The Diamonds [ Revised ]

My face looks much paler now, and more strongly resembles my mother’s features.  Her hollow cheeks and sunken eye sockets have become increasingly familiar to me each day I see my own reflection.  Pushing back a few strands of loose hair, I stroke my eyebrows and wet my finger in attempt to tame the bushy mass – the only evidence of my father in my complexion.  My hair is a mess of tangles, and I have given up trying to remedy what cannot be fixed. As I pull it back into a somewhat tidy bun, my phone rings.  Stepping over the various pizza boxes and rubbish which clutter the floor, I reach to pick it up off the dresser. It is my mother, and she will want to know why I have not been returning her calls but I am not ready to talk.  Tossing the phone onto a pile of clean clothes, I go back to playing with my feisty hair. A vibration from the laundry reminds me of my mother’s anxious condition and so I take a short moment to listen to her latest apologetic voicemail.  My hands feel dry and I rub balm on my lips to prevent them from splitting anymore. 

 The morning lingers like a low fog before midday. My baggy sweater hangs off of my shoulders and I grasp a warm cup of steamed milk in my hands. Foam rests on the tiny hairs above my lips and I wipe away the liquid mustache with my index finger. Steamed milk swirls in my cup, and I attempt to detect the designs rippling on its surface with eyes burning from lack of sleep. Clenching my fists, the coolness drifts from my veins and I reach again for the white mug before me on this worn table, clasping both hands around it tightly. The warmth returns and slowly begins to burn my palms. Walking over to the four-paned window, which guards me from all that is unknown, I stand just behind the red velvet curtains I made when I was sixteen years old and stare for awhile into the street below. I squint at the small man and woman next door who are weeding in their garden.  There is something peaceful about their work but also something very disturbing. The days have grown much colder and I cannot understand their persistence for such a mundane task. There seems to be much more use for the world than to spend one’s life toiling in the same spot. 

The languid afternoon glow of the sun casts shapes across my unmade mattress. I fall back and sink into a mass of sheets and blankets which entangle me with the promise of security. Above my head the patterns on the ceiling twirl, a collection of drywall constellations. My eyes fall closed and I drift off into my habitual afternoon stupor. My skin tingles with each passing second as though time were crawling over my body and into my sluggish bloodstream.

When I awake, the sky seems slightly sorrowful, as am I. Thoughts of loneliness swallow any joy my slumber might have brought. A migraine has settled in the back of my head and I pick up one of the bottles of pills which have scattered on the floor.  My foot crushes a few of the spilled tablets as I walk to the kitchen for a glass of water. Dust accumulates on the doorframes and the blinds, both places my mother always scolded me if I forgot to clean growing up. As soon as I moved into my own space, I quickly forgot all the advice she had been so willing to force on me.  For the first few months after I left, my mother wrote me dozens of letters. They are packed away in some shoe box now, every one of them still sealed. Then she quit writing all together and I quit caring. Dirty piles of laundry on my dresser and dishes stacked in the sink help to distance me from the sterile life I once knew in a small town back East. It has been nearly eight years since I have seen my parents, an occasion only permitted because they came to a funeral they knew I would attend. I knew my mother was still hurt from when I first ran away from home, but if my father was at all he didn’t let his guard down for a moment. He was the same hard, passive man whose shadow I knew better than his face. My mother called me for the next few days and then gave up trying once again. I thought I had severed any final ties which remained from my youth, yet the pain continued to manifest, and I continued to cope somehow. My life became defined by restless nights with vivid dreams and days in which I lost all momentum to strive. I saw various counselors and dropped all of them by the second week, their analysis of me was all the same: unwanted advice on how to deal with a past which they believed was detrimental. I had several psychiatric prescriptions filled during that time, my body willing to receive any substance to numb my senses. One therapist told me that death is like lightning in a thunder storm. We know it is coming and yet it still frightens us. I took a handful of pain pills into the rain with me the next time there was a lightning storm, and waited beneath the tumultuous sky for the whole night, a process I considered to be highly therapeutic.

