---

 

This writing was accepted for publication in the 84 page perfect-bound issue... Down in the Dirt magazine (v094) (the May 2011 Issue) You can also order this 5.5" x 8.5" issue as an ISSN# paperback book:						This writing also appears in this 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback “Looking Beyond” Order this 6" x 9" ISBN# book: (also available through amazon.com)

Order this writing in the book Prominent Pen dirt edition		get the 324 page May-August 2011 Down in the Dirt 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Order this writing in the book 1,000 Words (the 2011 prose collection book)		get the short poem 226 page collection 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

The Day They Took Her

Elizabeth Mitchell

    The day they took her, she had not worn mascara is seventeen days. Seventeen. A bad number. Not divisible by 2 or even by three. Uneven. Odd.
    I picked up my mother’s make-up bag and put it neatly into the far left corner of her suitcase. I thought of standing in that same bedroom, watching her apply coat after coat of mascara, knowing that since she was wearing it, she was feeling like the good version of herself, and it would be a good day. Maybe if I packed it for her, she would wear it. And be happy. And come home.
    I glanced around, deciding what to pack next.
    “Pajamas,” I said to the empty bedroom, thinking of those ghastly open-backed johnnies the nurses would give her to wear. I pulled open the bottom drawer of her dresser and grabbed a sleep shirt. It was sky blue with a big black satin pocket on the left side of the chest. The pocket was too big, I decided, too heavy without something on the other side to balance it out. It would most certainly have cancelled out the good of the mascara and she would have stayed away longer. I shoved the offending nightdress back into the drawer and selected a solid pink one instead.
    I didn’t so much like pink, but had always preferred solid colors. They don’t have any ulterior motives. For instance, I had worn a black and grey plaid skirt to school the previous Friday, and it wasn’t until I put on a green sweater that I noticed the tiny green lines running through the plaid. I didn’t appreciate their attempt at hiding from me. The fact that it sometimes took a large, loud version of something to act as a mirror for a smaller counterpart bothered me. It made me wonder how many things I miss or do not attend to because they are singular or understated, small or quiet. I would only pack solid-colored clothing for my mother.
    Once the four nightshirts, two pairs of jeans, two sweaters, four t-shirts, eight pairs of socks and eight pairs of underwear were neatly folded and packed away, I considered what else I might include in the bag of good things.
    “Nail polish.” My mother had beautiful hands and long nails. I loved her long nails, partly because of the clicking sound they made on the keys when she played piano, but mostly because she would use them to scratch my back when I had a nightmare, or could not sleep. I put a bottle of clear Revlon nail polish in the front pocket of the suitcase. I grabbed her metal Revlon nail file off of the vanity, but then remembered what my father had said before he left for the store that morning.
    “Remember, honey. Nothing sharp. They won’t let her have anything sharp. Not even her razor.” If she couldn’t have her Bick razor, I supposed she couldn’t have her metal Revlon nail file either, and so I put it back where I found it. Her hair and nails would have to grow longer and longer like the Wild Things in Where The Wild Things Are. I was immediately revolted by the idea of my mother with shaggy fur and long, curved nails, but then checked myself. Maybe it would be a good thing. The Wild Things were happy.
    Satisfied with its contents, I zipped the suitcase. I checked the time and found that I was early. I was always early. My father would not be home to take me and the bag of good things to visit my mother for a little while longer. I decided that the best use of my time would be figuring out exactly what combination of factors had caused the bad version of my mother to come back so that I could make absolutely certain it would not happen again. The seventeen days without mascara was definitely part of it, but what else? I replayed the few hours before they took her in my mind, and could see it play out in front of me, as if it were happening in the present:
    I go to bed, making certain that my teddy bears are all facing the same direction. They are. So that couldn’t have been it. I fall asleep without trouble, and have a nightmare. I dream that my mother and I are sitting in our field, wrapping blades of grass around our fingers and whistling through them. We are trying to play “I See the Moon.” She is helping me to select the best possible pieces of grass for my makeshift instrument, when she begins cutting me with blades of grass while petting my hair and singing,
    “It seems to me that God above
    Created you for me to love
    He picked you out from all the rest
    Because he knew I loved you best.”
    I wake up, get out of bed, turn on my bedroom light, the hall light, and the dining room light, in that order. That is the proper order, so that couldn’t have been it, either. I walk into the living room and creep up to the couch where my mother is sleeping. I turn on the table lamp and then shake her shoulderÉor did I shake her shoulder before turning on the table lamp? Maybe that was where the trouble started.
