Vacuum

A glass of water was brought to her nightstand when the sun went down every evening. The water would be reflecting from the green cylinder lamp of glass as its ember-colored light illuminated only her bedside. One cannot repeat the past no matter to what extent its preserved. Her TV tray sat in the corner of the bedroom next to her water. Old prescription bottles with expiration dates from decades ago faded the illegible print and the remaining pills lost their potency soon after. Were the letters by the bottles addressed to her or was she writing a draft now as gray as the dust which blanketed ever inch except the small circle on the nightstand.

What stood out the most that evening were her old, wiry spectacles unfolded and sitting by her water glass with the exact amount of grime covering them in an opaque film. She was still watching, for she did go too soon though she wasn’t particularity young. She watched the dirt accumulate; her glass filled over again; her dresser arranged with binoculars and old family photos; her patent leather pocketbook on the edge of the dresser which always had its straps high in the air no doubt for ready taking when leaving the bathroom. The bathroom was across from the bed on the other side of the wall with the bedroom door which only opened for a fresh refill.

The night which exposed the woman in the window seen years and years ago was Christmas Eve. The glasses she wore then shined in the glare of the afternoon sun. Days like those required hours of swimming in the backyard pool then rinsing our tiny bodies in the very bathtub she had used. In my swimsuit and with my other cousins I looked past the bushes under the window and saw a short-bobbed brunette in a suede housedress. On she looked from the side yard and watched through those glasses that looked identical to the pair in the bedroom next to us. That first time was when I was very small.

I didn’t see her again that holiday evening of anticipation and steady drinking. Thought I consider this night to be more of a proper introduction of herself to me. She did none of the speaking, yet her older daughter gladly reiterated specific details of her beliefs of what happened or perhaps what was happening with her late mother.

She saw me looking into the room for the door was opened and I was curious why a light was on away from the party. I started to retreat sheepishly but she stopped me and assured I was doing nothing wrong. She almost seemed appreciative.

“You see that painting there?” she asked gesturing to the large frame hung on the wall to the right of the threshold. It was and oil landscape in a gilded frame of a royal Poinciana shedding some of its leaves into a still pond below.

“Yes, it’s very pretty,” I responded.

Indeed, the piece was beautiful and it faintly reminded me of an exhibit in southern Florida I had visited. Paintings of Florida’s natural swamps, forests and beaches. Some were intricate and the styles varied little, however the diverse range of artists used very different mediums. One would be on a huge, tightly stretched canvas for a more prominent painter, while the next over would be a small piece of cardboard with a scene drawn with wax pencils.

“Thank you, my great uncle painted them,” she said proudly.

“Oh wow,” I exclaimed. “Did he do all of them in the house?” I asked.

“Oh yeah,” she continued. “He sometimes used different names towards the end of his life, but you can tell the styles are all similar.”

“That’s really cool,” I complimented. “Was he one of the highway men?” I asked curiously, finally coming to recall the title of the local artists of the beginning of the previous century.

“Well,” she began, “he never called himself one but he did these all around the same time. He never sought out putting them in galleries or selling them even.”

Apprehensive in the slightest degree, I believed what she told me but also had the feeling not everything had been said. I could tell she was leaving me hanging for a reason. Looking at the painting, I decided to take her bait.

“He must’ve been humble,” I admiringly observed.

“Oh yeah,” she agreed once more, beaming all the while up at the canvas in front of us.

“I’m sure you and your family enjoy his work to yourselves since he didn’t want to showcase it,” I said.

One of her eyes seemed to give the faintest of twitches and they wavered to below the gilded frame for a moment. She seemed to be looking in the fold for a glittering response. Then, she turned to the bedroom’s threshold closest to me and stared contentedly further. He gaze went from the sterile, white baseboards in a counter-clockwise pursuit all the way around the muddy-orange colored doorway. The task looked to be as equally satisfying and exhausting to her as counting all the stars of heaven. I suddenly felt the two of us were subjects in a still life and the artist was very close, observing from afar where to place his first stroke.

