Alone

The fierce roar of a mechanical monster careening in through the second story bedroom window breaks through her consciousness, silencing her tortured dreams. Not yet opening her eyes to another lonely day she lay half sleeping, half thinking as the garbage truck clambers up the street. Cars whizz by faster than they should, louder than she remembers. The night had been so still, so quiet. How could the morning be so deafening? she wonders. “Thank you God for this day,” she breathes, repeating the ritual that gave her courage to open her eyes, “thank you that I get to be my kids’ mom today!” Fully awake, the street volume decreases as her thoughts rush to drown out other distractions. “You are ALONE…..” She no longer hears the sounds of traffic as the full reality floods back... Unable to even write, her thoughts too scattered, raw, confused, bewildered, she carefully extracts herself from between the sleeping children and creeps off the thick mattress, heading downstairs. As a stair creaks she pauses, relishing the morning quiet before the children’s voices wake the ancient farm house. Declining her favorite time of day in favor of a solitary walk, she skips her shower, slipping into yesterday’s clothes left hanging on the back of her bedroom door.

The click of the deadbolt echoes into the quiet and she hesitates. All sound sleepers, the children seem to have an other-worldly sense when she is leaving --rushing to find her with their sleepy pouty faces. “How dare she sneak off to be alone?” The irony did not escape her as she slowly closed the door avoiding any disturbance. She desperately needed this time alone to think, feel and process; grasping to make sense of this oppressive feeling of loneliness.

The crispness of the August morning caught her breath momentarily. Fall would soon be here. The sky, blue and crisp, untainted by the usual smoke and pollution, filled her soul with serenity. Breathe. Exhale. Slowly. Beauty. So much beauty in the world. “You’re not really alone,” her inner voice whispered. The same walk, every day, 1.7 miles. Predictable. Safe. Wave absently at the neighbor’s open door, she never wished to be thought rude, or unfriendly. People matter. Nod, smile at the stranger pausing his car to let her cross. “There are good people.” She grabbed odd comfort from the tiny gestures of kind strangers. The corner house with the pot-smoking mom. We’re all trying our best.

The crowded house. People everywhere: in the house, trailer and cars. The pandemic has been hard on families. Crossing the street to avoid the dank smell wafting from the vehicles she smiles at the older gentleman tending his garden next door. He waves shyly, offering an accented greeting.

Around the corner the walk really starts and her thinking deepens. “Maybe I need a new route,” she grumbles as shadows of past conversations cloud her mind.

Never expected that kind of betrayal.

To be fair, they seem to think it's justified.

Clearly they really don’t or they wouldn’t have strung me along for 4 YEARS!

As her footsteps echo on the cement, she realizes these words had been uttered right here and were lying in wait for her return. And then she was beyond them. Yet she wasn’t. The abandonment was palpable and crushing.

“You know, I’ve told Will how we are descendants of French Royalty and in the royal family everything is passed on to the oldest son. That’s me and him.” Vincent sounds vaguely smug.

“You and Phillip are smarter than me.”

“Don’t worry, I told mom I’d always make sure you were okay. I’d never let you be homeless. You could live in my basement.”

“I’d never ask,” her voice was low and steady but she was reeling and too dumbfounded to even attempt a response to his nonsense.

“You know I’ve always been jealous of how your ‘church people’ give you money.”

She stamped her foot slightly, her face pulled taught in bewildered anger. He had started the conversation asking if she was okay. Was she alone? That seemed odd but she realized he probably didn’t want her kids to know. --on that, at least, they agreed. Two of the only men in their lives, men they looked up to, had just completely left their own widowed sister out of the inheritance from the sale of her parents’ home.

“We were a little puzzled,” he droned on going slyly on the offensive now, “we wondered why you kept talking about the money as if you were part of it. I thought maybe you were trying to pull the wool over our eyes.” SLAP! With 400 miles between them, she felt the sting of that accusation the deepest.

“I can’t believe you would ever imagine I would try to take something not mine,” she sputtered, “that hurts me more than anything you have ever said to me.”

As her feet padded lightly on the pavement, her brother’s words reverberated in her brain til the ache in her heart swelled to bursting and she had to divert or break or cry. How could my own brothers care so little? It wasn’t ever really about the money. It was about belonging, being part of something bigger. Not discarded, tossed aside, worthless, amid their myriad of excuses.

“You remember how good it felt to pay off your mortgage after your tragedy?” Vincent said in his explaining voice. “Well, we paid off our house after a tragedy too.”

“NO!” Her heart screamed. “That felt like blood money. Using the life insurance check to pay off the mortgage a month before their final baby was born was agonizing. To hear this used as justification for keeping the money from her parents’ house…..was this her beloved childhood companion?

