2/25/01 On a day that was not unlike any other day, in a place that was perhaps just like the place you are now in, I got up from my armchair by the window, and started to plan my suicide. I had decided that life was no longer worth living three months before, when the mail had come that morning. The morning of February 15th, 1943. I can remember the exact time, the exact smell, the very angle of the sunlight coming through the pale yellow curtains in our kitchen. I can remember running out in the frosty new morning to waylay the letterman as he came up the walk. Mr. Peterson was 48, too old to be drafted, but whenever there was talk of the war, he got a far-away glint in his eye, and muttered "If only I was younger, if only..." I felt sorry for Mr. Peterson, stuck here in Naperville Illinois, when his son Billy and his nephew Alex were overseas fighting (as he reminded anyone who would listen). That morning I had woken up early in my small, white room at the top of the stairs. And for the first time in what seemed like weeks, I had felt almost entirely happy. Valentine's day had been just the day before, and I had received a valentine from Patrick Thomas, the only boy in my ninth-grade class who wrote poetry, sung, and didn't brag about how brave he'd be if he were old enough to fight in the war. He was skinny and pale, with dark hair that had a way of falling over his eyes and giving him a mysterious look. Patrick's family was poor, with six children, of which he was the eldest, after his older sister Carolyn, who didn't live with the family, and who Patrick never wanted to talk about. His family lived at the edge of town in an old run down, two story house. The other boys would often make fun of him. I woke up that morning, and saw the valentine beside my bed, where I had placed it on my bedside table the night before, next to the picture of my brother Nathen in his uniform. It was a simple hand-made white card with two pink hearts on the front. On the inside, there was a poem. /Over the fields, line after line/ /The planes keep flying, going high./ /And in my heart, I wonder why/ /When I am safe, these people die./ /But now I think I've found the reason/ /That I am here and fine.../ /I think that my life would have meaning,/ /If you'd be my valentine./ It was signed "Sorry the words don't really rhyme... Patrick." I was euphoric. So that morning I woke up with a shiver, a leaping feeling in my heart that hadn't been there before. I got dressed and went downstairs with a smile on my face, and a spring in my step. It was Saturday, and my mother wouldn't have to go work in the factory, so I filled the big silver kettle with water and put it on to heat for her coffee, feeling virtuous, and just like the helpful teenage daughters I saw in magazines. I was just going to go open the blackout shades in the living room when I saw Mr. Peterson coming up the walk with the mail. Maybe there would be a note or something from Patrick! I knew that this was rather unlikely, but I hoped fervantly all the same. I grabbed my gray wool coat from the closet, and ran out the front door to meet him. The bright morning sunlight twinkled fiercely in my eyes, and the thin covering of frost on the porch was slick under my shoes. I called out "Good morning Mr. Peterson! How are you?" But he didn't reply, at least not right away. He looked at me, and it seemed as though he was seeing me for the first time, as though he couldn't really believe that I was standing there talking to him. Then a look crossed his face, a look so wrought with pain that it seemed as though his whole face where crumpling in on itself. But then it was gone, except for a yearning, pulling, regretful sadness in his eyes. "Good mornin' Mandy." He said, trying to smile at me like he always did, and making it into more of a grimace instead. "There's a letter for you." He handed me a slightly dirty blue envelope, addressed from...Patrick. My heart pounded, and I sucked in my breath. But I knew there was something wrong. I looked back at him. "Mr. Peterson? Is there something else?" And as I said it, something went off in my mind with a click, went off like a little spring, and suddenly, I just knew. "Get your mother Mandy." Mr. Peterson said softly, and suddenly, like a dam breaking, I knew what his painful look was about, I knew what he was going say next, I knew what he had for us. I was always such a polite girl, that's what all my parent's friends used to say. I think my image was shattered forever that day. I didn't say a word. I just snatched the letter out of Mr. Peterson's hands and ran inside. I heard him knock on the door, but although he felt the pain of the message he had to deliver, he didn't want to share in it, and after a minute, I heard his footsteps shuffling away. I sat at the kitchen table, the thick, creamy envelope in my hands, resting perfectly there, delicately, like a feather. It was from the Government, the Army, but I barely glanced at the address, because already I knew. And althogh a wild, whispering voice was pleading in my head for this to be fake, to be wrong, to all be a dream, I still knew what it was, and that it was real. It's at this point that my memories of the event get a little confused. In fact, I'm not really sure what happened between that time and the time that my mother found me. From there, I have only her narrative to follow, and a few blurry, half-formed memories of my own. She says that she woke up to screaming. She ran downstairs and found me on my knees on the kitchen floor, the letter held in my hands, staring at it and screaming. She said I didn't clutch the letter, tear at it or crumple it; she says I held it like it was made of glass and could cut me, like it was a baby bird that I was afraid of crushing. She says that I kept on screaming for an hour, and she couldn't quiet me, and all the neighbors for blocks around came to see what the horrible noise was. My mother was calm though, at least she says that she felt calm. She called my father at work and told him to come home right that minute, she wouldn't tell him why. He said that he could hear me screaming in the background though, and that he had never been so terrified in his life. When I became red and then blue in the face, and yet still kept screaming, my mother called the ambulence, and they took me to the hospital. Because, as I said earlier, I knew what the letter was about. I knew. It was my brother Nathen. My only brother. The only brother I would ever want. The person I loved most in the whole, war-ravaged, God-forsaken world. Tall, beautiful, dark-haired Nathen. Musical Nathen, brave Nathen, sweet, sweet, sweet Nathen. The one person I could tell anything to. The one person I would have died for. And he was dead. For two months I was in shock. I barely spoke. I barely ate. I didn't want to go to school, but the counselors said I should, that I needed to face reality sometime, and the sooner the better. But I couldn't stand school, couldn't stand the teachers, or the other kids. I couldn't bare to look at Patrick Thomas, he seemed as though he lived in another world; his sympathy seemed cruel. So my parents let me stop going to school, if I promised to do my school work at home, and work with the tutor they brought in for me. I knew that there were others in my school, even in my class, that had lost family to the