Liandry

Amelia walked slowly down the quiet suburban sidewalk, salt crunching slightly under her large boots. She looked down at them as large, wet flakes fell and disappeared into the black. She didn’t dare look up. Looking up meant she was ready, that she was strong. She was neither. She shoved her hands deeper into her pockets.

After what seemed like an eternity of concrete slabs and blue salt, she came to an abrupt halt. She didn’t need to look up to know where she was. This has all once been her kingdom, her sanctuary. She’d tried to forget it, many times. But yet, here she was. Still as the trees she knew loomed above her.

She turned and walked up to a small, white house with a dark green roof. Its windows were glowing with warmth. She saw the shadows and light racing across the patchy, grey snow. The grey concrete, black boots, grey shadows and ashy white flakes floating down. Amelia thought she could remember a time when the snow would glow like the surface of the moon, but the memory flitted away, like a small bird fluttering up towards the stars. The grey was suffocating. She wanted to run, but she knew the grey would follow her. Amelia knocked on the door. It was the only escape.

Finally, the door opened.

“Amelia! It’s Amelia!”

She looked up.

It was Jane, her beloved niece. Her brother’s daughter. It had been so long, she was hardly recognizable. She’d cut her hair short, and her face had grown to have the lines of her brother’s. Amelia couldn’t help but smile.

“Jane…” she sighed. “I’ve missed you so much.”

Jane ran over and hugged her. “I missed you too. You haven’t come in so long.”

The smile flitted away from Amelia’s face. The moment of warmth was gone, and a cold started to set in.

“I know,” she said softly. “I was very busy. College can be tough.”

Jane broke away and nodded, but her face told Amelia that she knew better. Their eyes met. The moment seemed to last a lifetime. Then, a flood came upon her. She was whisked into the house and the door closed the grey world out. Words were thrown at her from all directions. The blinding yellow-orange light bounced around inside her head as voices echoed around her.

“Amelia!”

“Hi Amelia!”

“How’s it going?”

“How’s college?”

“Are you married yet?”

“We missed you last year.”

“The year before last was the best.”

“I wished you could’ve been here three years ago.”

“Four years ago.”

“Five.”

“Six.”

“Seven years ago.”

Feelings of confusion, disorientation and guilt rippled through her. She wasn’t sure who to talk to first, or who’s question to respond to. In the end, it didn’t seem to matter. The flood pushed her into the living room. Memories rippled through Amelia’s head as she looked upon the room. Despite the large fire burning in the fireplace, the room suddenly felt cold. She saw herself sitting in that rocking chair by the window, quietly crying as she looked up towards the stars. She remembered breaking that lamp by the fireplace out of sheer hopelessness, and how her grandfather had tried to fix it with his shaky, tired hands. Guilt and sadness and anger forced their way into her. She could barely look at the room without tearing up. She wondered why she’d bothered coming here.

She quickly walked away from the crowd of people into the dining room. Still more family members were milling about in there, talking quietly and snacking on crackers and vegetable platters. None of them talked to her. That was good. Amelia needed a moment to process everything.

Memories flashed before her, one after another like relentless ocean waves in a storm. The silent dinners here with her grandparents, sitting here alone, trying to do schoolwork before giving up, more tears. A faint memory of laugher flashed before her, but it was gone before Amelia could place it. Slowly, the waves stopped.

She looked around and saw that she was now getting some strange looks from the people in the dining room. She wondered vaguely what she’d done to draw such attention, before realizing she’d knocked over a stack of paper plates at the end of the table. She quickly bent over and picked them up, glad for an excuse to get away from their piercing gazes.

“Hey Amelia,” said a familiar voice behind her. She turned to find her brother’s smiling face beaming at her.

“Welcome back.”

Amelia gave him a small smile. “Thanks, James” she said quietly.

“Nana wants to talk to you,” he said, his smile dimming a little. “She hasn’t seen you in so long- she wants to hear your voice.”

Amelia’s face twisted into a combination of grief and reluctance. Flashes of blue eyes, brown hair came into her mind. Her mother’s face. It looked so much like her grandmother’s. She didn’t think she could face her grandmother with those images in her head.

She didn’t say anything. James gave a small, understanding smile and held out his hand.

“I know it’s tough, but… you really should talk to her. She’s missed you.”

Amelia took a deep breath and put the stack of paper plates back on the table.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll come talk to her.”

She followed her brother into the living room and over to a red, squashy armchair by the fireplace. There, sat her grandmother, Nana. Amelia drew in a sharp breath.

She looked so much older since the last time Amelia had seen her. Her face was gaunt, and her clothes flapped loosely around her. Her eyes were dim and tired, but they brightened slightly when they landed on Amelia.