“You know when you left for college?” he stabbed, “I felt like you abandoned me.” He was right. She had bailed on the family at 17, not looking back. It was many years before she awoke to the pain inflicted upon her younger siblings by the hole her departure left.

The harsh reality enveloped her like a misty fog. Her brothers never forgave her for leaving and they definitely never forgave her choice of husband. They hospitably welcomed her for visits. They drove eight hours so the cousins could hang out at her inferior home every 3 or 4 years. But the feeling of being second class citizens made more sense now. Her eternally hopeful heart shriveled as she was forced to acknowledge that there was very little desire to have her in their lives. They would never see her destitute. She was kin after all, and a widow. But that was it. She was on her own.

“I’m 52. My parents and husband are dead. Three of my 5 kids have the disease that killed their dad. We live on Social Security in a breaking-down house. Zero retirement. And my flesh and blood, my little brothers, with the good jobs and full retirements, just took all the money from the sale of my parents’ home to pay off the mortgage on their three quarter million dollar houses.” She said it all out loud. But the ache that she just couldn’t reconcile was the abandonment.

Shaking her head slightly, she felt the heaviness. If it wasn’t for these 5 precious beauties of hers, ….. She shut that thought down immediately. Shaking her head firmly, she breathed deeply of the morning air. She was a survivor, she had proven that repeatedly. Arriving home in pensive silence the front door handle jiggled loosely in her hand, reinforcing the reality of her situation. Chugging a glass of cool water, her head snapped up. What about the bin of papers rescued from her parents’ home? Desperate for family connection she tiptoed upstairs, noiselessly opening the attic door.

The morning sun shone in through the end window and the warmth which would become stifling in a few hours, enveloped her comfortingly. Prying the grey lid open, the smell of musty papers filled her nostrils. Her hand fell immediately on an ancient photo of her great-grandparents, the French ones, she smiled wryly. Digging deeper she grasped a handle and pulled. A treasured gift from his grandfather Vincenzo when he finished grade 13, her dad’s briefcase. She recalled this as the special place where her Italian father kept his important and private papers. She stroked it reverently. In the decade since his death, she had never disturbed this sacred remembrance. Hands shaking, she pressed the clasp and startled when it popped open revealing the cavernous interior. She was surprised to find photos of her mom as a young woman and pictures of each of her brother’s high school graduations. With a deep breath she lifted the pile of papers out of the case and set them carefully on the floor beside her. Finding no photos of herself she felt hot tears, burning behind her eyes and angrily shook them away. She swept her hand half-heartedly through the case one last time and felt a lump. The bottom seemed to have a hidden pocket. Afraid of what she might find, Maria hesitated. “Nothing could be worse than it already is,” she reasoned and with a breath she reached in and gently extracted a tiny black moleskin book. With trembling hands she unlatched the elastic which held the pages fast. “Dearest Maria,” was all she could read on the first page before the dam inside her shattered, unleashing the torrent of tears. When her sobs at last subsided to a soft pattering, the young girl inside of her reached for the book like a parched traveler in a desert. Hours passed as the children, upon waking, discovered their mother hiding in the attic completely absorbed in “grandpa’s old suitcase.” She waved them off and told them to have cereal and go play.

The adoring words filled all the aching places in her yearning soul as they described the 8 years of trying for a baby and almost giving up before she had finally arrived. Of the joy her quiet father had gleaned raising her and his adoring love for her and her brothers. There were memories and stories of her childhood in his strong firm script and then the last pages spoke of his pride in her, coupled with his great sadness when she left home at 17. That morning, as she had left to catch the train which was to catapult her into a life of adventure, was the only time she ever saw him cry. Hugging her tightly he had said, “I love you big girl. I am so proud of you!” These words etched forever in her mind were also the final words carved into the last page of this precious book. Holding it to her breast, she rose slowly, realizing the sun had moved over the house. Her heart yearning quelled, she was ready to step forward into the rest of her life. Fighting each day for her children and the best life she could give them, she was ready to choose family and forgive her brothers, knowing that living from a place of peace was worth more than any inheritance. The words contained inside made this little black book her most valued possession. She was not alone. She was wanted and deeply loved.

As she stood, she heard or rather felt something shift in the book. Unlatching it for the second time that day, she saw a small pocket embedded in the back cover. Quizzically peering into the little opening she saw nothing. After shaking the book gently however, three small coins and a 1 centesimo olive green stamp encased in a thin plastic sheath, slipped out.

One week later Maria was shocked to discover the value of the hidden treasure. Knowing they must have come from her Great Grandfather to her father she reluctantly sold $20,000 worth of them making the much needed repairs to their humble home.