war. I had seen them crying, their pinched faces. I had seen them miss school. But I had never been them. And now, somehow I felt that they had never been me. That although they had gone through pain, it had been different than mine. It had been less. I believed that no one could ever feel or even comprehend the pain, the loss, I felt. So three months later, more or less, from the day I opened the letter telling of my brother's death, on a day that was not unlike any other day, at least for the rest of the world, in a place that perhaps is just like the place you are now in, I got up from the armchair by the window where I had been studying, and started to plan my suicide. *** It's a funny thing how one event can seem to change your entire being; things you barely knew existed start creeping into your mind on a regular basis, and things that were once a daily part of your life vanish from your mind alltogether. So it was for me with thoughts of suicide. Before my brother's death, I had been a normal fourteen year-old girl. I was active in girl scouts, I got good grades in school, I had girlfriends with whom I spent a good deal of my time giggling about boys with. I had an almost-boyfriend. I went to the movies and idolized Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, and was continually stary eyed and breathless over Clark Gable. I helped my mother around the house. I volunteered after school at the Red Cross, rolling bandages and knitting socks for our brave fighting boys. My favorite song was "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy", and my friends and I had all the Andrews Sisters records and spent countless hours sitting around the phonograph trying to imitate their voices. I was normal. But all of that had changed now. Now I almost never left the house. I'd get up late in the morning, and eat breakfast if my Mother or Father was there, they made me. Otherwise, I usually wouldn't eat anything. At 11:30 my tutor would come, and would stay with me until 3:00. My Mother and Father had worked it out so that I was never alone by myself for more than a few hours at a time. They were worried about me. I liked being alone though, it was easier to be numb, to retreat into myself. When other people were in the house, I had to try to act normal again, which was impossibly hard to do. My tutor was Miss Fields, a thin, pale, tight-lipped woman, who never seemed interested in what she was trying to teach me in the least. It was as though English, Geography, History, Science and Algebra were like bitter pills: they had to be swallowed, but there was no pleasure to be taken in them. I had always loved English and History in school, but now they were as dry as the dustbowl out in Kansas, and I measured them, as I did the other subjects, by the ticking hands of the clock. When our big old clock finally made it's agonizing way to 3:00, Miss Fields would sigh in her dry way, like wind rattling the dry leaves in the gutters, and close the book she had taken the lesson from that day. After she left, I had two hours by myself until my parents got home. My Father or Mother always made it a point to call me at 4:00 to ask how I was doing, say they loved me, and ask if I wanted them to get me a new movie magazine or anything from the store. I usually asked for the latest issue of Photoplay, just because I knew they wanted me to ask for something. I felt guilty asking, because I knew our money was tight, and I knew that I didn't really want the magazine at all, I was just doing it to appease them, to give the illusion that I still had interests, that I was still their normal little girl. So the weeks passed, even though my life didn't. I felt that my life had ended on the morning of February 15th. My soul was off somewhere else, while my body remained trapped behind, a hollow shell pretending to be the person I once had been. And so it was that on a late afternoon in May, when the apple trees were in bloom, making the whole world smell of heaven, and the sky was such a brilliant shade of blue that just looking at it should have made you feel full and bursting with happiness, that I sat in our dim house, staring out the window absently, a book of poems laying unread in my lap. It was then that the idea of suicide first came to me. At first I was shocked. I had never even imagined thinking of such a thing. No one where I lived had ever committed suicide, except a long, long time ago, when my parents were children, when Nelly Oran had come home one day to find her husband in bed with another woman. Everyone said that she hadn't said a thing, just turned on her heel and walked out of the house. They later found her in the garage with the door shut and the car running, dead. But no one I knew had ever committed suicide. It just wasn't talked about. But the more I thought about suicide, the more appealing it became. I imagined never having to be miserable again. I imagined never having to listen to Miss Fields' horribly boring lectures on Science. I imagined not having to see the pain my parents were in, and feel guilty that they did so much for me, even in their pain, when I did nothing for them. I imagined how all my friends would finally see how much I had really suffered, they'd all see that my loss had been something different from theirs, greater than they could have imagined while I was alive. But if I killed myself, they'd understand somehow, I thought. Patrick Thomas would perhaps write a poetic epitaph for my grave stone. Perhaps he would be so heart-broken that he would never love another girl again. That thought sparked a tiny feeling of satisfaction in my heart, because even if I was dead, I still wouldn't like the thought of him writing poetry for anyone else. At first, the thought of suicide scared me, but as I thought about it more, I became used to it, until it was just a fact of my daily existence. So I started to develope a plan. I decided that slitting my wrists would be dramatic, but that if I saw the blood, I might loose heart. So finally, i settled on sleeping pills. My parents didn't keep any in the house, and everyone in town knew me and my parents, so if I bought anything by myself, it would eventually get back to them. For a few days, my plan seemed to be on the rocks, and I thought that perhaps I should try slitting my wrists after all, but then I began to get the beginnings of a plan, a plan to end all plans. *** That evening, when my parents were home, my Mother in the kitchen making dinner, and my Father in the living room, smoking his pipe and reading the latest issue of the Chicago Sun Times, I began to put my plan into action. I walked into the kitchen and sat down at our small, solid maple table. We used to all eat at the long, shiney, dark wood table in the dining room every evening, before my brother left for the army. But since the family was only three now, we ate at the small table in our bright, cheery yellow kitchen, and the dining room went unused, the heat vents turned off, and the lace curtains closed to the light so that Mother's china wouldn't fade in their high cabinets along the wall. Sitting in the kitchen, I watched my Mother making dinner in her floral patterned dress with her green apron over it, humming some old song I'd never heard, her graying brown hair pulled up in a thick french twist along the back of her head. I ran