To Honor Thy Mother
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Hardcover: 392 pages
ISBN: 0974402702
Publisher: Cahill Publishing
An Excerpt From the First Chapter
The News
I can't remember when I heard the
siren, but it was keeping me awake.
I chose to ignore it and pulled the covers closer to my bosom. I nestled under
the layers in the cold November night. Although the temperature outside was
extremely cold, it hadn't snowed yet. As the siren faded, I drifted into a deep
sleep. I dreamt I was standing in a hotel lobby waiting to be checked in. The
man behind the counter wore a black suit. He stared into his computer
screen. 'We have one room, single occupancy available,' he said. I nodded,
'I'll take it.' Just then the telephone rang. I placed my credit card face up on
the counter. He looked puzzled. 'It's the only one I have,' I told him. 'Don't
you accept it?'
'One moment,' he left the front desk
to go into the back office. The
telephone continued to ring. I stood waiting and leaned against the counter
clutching my purse. I looked down at the computer and the papers next to it,
then up at the wallpaper behind the desk. It was a pretty color of magenta. A
clock hung in the middle just above the counter. It was so quiet. Everything
in the hotel lobby was hushed except for the ringing of the telephone. I'd
expected someone else to walk out of the back office or overhear bits of a
conversation with the man who left to ask someone if it was okay to accept
my credit card, but there was nothing ' no voices, no one appeared, no one
else stood in the lobby. I walked along the counter and peered over it to look
into the back office, but there was no one there. I thought, maybe it led to
another office further in the back. I began to get worried. And the telephone
kept ringing. I looked up at the clock on the wall. The time was eight-thirty.
It was odd that no one else came into or left the hotel lobby. I started to
count
the rings on the telephone. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. I looked around the lobby. It
was empty. The furniture was Old English with fabric to match the wall and
arranged in a conversational manner and the walls facing the glass windows
were draped with tapestry. I looked around and realized that I was alone in
the room. The chandelier hung from a cathedral ceiling and the Persian rug
was a rosy color. I walked over to the door and looked outside the glass
window. It was dark and the streets were empty too. I thought that was odd
for so early in the evening. Fourteen. Fifteen. I turned around and walked
back to the front desk.
'Hello, hello,' I called. No one
answered. The telephone kept ringing.
'Is anybody there?' I tapped the small bell twice that sat on the counter. I
picked up my credit card. And the telephone kept ringing. I turned around to
look outside again and saw my mother Geri standing across the street
wearing a long, gray trench coat, waving goodbye. It's not raining, I thought.
Why is she wearing a trench coat? I turned back around to the front desk.
The telephone kept ringing. I studied it and watched as a small red light kept
blinking. Where is everybody? I turned to look out into the street again, but
mother was gone.
I broke out of my sleep hearing the
sound of the telephone ring the way
it often does when it is awful news. Wearily, I rolled over to check the time
from the clock on the nightstand. It was five-eighteen in the morning. Slowly,
I raised myself out of bed and answered the telephone.
A strange voice trickled into the
phone. It seemed almost unfamiliar to
me and the stranger who said my name wasn't sure if he reached the right
person. My upper body shivered from the chill in the night air and I propped
the pillow behind me and wiped the sleep from my eyes. I wasn't fully awake.
My hands were cold as I clutched the phone tightly to my ear with one hand
and coiled the cord around my finger with the other. The voice was stiff and
distant. 'Yes?' I said.
I heard a motor from a car outside
driving off and then him saying,
'Your mother is dead.' The receiver went dead. I sat numb, my fingers
tingling. It would be a few more hours till daybreak. My eyes, drowsy and
lifeless, drifted toward the window and the partially drawn blinds. I'd kept
the blinds facing upward so sufficient light could enter the room and make it
appear bright. I'd done the same to mother's room.
Mother couldn't remember much of her
past. Sometimes, I'd pester her until she could stand me no more. In hopes that
she'd remember something.
'you're aggravating,' she would say.
'What's the matter with you?' I'd
say. 'Why won't you talk?'
She could sit quietly for hours
upon hours and never spill a word. And
sometimes there'd be a look on her face like she was in a far-off place and I'd
have to yank her back to earth again and out of her shell. And I'd fuss and
fuss and fuss at her, just to rouse some emotion and exile her from her
lonesomeness. 'Take it easy,' she would say. 'you're going to get a heart
attack.'
I blinked and felt the chill in the
air once again as I stretched out my
legs underneath the covers of my bed. There was a sinking feeling in the pit
of my stomach as I stared at the blinds. I looked down at the receiver in my
hand, hearing a quick buzzing sound and hung up the phone. I closed my
eyes and tried to remember mother's voice in my head. I trembled.
Father Brennen used to say that
all life's questions couldn't be
answered during our time spent in this universe. I'd gone to see him twice
when I attended the university. He was a quiet man. A bit young for a priest,
I thought, but he was always there for me and he listened. He watched me
cry and he comforted me and he said prayers for me and he said prayers for
my mother. And, in between my sobbing and chattering, he'd nod a few times
to let me know he understood. And I knew that he knew God, or that he had
God's ear. What I mean is, I believed in his prayers for me and I knew God
would be listening, or, more truthfully, I believed in Father Brennen and he
believed.
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