“I wanna show you something,” she said. Starting quickly into the bedroom she simultaneously took a swig from her green solo cup. I looked down the hallway and heard the faint rumble of chatter and carols on the radio. I followed her, and almost instantly upon crossing the threshold, the noise of the entire house died as I approached the bedside where she now stood. “Do you see that picture here of this lady?” she asked pointing with her cup to a portrait on the wall. It was a sepia grained image of a small woman in a trench coat dress, horn-rimmed glasses and black, bobbed hair. The modest frame was thin and congruent with her conservative haircut framing her own tired eyes. I nodded expectantly. She gulped air nervously at me then smiled even more radiantly than before in the hall. Her teeth shined, but so did her eyes as her brows furrowed in sorrow. “That’s my mother,” she explained, “She’s also your uncle’s mother. Your aunt married my brother, you know.”

“Right,” I followed. I had only formally met this woman tonight for she visited infrequently and I wasn’t really related to her at all. My mother’s sister married her brother.

She then started around the room to the dresser across from the bed. Her hands hovered over the tarnished silver frames and slowly she pushed a pair of binoculars minutely to a perfect centered position.

“Oh, where is that pocketbook?” she cried with a throw of her cup free hand in the air. Her eyes darted around the bedroom.

“Which pocketbook?” I asked, my confusion growing further. She riffled through the chest of drawers ignoring my question. When she worked herself up enough without finding what she was looking for, she came to the threshold.

“Sissy!” she called down the hall.

“What?” I heard my aunt yell back from the living room which had now regained its former volume.

“Could you come here?” she implored, “I’m in mom’s room.” Still at the bedside, I heard the quick patter of my aunt’s feet hurry towards us. When she came in her body was tense, gait anxious and tone strongly apologetic despite me seeing her enjoying herself about ten minutes ago. She seemed to either not notice me at first or felt her sister-in-law needed her full attention. “Is everything alright?” she asked breath on the borderline of heavy.

“Yeah, but,” she kept on looking around while addressing my aunt, “but where is mom’s purse?”

“Oh!” My aunt said after a fraction of a second spent gazing upward, thinking. She darted past into the bathroom and I heard a drawer open. When she came back she was brandishing a gallon Ziplock bag containing a small, black patent leather purse no doubt something my own grandmother at some point had a few of.

She handed to her now-relieved relative with a guilty half-smile. My aunt’s sister-in-law practically sighed with reassurance of finding her own purse after searching all day and missing several appointments in doing so.

“Why wasn’t it on the dresser?” she asked breaking the pinched seal with a snap to place it on the far end in the direction of the bedside.

“Well, I didn’t want anyone from the party to come and mess it up,” my aunt explained.

“I’m here now,” she said, “I always make sure no one comes in.”

I then knew why my capture looking inside was no accident. This lady was not simply walking to the guest bathroom I was retreating from. She was keeping watch.

“Oh, Mary!” my aunt cried, suddenly noticing me in the corner.

“Hello,” I nervously chuckled.

“What are you doing in here?” she asked me, eyes wavering slightly to her sister-in-law while still addressing me.

“I had asked about the painting out in the hall,” I began.

She looked out into the hall in the direction of the painting then dumbfoundedly back into the room we now stood in which was free of canvases. I didn’t know how to explain anymore. The other woman seemed to take the hint and exhibited her first normal social cue of the evening.

“She asked about the painting outside and told her about how dad did all of the pieces in the house.”

“Right,” my aunt acknowledged, “but there aren’t any paintings in here.”

She presented a valid point. Though clearly prior to the misplacement of her mother’s purse she did have the intention of telling me the length of the story. I just had now idea yet as to how the old room correlated with the paintings in just about every room except this one. I suddenly wanted a fresh cocktail.

“I wanted to give her the full story,” she explained.

“You know, the parts with mama in it.”

“Gotcha,” my aunt replied with a tinge of weariness in her voice. She looked at the purse once more.