    She wakes up after four shoulder shakes. Four is an even number. Not a contributing factor.
    “Mom, I had a nightmare,” I tell her. “You were hurting me.” She opens her eyes, but when she does not immediately respond in her usual way (telling me it was just a dream, and lifting up the blanket so I can crawl in beside her), I say it again, thinking maybe she has not heard me. But still, she just looks silently at me. So even though I have already said it twice, and I never say anything more than twice because saying something three times in a row often causes something unexpected to happen (like standing in front of a mirror, saying “Bloody Mary” three times in a row), I said it again. That was definitely the biggest factor and on top of the mascara and the possibly backwards order of the shoulder shaking, it must have tipped the scale in the bad direction.
    “That’s strange,” she finally says. But her voice is hoarse, the voice of the bad version, and she is slurring her words. “I’ve been so afraid that I’ll hurt you. I’ll hurt you and I’ll have nothing left.” I stare for a long moment, then take four evenly spaced steps backwards, turn, and run to my parents’ bedroom to get my father. I come crashing into the room, causing my father to sit bolt upright, grab his glasses, and flick on the light. I take a brief moment of comfort in the fact that even when hurried or startled, he always did those three things in the same order, even now.
    “Honey, Jesus, what’s wrong?” I am so thrown by the bad version of my mother appearing out of nowhere, that I am almost surprised to find that my father is still my father, reacting exactly the way I would expect him to react if I came crashing into his room in the middle of the night. But that had always been the best thing about my father. He only had one version.
    I tell my father that the bad version of mother is back. I say I don’t know why, that I’m not sure what I did, but I made it come back. My father gives me a quick and tight hug, mutters something about it not being my fault (he always says that, but he doesn’t understand). He tells me to stay in the bedroom. He walks out of the room and shuts the door behind him. I hear their voices get louder and then the rattling of pill bottles. I creep to the door and open it to find my mother is lying in her chair sobbing, and my father has gone into the kitchen. I hear him pick up the phone and call them.
    I close the door again, as quietly as possible, and sit on my Father’s bed, watching out the window. I hear them before I see them, the sirens wailing, drowning out the crickets and the tree frogs, but soon the blue and red lights cut through the darkness outside the window. There are two cars: a police car and an ambulance. I’m glad that they know they have to bring an even number of cars, or they would only make it worse.
    As they come into the house to get her, I know that there must be a lot of noise. Since this has happened before, I know there should be screaming, crashing, doors opening and shutting, disembodied voices on crackling walkie-talkies, but I don’t hear it. I am staring at the big crystal that I once hung in my father’s window for luck. I know I should be upset or frightened or something, but all I can think about is how pretty the red and blue lights look reflected off the multiple faces of the crystal.
    I brought myself back to the present. Sitting on my mother’s suitcase, I decided that I would simply make a few new rules for myself and once she came home, I would never cause the bad version to come out again. Rule #1: Never say anything more than twice in a row. Rule #2: Always turn on a light before shaking someone’s shoulder to wake them. Rule #3: Always be sure to turn the lights on in the proper order. I could not think of a fourth rule, but three was an odd number. Then it occurred to me. I’m not sure I had one, at least not yet, but my mother was my mother, after all. Rule #4: Do everything possible to ensure that no bad version of me ever, ever comes out.
    Having packed the bag of good things, and having analyzed my mistakes, and made new rules to prevent such mistakes from being made again, I felt satisfied.
    Just then, I heard my father’s truck tires on the gravel driveway, returning from the store. I went to the window and watched as he stopped at the end of the drive to pick up the paper. I knew that next he would park in his usual spot, come in the door while finishing half of a glazed donut, hand me the other half and say, “I gotcha a hot chocolate.” We would sit at the little kitchen table, have our breakfast, and he would tell a joke to make me laugh. It was easy to predict because he only had one version. He was my father and I was me, and even if my mother, and crystals, and people, and everything else in the world had multiple faces, I knew this would never change.
    I heard my father come in the door, and call, “I gotcha a hot chocolate!”
    “Thanks,” I called back. But before going to meet him in the kitchen, just to be sure, I quickly but carefully took the makeup bag out of the suitcase, and took my mother’s mascara out of the makeup bag. Then, even though I knew I was too young for make-up, I applied two heavy coats to each eye.

Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Problems with this page? Then deal with it...