The Memory

Driving home, the gloomy clouds rippled against the heaven’s skin like a rolling carriage, awaiting the long stars journey. I couldn’t wait to enter the home of the quiet and my cat “Meow-Ka,” named after my best friend Bianca, after dropping it off as a present. She hoped it would appease my heart’s jarring journey as she left for military training on their base, Fort Irwin, this past spring.

Since then, it has been a bit of a sweet, bitter, annoying, relationship but she does add a bit of fun with Bianca gone. It’s just me and work and church and gym and everything in between. I guess, you can say that this cat adds something, that Bianca knew I would miss, which was fun.

“Get out there and have an adventure,” she encouraged, as she hopped into the dark navy-blue river ford escape that her mom bought her to head “somewhere” in the distant tree range where her supposed military base was held.

She left me the address to mail her things and with that last wish, I said solemnly, “fine.” With the age ole embrace we had given each other since we were six years old. Now it has been three months, I have yet to send her anything since that warm, humid day in June. And to be frank, neither has she. I wonder with my tone, did she sense with the years of learning that it was not sincere, that it was mixed with sadness and gloom that my dearest friend is to leave me. That she of all people, I count on and now I’m left with the time that will add to our next visit.

However, she knows me well enough and will give me a call within a month of her being there, chiming the cellular lines with her giddy and witty remarks after a month of not speaking, leading to a broken chuckle or two out of me and the outer shell would disappear.

It has been three months though and it has never gone this long without us speaking to each other. For as she went, my older brother Mark went too. However, Mark went just a few months prior to base and mentioned about the rigorous training that they were to endure. Rather it was a secret mission or a task they had these soldiers on, he would not say. He assured my parents and I that he would call though. Yet he too, has not reached out.

Our parents have contacted the base on multiple occasions. From the lieutenants to the majors on base, no one has said a word. All could not conclude his whereabouts to ease my parents mind nor mine. Mark left back in March and he like Bianca were in fact my inner circle. He gave me, his golden medallion necklace engraved with a lily (which is my name) with its roots wrapped and embedded around a heart. Saying “Forever” on the back of it.

As the golden engravings of the necklace flickered like silver under the streetlamps, I fiddle with it, as if it were my thoughts, that tried to sing over the radio and the bumps of the street. I’m in a daze. With enough reaction time to spare, I brake at the red light, knowing that in just few short minutes I will ride up to my house, to another set routine. Queue the homeless man named Rod, pushing his red cart with dangling tin cans that try to compete with my thought’s song and any other noise for that matter in a miles distance. And yet, my thoughts still won.

“Did I put too much pressure on her as a friend? Did I do enough for her while she was around? When was the last time I called her mom? When was the last time I called anyone?” The thoughts rattled in my brain, off beat and no rhythm. So much so, I didn’t recognize the light change till the horn behind bursts into the music and I begin to focus again.

However, the challenging questions remain, echoing around in my throat and chest. They might as well ping out, but they stop as the ranch style white home with black and gray shutters reaches for the light in its path and I pull into the driveway.

Queue the neighbor Maurine, I can see the curly red hair and the black scrubs that fight for the light in the dark, walking her miniature schnauzer and the faint wave of a hello.

“Hello Maurine, how are you?” I greeted, as I step out of the car to where my scrub bottoms begin to bunch up under my shoe, making me slightly slip but I catch myself before a sentence escapes her lips.

“I’m doing alright. Just tired, “she sighs.

“Same here,” I agreed. “Have a good rest of your night, “ as I turned around with a slight wave and begin to walk up the driveway, lifting my feet to make sure that they meet the ground well to prevent myself from another slip up and in the short distance, I hear the faint, “you too.”

I approach the pathway to the doorway, when ahead I see a box unmarked, with my address on it and nothing else, on the porch. Trying to see if it was from a company, I picked it up and was surprised at its lightness. No sound uttered from the cardboard box and there was no labeling. Nervous as a bird, I turn around, still walking towards the door, I fondle for my house key on the keychain and scour the streets. Looking for any suspicious cars and yet it was no one there but black road. I gather my thoughts and hasten to open the door and I enter in.

All my belongings, the box, and keys all fling to the floor. I close the door as I glance outside one last time to ensure that no was watching me and there went the final click of the lock. My mind is at ease. Or so I thought…

There I turn with the box on the ground. Staring back at me, with no story to tell. I feel Meow-ka grazing against my leg, with her purring greet and the inability to say she has no food. I go to pick her up and pet the softness of her fur as she purrs to ensure me, she is happy I’m home.

“I’m happy I’m home too,” I assured her, as I walk over to the kitchen to grab the pink kitty food that me and Bianca bought her some time ago and fill her bowl. I sit her down, as she bee lines to the bowl.

“Oh, you were hungry huh?” as I pet her one final time, I head to the refrigerator to grab myself something and with the corner of my eye, I see it. The box. Unmarked, no name and sitting on my living room floor. I gather the courage to grab the box and place it on my island counter. The chomps of Meow-ka’s eating, relaxes me as I realized that I am not by myself here. The questions stir and the panic begins to find its wave.

I approach the box and the tap incasing around it. Hesitantly searching for the strip that unravels it open, with palms sweaty and my heart reaching a new peak. I open the box, the folded down corners released and there I behold a picture, of what looks like ages ago, of me, Bianca, and Mark. It was us, at the carnival dancing to the concert music of the day and I remembered this day like it was yesterday. It was sweet bubble gum cotton candy, tons of funny “cheeses” for the camera’s flash, laughter whispering into the sounds of the screams from the rides. It was a magical night and one that felt like it would last forever, but there was nothing else in the box. No letter, nothing, but just the picture. Yet, on the back of it, there was a note that read:

“Get out there and have an adventure,” and “Forever” -Bianca and Mark

Rivers of the moment and the words flooded my head like a sound I am unable to shake. Capturing the whispering laughs and the scents started to slip from me. Water began to pool under my lids, but I didn’t’ want them to escape. Within seconds, but it felt like hours, a knock is on my door. The tears release from the prison of the faint “no, God please no,” without my permission as my eyes open. I see the flashes of blue and red dance on my living room “washed” cream curtains.

With every step, breath barely leaves my chest, as I go to the door. The clink of the lock that once shared my ease now turns into a despair favor. The door opens, I hold the medallion in my hand, while I hold the photo in the other, my head resting on my chest to ensure that the heart there still beats and the rush of voices hit my ear with, “Are you Lily Harden?”

“Yes,” I nodded as I slowly lift my head to meet both men on my porch.

“We’re sorry to inform, you—,” as they speak with urgency and contrition my thoughts races back to the memory. My head falls again, and Meow-ka awaits by my leg with the “meows” of was once welcomed now quieted with trouble. My parents appear and sink behind them.

And yet I hear nothing but the memory.

THE END