my fingernail along the cracks between the boards of the kitchen table, trying to think of a natural way to ask her the question burning in my head. While I was still thinking, my Mother turned to me and smiled, though whenever she smiled lately, I always got the feeling that it was an effort, and it made the ever-present pain in her blue eyes more stark in contrast. "Hello sweetie." She said to me, though she sounded distracted, as though her mind were miles away from our warm, bright kitchen, and thinking of different things entirely. "Hello Mama." I said, trying to smile back at her, even though it felt stiff and fake. "Mama..." I trailed off, not sure how to continue. Her back was to me, stirring the pot of chicken soup on the stove, and I wasn't even sure she'd heard me. "Mama..." I started again, already self-consious. This time she heard me, and turned around, a worried, expectant look on her face. "I thought maybe...uh...I could go over to Sal's house tomorrow afternoon, after Miss Fields leaves." There. It was out. I held my breath. My Mother's face held the worried look for a moment, and then suddenly softened, her expression brightening more than I had seen it in weeks. "Oh honey," she said softly, coming to put a hand on my arm. "I think that's a wonderful idea. Do you want me to call up her mother and ask for you? Or maybe you want to talk to her yourself. Will you girls want to see a movie? Will you need someone to drive you to the theatre?" My Mother seemed breathless, stringing her questions together like beads crowding on a necklace, with no spaces in between. I realized then that my Mother saw this as a sign of my readiness to return back to the normal world of my friends and school. I hadn't talked to any of the girls I used to play with in...I thought for a moment...weeks. And they had always been the ones to call me and invite me to do something, I hadn't wanted to talk to them. And I always declined their invitations. I looked back at my Mother's happy, expectant face, and felt a sudden pang of guilt, but I had to continue. "Oh, I'll call her Mama. You're right, I haven't talked to her in awhile. I'll do it after dinner." As I got up from my chair and went up the darkened stairs to my room, I heard my Mother start singing again in the kitchen, and her voice sounded as though it might burst with happiness. *** "Hello?" Sal's voice sounded different than I remembered, I couldn't put my finger on exactly why though. "Sal?" I said, my voice sounding slightly hoarse, and overly cheery. I cleared my throat. "Mandy?" She sounded surprised. Did she want to talk to me? "Yeah, it's Mandy. How are you?" "I'm fine. Real good." She still sounded surprised. "How are you? I haven't talked to you in so long." "Oh, I'm fine." I lied. "Just fine." "Oh?" She didn't sound like she believed me. "Well...you know, pretty good." I said. "My tutor is really a bore." Sal laughed, and all of a sudden, it felt vaugely good to be talking to her, as though it hadn't been three weeks since I'd last spoken with her. The conversation turned to other topics. Sal had always been popular at school, with her sleek blond hair, blue eyes, fashionable clothes, and the friendly, outgoing way she had with people. She told me all the gossip, who had walked who home, which boys had gotten detention for what, what our friends had worn to the last dance. It was surprising to see how trivial the details of my life had been, the little things that I had found interesting, that seemed so pointless now. I sighed inadvertently. "You ok Mandy?" Sal asked in an awkward voice. "Oh! Yeah. Just...tired, that's all." I paused, then asked the question I had been meaning to ask all along. "I was just wondering, would you like to get together tomorrow? I could come over to your house or something." I hoped she wouldn't notice how nervous I sounded. "Oh, that would be fun!" She actually sounded sincere, and for some reason it unnerved me slightly. "You want to come over at 4:00 then? Hey! And I got the new Andrews Sisters record for my birthday, we can listen to that." "Great!" I said, falsely cheery once more. It was then that I remembered that her birthday had been just eight days ago. I'd forgotten, and she was my best friend. "Sal...I'm so sorry, I haven't gotten you a birthday present yet." I said, because I genuinely did feel bad. "What do you want?" "Oh Mandy, that's ok." She paused awkwardly. "I know you've been...been having a hard time lately." There was a long silence. "Well," Sal said after awhile, "It was good to talk to you. I guess I'll see you tomorrow." "Yeah," I echoed, "See you tomorrow." After Sal hung up the phone, I stayed standing in the kitchen, one hand still on the receiver, my palms sweating. I felt so hollow. Talking to Sal, I had remembered what my life had been like before. I wanted it back so badly that the pain and unfairness of it all overwhelmed me. But I knew I could never have it back again. "It's all right." I whispered to myself, "It'll all be over soon, then you won't have to worry anymore, it'll be all over soon." I went into the living room. The radio was on, and my parents were listening intently to the news of the war, their faces grim and drawn, illuminated harshly by the light of the two lamps in the dim room. They glanced up when I entered, but didn't say anything. News time was important. I went to first my Father, then my Mother, and hugged them goodnight, enveloping myself in their familiar, comforting smell, drawing strength from the warmth of their bodies. Then I went upstairs to my cold bed, and must have fallen asleep, because I dreamed that my brother Nathen was home, that he hadn't been killed at all, and I ran out to meet him as he came up the walk, and he laughed at the tears in my eyes, laughed in his big-brother way, saying "You didn't really think those Nazis got me didja sis?" And I was so happy that I couldn't speak, just held onto him, my face pressed into his uniform, and cried. *** Sal and I had been best friends ever since the sixth grade, when she had moved to Naperville from Atlanta Georgia and had been the new girl in school. At first, everyone had been a little in awe of her, what with her southern drawl and fashionable clothes, and wouldn't talk to her, all except me that is. But Sal's awkwardness didn't last long, she was just the sort of person who couldn't be ignored no matter how hard you tried. She was always tall for her age, with the perfect, silky sort of golden blonde hair that I imagined movie stars must have. She had the bluest eyes I had ever seen, and they sparkled when she laughed or when she got angry. Sal was outgoing to everyone, and she never seemed embarrassed or ill at ease. She was always nice to me, but occasionally, I'd see the vicious sense of humor she employed against her enemies, and be doubley glad that she was my friend. It didn't take three weeks until Sal was the queen of our sixth grade class. But we weren't in sixth grade anymore. And now Sal was the queen of our whole school, and I had been, well, just Mandy. Her sidekick. I swung my legs, sitting in Sal's pale blue bedroom, my saddle shoes hitting her fluffy comforter softly with each swing. The late afternoon sunlight spilling in weakly through the pale blue curtains. I stared at the small model horses and dogs arranged neatly along the top of her dresser, over