“Don’t be too long, we’re starting karaoke soon!”

And with that, she was retreating down the hall to the party.

My companion eyed the pocketbook for a moment more, sternly. Next, she turned her gaze back to me and exchanged a chuckle and a roll of her eyes.

“Now, let’s see,” she began, “where was I?”

“You were telling me about your mother,” I reminded her.

“Oh yeah,” she recalled.

“You know,” I offered, “if this is too much for you to talk about, I completely understand.”

“No, no, no,” she insisted, “First, before I tell you about what happened to her, I have to tell you about what happened to my brother. “My brother is the young man in that photo there,” she pointed to another tarnished frame hung near the illuminated nightstand of mystery.

“He died shortly shortly after my mother. Both of them died relatively young, but my mother died first of breast cancer.”

“I’m very sorry,” I said genuinely.

“Thank you,” she returned before going on, “Well, when mom passed, my brother was probably the most grieved of us all. He was the youngest so naturally the baby was- pained by her premature passing. Not too long after he was diagnosed with brain cancer. It didn’t take long before he joined her up there.” I rested my hand on her shoulder in sympathy. She seemed emotionless though I understood it could have been easier to repress something like that. Though when my hand left her it seemed a stopper had been pulled from a well that had been sealed as long as this room had been preserved. She closed her eyes as if straining back tears and leaned against the wall for support. “I really—feel,” she went on, “that my mother took him from us,” she cried.

“What—what do you mean?” I asked with the first and last hunch I had all evening on what she meant. I tried not to sound apprehensive in my question.

“She was too lonely in Heaven,” the poor woman said, eyes still clamped shut.

“You mean—” I ventured carefully, “your mother asked him to go with her?”

She nodded slowly.

“She asked God to strike whatever part of his brain that made him so sick. She didn’t want to be alone.

We sat in the quiet as I waited for tears that never came. Then I suddenly remembered: “So, your great uncle was your mother’s uncle, I assume?”

She then released an exasperated grunt and started to laugh in a relieved but still tired way. “My mother’s brother never picked up a paintbrush in all his life,” she said.

“I thought you said he did all the pieces in the house?” I asked, completely dumbfounded.

“It may be his name, yes, but if you look at them all his isn’t the only signature on them although they are in the same hand,” she said giggling.

“Then who painted them?” I wasn’t sure what to believe at this point.

“It was my baby brother’s idea to keep her room like this, you know,” seeming to ignore my question. “He did all the preservation in here before he started painting under other names,” she finally explained.

“So, he painted them, not your uncle?” I confirmed.

“Yup,” she replied.

“Why did he do that?” I implored, deeply curious.

“My brother took on a number of names, including his own,” she explained, “towards the end of his life. He took the name of my great uncle who our mother was close to. He came here to Florida in 1904 but he did construction. Going back to my brother he also took on the name of my father so his name is on the some of the paintings, too. “He always kept his own penmanship, though,” she concluded with a pitying giggle.

My glance traveled towards the glasses on the nightstand. Guilt and empathy flooded me fast added with the alcohol I had to drink earlier. The catalyst of former cocktails made it very difficult not to tear up. Why would a living relative wish to keep something like residual energy trapped in a room? Or was it seen as a more positive, metaphorical sense of deep respect in the grief that can’t have ridden only her for someone who she bore and loved?

She started to walk towards the door, unconsciously appearing to be shifting gears to return to the celebration. Following behind I willingly did as she. Only in the half of a dozen steps to the door and just at the threshold, she gave a strained sigh and began to bend as if in a pained squat slowly. I asked quickly if she was alright after, offering my hand. She declined but continued forward to take off her sandals. After, she finally stood upright.

She stepped across the threshold just to stop short with a wince. Both of her hands shot to grip her sides as her knees buckled in. By the time I got her up, my aunt came back to take her other arm.

They proceeded to the bathroom and I to the party; more accurately the bar. Only before I was out of shot I heard the poor lady say, “Do you think she saw my wig falling?”