Polka Dot

My mother comes to mind whenever I experience wind. When I do, I see her standing in the water, her hair caught on gusts that seem to come from every direction around her, hiding her smile behind a curtain of golden fringe. On a nice day she would open every window of the house, and the wind would take the scent of her perfume from room to room and by extension to me. I always knew that it was her house, and I loved it there so much. 

Penny Lane, my mother, was my favorite person. Growing up she was always happy – even if I knew she was actually sad – and she wanted me to be whatever I wanted to be. I think about who she was back then quite often, and I regret putting so much distance in our relationship when my brother Jonas went missing all those years ago. I regret that I didn’t treat her with the same love that she always did me. It turns my stomach over and over itself, it eats me alive. It makes me sick.

And now she’s gone. I stare at the leaves at the bottom of my teacup and wonder if a few days ago they might have left me a message for me, a warning. Go to her, she needs you. But I guess leaves can’t say all that. 

She died two days ago on the third of April, my first day back here in Port Spencer. The nursing home called me that morning and told me they didn’t think my mother had much time left, and she died while I was speeding down country roads to get to her. She died alone. 

This thought crosses my mind again and again. She died alone. She died alone. What a horrible way to end the same life that used to be so full of family game nights, botched homemade recipes, and laughter long after sunset. 

I know I have to get ready – to get out and handle all the details following her passing. But there is a monster – a parasite – in my soul that is keeping me down. Keeping me at bay, waiting for something to pass. But I don’t think this will pass. The last time I saw my mother was years ago at my father’s funeral. It was the same day that her memory loss came to a climax. She forgot who I was, she forgot my father, and everyone in attendance. She ran out of the church screaming for her own mother – who died before I was even born. How could I have abandoned her at the nursing home after that? How did I return to Toronto and leave her in Port Spencer all alone? With no family by her side or in her head? I wish I could see her again, hear her, smell her. Her perfume! It must be in this house. 

My parents bedroom door stands before me like a world’s wonder. As I raise my hand to touch the doorknob my whole body trembles and breath is caught in my throat, like if I went to twist the doorknob the whole house would come crumbling down. 

The thought of going inside makes me cold. Whatever lays behind this door will force memories into my eyes, down my throat. I am scared to grieve, I don’t want to be thrown into a world of my past. And after all, all nostalgia really is anyway is envy. Is grief. My whole family is gone, and I’ve never faced it until now.

My hand moves slowly towards the door knob and I can feel the chill of the metal through the air before I touch it. When I twist the knob the sound of creaking metal and wood throws me back in time and I expect to hear her smooth voice from inside the room. Mira, honey? Is that you dear? I’d give anything to hear those words again. But all that meets me inside the room is silence, a heavy silence that has laid over this room, frozen in time, for the last decade and a half. 

The curtains are drawn, it's dark, but I can see dust floating in the air through the small sliver of light coming through between the curtains. I haven’t been here in fifteen years. Was I really so tied up in my work at the university, my marriage to Kyle, to not ever even try to come back? After what happened to Jason, and after my father’s death, I thought it was easier to run away rather than face any of it. How horrible is that? To stay with Kyle, who turned out to be anything but lovely, and never look back? The best news I ever heard was that I had gotten a job at the university in Toronto. I felt like I was getting a fresh start, a new chance, and I wanted to tell Kyle because I thought he would be happy for me, too. I set the table, made us steaks and broccoli for supper, and when he came through the door he smiled. He told me “this is what I like to see.” 

“I have to tell you something, I have some news.” I said as he put his jacket into the hall closet. “I got the job at the university, I’m going to be a professor in the arts department.” His smile faded, he walked right past me and the table I had set, and said – with no hesitation – “writing is no art.”

 He lured me into a trap of a marriage, taunting me with words of admiration and promises that – I found out all too late – were empty. How could I ever have chosen that over my mother? How could I have made such terrible, terrible choices?

Now, as I turn in my mother’s room, I am startled by a figure in the shadowed corner. My hands rush to turn on the lamp to the right of the door, and I see in its light that it's only my mother’s robe hanging on a hook. Penny wore this robe every day for at least an hour. Its pink terry cloth is peppered with red polka dots, though they are big – almost like tomatoes. 

Before I know what’s happening, my arms are in the robe’s sleeves. It’s wrapped around me like I’m a little girl again, playing in my mother’s clothes. I’ve never felt more alone than this, no one will ever be able to fill the holes in my life that have grown so supermassive and gravitational that they are unable to shake. 

On the other side of the room I search for her perfume and find it in her nightside table’s drawer – still in its box. The second I open the small box her scent teases my nose and tears well in my eyes. I can almost feel her, she’s so close. I take a sharp inhale, spray the perfume on my wrist, and raise it to my nose. 

The smell has aged a little bit, but underneath its staleness the perfume holds the ghost of Penny Lane, the shadow of my mother. I hear her laugh, I feel her arms around me, I feel her support, her love. The nostalgia hits me just as hard as the grief does and breaths begin beating out of my chest as tears fall down my face. It's the first time I’ve cried in so long, I sink to the floor and curl into myself – but not as much as I’d like. I’d like to disappear. The heaves of grief push and push and I can’t imagine something worse than this. 

When I look up I see photos of our family hanging on the wall opposite my mother’s bed. My father, my mother, Jason, even past versions of myself stare back at me. A sun ray comes through between the curtains, a break of the clouds, and shines golden light across all of their faces. All of them look at me with smiling mouths and eyes so full of life. What are they? I think. Ghosts? Or angels?