the lacey doiley, and glanced at the glossy pictures of movie stars she'd tacked to her pale blue walls. Sal sat on the floor, her legs crossed, wearing a pink pleated wool skirt that I hadn't seen before. She was staring off into space, her lips silently forming the words to one of the Andrews Sisters latest songs along with the phonograph. Sal was the only girl I knew who had a phonograph in her room, all to herself. I used to be horribly jealous about it, but as I sat on her bed now, listening to the sweet, strident voices of the Andrews Sisters, I wasn't jealous at all, in fact, I didn't really feel anything. Nothing seemed to be real in this pale blue alter-reality, it was as though this were all a dream, a mirage of my old life, and I would wake up soon and find that I was in my own bed at home and not here at all. Suddenly, I realized that Sal's eyes were resting on me. I jumped slightly, and stopped swinging my legs. As soon as I met her gaze, I looked away, but she kept staring at me, just looking at me as though I were a fascinating work of art, or a hand-tinted photograph of Clark Gable. Finally, starting to become annoyed, I asked "What is it?" Sal started, as though she hadn't even been aware that she had been staring at me, or that it had made me uncomfortable. Looking away from me now, she heaved a long sigh, and reached over to turn the volume down on the phonograph. "Oh, I don't know Mandy." Sal said quietly, "I was just thinking...well, about what happened with your brother and all." I stiffened on the bed, and was careful not to look at her, keeping my gaze fixed intently on the fluffy pale blue carpet under my shoes. "What were you thinking?" I said uncomfortably at last, not liking the quiet that had fallen. Sal glanced at me again, and I felt her hesitation before she sighed again, and continued. "Mandy, I mean, I know he meant alot to you, a whole lot, but...but..." She trailed off, staring at me again. I wished she would just shut up, my brother wasn't any of her business, she shouldn't try to make me feel better about it, my school friends already had, and it only seemed to make me feel worse. I didn't say anything. "Mandy, you're fourteen, we're both fourteen...I mean, we have a whole world ahead of us. It's like we haven't even lived yet at all! The war will be over soon, and then think of how wonderful it will be! You just shouldn't..." Sal trailed off again, "I mean...you shouldn't let, let Nathan's death end your life. It's like you died when he did. And I know what it's like to loose someone you love," she added quickly, "My Grandmother died when I was nine, and I was so sad. I just thought that the world had ended or something." Sal looked at me, and then continued more quickly, her words tumbling over each other in her haste for me to understand. "But the world hadn't ended at all Mandy, not at all! And after awhile, I stopped being so sad, and now look at me! I'm happy! I still miss her every day, but I know that she'd want me to be happy. I think she wouldn't want me to stop living just because she was gone. And..." Sal paused again, and I had a horrible feeling about what she was going to say next, "I don't think Nathan would want you to stop living either. And it's like you have stopped living Mandy, it's like you just aren't there anymore. And I think if you really loved Nathen, you'd try to do what he would've wanted you to do, and I think he would have wanted you to be happy, and to live your life!" When the echo of Sal's words had died away in the pale blue room, there was a terrible silence. Then I spoke. "Sal," I said quietly, feeling as though I had sand in my throat, "you don't know anything about my brother. Anything! And don't you ever tell me what he would've wanted for me, becuase you don't know! You don't know what it's like to be me! Nathan was young, he was 19, he wasn't old like your grandmother! You don't know what it's like to really, really love someone, so just shut up! Shut up!" By this time I was yelling, my words reverberating around the room, striking the walls where they seemed to shatter like glass. I jumped up and ran for the door, and I heard Sal say "Mandy, you took it all wrong, wait! Wait a minute!" But her words meant nothing to me, and I flung myself at the door, just as it opened to reveal her mother standing there, her eyebrows furrowed, looking concerned. But I pushed past her, shoving past her shocked face and flowered house dress. I couldn't see as I made my way down the hall, everything was blurry and dimer than usual, and then I felt something wet on my cheek, and knew I was crying. I didn't know where I was going, but somehow, I ended up in the bathroom. And it was there that, like a sledge hammer striking home, I suddenly remembered my plan. Their bathroom was pink. All pink. Walls, sink, molded bathtub, towels, washclothes, tiles and all. For one frenzied moment, I just stared around at the pinkness of it all, hardly believing it was real. It was like I had stepped from their hallway directly into the middle of a huge ball of cotton candy. This must be her parent's bathroom, I thought vaguely, because I had never been in it before. After a moment, I made my way slowly to the sink, and stared down in absolute awe at the pale pink soap in a shell-shaped soap dish, molded with tiny flowers and curlicues. In our house, soap was akin to a large, white brick, and the only purpose it served, or even that I had ever imagined that it could serve, was to get you clean, even if it took half your skin off in the process. I was astounded. I looked up to find a large mirror in front of me, and my own reflection staring back. My eyes were red, and had already starting to puff up from my tears. The ribbon that had been in my hair was coming untied, and falling halfway off, the result being that my hair was starting to fly in wild, frizzy whisps around my face. My expression was wide-eyed and tearful, and I thought vaguely that I looked like the orphans in Little Orphan Annie. Altogether, I looked horrible. But as I stared at my reflection in despair, I noticed the tiny handles on one side of the mirror, and realized that it was also the medicine cabinet. My parents had always drilled me mercilessly in polite behavior, which included never opening drawers belonging to other people, and I was sure, never, never looking in other people's medicine cabinets. Somehow, when I had gone over the plan in my mind, I had never imagined that I would worry about something like this now. Fortunately the thought only stayed in my mind for a second. Then I opened the door. The array of pill bottles dazzled me, and I just stared at them for a moment, before starting the search. My fingers touched three kinds of asprin, four bottles of cold and flu medication, several bottles of hay fever treatment, and finally, when I had almost given up hope, sleeping pills. I stood before the open medicine cabinet, staring at the perfect, white, tiny bottle in my hand for a long moment, hardly believing that my plan was turning out so well, before slipping them into my pocket, just as Sal burst through the bathroom door. I think time stopped for a moment there, and for one split second, Sal and I were both frozen, caught suspended in time like two flies in a spiderweb. But when that split second ended, everything started happening very fast.
