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The Lost Year

Alison Ogilvie-Holme

    Beginnings and Endings:
    The stairs leading up to church are treacherous, concrete covered in slick ice. Tiny fissures mar the surface of each step as salt mixes with hail. Momma crushes my hand in her death grip and I shiver compulsively from the wind and the rain.
    “Did you order this weather, Charles?” giggles Ms. Maple.
    “Evening, Ellen,’ Daddy intones, ‘I guess we can count on a white Christmas this year.”
    Why does Ms. Maple always laugh around Daddy? I roll my eyes and stop listening, imagine tomorrow morning and all the presents under the tree. If Santa truly is magical, he can fly through an ice storm. Rudolph will be there to light the sky.
    The sound of organ music interrupts my thoughts while we enter the aged building.
    Once inside, I am ushered downstairs to the basement. I wrinkle my nose at the smell, some combination of must and lemon scented cleaner, and try to stay still while Momma pins feathered wings to my velvet dress. Everyone oohs and ahhs. People say that I look like a real angel with my fancy costume and long, blonde curls. Momma smiles wide and shows off her dimples. She has spent weeks on the sewing machine and the past two hours curling my hair.
    The next thing I remember is facing the congregation and reciting my line, without messing up. I can no longer recall the words, try as I may. I do know that I find Momma in the crowd and she winks at me. Daddy sits next to her, taking pictures on his camera. This image is frozen in my mind. Unyielding. Afterwards, life is forever skewed.
    Sometimes, I relive everything in excruciating detail. Watch Momma reach for my hand, her spiked heel catching on the cracked ice that propels her forward down the stairs. At other times, I am certain the accident lays buried deep beneath my skin, more of a physical sensation than a visual memory. Either way, I am broken.

    Winter:
    Over the next few months, we visit Momma in the hospital every day. Daddy brings her yellow roses and tells her how much we miss her.
    “Go ahead, sweetheart. Talk to Momma. She wants to hear your voice.”
    I open my mouth to speak but instantly clam up. Over and over again. The sight of Momma hooked up to all those machines makes me nervous. Her body limp. Her face slack. I wonder if she is still in there somewhere.
    At home, we microwave casseroles and then freeze them again, untouched. I hear Daddy cry at night in his bed when he thinks I am asleep. The sound is oddly comforting. Like he is crying for the both of us and his tears are my tears.
    School continues as usual. Except when it does not. My teacher prays for Momma every morning, after our class recites the Lord’s prayer. It is strange to hear other kids talk about Momma in telltale whispers. She is my mother. Mine. They have no claim to her.

    Spring:
    Daddy plants yellow roses in the backyard. He tends to all of the flower beds with extra care. There is lots of sunshine this year but very little rain, and despite his best efforts, many of the flowers will fail to thrive and wilt prematurely. I press roses between the pages of my favourite storybook, “The Little Princess”. Once a week, Ms. Maple drops in with another casserole. Soon our freezer will be full to bursting.

    Summer:
    Vacation arrives during the middle of a record-breaking heat wave. There is only one air conditioner at the farmhouse, a window unit in the living room. I take to sleeping on the couch in front of the television, staying up late to watch movies. By this point, Daddy pretty much lets me do as I please. Ms. Maple checks on me throughout the day while Daddy works the fields and worries about the crops. Eventually, we stop going to the hospital every day and start going back to church every Sunday with Ms. Maple. I want to scream and pull my hair out. Push Ms. Maple down those same stairs and knock that silly smile off her face. Maybe then my Momma will come back to us, to me.

    Autumn:
    Daddy sits me on his lap and cups my face in his immense, calloused hands. “Working man hands”, Momma used to call them. I am fearful that Daddy will share the news I have been dreading, but this announcement will not come until some time later. Instead, he suddenly sounds like Pastor Raymond, talking about God and Jesus and heaven. Then he mentions Momma, how her soul is already at peace in heaven, how we need to let her go.
    “Nnnooooooo...”
    “Listen, sweetheart. I know this is hard. We’re not ready to say goodbye...but God has a bigger plan than we can understand.”
    “I hate God!’ I spit, ‘You don’t even love Momma, anymore.”
    “You don’t really mean that.”
    “You just want to get rid of Momma because of Ms. Maple. Well, I hate her! I hate her!”
    “Don’t speak to me like that.” Daddy says, in a soft but steady voice. It is his warning tone. The quieter he gets, the angrier he is. I am treading on quicksand and sinking fast.
    “She probably hurt Momma on purpose.”
    “Nobody hurt Momma. She slipped on the ice. It was an accident, a horrible accident. Ms. Maple is just trying to help us—”
    “It’s true! She killed Momma.”
    And with that said, Daddy turns me over and spanks my bottom. I howl in protest rather than pain. My fury is matched by Daddy’s strength as he carries me upstairs kicking and screaming, “I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!” He plops me down on my bed and slams the bedroom door shut. For the first time in weeks, I fall asleep in my own bed and cry my own tears.

    Winter:
    The engagement becomes official shortly after the funeral, in late November. “Folks are thrilled” with the announcement. This is what I overhear Pastor Raymond say outside the church one day, “folks are thrilled”. A spring wedding is planned. But first, Christmas Eve will come and go without incident. We will ring in the New Year and put all talk of Momma to rest. For good.

    Endings and New Beginnings:
    “That was eighteen years ago, so why am I crying?” I laugh, wiping my face with the back of my hand.
    Dr. Carson hands me a tissue. She knows that this is partly a rhetorical question. We often talk about the death of my mother. I now understand the stages of bereavement, how trauma can affect the brain, why different people process grief in different ways. For a moment, I am not certain that Dr. Carson will respond. Then she pulls that old therapist trick on me.
    “Why do you think that talking about your mother’s death still makes you cry?”
    “Well...let’s see,’ I pause to take a mental inventory of my life and rhyme off a litany of the issues that we have discussed to date. ‘Because it happened when I was so young, because of how it happened and my unresolved guilt, because I never fully had the chance to grieve, because I have never really warmed up to Ellen, because of the strain that it placed on my relationship with my father, because I am tired of always being angry, because I am about to become a mother for the first time, because—”
    Dr. Carson places a hand on my shoulder and says gently, “Because you’re human and it still hurts.”
    I let out a deep breath and unconsciously pat my baby bump. Suddenly, I feel a sharp movement, and remember my line: “For onto us a child is born.” So simple. So familiar. How many times have I heard this verse uttered over the past eighteen years and failed to recognize it? In my mind’s eye, I can see Momma winking at me from our pew in the back of the church.
    “Did you feel something?” asks Dr. Carson.
    “Yes, I think she literally just knocked some sense into me.”
    “Have you given any more thought to baby names? I believe you had narrowed it down to Elise or Emily.”
    “Rachel Lynne,’ I respond, without hesitation, ‘after Momma.”
    My eyes start to water as I smile wide and show off my dimples.

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