WILLODEAN (THE CUPITOR CHRONICLES Book 1) (16 page)

As much as I try to deny my heritage, my family tree and all its weirdness, eccentricities and the like—my heart will not accept anything but its intended Cupitor purpose. It remains unfounded, hidden in the house in one of the rooms but by golly, I intend to change that. 
Today. In fact, right now.
 As soon as I can get Lena H
art out of my bedroom. I laugh out loud. 
I can’t help it. I am learning in my wanton wanderings, in and out of the wondering tree, in and out of the house inside me, that there is a knob in my head that clicks on and off at will. The broken knob goes into all or nothing mode. A mission mill of its own making. It waivers between the two—a horrific pit of despair which leads to a mode of 
just kill me now
. Or it goes on high speed acceleration like some blitzed out speed freak with every compulsive habit known to man, acted out in a short span of time, until I’m spent, empty and exhausted, which leads me right back to the caldron of 
get-a-knife-and-end-it-all
. It is only now, in my saner moments of reality, that I am beginning to understand this crazy behavior and why it happens. At first, Doctors put me on all kinds of mood altering drugs which actually made it worse. Whatever evil is in me—is not going away with earthly methods, that’s for sure. But don’t tell that to my family. I’m not supposed to be like this, they say. 
Not my child. Not my sister. Not my daughter.
 Everyone pretends that the great sadness doesn’t exist 
and never has
. I mean—hell, if it doesn’t exist—then neither do I exist.
Now to me, that makes perfect sense. 

I sit on my cherry blossom mattress holding my man pillow and listening to Lena Hart ramble on and on about who knows what. It’s been this way since childhood,
the ups and downs of my curse a rollercoaster I can’t get off.  The
divorce likely drove me over the edge, or that’s what they say. If Maw Sue were alive, I could talk to her.
But I’m the reason she’s dead to begin with.  That is one thing I can’t erase. 
I didn’t think I had it in me—but the curse knew.
The Amodgians knew. 
Maw Sue knew as well. She knew the powerful and destructive nature of this bloodline and how it can turn on you with a snap, although she tried to warn me and teach me all she knew, 
it was too late.
 I did the awful. I made a terrible, terrible mistake of which I shall never recover. I am alone now, with the curse and its affects. I shall not accept it nor shall I entice it to live in it. I am not sure of anything. Only pain. 
Yes, I am sure of the pain.

For as long as I can remember, even as a child, there has been a great pain, held up inside me, a captive inside the house, harboring inside a room, yet I cannot tell you what it is or how it got there or why it hurts so badly. It sits under heavily guarded walls, with a host of secrets, unbearable memories. I can see the door frame, the archway, the molding. I rattle the knob—but there is a force that will not let me enter in. It drives me mad because I cannot confront it. I cannot see it for what it is. When I am so crazy of not being able to enter, I go instead to the uncomfortable comfort of the shadow room. The Amodgians know me better than I know myself. They lull me to a hypnotic state where I don’t have to think, do, figure or confront. No one talks, no one judges, no growth, no forward, no backwards, no feelings, no emotions, no anger—just ethereal nothingness. As long as I keep it that way, the shadows leave me alone, they just let me be. I am not a threat. They are there, just simmering in the nothingness of all I am, all I will ever be. They remind of this daily, minutes, seconds—eternity. They only attack when I’m combative or when I try to get answers, or when I grow tired and want to move forward, progressing, growing, and learning. Maybe Maw Sue was wrong. Maybe I’m a sleeper after all. Could that be the reason I am so stuck? 
What if I missed something very important
? 
What if everything I was taught was false? What if she was crazy as everyone said?

I am lost in thoughts. So much I forget that Lena Hart is still in the room. When I come to my senses she is eyeballing me like I’ve sliced a baby bird, ate it and have feathers hanging out of my mouth. Her jaw is slack and she’s fretting. Her fingers tread across her teeth making a clicking noise. Uh-oh. She may implode to code 10. Suddenly and without warning a battle ensues within me, internal demons fight and slay me. Lena’s blue blades of steel pluck me from the inner torment of the madness that is me, inside the house, inside me—and flings me to the reality that I know. Right here, real life, right now.

“Are you having those thoughts—again?” Her voice is in a familiar secretive tone that says 
I have a daughter that is crazy.
 Just hearing it makes me want to scream out “PINK ELEPHANT! GOTCHA!”

Then it dawned on me. 
The creeper.  That’s who probably ratted me out.  Myrtle was probably on the phone within five minutes of me being in the tree. 
The neighborhood busybody always on their porch, looking out windows, spying the neighborhood. I laugh a little under my breath. I suspect a grown woman in a tree, in her pajamas at 6:00 AM is cause for alarm in these parts.
Several days for that matter.  Ha.

I can tell Lena is tensed to the max. 
It sends me back to a time and place when I didn’t care about what other people thought. I had a voice and by God I was going to use it. Amused with my own thoughts, I fell over on the man-pillow laughing hysterically. Lena Hart intervened in pure 
bats—in—the—belfry
 style.

“My God Willodean.” She said blown out of proportion. “I don’t know what to do with you. The neighbors called frantically, said you were going to jump from the tree! Said you were in it yesterday and days before too.” She sighed rea
l loud and paced about the room mumbling an assortment of paranoids. 
“I bet it’s all over the neighborhood by now. Shit! Myrtle probably called the ladies prayer society. Good Lord. Wh
at will I say?” She spun around, glared at me as if I would answer. 
Her blue eyes were a flame. “Huh? Tell me Willodean. It’s been hard enough explaining all this, and—and not to mention, the divorce.”

“Awwwhhh. Mother. You mean deny it happened, don’t you…” My voice was spite and regret. 
Not my daughter.
 
Not my child.

