She Shall Live Onby Eric J. Kregel |
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| part 3 of 4 |
“Was it tough for your father to lose her?”
“He says so. That’s some of his stories about her. You know, ‘like the one about losing my wife’. I know he loved her deeply, otherwise he wouldn’t tell stories about her. I guess that’s how my dad likes people: he tells stories about them.”
“Do you think he’ll ever tell a story about me?”
“Oh you? You laughing at the table is sure to be a story. Yeah, the more you’ll spend time with him, the more stories he’ll collect about you. My dad’s a real storyteller.”
“My dad used to be a storyteller. Actually, he’s a published author. That was a while ago, before my mum died.”
“What happened to his stories?”
“If he needs to say something, he doesn’t tell a story anymore. Instead, we just watch a video of mum. She’s become his storytelling.”
“Videos, eh?” He said nothing, keeping in his thoughts. He changed his tone to lively one. “I sometimes have dreams about my mom. She’ll come out in my dreams, every once and a while.”
“How so?”
“She’ll show up when I have a dream about giving a speech or when I’m visiting the dentist or playing sports or when I’m doing some sort of adventure. Like one time I was on a boat, fighting against that mythological creature Kracken. Yeah, I was telling all of my crew members to sail closer to the monster. I held a spear.” He demonstrated his spear stance to her. “I was ready to hurl the thing, killing the monster and freeing the village of its control. I pulled back my spear. Aimed.” He cleared his throat and then relaxed his stance. “And my dead mother comes aboard the ship at that moment.”
“What does she do?”
“She doesn’t do anything. She talks and tells me to do things.”
“Like what?”
“That I have to take the trash out or that the sidewalk needs salt because there’s new snow. She starts going through a whole list of things I have to do. And I want to tell her, ‘Mum, I’m killing mythological monsters, here. Plus, you’re dead.’”
They both laughed.
Thandie, in the midst of her laughter, squeaked, “I have dreams of my mum too.”
“Really?”
“I wake up in the middle of the night and I’m in my bed. I wander out of my bed, into the living room. She’s there. She looks scared, like something is going to kill all of us. She doesn’t hug me, we don’t talk, and she seems preoccupied. She takes me by the hand and leads me out. We go to the town’s indoor pool. She has the key, for some reason. She pushes me into the water. I don’t know why. She puts her powerful hands on my head, holding me under. And she tries to drown me.”
“Does she?”
“No. I wake up from the dream before she does. I have to wake up in order to get out of this dream.”
“So you’ve had this dream before, eh?”
She nodded. Silence followed. Great, she thought. Now I’ve made him think I’m weird. She tried to salvage the evening. “It’s probably not the same as killing Krackens.”
Breton mumbled with a smile, “We all have our Krackens.” He winced after that, not sure that what he had said made much sense.
Thank you, Breton. Thanks for saying that.
* * *
Thandie returned home later than she ought to. She slipped into the dark house, hoping to make her way to her room undetected. She walked past the living room, into the hallway, and passed the bathroom...
Randall flipped on the bedroom light, banishing the darkness. Thandie felt like she was caught in a spot light, the world circling around her. Randall droned, “Thandie?”
Thandie jumped. Her father walked slowly to her, every step becoming more and more surrounded by the light. “Thandie, it’s later than 9 pm. We have rules. Rules your mother gave us.”
“I know father. I lost track of time and...”
“Your mother and I said 9 pm. 9 pm. You’re forty-five minutes late. Why?”
“I was out with Breton and we lost track of time. I’m sorry, truly I am. I’m willing to take whatever consequence you decide, father. It was wrong of me to be out late and it was inconsiderate.”
If I beat him to the punch, maybe he might just punish me and be done with it, Thandie reasoned. It was wrong of me being out so late. I’m willing to admit it and change. If he can just see that, then maybe that will be it.
“I appreciate your spirit, Thandie. That is making this a lot easier.”
“I ask for your forgiveness, father. I am sorry for being out late.” Please, let that be all of it. Ground me. Forbid me to see Breton for a couple of weeks. Take away the television. Don’t bring mom into this.
“However, I don’t think you see the bigger picture,” Randall began. “There’s a big concept that is being overlooked.”
“You’re probably right. I just saw myself being late and forgetting the time. If there is something worse that I did, please let me know.” That didn’t sound sarcastic, did it? I’ve got to sound sincere. Be sincere. That’s the only way I can get through this.
“The big picture can’t be explained by me, but by your mother.”