"Mandy I'm not sure exactly how I got out of Sal's house, down the stairs, though the living room, past her mother, and outside, slamming the door shut behind me, but suddenly I found myself walking along the sidewalk in the first dark shadows of the evening, heading towards home. I wiped my eyes against my sleeve, fighting back the sobs that wanted to wrack my body. I kept looking behind me, expecting to see Sal running after me to say she had made a horrible mistake, that she hadn't meant anything she'd said, and that she was sorry. But Sal was never behind me, only the long empty sidewalk, and once, a stray dog. *** Our house hunched darkly by itself in the rosy, evening light as I made my way up the concrete walkway and onto our slightly sagging old white porch. My mind pulsed with my pain, and I barely made it up the steps. The wood creaked beneath my feet as I threw open the screen door, letting it slam behind me as I went into the dark house. I stopped just inside the door, the deep shadows of the house filling my eyes with darkness, making it hard to see. My heart in my mouth, beating wildly, I didn't wait for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, but blundered on through the entryway and into the kitchen. I ran up the stairs to my room two at a time, my sobs almost choking me, I tripped over the last step and fell onto the upstairs landing. I didn't bother getting up, I felt as though I had been containing this pain inside of me all the way home from Sal's, no, longer than that, perhaps this was the pain that had been lurking inside of me ever since Nathan died, and now I couldn't hold it inside of me any longer, and it flew from the confines I had made for it in my soul, through the crevices in the walls I had contained it in, and ravaged me as I lay on the cold, slightly grimy wooden floor of the landing. I screamed, hot tears running down my face. I clutched the fabric of my dress, and buried my face in my skirt, trying to hide, trying escape from the horrible, horrible pain inside of me. "Oh God! God!" I whispered, my fingers slowly clenching and unclenching, trying to grasp something, anything, to hang on to, to keep me from being swept away by this overwhelming tide. But my grasping fingers found nothing, and I felt my head go under. "Oh please God, please," I moaned, even as the words escaped my lips, not understanding what I was praying for, only knowing that I had to end this pain, I just couldn't take it. But God didn't seem to hear my unintelligible plea, because nothing happened. The hallway grew steadilly darker, and my panicked breaths slowed down and grew normal again. I gradually became aware that my back hurt horribly, and my eyes stung from the tears. I sat up very slowly, really noticing where I was for the first time, almost surprised to find myself on the upstairs landing with my crumpled, wet skirt clinging to my knees. I drew my hand across my eyes slowly, feeling more tears spilling down my cheeks and neck, running into the collar of my blouse. I felt so pathetic, lower than I had ever felt before, lower even than when I had first heard the news of Nathan's death. Because now I had lived with this gnawing, wretching pain chewing at my innards for three whole months, and now I knew things that I hadn't known then: no one in the world loved me, I had no friends, my brother had left me forever, and I would never, never see him again, and it was evening, and I was alone, so horribly and completely alone, kneeling at the top of the stairs, staring down at my hands. I tried to cry again, choking out sobs, trying to find a release, any release to empty the terror and loss, lonliness and disgrace from my heart. But I had no more tears to cry, and sobbing felt hollow and meaningless to me; my feelings were too deep to cry, too horrible to express. I jumped up in a frenzy, I couldn't sit there in the creeping darkness any longer, I had to do something, anything, to get away from myself, because if I didn't I knew that I would go insane. I ran down the hallway, my shoes clomping on the hard floor, throwing harsh echos that bounced off the walls and ceiling like knives. At the end of the hall was my bedroom, and there I flew, looking for sanctuary, for protection, for numbness, for anything but this. I threw myself on my bed, hitting my head on the oak headboard with a dull, excruciating thump. I cried out, tears springing to my eyes at this new attack. My own bed was attacking me. I screamed, and punched the headboard with my fist, then screamed again and cradled my hand, now in as much pain as my head, against my chest. I sat there and cried for a few minutes, feeling rage at my bed, at myself, and at the world in general. Then I collapsed back onto my bed, and lay still for a long time, staring at the ceiling, slowly beginning to feel the first waves of numbness start to take over. I'm not sure how long I layed there, looking at the cracks in the white ceiling above my bed, the cracks I had stared at and imagined pictures out of ever since I had been six years old, and had stopped sharing a room with my brother. I felt much calmer after awhile. Not happier, and the pain was still there, along with the anger, but something was dulling them, covering them with numbness. I welcomed it gladly, laying back and letting it seep into my aching heart, my tormented mind. It did not bring peace, but it was better than the burning, screaming, raw-edged hurt. It felt as though someone had buried me deep in a bag of sand, where everything was muted and dim, muffled and grainy. It wasn't pleasant, but nothing was quite as accute as it had been either. After awhile though, I felt something tugging at my mind. I didn't want to pay attention to it, because if I let any thoughts come into my mind, they brought back the horrible pain with them in an instant. It kept nagging at me though, until finally, my calm was shattered, and I sat up, my arms shaking slightly as they supported me on the bed. Slowly, as though moving through jello, I got up and went across the room to my dresser, with the large, oval mirror hanging over it in it's dark wood frame. Like a sacrificial vicim making her way to the alter, so I made my way to my mirror. For some reason I felt that I just had to look at myself, see my reflection staring back at me. I needed to see who I was, perhaps I hoped to see the person I had once been peeking out at me from under my black eyebrows. Then I stood in front of the mirror, and stared at myself in a kind of perverse fascination, my attention rapt and captured with the vision of myself. It was the oddest feeling. Standing there looking at the person who was supposed to be me, I felt as though I didn't know her at all. When was the last time I had really studied myself in the mirror, and who had I been at that time? I stared at the girl who I had become, feeling an overwhelming compulsion to memorize her every detail, to imprint this face, this posture, on my memory forever. Perhaps somehow I knew that this would be the last time I would ever see this face again. So I looked. Wild brown hair. Frizzy, thick, waving whisps curling crazilly around my thin face. Heart-shaped face, people had always said. But to me, it had always just been a face, my face. High cheekbones, small, dark birthmark on the left one that I had always despised, but that my mother had said gave me a "Gypsy look". Big, deep brown eyes, bloodshot and puffy from my salty tears. My eyes were my best feature according to Sal, she said they were bigger than hers, and having big eyes was beautiful, it was one of the things boys looked for in a girl she said. But I didn't want to think about Sal. Short, dark lashes, wet and spikey. Dark eyebrows like my father, almost black; Irish ancestory according to him. Small mouth, thin pinkish lips. I bared my teeth, just