Rouge(111)

But I loved you, Sunshine.

“I love you,” I say to her. Beating like a heart against my heart.

Tentacles around my neck turn to white arms. The red head becoming a face I know so well. That smiles at me now.

“I’m sorry, Mother,” I say to the face. Tears of salt spill from my eyes.

They spill from her eyes too. I’m sorry, they say, even though she does not speak, cannot speak. I hear the words in my heart. I hear them all through me like waves.

She kisses my forehead.

And then a light fills me. A warmth. A remembering that branches.

Of you and me, Mother.

Of you and me, Sunshine. Of us. Standing in an orchard. A sea of trees and September light. You’re handing me an apple you picked yourself. For you, Mother, you say. You say it matches my Chanel lipstick, my best red. And your face is so full of sunshine. No shadows yet. You reach out to hand it to me. And I’m afraid of how beautiful you are. How much I love you. How I won’t be able to protect you from this place. From me. My places that I go. One is locked away in the closet. Cracked and turned to the wall, but one day you’ll find it. You’ll stand in front of its shining face, not knowing why I turned it away. That I’m only protecting you from myself. The things I can’t change. The things I wish I could. I’ll try to stop it in my clumsy ways that are out of love, that won’t work. But my places will soon be your places. And everything will shatter like glass. Terribly. Both broken for years. I’m in a blackness that knows no end even among the palm trees and the light that melts me like a witch. My smile is a ghost. My heart is in a beige guest room on the other side of the continent, on an island by a slushy river, covered in bandages. Years later, I’m turning circles in arrivals at the San Diego airport. September sun streaming into the windows. The board says your flight’s landed and I have no idea. No idea how I’m going to do this. If I even should. Should I save you from me? Keep you miles away in that awful woman’s moldering apartment? But I hate to think of you in that beige prison. Don’t know what’s better in the end: me or the beige prison. Also I miss you. Now I see you at the top of the escalator making your slow way down. Some predator is talking to you—they’ll do that for the rest of your young life. You’re looking at me. When I see your face, I’m so happy, and then I feel such pain. How much you’ve grown. How many years. I’m back in the orchard, afraid all over again. How beautiful you are. How much I love you. That I can’t protect you from my terrible places that I still go, can’t help but go because no one protected me, no one saved me, no one ever held out their hand and walked me away. But I’m trying to save you, Sunshine. I’m trying in my broken way. I’m holding out my arms. I’m taking the apple you’re handing me. I’m looking into your eyes and saying it’s the most perfect thing. Even though you’re not hearing me. You’re already skipping away. Still I call after. I love you.

A warming of the light all around us. I feel it, just as I feel Mother’s voice all around me. Telling me its last story. The story of her and me and a piece of glass. The glass is gone at last. Shattered and returned to sand. I close my eyes in the warmth of it. And my throat opens like a rose.

I love you too.

And the kiss is over. She’s gone from me. Nothing but air on my skin. When I open my eyes, she’s water. White foaming waves lapping against the shore, against my breathing body. The sun on my face. And my heart beating all by itself.





32


Something is licking my face. A great, panting tongue. I feel a very cold nose sniffing me tenderly. Mother? I open my eyes. A dog. Looking at me with large liquid eyes, one blue, one brown. When it sees I’m awake, it barks its face off very happily. Then it goes galloping away.

I’m lying in the wet sand. Shivering though overhead the sky is a bright blue. Early morning sun on my face. Mother’s not with me anymore. I’m alone except for the dog. Where am I? At first, a blank. Then slowly words come to me. California shore. The cove near home. The children’s beach that the seals took over long ago. Look, there are seals over there on a rock in a stinking huddle, tilting their bodies backward so gracefully. Exposing their necks and bellies to the sun. Mother used to take me here, remember? Look how sweet, she’d say, pointing to them lying there. Look at the little one thumping his way toward the shore. Home’s not too far at all from here. A walk if I could walk. But I can’t seem to move just now. Can’t even cover my ears against the sound of the still-barking dog, getting louder again. Mother’s gone is a fact coursing through me. Turned to foam. And somehow I’m alive still. Though my breath is quick, my heart beats slow. Cold skin and getting colder. Shivering in the sun. Then I hear a name being called.

“Belle! Belle!” My name, I know.

With all my strength, I look in the direction of the sound. A little blond woman in activewear, running toward me with the golden-haired dog that happily licked my face running along beside her. The dog’s leading her to me. I found her, I found her, its face says. Look! And the woman is looking. Very worriedly. Her face is creased with it. Sylvia’s her name. Because she knows Mother and me very well, I remember. Because she’s a friend.

“Where were you?” she’s saying to me. “I was looking everywhere, everywhere. Thank god. Thank god we found you.”