Oh dear God, no. Don’t pull out the tape.
“Your mother understood that these kinds of things would happen. Luckily, she’s recorded some messages for you. Now, I don’t want to show this tape to you because she gets cross. But I think it’s important.”
“Father, I think it would be best if I just was punished like a normal kid and...” Thandie, what did you say? Don’t go there. Now we’ll be up all night. Shouldn’t have said it. You were scared, angry. Certainly. But don’t ever compare yourself with ‘normal’ families.
Randall’s eyes widened, stretching the skin of his face past its elasticity. His mouth gaped open. In a voice pregnant with drama, he moaned, “We are not normal. We will never be normal again. We have lost our mother, my wife. We will never be usual, normal again.” He pointed at this daughter. “I think you need to see a couple of videos tonight.”
Thandie heard herself before she felt herself scream at her father. She didn’t even feel herself getting mad, but some switch was thrown. She yelled, “No more videos! No more recorded messages! I can’t take it anymore!”
Randall stepped away for a second. He closed his eyes, moving his face away from his daughter. He collected himself. In a warm, reasonable voice, he related, “I know it’s late and you’re tired. I know you don’t mean that. I know you love your mother and you regret saying those things.”
I’m crying. Who is this girl doing all of the speaking for me? I yelled at my father, I’m in tears, and now I’m telling him what I think of those stupid videos of mum. What is going on with me? Who’s running the controls?
Thandie mumbled, while looking away from Randall, “Maybe.”
Randall moved closer to her daughter. His face without emotion, with the exception of his brows slightly raised. Speaking through a small slit in between his teeth, he growled, “You love your mother, right?”
Don’t say anything else, Thandie. Nothing else. Turn around and go to bed. Turn around. Stop what you’re doing.
She met her father with the same poker face, eyes deep into his. “Maybe I don’t want to see another video.”
She turned around and entered her bedroom, closing the door on her father.
* * *
Randall didn’t sleep that night. He wanted to go into Thandie’s room, yell at her, scream, and force her to sleep outside. The moment the idea of forcing her to sleep outside in the Canadian snow crossed his mind, he knew he wasn’t thinking straight.
Never discipline Thandie when you’re angry, Randall remembered Mari telling him. He knew that if he tried to talk to her anymore tonight, he would say things that he would regret. Better sleep on it, calm down, and deal with her in the morning. Don’t try to solve anything when you’re this mad.
Never discipline a child when you’re angry. When do you discipline a child, Randall mused. When you’re happy? When you’ve awoken from a nap, you hear the birds chirp, and you’re feeling at peace with your world? When else are you going to consider a spank or a grounding unless you’re pissed off?
Randall shook off this line of thought. He knew he was too angry to try to be the reasonable one in the relationship. Thandie, in his mind, had disrespected him and his late wife, that was all there was to it. She would have to be punished, he reasoned. And someone in the house had to be the one making sense, so it mine as well be the parent. I shall be nice to her tomorrow and then bring up what she did when she’s calm, reasonable.
Randall sat in his bed in the darkness of his room. He still slept in a Queen-sized mattress, fearing the smallness of other practically sized beds. It was the bed he had been given as a wedding gift by Mari’s sister. This bed would remain, along with the memory of Mari.
A memory flashed in front of his mind’s eye. He sat in a hospital room, watching Mari sleep. She had lost most of her hair. They had finished the last round of chemotherapy and she had gotten really sick. They decided to keep an eye on her while her body struggled with the last dosage of radiation. He remembered that was the last round of radiation, before the doctors decided that the cancer would not go away and would slowly gain control of Mari.
He slept that night in the bed with her. When they were awake, they planned their next vacation. Still hopeful at that point.
Mari woke up quickly, rising quickly out of her bed. Randall cautioned her not to move too quickly, since she was connected to a bunch of monitors and an IV.
Mari smiled at his fuss. She leaned back in her bed and moaned, “I think I need to make some more videos for Thandie.”
Randall squeaked, “I thought we decided we weren’t going to do that. Your therapist suggested that was hurting your focus on the present. Remember, he said that if spent all of this time getting ready for your death and you end up surviving...”
“I had a dream. I’m not going to survive.” She said this plainly, without drama or disdain.
Randall wanted a bit more. He leaned toward her, asking, “How do you know? From a dream?”
“I just do. And my videos are more important now than they’ve ever been. I must document everything so that our daughter can get through this time of grief with minimal damage.”
