and noticed the screen of her phone illuminated on its own.  She hadn’t touched it, but saw that the time read: 4:12 AM.
       Sylvia barely clung to life.  Moments later, she was gone.  Her last breath soft as a feather.  Dawn gently rubbed her mother’s graying hair and felt she was turning cold already. She slowly walked down the hallway to the closed doors where Edward was sleeping behind one, and Xavier and his wife slept behind another.  She knocked and alerted them that Sylvia was gone.
       The funeral home wouldn’t come for another hour or so, but when they did, Dawn couldn’t bear to watch the man handle Sylvia’s corpse from the rollaway to the stretcher with the black bag.  Her body dropped with a loud thud and Dawn heard it as she walked away.
       Remembered the awful sound as she sat outside on the veranda, waiting for her mother’s body to be wheeled out of the house she’d built and to a hearse.  Although zipped in the black bag, it was covered with a dark red drape.  She almost snickered to herself, though.  Sylvia loved white Cadillac cars and the hearse was just that.  A white Cadillac.
       Lionel Richie was one of Sylvia’s favorite singers.  Dawn had played several of his songs softly in Sylvia’s ear during her last days and when Sylvia’s body was wheeled away in the white Cadillac hearse, “Jesus Is Love” had been the song of choice bidding her mother farewell.
       The house seemed hollow and cold and all of Sylvia’s custom draperies throughout the house appeared to hang with despair.  Dawn found herself in her parent’s closet, crumpled to her knees at the empty legs of Sylvia's jeans suspended there.  She embraced the hanging pant legs as if her mother's limbs still filled them, held on to them like a frightened child would.  She could still smell Sylvia’s scent in the fading fabric.   Her mother’d loved those jeans.  They'd been her favorite pair.
       But now, she was gone and half of Dawn died, too. 
       She felt a hand grasp her shoulder, but she was too distraught to flinch.  The touch was comforting and radiating with true love. 
       "I'm here," Philip whispered. "I'm so sorry,” he knelt beside her.
       Dawn buried herself in his embrace.  Felt her insides melting.  Disintegrating.  She'd never felt so much pain. Even when Philip divorced her and sought full custody of the kids, her life never felt so dismantled.  Crumbled to emptiness.
       "I would’ve given my life for her to live..." Dawn cried.
       "I know.  And she would’ve done the same for you.  But you know she wouldn’t want you to cry.  She’d want you to celebrate the life she lived and be there for the kids.”
       “I want to die,” Dawn cried.  “I want to die.”
                                                                        ¤     ¤     ¤
       The day of Sylvia’s funeral smelled of red roses.  Under the canopy on her coffin lay a spray of carnations and mound of her favorite crimson flowers.   Dawn never wanted to see another rose as long she lived.  No matter what anyone said, it was too painful.  Every time she saw one, even in the grocery store, she saw her mother and the sprays of water keeping them fresh were Sylvia’s tears. 
       Several of Sylvia’s closest friends spoke at her gravesite and when Christopher spoke, Dawn thought she was going to lose it.  He cried as he said how much his Mimi meant to him.  He mentioned how she took so much time with him, Mason and Sierra, taking them to Bingo and allowing him to keep the money when he won three hundred dollars.  He loved her.  Loved her as much as he loved his mother. 
       And that was the first time Dawn felt a sense of peace with her mother’s passing.  The fact that her children experienced her mother’s unselfish love and kindness.  It meant everything.  But the view of her mother in a box only dampened her spirit; it was the worst day of her life.
       The priest’s voice faded to an annoying hum of inaudible words.  The rain started and quickly grew to a thunderous downpour.  Everyone under the canopy hurriedly retreated toward the repast hall and as Dawn moved in line, a sudden urge turned her around to view her mother’s casket one last time. 
       Dawn removed a rose from the casket.  It was cold and wet and it smelled like her mother.  She held it close and silently prayed, asking God to keep her in his arms forever.
       Friends came and went as if they’d never been there at all.  Through the entire funeral, Dawn remained numb.  The smell of food and the flower from her mother’s casket still in her hand conquered her senses, and she wasn’t aware of the whispers about her love child until she realized that everyone was leaving.
       “Momma, everyone is leaving,” said Nyla.
       Dawn looked down and saw Nicoli’s daughter looking up at her with eyes the color of emeralds.  Dawn caressed her child’s cheek and ushered her toward the exit along with Christopher who was still teary, Mason and Sierra. 
       Philip was talking with Xavier and Edward when his aunt and uncle met her at the door, gave their condolences and as quickly as they came, they went.  Dawn could care less either way.  She was surprised they’d shown up at all.  And not one of Philip’s four siblings attended Sylvia’s home going services nor would they ever express any sympathy of her passing.  But again, their ignorance and lack of respect for Dawn hadn’t come as a surprise.  She’d known from day one she was never welcomed.  Knew she was never truly part of the family.

       The rain ceased and Dawn saw the low-lying clouds descending upon them like one of Sylvia’s custom made comforters.   She was sure it was a sign from God.  Her mother was in heaven.

                                                May 11, 2013

Dawn drove up Main Street past the dilapidated rooster fighting barn and the ancient ice cream parlor she frequented as a child and turned into the parking lot of the church, steering her car toward the tall iron gate of the cemetery.  She parked next to the priest’s quarters and walked down the sidewalk, past the marble headstones, past the final resting places of the Savoies and the Guillorys and the Melancons.  She turned left on Row G past her paternal grandparents’ graves and stopped at the massive marble headstone.

SYLVIA MILES

May 11, 1940 – July 18, 2012

Loving wife & mother

It was an admirable spot Edward chose to bury his wife of forty-five years.   His own plot waiting beside it.  You’ll be able to visit us both here someday, he’d said, but Dawn hadn’t planned on visiting Sylvia’s grave anytime soon after today.