            Work drags on and weighs me down like a millstone tied to my legs. From a young age I have had to learn to keep a job since neither of my parents was responsible with finances. From age fifteen on I learned to bus and wait tables at restaurants all over town. I liked the work at first, the people, the buzz, the environment, but after awhile I began to lose touch with everything. I lost interest in the customers and had no desire for the food or for the restaurant camaraderie. I needed the money to pay rent and my bosses kept me on because I was the best waitress they had. Now, my job is more routine than ever, and though I have considered starting something new, I continue to work full time.

After a few weeks of dealing with the repercussions of a new drug prescribed by yet another therapist, I am ready to quit the industry for good.  I grab my apron off the wall in the back room slinging my sweater (complete with formal two week’s notice in the pocket) onto the empty hook. I am assigned to a table at the very back of the room, to cover for one of the pregnant waitresses who apparently needed to leave work early. The family of five I will be serving is significantly far away from all the other tables in my section. As soon as I approach them however, my feelings of irritation are replaced by fascination. The similar smiles between them, the playfulness of the children, and the love apparent between the adults baffles me like never before. Mother and daughter giggle as they peruse the menu while the father and his young boys talk about splitting a steak. The siblings appear to be within the ages of ten and fifteen though I cannot exactly tell. I try to busy myself with their orders so as not to let my eyes dwell too long on each of them. The daughter’s brown, curly hair is styled just like her mother’s with the exception of side swept bangs. As I leave to prepare their order they are in the midst of a happy conversation about the baseball game they went to earlier that day. When I bring the order to the chef I am surprised to find that I have not recorded the women’s requests. Going back to the table I spend a few minutes apologizing to the family and admiring the sincerity of these people before me. Families don’t usually phase me in this business. They are no different from any other customers excepting the occasional booster seat. Yet for an unexpected reason, this particular family catches my indifferent eye tonight, and I have to remember to not forget my other guests at the opposite side of the restaurant. 

The drive home is a blur as thoughts flash through my mind like the rain on the windshield. At home, I begin to search for an old shoebox I hid years ago. Though my closet is a whirlwind of chaos, the search is not in vain. Pulling the first few letters out of the box I begin to open them, attempting to decipher my mother’s faint hand. Her words are kind and simple and in every single one she is begging me to come home again. After reading through what seems like a dozen, I shove the letters back into place and the memories along with them. I scratch a short note for myself which I leave on my table. The closet is much higher than I recall, and so in the attempt to put away the rest of the shoeboxes, the shelf collapses and everything topples onto the floor adding to the overall pig sty look of my apartment. My hands and neck feel sweaty after stacking everything back onto the shelf and I collapse, exhausted, on top of my rain jacket and hiking boots. Beside me is a box I missed. It is pink and some of the glitter has worn off the edges.  I pick it up slowly and read my own scribbled name across the top, right next to another’s I haven’t seen written in years.  My hands tremble as I trace the lid with my fingertips.  I sit in the dim closet for a few minutes, listening to the sound of my own breath before I let myself open the box.  Inside there are several birthday cards, movie tickets, ice cream coupons, and candy bracelets.  Colorful strings of beads line the sides of the box and there are perhaps a hundred notes packed on top of one another, all in the same hand. My fingers sift through the contents one by one, until they come upon a small, silver tiara resting on the bottom.  I clench my teeth as the tears fill my eyes.  Tied with black ribbon is a single flower stem. A few dry rose petals lie crushed beneath it.  It has been years since I last cried in a closet.

The next morning I wake up with a shoe next to my face and my raincoat wrapped around my torso. Dialing my mother’s phone, I hang up just before the voicemail. But after a few more attempts I leave a pathetic message, half-hoping she will not return my call. My eyes are bloodshot from another sleepless night and the dark blue flesh below them contrasts the paleness of my face. Several wadded up tissues lie just outside the closet door, and I throw them away, trying to forget the pain which threatens to pull me apart. In less than a few hours my mother has called and responded to my message. She has already bought her plane ticket.