She spoke faster. “These things can destroy children, Ran. They can totally wipe them out. This cancer, this thing killing me, is my issue, not hers. She shouldn’t have to suffer because of my sickness. And she won’t. She will still be raised by her mother; she will still be a healthy, normal girl. I will be with her in her life. I will live on.” She shook when she spoke.
Her eyes narrowed. “We will beat this. Death will not ruin my daughter. We will still be a healthy family, despite my death.”
Randall reached out, to place his hand on his wife. “She will have a video for everything. She will not be alone for anything. We will work around the clock, for her to have everything she can have.”
Randall pressed down on her shoulder as she tried to rise, becoming more and more excited.
“This is for her. My love for my daughter won’t be defeated by cancer.” Her eyes fixed past her husband, she continued to speak in a quick, desperate voice. “Damn it, this cancer won’t take away our relationship! It can’t! I love her, Randall! I will be her mother! She won’t be alone! Damn it, she won’t be alone!”
Mari started to shake, tears growing and rolling out of her eyes. As she cried, she coughed and gargled. Randall rubbed his wife’s shoulder. Randall used most of his strength to swallow. His hand reaching, he froze in a lurch extending to his wife. Mari covered her face as it winced and tightened.
She sobbed for minutes.
As the cries settled, she asked Randall in a small, broken voice, “I’m not being selfish, am I? This isn’t weird. I want to help Thandie, not ruin things for her. I’m not being weird and selfish?”
Randall whispered, “You are someone who has never had a selfish thought her life. Everything you have ever done has been for Thandie. This is no exception.”
“But it’s weird, isn’t it? Having a bunch of videos of your dead mother.”
“Cancer is weird. Cancer is something that shouldn’t happen, but does. If anything, us being here instead of our home in Calgary is weird.”
“Promise me one thing: promise me that she will watch the videos. I’ve lived most of my life in front of the camera. Having a camera pointed at me is part of my setting, part of who am. But I allow myself to be taped because I have always believed someone will be watching on the other end. Make sure that happens. Make sure Thandie will see her mother. I can’t have peace unless I know that I won’t only be recorded, but watched. Make sure she sees me, Randall.”
That’s Mari. That’s the woman I’ve always known. That’s the woman I married. The journalist, the television personality. She couldn’t stand not being recorded.
Randall swallowed again. It went down harder this time. “I promise. I promise that there won’t be a day that goes when Thandie won’t be spoken to by her mother.”
Randall remembered his wife in the bed, nodding to him. He still had the image of her face while he sat on the bed.
In the darkness of his lone bedroom, as he recalled that night with his late wife in the hospital, he wept.
* * *
Breton walked Thandie home, after school. He knew she was bothered, simply because she didn’t talk about it nor about anything else.
When he got to her doorstep, he shrugged and exhaled. “I’ll see you later. Okay?”
“Okay.” She turned and left to go inside.
When she got inside, she found her father cleaning the bookcase of her mother’s videos. She sat down in the living room, without making a sound, watching him. Her arms crossed, she waited for her father to turn around and notice her.
It took a while. Randall was in a deep focus, wiping clean any dust particles that collected on the videos. His brow furled, his attention steady. He looked as if he was operating rather than cleaning.
Thandie shut her eyes tightly upon seeing her father. She shook her head to herself, opened them, and cleared her throat.
“Oh! Thandie! Welcome home!” Randall beamed. He looked so happy.
Such a plastic happiness, Thandie thought.
Thandie didn’t respond. Instead, she sat and stared at him.
Randall looked slowly to the left, as if to catch something or someone Thandie was staring at sourly other than him. After a spell, he asked, “Yes?”
“I want you to play one of mom’s tapes.”
Randall shot her a bright smile, turning in an almost a dance. “Yes, my dear. Which is it?”
“Play the one where she explains who I should go to when her library doesn’t have a response for something.”
He turned to see his little girl. “Excuse me?”
“In the event that I have a question to which she hasn’t answered, whom do I go to for answers? Where can I go when her library of answers can’t give me the advice I need?”
Randall put his fingers near his chin, thinking. He froze in thought a few moments, until he fingered the air suggesting he had an idea. He grabbed the master video list, recording all of the entries she had made for Thandie. After searching through the list two times, he looked up and admitted, “She doesn’t have a entry answering that question.”
Without emotion, Thandie remarked, “Good. If mom’s video library is silent on this issue, I want to ask you, dad: who or whom do I go to when mom’s library isn’t enough?”
Copyright © 2010 by Eric J. Kregel