“I just don’t know about you—I’ve tried…” Lena paused and fretted. “Willodean, my God—I just…” The pink elephant ate
the words she wanted to say but didn’t.  Its belly was full. 

“Serious to God mother.” I railed and
punched the man pillow.  “The tree limb is only t
en feet off the ground.” My eyes slink and roll backwards. “Sheesh.” I moaned. “If I’m gonna kill myself, I tell you
what. I’ll let you know first.”  I pointed to her. “
How about that. Okay. Then you’ll have time to make up a great story that fits your mold for all your fake ass green stamp friends. Tell ‘em I died from cancer or something. A giant tumor on the brain made her crazy. It wasn’t her fault…poor, poor Willodean. THERE! Is that enough for your storybook life?” My voice was edging a seething anger
even I couldn’t decipher.  Words from a
black heart that the sh
adows created. Lena was shocked.  Her
blue marble eyes raked over me. I stared back in a small attempt to uncover just an i
nkling of similarity between us.  Nothing.  No
connections to fill this space, no fingers to touch this void. 
None.
I simply wanted her to go away. 

“I’m fine mother.” I said trying to put an end to this nonsensical jargon. “I just wanted some fresh air.” 
I lied.
 “Gah. Can’t I go outside without the whole neighborhood putting a magnifying glass on me?”
I pretended. 

“Fresh air?” She blasted slightly mad. 
“Couldn’t you have used the front door like everybody else?”

“Well you got me there.” I said in a sarcastic tone. I fell back on the bed in a huff. 
Go away!
 A spiral of images and floating bubbles flashed in my head. The urgency to jump up and shout, “Rebel glory. Dirt rules. Ban
Soap” was almost uncontrollable.  But instead, the steady roll of words unspoken simmered in silence.  I heard it all in the deadness. 
You never do anything right. You never listen. What’s wrong with you? It’s all your fault.
A black cloud called Lena followed me where ever I went, hovering a mist of shame that absorbed into my pores until I am no more.
No more. Non-existent.
No more. 
 I’m twenty-two by-God-Bethlehem years old for God’s sakes. 
That shouldn’t happen.

“Come back.” The shadow says feeling my shame and fear. 
I eye the
corners of the room, the darkness that only I can see. 
Not my daughter. Not my child.
 They watch, they feel my guilt, my loss, my capacity to believe I am unworthy of anything and certainly not love. They wait to take me to the house, the tormenting Dumas of Umbra, the House of Shadows to the numbin
g room. Ordinarily, I would go in an instant. 
But today—no.
 A commanding dominant voice rises up
inside the house, inside me and it meets their hideous cries like a shield refusing to gain entry. 

I WILL NOT GO THERE TODAY!

I warble between the two worlds, the realm that is and the realm that isn’t. I am never really sure they exist at all—if I exist at all. And then my lips save me. Or maybe she saves me.

Birds of the air, lilies of the field and the stars of heaven. Whole. Complete. Take me God and make me seven. Send me crumbs that I may consume, and make my life a beautiful bloom.

The room snaps back to itself as if it had been malfunctioning the whole time. 
My losses are made lovely,
just like that.
 I feel relieved, light as if I could float out the window, and drift pass the wondering tree, carried on a blissful breeze. The shadows are gone but a disgruntled presence stares at me with contempt.

“What did you say?” Lena said more paranoid than ever. 

It happened before I even knew it happened. 
Attitude. Defiance. Indifference
. A film of rebel dirt coats me like mud. Feelings emerge from tiny soap bubbles popping one after another.
It wasn’t me—it was her. 
She
 came out. 
She
 did what I could not do.

“I am enough.” The little girl said using my lips as a megaphone. W
hispers of hope. Crumbs of life. 
To myself. For myself. Of myself.

“I am enough.” 
She said again. 

Yes. I am enough, aren’t I?
 
My thoughts roared.  To
myself, of myself, for myself. It was strength, it was courage. It was
enough.

“Who
are you talking to?” Lena said.  She glanced around the room to find my demons, the
ones she says doesn’t exist. 
Not my daughter, not my child.

I wanted to say, “Oh, I’m just conversing with the little girl I left behind years ago, the one who reassures me that I am enough, just as I am. The small child I can’t seem to find in myself—it’s like she disappeared and I don’t know why?
Do you know why Lena?
The girl that is tee-totally different than me. The girl I really, really like a lot but I can’t seem to keep her. 
She fades away like a dream. 
Do
you hear me Lena? And the curse…it’s real.  Yes.  Oh, yes, it’s real.  Just like I am real.  Touch me.  I am real.  Touch the void.  It is real.  It’s all real.  Today, I declare, that
I will become the seeker that I was meant to be. Do you hear me? Come hell, high water or pink elephants. It will happen. I will be made whole again. Seven. I am enough.”

“I can’t handle all this.”
Lena said flustered. 
Of course she can’t.
 
She pressed her palms in the air pushing away the madness that didn’t exist. “You don’t know what this is doing to me.”
She whined. 
Oh. There we go. Now that’s old school right there. It’s all about Lena now.
 
Typical.  So
oooo
typical Lena, always reverting everything back to her.  Her problems, her pain, her misery.  
Here it comes …wait for it…

“You’re about to drive me bat shit crazy. You hear me.” She spat venomously.
And there it is folks, the pink elephant of the family, a declaration of mental illness, right there, in me, of me, for me, against me, all that.
And then I realized she said a curse word. The last time I heard her swear was in 1
978 when she caught me smoking in the wondering tree with the cigarette I stole out of dad’s Doral pack. 
She slapped me silly with the pack of cigarettes and then grounded me for a month. Dad wasn’t too happy he had to buy a new pack of cigarettes
but the bent eyebrow kept him from voicing his opinion on the matter.