Owl

It was two a.m. Saturday morning, and I was drunk. I was walking home, alone, off the main strip, which had become an unplanned ritual of my life. Everything was blurred, but even as I walked, I was planning.

I will cut back. Whenever I want to drink, I will ask Simone to take a walk instead. Or I'll read. Or exercise. I'll remind myself how good that feels.

Useless jabber filling my mind, so I didn’t have to admit how pathetic I was. As I walked faster, my head spun, followed by the churning bile climbing up my throat. If I could just make it home. But I tripped over my own feet and a tangle of bushes caught my fall. I thanked them with vomit.

“God, Crystal, you’re a mess. Get your shit together.” I shouted.

Once my head quit throbbing and my eyes cleared, I stood up, embarrassed. I scanned the streets for any signs of life, but there was no one. I was invisible.

Yet as I walked, I felt something above me. I stood still, searching the sky until I spotted an owl perched on a tree branch. The moonlight highlighted her beauty.

After several moments of stillness, she lifted off the branch flying towards me. She watched me, keeping a wide radius as she circled. Her wings were a golden brown dusted with charcoal, and they were twice the size of her body. A heart shape defined her face. Her deep black eyes did not blink once, nor did she make a sound.

Maybe I am dreaming. I glanced at my watch which read 2:25 a.m. I looked away and back again. It was still a watch; the time was the same. There was an owl watching over me and I was wide awake. I walked to the end of the block. She followed. When I turned the corner, I realized I was sober. It was then she flew away.

*

“Wow, you’re lucky. I’ve never seen an owl in the city.” Simone said, days later.

Simone, Gene and I were at the neighborhood bar. Simone had been spending a lot of time at Gene’s, so I hadn’t had a chance to tell her my story. I left out my interpretation. I was drunk at the time and probably would have taken anything for a message.

“Lucky? In Germany, seeing an owl foreshadows death. You’re not suicidal again, are you?” Gene asked.

“Up yours, Gene. No, I’m not. Thanks for caring. Anyway, if that were true, why am I still alive?”

“I’m just saying.”

“We’re not in Germany.” Simone piped in.

“It doesn’t matter. It was magical,” I said. And yet, here I was drinking. But I hadn’t had a drink for five days. I never promised forever.

“Another round?” Gene asked grabbing the empty pitcher and heading to the bar.

“Maybe we should leave before we get drunk,” Simone suggested.

“I’m fine," I said. What's it to you if I get drunk? I didn't want to say anything I'd regret so I went to the bathroom.

I’m fine. I had screamed at Simone the last time she suggested I might have a problem with alcohol. I had come home, to our apartment, loaded. She was sitting up, as if a mother waiting for her degenerate child, which angered me more.

“You’re the one in love with an addict," I had said, "All he cares about is getting laid or high. He doesn’t care by who or what."

Everyone knew Gene cheated on her. Except her. I wanted her to step out of denial.

But she folded into herself and started crying. I sat next to her and wrapped my arms around her, pulling her close. I held her until her crying subsided. She sat up, wiped her eyes, and stood up, pacing our bedroom. She sat back down, dropped her head in her hands, and started speaking fast, as if she slowed down she would stop.

“My father cheated on my mother a lot. One day she came home early from a work trip. My dad and some ‘floozy’ were having sex in their bed. I was at school. When I got home, they were still fighting. The following weeks he took care of everything, made dinner, cleaned up afterwards, even brought her flowers. He begged her forgiveness nightly.

But she didn't forgive him, instead, she left. It was a school day. When I got home, my dad was sitting at the kitchen table, staring straight ahead at the wall. This lasted for days. I would make us dinner, him barely eating. I made my own lunches, got myself dressed, and went to school. My dad eventually went back to work. We never talked about it, but I would sit up in my bed instead of sleeping, convinced she wouldn’t have abandoned us, that she would come back. She never did. I was 14 when she left.”

I immediately hated myself beyond words, so I hugged her without them. The night ended with her saying she was stupid for needing Gene's love. I told her everyone wanted love, she smiled, confessing that she knew he had cheated on her in the past; she just wanted to believe his promise that he wouldn’t do it again. I tried to tell her the truth about Gene, the truth about me, but all I could see was a young girl whose mother had betrayed her. I didn’t want to do the same thing.

I left the stall, washed my hands, and stared at myself in the mirror wondering who I was looking at.

*

When I got back to our table Gene was alone. He smiled at me and refilled my glass with sangria.

“Where is Simone?” I asked, looking at her abandoned purse.

“She’ll be back,” he grunted, “she always comes back.”

“Are you two fighting again?”

He shrugged. I picked up my pint telling myself I would leave once it was gone. As I sipped, I thought about that night. Could they have been fighting about that? But she didn’t know, did she?

Gene said something; I ignored him. He started bumping his knee against mine.

“What?” I asked after the third time.

“Damn, maybe the owl did do something to you. I asked if you want to go back to my place.”

“Are you flirting with me? What’s wrong with you?”

But he just batted his spider-like lashes at me.

“I’m going to check on Simone.” I stood up.

“She's not here. I told you, she left.”