to see what they were like on this person. Whiteish, glistening wetly in the dim light; even on the top, crooked and slightly cramped on the bottom. My face, my face that was so like my face, and yet was not. Slowly, I turned away from the mirror. Slowly, I reached into the pocket of my skirt, pulled out the tiny bottle, and stared at it for a long, long time. I looked back at the mirror. The girl was still there, thin, almost gaunt, huge eyes with the dark circles underneath, horrible, empty, pain-filled gaze. I couldn't stand her, I had to end her, and end myself with her. My heart beat quickly as I read the directions on the sleeping pill bottle, next to my bedroom window, using the last light coming in to see by. Somehow, it didn't seem right to turn on the overhead light. Then, I unscrewed the cap of the bottle and poured out two pills, three, four, five, eight...until I lost count. I put them in my mouth, chewed, shaking my head and closing my eyes at the bitter taste. But I poured more, chewed and swallowed, the pills crunching like tiny bones between my teeth. Then, still holding the bottle, I sat down next to my bed to wait. My heart was racing, and I felt a proud glow start to creep over me. I had done it! I was going through with it! But then the ache of saddness returned. Of overwhelming pain. Of loss. And I choked back more tears, clutching the bottle tightly. I had always imagined this moment as triumphant, I had always imagined that I would be happy as I took the pills, happy because I would go to heaven and see Nathan, happy because I would never, never have to suffer again. But I didn't feel happy. I felt horrible, as though I were a bottomless pit that needed to be filled, and I had nothing to fill it with but air. I started to cry again, and tried to conjure up thoughts of Nathan, of how I would see him in heaven, just like the preacher always said, that he would be there waiting for me, and all the angles would sing and play their beautiful harps, and I would be eternally happy. But it didn't work. All I saw were images of Nathan being gunned down in a foxhole, Nathan's body being pierced by bullets, Nathan lying prone and bleeding on a battlefield. And then I saw myself, and for a moment I thought the sleeping pills had worked and I was dreaming, or dead already, because I saw myself from above, from a vantage point somewhere over the bed. I saw myself sitting there, and somehow I knew that the me sitting on the floor was dead. And at the same time, I knew suddenly, like a semi-truck running into me, striking me head on, that I didn't want to be dead. I screamed, or tried to, and suddenly I was back in my body on the floor, and I wasn't dead. I started laughing, clutching my chest, because I was so happy to be alive after all, but in the same moment, I felt a tugging, pulling sensation, the sensation of deep, deep sleep calling me, reaching out to claim me. "No," I said, but my ears barely heard the word, it was so feeble. "No!" I tried to say more loudly, but it didn't work, I was falling asleep, and with my sleep, I was going to loose my life, and suddenly, my life seemed to be the most important thing in the world, more important than I had ever imagined anything could be, more precious than I could have ever believed. Then the memories came. I remembered my mother, and a long walk we'd taken once out in the rain together, in the summer. The rain had been coming down in sheets, but we didn't mind, we wore our bright yellow rain coats, and took umbrellas, and laughed and splashed in puddles, and then the rain had stopped, and there had been the most beautiful rainbow. My mother had hugged me and said reverently "Mandy, this is what life is all about." I remembered my father, chasing me around and around our little yard, both of us sweaty and shrieking with laughter. I remembered how he'd finally caught me and tossed me up, up, up in the air, and I'd screamed and laughed with happiness, and felt like a bird. I remembered Nathan, oh dear God, sweet Nathan. I remembered him and I reading plays together in the living room on Saturday mornings, each of us taking three or four parts, and reading them with great flare and flourish. I remembered how he'd never been embarrassed of me when his friends came over, and how he's always stuck up for me when they said that I couldn't play their games because I was too young, or because I was a girl. "Just because she's a girl doesn't mean she can't play," I could hear him saying "and she's younger than us, but you're old for your age aren't ya Mandy?" And he'd grin his crinkly grin, and I'd nod, absolutely bursting with importance, and love for him. I remembered the long conversatins I had with Nathan when I was older, how I could talk to him about absolutely anything, and how he always said that he could talk to me better than anybody else. I remembered how sometimes I'd just go up to him and hug him, and he'd grin and sigh, and always hug me back tightly. And as my memories of Nathan faded and slipped away, I heard Sal's voice, thoughtful and pleading at the same time, saying "I don't think Nathan would want you to stop living. And it's like you have stopped living Mandy, it's like you just aren't there anymore. And I think if you really loved Nathen, you'd try to do what he would've wanted you to do, and I think he would have wanted you to be happy, and to live your life!" And I realized then, realized with such certainty that it shocked me, how right she was. Nathan wouldn't want me dead, he loved me, and he'd want me alive! If I was dead, what good would I do? If I was alive, at least I could keep Nathan's memory alive, I could do good, and change the world so that perhaps there would never have to be another war, and no more innocent boys would ever have to die in it. But I was getting so groggy, the spacing between my concious thoughts becoming more and more erratic. I couldn't hold on, but I had to, had to! And I think it was then that I really realized the full and entire impact of what I had done. I gagged, trying to throw up the fatal pills. I tried to lift my arm to stick a finger down my throat, got the finger in, stuck it down, but I just couldn't throw up. I was loosing conciousness quickly, the room had been dark before, but now there seemed to be periodic darker spots, as parts of my mind slipped in and out of reality. I was going to die, oh God, I was going to die. "Help!" I screamed, only it was more like a whisper. And then with the last of my will, "Help!" But I had taken too many pills, and I couldn't go back. I was loosing my hold, and I couldn't get it back. I was slipping, slipping, I shuddered, wanting to cry at my defeat, to sob with the unfairness of it all. But I didn't have the energy, I just wanted to go to sleep. I leaned back against the side of the bed, and waited for death. It was then that I saw Nathan. He was in his crisp army uniform, standing a few feet away, looking down at me with an expression of mixed compassion and regret on his face. I gaped at him, tried to move, tried to fling myself at him, but couldn't. I was as immobile as a rock. But he held up his hand, shaking his head. "Don't waste anymore of your strength on me Mandy, you've already screwed up your life enough because of me." A stricken look crossed his face, then passed, and a look of intense urgency replaced it in his blue eyes. "Mandy, listen to me, you've got to. Fight the sleeping pills, fight them! You can do it, please Mandy, do it for me. You can't die like this, you can't die because of me. God Mandy, I love you so damn much, and you can't die like this! Didn't you know that I would've wanted you to keep living? Jesus Christ, you've got your whole life ahead of you! Just because I died doesn't mean that you should too! Things don't work like that Mandy!" I just stared at him, the