It is now 2pm, and I hasten around my room scooping up loose clothing, sweeping, and hiding the pill bottles which litter the floor and window sills. Hesitating with one container of pain medication, I slip it into my pocket believing my mother might understand. Yet all this work and hustle seems like a futile attempt to hide the same lifestyle my mother knew quite well, the one that drove me to leave home in the first place. Kicking the refrigerator door shut, I stare into empty space. I spend the next hour drinking old wine and filling out crossword puzzles from the back of the newspaper.

At seven o’clock sharp someone knocks at my door. Knowing it is my mother, I take time with each step toward the entryway.  Mother seems the same as always, a whirlwind of stress and emotions trapped in a quiet frame.  Her brown hair has turned gray since the last time I saw her. She smiles at me now as I gaze upon her fragile body. I have not grown accustomed to seeing my mother smile but when she does it is as if a thousand years have passed between us.  When I let her through the door we both stare at each other awhile. It is my mother who speaks first.

“You look – beautiful, sweetheart.”

But I no longer believe that I am beautiful or sweet at heart so I do not answer her intended compliment.

“You’re early, mother.”

She looks around my apartment for a few moments and mentions something about a reckless taxi driver, but I am not listening. Instead, I notice the absence of my father’s ring upon her left hand.

“I see you’ve stopped wearing it.” I say, gesturing to her hand.

My mother crosses her arms.  She sighs, looking around once more at my cluttered living space.

“Yes,” she says glancing downward. “I realized it is time to let go.”

“Fifteen years ago wasn’t soon enough?” My mother looks at me quickly before glancing away again.

“I am sorry that I didn’t abandon your father or padlock you to the house if that’s what you want to hear,” she says in a soft, yet defiant voice.

“You sure as hell didn’t” I respond, stepping forward. “You were too busy locking yourself in the bathroom all the time to notice!” I begin to shift my weight back and forth, biting my cheek a little. My mother is silent. “And Dad wasn’t exactly present either.”

 “Those were troublesome years for us, yes, but I won’t stand here and pretend that I didn’t try to protect you. I wasn’t the one you wanted to be with – ”

“That’s enough, Mom, he’s dead.” I interrupt her and turn towards the window. After a few seconds of silence I speak again. “I think you should go,” I whisper. In the next moment, I feel her hands on my shoulders and I flinch, but do not move away. Her touch is light and gentle, yet her grip is firm.

“My darling,” she whispers back, “why did you run away with him?” Tears fall silently down my face, leaving marks on my already stained t-shirt. I shake my head trying to remember to breathe. My mother holds me tightly, and I sob softly in her embrace. “It is time to let go,” she says.

A few weeks later I am moved into my mother’s house and have transferred restaurants. It is my first week on the new job and I have started working morning shifts. The customers are usually more laid back and the general environment is a lot less chaotic. I am a half hour away from finishing my shift when I notice a man sitting at a table near the back of my section, waiting to be waited on. From far away the resemblance is uncanny.  I approach him and although he only orders an omelet and a black coffee, I stay chatting with him for the amount of time it takes to order for a whole family.  His laugh is light and his eyes display years of smiles.  When I bring the check, he writes a number on the receipt at which I am invited to call him. He grins as he leaves, his smooth, grey hair combed back loosely.

My hands shake when I try to put on lipstick, though I have never been very good at making myself look attractive. I used to never worry about superficial things because I once believed I didn’t have to. I close my eyes and spin slowly in circles, and for a few seconds I pretend I am a princess. But he is here now, at my door and there is no more time to wait, only to risk.  My hair and makeup are in a somewhat satisfactory state and as for the dress I am wearing, I was once told I looked good in pink, though I haven’t worn the color in ages. The quivering of my hands ceases as I let him into the apartment. He stands still and calm while I grab my coat, and soon we are through the hallway. His hand feels warm resting on my lower back, and I start to remember what a gentleman is. He opens car doors, makes easy conversation, and laughs like there is nothing to be afraid of.  At dinner he orders a moderate dish and I tell the waiter I would like the same.