“And you said she’d be back. I'm sure she wants her purse. Maybe she slipped in the bathroom and we didn't notice. ”

“You know she doesn’t keep anything in there, and not even you hides in a public bathroom this long.”

I glared at Gene, daring him to say to my face that I couldn’t handle my liquor. I knew he and Simone talked about how often I was locked up in the stall, puking up my guts. But they hadn’t seen me do that in months. I punched him hard in the chest.

“What did you do that? I was joking. Let’s go back to my place….”

“You really are an ass,” I said. I wanted to kick Gene in the balls, but he was sitting. Instead, I put my hand on the pitcher. But he was right, she wasn't in the bathroom. She hadn't come back. She was probably at home, crying, and there would be nothing I could do. Nothing I could say. The pitcher was half full. I started to relax my grip. I sat down.

“You want it, don’t you? You’re all the same.”

I didn’t know if he meant him or the alcohol, but it didn’t matter. The fury building up inside was more intense than any high I’d ever had. I picked up the pitcher, and like in a movie, I was throwing the liquid in his face. I then dropped the empty pitcher onto his crotch.

“Crazy bitch,” he said, standing up and shaking the ice off like a dog. He took two steps towards me, acting as if he’d hit me, but I wasn’t scared. He was a dick, but he would never hit a female.

“Fuck you, Crystal,” he said and stormed off.

I re-balanced myself, staring at the table, not wanting to see anyone’s reaction. The bartender had thrown me out several times. He had told me he would kick me out for good if there were one more incident. I tucked Simone’s purse under my arm, picked up the empty pitcher and the glasses, placing them on the bar. I left without saying a word.

But I didn’t feel like going home. Or like being drunk. I was tired of it. I was tired of all of it. Maybe I couldn’t handle my liquor as well as I’d thought. Or my lies. I sat on a park bench for a while, smoking. But then I couldn’t quit thinking about my mother, dying in the hospital bed from lung cancer.

“Don’t be like me, Crystal,” she’d said, “quit while you’re young. While you still have a chance.”

I was more like her than she ever knew.

When I finally arrived at our apartment, it was five in the morning and snowing. I felt cold, dirty, and sober. I glanced in the bedroom. The top of Simone’s head peeked out from the piled blankets that covered her. An uncombed mess of hair. I tossed her empty purse on the floor next to her bed.

I went to the bathroom, locking the door behind me. I opened the window letting in the frigid winter air. I got in the shower, turning on the hot only. As the scalding water sprayed down on me, I imagined it washing away my darkness.

When I could no longer stand it, I got out. My skin was raised and red. I stretched my torso out the window, floating my arms up to the sky. Icy snow fell on me, and I held my breath until I felt shivers ripple through my body.

I craved being hot and cold simultaneously. I loved feeling light and dark together, as one. Did I like being a friend and a traitor? A mountain lion waiting silently before pouncing on the innocent. I had slept with Gene when Simone had been away. It wasn’t because I liked him or even that I wanted to. Instead, the impulse was so strong it lived outside of me, pulling me along with it. I wasn’t innocent. I was weak. And I couldn't even tell her.

I left the bathroom down the hall to our bedroom. I crawled into my bed, jealous of the comfort Simone seemed to exude through the blankets piled on top of her. As if the giant mountain lion was now protecting her. I felt naked in comparison. I couldn’t sleep with that much weight.

*

The following day, I awoke to an eerie stillness smothering the air. My sheet was wrapped around my legs and torso, and as I got out of bed, I tripped. My knees hit the floor; my head throbbed violently.

I looked to Simone for sympathy, but she hadn’t moved. Her purse remained at the foot of her bed as if a small dog waiting for its master to feed it. She never slept past nine, no matter how late we were out. It was 11 a.m.

“Simone,” I shouted several times, but my mouth was so dry it came out as a whisper. I got up and walked to her bed.

I shook her body, gasping at the nothingness that reached back. I tore off the blankets and stared at her pale white body.

“Simone,” I screamed. I couldn’t hear my voice through the stillness mimicking molasses. I kneeled on the floor, lifting her shoulders. She was surprisingly heavy and I dropped her. A soft ‘thump’ vibrated the bed. I shuddered and screamed.

Again, and again and again.

*

“When did you discover she was dead?” The policeman asked. I mumbled something but forgot immediately what.

The male detective went into the bedroom, while the female detective sat at the kitchen table next to me.

“Is this a new medication?” a voice so distant it echoed in my head. I barely registered that she was talking to me.

“Look, I know this is hard, but it will help if you tell us what you know.”

Her breath tickled my cheek, and I wished I had been the one lying in corpse pose on the other side of the wall. I looked at the cop’s face, into her puppy dog blue eyes. She was young, still innocent. Or had she been here before? Interrogating a different female in her late thirties with a dead roommate.

“I don’t know about any medication,” I said.

“You weren’t close?”

“I guess not.”

“It's Oxycodone," she said, reading the bottle, "for depression. The prescription was filled three days ago but this is empty. Did you take any?”

I shook my head no. She called to the male cop. He came out of the bedroom and took the bottle from her.

"Did something happen?” He asked me.