capacity of my mind to take this in was completely blown away, and all I could do was stare, my mouth opening and closing, my arms trying to reach out to him. But then he was kneeling by my side, and he looked so real and alive that I was sure that if I could only raise my arm, I could touch him. But Nathan seemed to know what I was thinking, as usual, and he picked up my hand and held it in his. I felt a sensation of coolness, like sticking your hand inside a refrigerator. "Mandy," Nathan said soothingly, looking me right in the eyes, shaking a whisp of dark hair out of his face, in such a familiar way that I wanted to cry with the joy of seeing him do it again, "Mandy, you've got to hold on. Just hold on kiddo, please, you can do it. It's not your time to go yet, it's not your time. Just hold on for me Mandy." Then he smiled at me, the sweetest smile in the whole world, his blue eyes crinkling around the edges, and his straight, white teeth showing. "You're gonna be all right Mandy, but you've just got to hang in there, don't leave yet, it's not your time." I don't think I have ever been more at bliss in my entire life, and if I never feel that happy again, I think just the memory of this time would keep me content forever. I tried to smile back at Nathan, but felt myself slipping further into sleep. I panicked, and I fought against it, I tried to hold on like Nathan was telling me, but it was hard, so hard. I screamed "Help!" again, even though it wasn't very loud, and I struggled and fought and held on with all the will and strength left in my body and soul. But I could feel myself loosing. It was then that I heard the doorbell. I looked around, confused. Nathan was gone, as suddenly as he had appeared, but I still had the feeling that he was near to me, watching me, helping me. Then I heard the doorbell ring again. "Nathan?" I said feebley, but there was no answer. I shut my eyes and prayed. I couldn't hold on any longer. I had to let go. The tide of sleep that I had held off for so long was greedy, it had my soul in a hammer-lock, and was dragging me off, whether I wanted to or not. "I'm sorry Nathan," I whispered, closing my eyes, "I'm sorry. I just couldn't do it." But suddenly there were footsteps outside the door. "Mandy?" I heard someone say, a voice that was familiar, but that I just didn't have the strength to place. I was going, going even though I cried out to stay, but nothing could save me now anyway, it was hopeless. But there was one last speck of hope in my body, and with that speck, I held my head up, and looked towards my bedroom door. And in came Patrick Thomas. "Mandy! Oh my God, are you ok?" I saw a glimpse of his beautiful, slender face, and black hair. I felt the touch of his hands on my face, on my wrist, searching for a pulse. I heard him say something to me, then heard him running off to find a telephone. And I closed my eyes and felt my lips curve into a smile. I sighed a little sigh of absolute happiness, of contentment, of absolute victory. I had won, I had hung in there, I would live. Then I blacked out. /Epilogue/ The sky was the most perfect shade of pale blue imaginable. The clouds drifted like plump, contented sheep over our sleepy little town, the tree-lined streets, the houses nestled in their yards behind their picket fences. The sun shone through the boughs of the wild apple and plum trees that were in full blume on the edge of the cemetary, making their perfect, white blossems glow as though they were lit from within. The wind was warm and sweet smelling as it blew through my hair, caressing my white blouse and deep green skirt. It was May 21st, and I had been out of the hospital for three days. I glanced at Sal, walking by my side, her golden hair tied back with a ribbon. She turned to me quickly, her forhead scrunching slightly in worry, but when she saw my smile, her face relaxed, and she beamed at me, her blue eyes glowing. I turned away, still smiling, and inhaled deeply, letting the perfect morning air fill my lungs. By now, my story had been told and retold so many times, and in so many different ways, that I almost couldn't believe that it had all actually happened to me. But no matter how strange any of the events that had taken place seemed to me, there was one thing that I knew without a doubt to be true: I had seen and talked to Nathan. Whenever I remembered those moments when he had been with me, I felt a sense of deep contentment, and although the contentment was still mixed with some saddness, and the poignant regret that my brother couldn't be with me in the flesh, I felt that Nathan would always, always be with me, in some way or form; I would never completely loose him. And whenever I remembered being with him, I knew without a doubt that all my experiences had been real, and that they had been for a purpose, the purpose of showing me how unimaginably precious my life really was, even without Nathan. I would never forget that again. I turned to Patrick, on my other side, walking head up, eyes half closed in the rich sunlight. When he felt my eyes on him, he turned and looked at me, looked me right in the eye, his eyelids still partly lowered over his deep brown eyes. We just looked at each other for a moment, a completely cofortable look, that held no uncertainty or unease; a look that communicated more than words. Then Patrick nodded slightly, his mouth curving up at the corners, and took my hand, turning away from me again and starting to whistle. Of all the people I had told about my encounter with Nathan, he was the only one who didn't think I had halucinated the whole thing as a side effect of the sleeping pills. To many people's minds, Patrick had played the hero in the entire event, coming over at just the right time and hearing my yells, finding me upstairs sitting by my bed, almost completely comatose from the pills, realizing what had happened when he saw the bottle in my hand, running desperately downstairs and making the phone call, waiting at the hospital for hours with my parents with horrible anxiety, not knowing for sure if I would be all right. But Patrick himself knew that he was not really the hero, he had just been in the right place at the right time. When I told him about Nathan, and what he had said to me, and how I had realized with overwhelming certainty that I didn't want to die, that death wasn't the answer, Patrick had just looked at me and nodded, and I knew that unlike all the other people that I had told, he truely believed me. "When I came in that room, I just felt something." He had said, looking out at me from under the whisps of black hair that fell over his eyes. "I can't describe it, but it was there. And the look on your face, you didn't look scared or anything, you looked like you were fighting, fighting with everything you had to hang on and live; but there was something else about you too; you looked as though you had seen something, something absolutely wonderful, and I'll believe you if you say that it was Nathan. There was something in that room, I felt it." My attempted suicide and conclusive revelation had brought me closer to Sal in many ways, although there was always something in the way she looked at me now, a deep caring and love, but also a deep fear; it seemed as though she was afraid that this happiness was just a phase, and that I might attempt something horrible again. With Patrick however, I had forged a bond that was unlike anything I had ever experienced, something totally different the giddy crush I'd had on him before. We were friends now, but there was something else, a deep-rooted understanding, a comprehension and knoledge of each other that went entirely beyond the plane of mere attraction, beyond mere friendship. I felt that no matter what I said, what I did, he would understand me, he would know how I felt, and why I did the things