THE LILAC DOOR

THE LILAC DOOR

Whoosh. A small whoosh, really, as air is dispersed when a closed door opens and someone enters, quietly, stealthily. Then, click. Click as the doorknob lock button secures its home into the waiting face plate. I never wanted that lilac door to open, never—except when my parents were home. Even then, though, my brother would take my goldfish out of its bowl and put it under the stool cover of my miniature play-piano—and the smell of dead fish would permeate my room. And, too, there was silence of stalking spiders: A harry, blackish-brown tarantula was inside an old pipe on the front porch outside my window. 

Our family was in a time of transition because our home was under a complete room-by-room remodel. I was seven, my [stupid!] brother older, and our rooms were already complete. We lived in the same town as my terrific grandparents and Grandma helped make my room a beauty. The walls were lilac, the carpet white, and a built-in shelf about ten inches from the ceiling ran along three sides of the room where my mom posed  designer-type daintily-dressed dolls. The largest window faced the front of the home and I often soaked in the sun’s bright warmth through the sheer priscilla curtains. The adjoining bathroom was narrow but long and full of interesting cubbyholes enhanced by my Grandma’s special fabric touches. 

My dad played in a city softball league and often we would attend games as a family; the somewhat cooler early-evening air allowing kids of players to run freely around the bleachers and share snacks. It was the day of women wearing dresses, hose, and heels to such outings. Even today, some sixty years later, I can call up the picture of my pretty mom in her tan and white-flowered shirtwaist dress with the pleated skirt and the matching, shiny pointed-toe heels. Out on the playing field, my dad was a skillful, competitive shortstop and off the field, definitely my hero! 

This particular night we were driving home from the game as two fire trucks were beginning their journey out of town; we waited at the stoplight for them to pass. My dad and brother were in the car in front of us, with my mom and I following in the Ford Galaxy 500 (that she didn’t want). Our ears were much-assaulted from the nonstop blaring sirens as we followed the two fire engines on their westerly route—which happened to be our way home. My mom kept repeating, “I hope they aren’t going to Fellows.” Then when the fire engines turned into our town, my mom said, “I hope it isn’t too bad of a fire for someone.” As the engines rounded the two-lane curving road and we followed … my Mother shrieked! For there before us lay our home, shrouded in flames and smoke, dark and bright at the same time, with a mess of town folk standing in an empty lot, watching, shaking their heads, and as I heard myself later, crying. Impressed upon me that night was a life and spiritual truth: The sharing of grief is a good thing, even if the experience that brought you together is unfortunate, unforeseen, unwanted. My mom pulled to the side of the road a good distance from our home and instantly, my dad was at the car door. I witnessed a scene new to my young self: My mother’s emotional collapse and my Dad’s strength of character. My mom felt free to allow her quick tears to evolve into wailing sobs, and also, to depend on my dad to shelter her grief as he wrapped her within his comforting embrace. My very next memory is being lifted onto my Grandma’s right hip as she stood safely across from the fire within the crowd of onlookers. 

The smell of burning wood oozed across the street from our home—almost like that pleasant smell of a wood-burning fireplace but one that quickly multiplies and overwhelms the senses, becoming unpleasant. The crackles and pops and snaps coming from our house were loud! Long strips of wood peeled off one another and rose up in unruly flames only to fall down onto other stacks of lumber to repeat the uncontrollable process. The sound of shattering glass could be heard as interior pressure from the smoke blew out windows. The firemen’s water hoses emitted a steady drone—a pshhhhhh sound that never stopped—but in the crowd there was an unspoken understanding that the house and its contents were lost. My dad, my grandpa and one of my uncles wanted to go in and save some family belongings, but the firemen forbid entrance as the roof was on the verge of collapse. I don’t recall where my brother was during those long hours on my Grandma’s hip, but I didn’t really care.

That year in school—second grade—we were allowed to paint at the stand-up easel if our classwork was complete. One day I painted a clown. He had brown balloon pants with red inserts, a cow in the grass standing next to him, and a yellow sun shining down on his person. That’s all the detail I remember except that the clown had painted tears dripping from his eyes. Sometime later in the school year, my teacher told my parents and I that my clown painting had won the “Sweepstakes Award” for the elementary school-age group; as such, the painting would tour all Kern County libraries, be a featured article in the Taft Driller, and thereafter returned to us. 