It was me. I slept with her boyfriend. Maybe she killed herself because she found out. That’s why she and Gene were fighting. She left because she couldn’t stand to look at me. Or she was waiting for me to come home and confess. When I didn’t, she assumed Gene and I were having sex.

“Crystal, we need you to come to the station.”

“Fill out a report.”

“It won’t take long. It’s a suicide.”

“She loved life,” was all I could say. As if I could defend her actions instead of admitting my own.

Once we arrived at the police station, I was taken to a room that held a table and two chairs. The male detective brought me a coke; the female - a yellow pad of paper with a pen. She told me to write down everything I could remember, so I did.

Leaving out the fact that I had wandered around the city for several hours after leaving the bar. I just wanted to sober up. I assumed she was sleeping. I didn’t know she was dead.

But was she? If I had peeled back the blankets to ensure she was okay, would I have known she needed help? Could I have saved her?

The cops insisted I call someone to pick me up. ‘Yeah, okay, sure,’ I mumbled, but the only person I could think of was Gene. And if I called him, he would come over, and no matter how much I didn’t want to, we would have sex. Not because I wanted him, instead because I wanted a touch of her, of Simone, and I knew I could feel her through him.

I went to the grocery store instead, then a smoke shop. I smoked two cigarettes before calling an Uber. The coroner had already removed Simone’s body but I wasn't ready to face emptiness. I paid the Uber driver to coast around the city for an hour, then two. Finally, I had him take me home.

*

I went to our bedroom, eyes half-closed, letting her smell wash over me in a pretense of normalcy. It was a typical Saturday morning. Simone was always up before I was. Her bed was stripped of sheets that if I focused hard enough I could hear cycling in the washer. I even saw her, for a moment, in her running clothes heading out the back door.

I ignored the fact that plastic sheeting covered the mattress by staring at her make-shift nightstand: a banker’s box covered by a hand-crocheted blanket. I always wanted to know what was in that box, but she was so private, so hidden.

Why did I let her be as much of a mystery to me as I was to myself? I felt something tear at me from the inside. I had forgotten to keep pretending.

I sat down on the floor, removed the lamp from her nightstand setting it next to my feet. I picked up the blanket, imagining her grandmother had made it for her. I folded it over my lap. I lifted the lid of the box. An envelope rested on the bottom. It reminded me of Simone and her purse that only carried two lipsticks. She kept the other stuff, a driver’s license, credit card, keys, closer to her so no one could take them.

I picked up the envelope, feeling the smooth white paper. I closed my eyes, placing it on the blanket in my folded lap. I breathed out, wiping my sweaty palms onto the carpeted floor.

I stared at my fingers as they slid open the sealed envelope. A handwritten letter. As I read, my hands shook and tears fell from my eyes smudging the black ink.

My Darling Simone.

I know you don’t want to see me. A mother should never leave her child; I know that now, but I didn’t know how to stay. I should have taken you with me. But I have thought of you every day. You are the reason I am still alive. It took a long time to recover from your father’s abuse. I was wrong to leave you without an explanation. But it was excruciating to see him in your eyes, your face, your damn expression. You two were so alike.

I pray someday you will find it in your heart to forgive me.

Love Mom.

I folded the letter and dropped it into the empty box. I stood up and opened the windows.

You're making it cold in here. Go out into the living room if you’re hot.

Simone’s voice, right behind me, so close, so honest, so wholly 100% Simone’s. If I looked, would she be standing behind me, with those loving eyes waiting for me? To what? To tell her that I betrayed her? That it was my fault, she wasn’t supposed to die. Just like her mom, I was sorry, and couldn’t she forgive me?

But I didn’t deserve forgiveness.

I left our apartment and climbed the ten stories up and out to the flat roof. I stepped outside, thankful for winter. No one was out to see the sun, for it was winter and cold, and barely made it past the tall buildings. I walked to the edge of the roof, stepping onto the ledge. I looked at the urban sprawl surrounding me. Skinny buildings with fancy balconies, a couple of rooftops with dead grass and empty flower beds.

I looked below me: cars speeding along as if it were just another ordinary day, people holding grocery bags, or hands of children, or the leashes of dogs. It was too busy. Too much noise. I covered my ears and walked along the ledge, turning the corner to the backside of the building. The gap between complexes was narrower but still wide enough. And it was quiet, nothing below me, no people or traffic. Instead, it was a dead zone. A four-foot space between buildings. A no man’s land.

I wanted a drink, yet I didn’t want to blanket myself any longer. And I had nothing left to turn back for.

I pulled my hands into the air in a diving pose, pretending I was that girl with her father, who had taught her how to swim before drink became his ocean. Me, laughing, smiling, watching him dive, and then taking my turn. But that was so long ago. He was dead and I didn’t want to think about him. I was here for Simone.

“I am the one who was supposed to die! I was the one who saw the owl!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

And I dove. Within seconds I was free-falling off the building as something unusual caught my eye. I started smiling, laughing even. A good, hearty, oh my god, I am so happy to be alive, laugh. And yet I don't laugh and there I was about to die, watching my guide flying in sync with me covered in whiteness. Or was she below me?