I did. And I knew that he felt the same way about me. It was so odd, but so right; I felt as though my attraction to him wasn't in the foreground anymore, it had been replaced by something far deeper, far less transient, something that would be there for a long, long time, perhaps forever. We kept walking, the three of us, my two best friends and I, along the warm, gritty sidewalks, in the shining May morning, heading towards the cemetary. We had decided to spend the morning at the small memorial that had been erected for Nathan, for each Naperville boy that had died in the war. We pushed open the white picket gate leading into the cemetary, shut it behind us, latching it's little latch, and walked across the lush new grass, between the rows of peacefully sleeping graves. Then we were at the memorial, a group of small white crosses in the corner of the cemetary, one for every soldier, a small plaque beneath it saying his name and the dates of his life, and the division of the military that he had served in. It was a peaceful place, the wild apple and plum trees overhanging the markers, spilling their sweet blossems over the white crosses, the brilliant green of the grass. I sighed softly, staring at the white cross with Nathan's name on it. This was just the sort of place Nathan would have loved, with the grass, and the tulips and daffodils blooming by the graves, and the wind softly whispering through the radiently blooming trees. I went to a little, gnarled apple tree, over in the very corner of the cemetary, and broke off a small branch covered in delicate, pink and white blooms. I held them for a moment to my nose, closing my eyes and inhaling their sweet, warm, heavenly smell. Then I opened my eyes and held them out to Sal and Patrick, who had followed me over to the tree, and were breaking off a few small branches for themselves. Sal smiled and buried her nose in my blossems, closing her eyes as I had done. Then Patrick bent and smelled them too, his dark lashes brushing the white flowers. Then we went slowly back to the memorial and laid our small offerings at the feet of some of the crosses. As I bent over Nathan's little white cross, my face close to the ground, smelling the earth and the apple blossems, I thought I heard a soft, soft voice whispering through the wind. I leaned closer to the ground, and as the breeze tickled my hair, I heard it again, seeming to come from the very wind, the very trees and grass themselves. "Never give up life Mandy, never give up love. I'm always with you." I jumped slightly, staring at Nathan's cross, but then I suddenly relaxed and took a deep breath, my heart racing with happiness. Nathan would always be with me, why should I be surprised to hear his voice speaking to me from a place he would have loved? I turned to my friends, standing a little way behind me, their hair blowing softly around their faces in the breeze, trying to see if they had heard the voice too, the voice that had been so obvious to me. But Sal and Patrick just smiled at me, their faces soft and glowing in the morning light, and I jumped up and hugged them, the sun shining on our heads, and my heart singing with joy. /The End/ Ok, now that's a wrap. =) ~Becky~ That's the end you guys. It's done! Well...there might be a short epilogue or something, I'm not sure. What do you think? ~Becky~
darling darling becky, your words astound me. i held my breath the whole time and didn't realize till the very end. but Yes, yes what happened next?
This is really, really good! - Emma moremoremoremoremoremore!!!! *bites her lip* -JessicaSkater
eek! i want to know what happens!!!!!
~Becky~
REBECCA JAMIESON!!!!! WRITE MORE!!! FAST!!! AHhhhh. i cried i cried i cried, and you stopped! noooo. becky you are truly amazing. but get back to the story! <the sound of a whip cracking?> i love you, RoyaBoya NBTSWikiWiki | Recent Changes Edited 40 times, last edited on March 30, 2001 by toodamnperky@nbtsc.org. © 2000 NBTSC Webmasters |
" Sal started to say, but then she saw the open medicine cabinet, me standing in front of it, and her mouth fell open. She stared at me for a second, her eyes wide, and then she said "Mandy, what are you doing?"
But I was thinking on my toes, I had only needed Sal's one pause, her one hesitation to think of an excuse. I spun around, glaring at her defensively, and said "I have a headache, I was looking for some asprin. Is that a crime?"
Sal looked for a second as though she didn't entirely believe me, but then she pushed past me to the medicine cabinet and pulled out one of the bottles of asprin.
"Here." She said, shoving it at me. I stared at it for a moment, then, realizing that she was waiting for me to take one, I pulled off the cap, poured out a tiny pill, and swallowed it dry. It stuck to my throat and scratched, feeling like an intrusive finger poking the back of my throat. But I swallowed anyway, then handed the bottle back to Sal. It was then I noticed the angry light in her blue eyes, and the way that they were snapping, just like when she was going to tell off a bully or make fun of a girl she didn't like at school. She took the bottle, and put it back on the shelf, shutting the door with a snap. Then she turned back to me, and I almost forgot my own anger at the look on her face.
"Mandy," Sal said, her voice taught like a bow string, and she drew a deep breath through her mouth, her eyes fixing me like cold, blue fire. "You act like everyone has to be so nice to you just because your brother died, and I'm sick of it. There have been so many men who've died in the war, and lots of kids in our class have lost relatives, but you act like you're different, you're better." Sal sucked in her breath again, and I knew that she was just getting started, but I was in too much shock to raise so much as a finger in my self-defense. "You know Mandy, people have been so nice to you since Nathan died; people have treated you like a little princess for crying out loud! Your parents let you stay home from school even though you should be going. All the kids were extra nice to you, they said they were sorry, and our whole class made you cards and stuff. I know for a fact that Patrick Thomas worked extra after school to buy you flowers. And I came over to see you, or called you just about every day for awhile, because I thought I could cheer you up, that I could make you feel better. But Mandy, you know what? After awhile, I realized something. I realized that the trouble with you is that you just don't want to feel better. Because the only person you really care about is yourself, and you don't care how many other people are in pain around you, you're still the only one who really matters." Sal stopped then, and glanced away from me for a moment, then looked back.
"Mandy, I tried to make you feel better, I tried to help you." Sal said softly, and her eyes had started to crinkle around the edges, and they were loosing their fire. "You're still my best friend. But to tell you the honest truth, right now I'm sick to death of you, and I just hope you snap out of this soon, because otherwise, you'll just be end up hurting yourself." Sal shook her head, and looked down at the floor then, crossing her arms over her chest. Then she spoke very softly, "And whatever you think, my grandmother was special, and when she died, it was the worst thing that ever happened to me."
I couldn't take it. I was betrayed. Horribly, absolutely and completely betrayed, and by the person who I had thought was my friend.
"I guess I never really expected that you'd understand." I said in a choked voice. It didn't seem nearly enough of a comeback for all of the mean things Sal had said to me, but it was what came out. Then I fled, tears starting to stream down my cheeks, blinding me, out of the grotesque pink bathroom, away from the horror of Sal's anger and her betrayal.