These days we are acquainted with the phrase, “Burn, baby, burn!” Had I known those words on that sweltering night, I would have said it—but only in my head, of course. Because I had been told not to tell. Never tell anyone what goes on after the door whooshes opens and clicks shut. My Grandma switched me to her left hip. 

And then! And then! My uncle suddenly appears, his face a bright red, his glasses fogged, his shirt stuck to his body because he was drenched in sweat and black soot. But he’s carrying three things which he holds out to me, a  huge smile on his beautiful face. It seems my Uncle H.K—my favorite uncle by the way—had disobeyed the firemen and busted through the side window into my bedroom and grabbed what he could before the flames overwhelmed the space. The rescued treasures? My three-foot doll, Kathy; a 15” wind-up musical cow named, Daisy; and a red-PJ-attired Kewpie doll; every toy smelling like the scorched flames that covered their bodies. Oh, how my uncle was my brave hero that night!

I don’t remember much else of my lilac bedroom—put together so lovingly by my parents and my grandparents—except what I have shared. I have no memory of the bed coverings (most likely which were color-coordinated), only that the bed was in a corner of the room. I do recollect the smells and sounds and physical pain and emotional confusion of what happened in that bed, and the ickiness of what was forced upon me in the bathroom. I can put words and actions to it today as an adult, but at the time, I did not have the understanding or the vocabulary. I can tell you that I distinctly remember my seven-year-old-self-lying in that bed and staring at the closed lilac door and whispering out loud, “Oh, please don’t open, please don’t open, pleeeeeeeease don’t open …”. But always, always, when my parents were away, the door would open, followed by that point-of-no-return ‘click’. Trapped. 

Trapped, and the only escape is to burn the house down. 

As the night hours wore on and the crowd grew and eventually dispersed one by one, couple by couple, and family by family, the pungent smell of something like burning plastic came across the road and invaded our noses. This interfered with the peep show of the wild flames of hours past burning down to small embers of glowing orange lights and whose black tar-like smoke mixed disagreeably with the new smell. It was time to call it a night.

You know that award-winning clown painting I spoke about? It had arrived home from its county tour two weeks before the fire. My parents had graciously placed it above the sofa. No one seemed to catch on that the clown was dripping tears and ask me the reason why; heck, I’m not sure I could verbalize the reason if questioned! But in reality, the house fire was caused by a subcontractor’s electrical wiring error in an air conditioning vent in the wall behind the sofa, which was located directly underneath that painting. And the house went up in flames and the crying clown went up in flames and the lilac door went up in flames—never to whoosh and click again. In my childish mind, I thought it was a pretty good outcome.

We stayed at my grandparent’s home after the fire. I understood there were renters in our home in Taft and we had to wait before we could move back. At my Grandma’s house, my torturer slept in the back bedroom, my parents in the middle bedroom, and I had a pallet in the living room. If my parents were gone in the evening, my grandparents were not. But the monster had a door out of his bedroom into the back patio which he could use to re-enter the house another way and reach me in the living room. I remained scared and alert, because there was no door between me and he—just open space. 

One day my Mother, Grandma and myself were seated in the middle bedroom looking at the Classifieds. My Grandma was holding the newspaper open, my Mother on her right, I on her left. Suddenly I said, “I don’t want Uncle Richard babysitting for us anymore.”

My Mother said, “Well, if your Father and I want him to babysit, he certainly will babysit.”(Richard was her younger brother by 17 years.) 

And I said, “But, I don’t want him to babysit anymore.”

And you know what? My Grandma said to my Mother, “Well, Pauline, if Suzette doesn’t want Richard to babysit anymore, then he won’t.” And that took care of it! My Grandma ensured that her youngest son never babysat for us again and in protecting me, she became my forever heroine! 

My new bedroom in our Taft home was pink!

10/6/23 7:58 PM

SUBMITTED BY:

Suzy Rowland

Sszywrtr@gmail.com

661.337.1229