The Guest Room

The screen door slammed behind Jason as he threw his computer bag like a shot put across the kitchen to a receiving chair that rocked on impact.  Jason kicked his shoes off. The hardwood floor moved under his feet before the room began to spin around him.  Staggering to the table he collapsed in a chair.  The room was dark and hot and the air sticky.  Sweat beaded up on his shaved head and rolled down his face as rain continued to beat the back porch roof sounding more and more like Thor’s hammer slamming down on his foes.   The pounding on the roof only added to his headache. His eyes hurt. His hair hurt.  He could swear there was a knife stuck in his spine twisting away. But there wasn’t.  Bent over he put his head on the kitchen table praying for the room to stop spinning.   Like a carp beached on the river bank gasping for air, Jason sat gulping air as if someone had sucked all the air out of the room.  

Jason King, still wearing his suit, dressed in his formal attorney attire, felt the house quiver with each crack of thunder.  Lightning lit up the room.  With every flash monstrous shadows danced along the walls then vanished in the darkness. The electric scent of ozone drifted through the room and he drifted off to sleep.   

“Jason, what’s going on?” Katrina snapped as she saw her husband spread out on the kitchen table.  He lifted his head and realized he was dreaming again. She hadn’t been in the house for nearly thirteen years. He hadn’t seen her in seven. Kat lived somewhere in the mid-west. Maybe in Illinois. Maybe in Indiana. Maybe not in the mid-west at all.  He had lost track of her.  And maybe she wanted to stay lost.     But on days like this he sometimes imagined that she was still in the house with him.  He even thought for a moment that he smelled her perfume drift past him. The sweet scent of "La Vie est Belle" a French perfume that means, ”Life is beautiful” was her favorite. When they were first married it was not only her ideal perfume, but it was her life’s motto.  Every morning Katrina wore it to work as a book store manager and then added an extra dab when they went out on their Friday evening dinner dates. And like the knife in his back, he could swear he tasted the aroma in the air. But he was wrong again.  

The lightning flashed. The house lit up revealing new images, vague shapes that floated along the wall then disappeared into the shadows. The lightning grew in intensity. The figures stretched to the ceiling. The forms were gray and tall and dark and with each flash they danced an alluring dance.  They oscillated. They gyrated.  Then as the lightning faded, they disappeared back into the recesses of the wall just as fast as they appeared.   

Thunder bombarded the house. Earlier thunder claps had now turned into angry roars that rocked the house. A violent crack knocked pictures off the wall. On the succeeding crash of thunder the walls vibrated.  Another brutal flash lit up the rooms in the house. Shadowy figures appeared. They poured through the walls and whirled around before gyrating and hopping towards the guest room.  

The guest room even though it was lined on one wall with a floor to ceiling bookshelf was rarely used. No one ever came and stayed overnight. Nonetheless a queen sized bed covered by an antique patchwork quilt sat in the middle of the room.  It replaced the crib that had never been used.   A bolt of lightning raced through the room and the bed disappeared and for an instant the crib reappeared.  

Panting, Jason leaned on the door frame of the nursery transformed to guest room struggling for air.  He stared into the room.  It remained gloomy. The shadowy crib vanished bringing back the bed.  Holding the door frame Jason sucked in air and blew it out.  He shook his head in disbelief.  He thought his illness was causing him to have hallucinations.  He closed his eyes in an attempt to clear his vision and to regain his balance. But nothing changed.     

The guest room was down a short hallway from the master suite. Originally it had been decorated as a nursery.  But it was never used as such. Their baby, thirteen years ago, died in the house of complications during the delivery. Maybe a mistake was made by the midwife. Maybe there was nothing that could have been done. Maybe there was something he could have done.  Kat always thought so. On spring evenings when robins sing their last song of the evening, Jason can still hear her screaming, “Jason, do something!”  But there was nothing he could have done.  Amanda, minutes old, died in that room.  The midwife still dressed in blue scrubs wrapped the lifeless body in a white sheet and a soft blanket. She handed her to Jason. Opening the blanket, he kissed his daughter on the forehead and named her, Amanda.  Looking down on his daughter he said, “Your name is Amanda. It’s a wonderful name.” He shook his head in disbelief. Tears rolled down his face. “Your name means ‘Gift from God.’” He shook as he cried, “I’m sorry.” 

Across the room Katrina wailed. Her crying sounded like the howl of a wounded coyote. Katrina was wounded.  The pain was deep and permanent and extensive.     

As Jason stood in the doorway of the guest room, the electric smell of ozone was replaced by the fragrant aroma of fresh cut grass and spring flowers that wafted out of the room beckoning him in. The aroma caused Jason to smile. He stood at the threshold for a few seconds or maybe for an hour. Time seemed to have stopped as he took it all in. A field of tulips and yellow daffodils unfolded before him.  He took one step into the room and stopped. He staggered.  Then he took another step.  In the room a brutal crash of thunder erupted as if the storm ruled the house. Another roar of thunder and the door closed behind Jason.  No longer in the guest room he was standing in an open field. He could feel the sunlight on his face. The grass, freshly cut was like a soft carpet for his feet. A child called, greeting him with a shout of joy from a few yards away. “Daddy, I’ve been waiting for you."