“Ariel, my dear!” she said in a frail but joyful voice. “It’s so good to see you.”

Amelia glanced sideways at her brother. James looked back with a grim expression.

“So, how’s your new school?” she asked. “Hopefully there are no brits there?”

Amelia was slightly taken aback. She’d never thought her Nana had anything against anyone. Then, she remembered. In her Junior year of high school, there was a boy in her class named Tom. He’d teased her to no end, and her grandmother had had to call the school. He had been British.

“No, Nana, there are no Toms at this school,” Amelia said with a fake smile.

“Good, good,” she said distantly. “Well, I hope you get to be an accountant. You always wanted to be an accountant when you grew up.”

Amelia smiled and nodded, trying to remember when she’d ever told her Nana that she’d wanted to be an accountant. She’d always wanted to be a graphic designer. Suppressed memories in her head were mixed now with an all-consuming worry for her grandmother. It was too much.

“Well, it’s good to see you again, Ariel,” her Nana said.

“Same to you, Nana.”

Amelia quickly walked into the dining room and sat down heavily in a chair. She looked down and saw her legs were shaking. Her brother walked over to a seat on her left and sat down.

“She’s been like that for a while now,” he said, without explanation. “It was subtle at first. She would forget the names of people around the neighborhood, or she would promise to call someone and then call them a few hours after she was supposed to. We figured it was just regular, old-age forgetfulness. But it got worse and worse, until she would forget the names of family members-”

He started to choke up. He cleared his throat and continued.

“After a lot of consideration, everyone in the family have agreed that Nana and Papa should be moved to a nursing home in the city.”

Amelia bit back a sob. The nursing home. The exact place Papa had once told her that he didn’t want to go.

“Won’t they hate it there?” she asked, her voice catching slightly.

“We’re going to talk to them about it soon. They can choose which one they like the most. It may be hard for them but… I believe Papa will be okay with it, for Nana’s sake.”

Amelia felt waves of guilt starting to hit her, pounding right into her heart. She’d never been there for any of these decisions. All these years she’d been away, crying over her mother, when her grandmother had needed her. She could have helped, could have tried to help her hold on to her last memories of her family. But instead, she’d been wrapped up in her own self-pity, thinking constantly of someone she knew she’d never see again.

“If I know you at all, I know you’re probably feeling guilty right now. Don’t. You saw our mother die at the hands of our own father. You needed time away. If you hadn’t left, you would have been crushed.”

The blunt words took her by surprise. Flashbacks started to replay in her head on loop, over and over. Glass breaking. A hand on her back, “Go upstairs, Amelia. Now.” She’d ran up to the top floor and watched as her father came into the room. He was clearly drunk. “No, Richard, please. NO.” And she was gone. A knife in her gut. Amelia had jumped out a window and ran like she’d never run before, fearing her own father, crying for her mother. She still had nightmares where she’d wake telling her mother to run.

He was right, she was still being crushed by everything. Six years ago, she would have collapsed under the pressure.

She felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked up to see her brother’s face, lined with worry.

“Come with me,” he said softly. “I have a present for you.”

He led her to the back of the house and into her grandmother’s study. It was cluttered and full of all sorts of papers and boxes. Amelia had never seen this place so messy. Her grandmother had always been a neat, punctual person, and had always urged Amelia to be the same. It was another harsh reminder of how things had changed.

He led her over to the desk and picked up a metal cage with a beautiful pale blue bird inside.

“Here,” he said. “Nana can’t take care of her anymore, so I thought she should be yours.”

Amelia’s breath caught in her throat. It was Liandry. It had once been her mother’s bird, which had been given to her grandmother after her death. Tears started to fall down her cheek. It felt good to cry here, like she was setting something free. Her brother let her cry, for how long, she didn’t know. It seemed like forever.

Once she was cried out, she reached out her shaking hands and took the cage. Liandry let out a small squawk of indignation at the sudden movement. Amelia laughed softly, still sniffling.

“But,” she said as she took the cage. “I’ve never taken care of a bird before. I don’t know what to do.”

“I’m going to give you a bag of the seeds Nana has in her shed. Just feed her a few seeds everyday and she should be happy. Also, make sure to let her fly around.” He smiled. “I know you’ll keep her safe.”

Amelia smiled wide for the first time in years. She finally, finally let her spirit reach back towards the radiant light of happiness, letting herself look at it. For the first time she had hope that maybe, one day, she would be able to touch joy without burning. She knew opening herself up would take time, but her brother, and this bird, had unlocked her closed-off heart.

“Leave Liandry here, you can pick her up at the end of the party,” said James. “Let’s go talk. Your family really has missed you.”

Amelia nodded and put the cage back on the desk. Then, she timidly walked out of the shadows and back towards the laughter and warmth of her family.