Although two hours is usually my limit for a first date, his enthusiasm and playful banter push the evening along pleasantly.  I laugh like I have not laughed in years, and when he compliments the diamond earrings I am wearing, I smile.
CONTINUED>>>http://kimberlondon.blogspot.com/2010/05/diamonds-revised-continued-uncle.html

The Diamonds [ Revised ] CONTINUED>>>

Uncle Raymond loved me very much.  And I loved him very much.  He would tell me I was his little princess, and I loved him for saying that because I always wanted to be a princess. I was once in a play about a princess and a pea, and since I was the princess I got to wear a tiara for the whole day at school. So, Uncle Raymond took me shopping, and he bought me the prettiest sparkly tiara I have ever seen. I looked so beautiful that Mama even put up a few pictures of me on the refrigerator in all my jewels and high heels. But the other day in class, my teacher had each of us draw pictures of what we wanted to be when we grow up, and when I turned in a drawing of myself in a pink dress and a purple crown, she told me that I could not be a princess if I was not born one. I cried and gave my picture to Uncle Raymond the next day, and he said he thought it belonged in a story book. He had me put my tiara back on as he told me a wonderful story about a princess who didn’t know she was a princess.  Then he said that for all we knew maybe I really was a princess, just waiting to be discovered. I wore my tiara for a whole week after that.

I always believed that Uncle Raymond saw things in a different way than most people did.  Like the time he convinced my parents to let me go to the rodeo.  He told them it was going to be a grand time for the two of us and that they didn’t need to worry a bit. Although Papa didn’t need much convincing, Mama wasn’t so sure about letting me go watch “such wild and reckless foolishness.” Raymond assured her with his sweet smile and big white teeth that it was a great sporting event and also an educational experience.  He said he would be right by my side the whole time. And he was, and that was one of the best days I ever had. We laughed at the clowns and their silly movements, we cheered for our favorite cowboy, and I stuffed myself with enough cotton candy to “turn my brain into sugar,” Raymond said as he bought me another one.  But the next week when Raymond offered to take me to the movies, my Mama protested saying she didn’t think the one he’d chosen was appropriate for my age. Yet, once again Uncle Raymond was able to convince her that although the film was about war, it was also an enchanting love story. Mama finally gave in, telling us that she was too tired to say no. So we went to see it and although there were a few times he had to cover up my eyes, I felt like a real grownup cause I didn’t see any other children in the theater. 

Uncle Raymond was always doing things like that for me, but for some reason Mama didn’t approve of him very much. She said that his smile could tame a stallion. When I looked up that word (stallion) in the dictionary I decided it made sense since Raymond sometimes played horse and pony with me. Raymond and I liked to play together a lot because Mama didn’t let me have fun in the house ever.  Some days I would watch her at her desk below the window in the front room, and I could see her staring but could never tell what she was looking at. The view from our street was rather dull and the houses all looked the same.  Every once in awhile I would see our neighbors walk by, but they never waved hello even when my mother was sitting at her desk. Mama never went out except maybe once a month for church on Sundays, so I invited her to come along with me and Raymond on an adventure. She said that she wasn’t feeling well and that I might be sick too so I should stay home but I didn’t have a cough or anything.  Mama was sick most of the time so I stopped asking her to play with me. I never saw Papa take care of her and whenever I tried to help she wouldn’t let me. When I asked Raymond if I ever made him sad he said that that was impossible because princesses always made princes happy. I was very glad to make somebody happy.

Mama kept staring for the next few months, and I started to notice wrinkles beneath her eyes. There were some special vitamins in her bathroom cabinet and one morning I tried to eat them. She got very upset at me and told me I was too little to be taking vitamins. Sometimes I would see small bottles of them in her purse and would wonder what they tasted like. Mama never went anywhere without them, so they must have been good. She didn’t smile very much anymore, and I wondered if she missed me when I was with Raymond. There seemed to always be something she was trying to say before he came to take me away. Papa never minded when I left the house, but then again he was rarely ever home to miss me.  I never heard Papa speak of Raymond even though they were twin brothers, and Raymond didn’t say hello anymore when he picked me up at the house. My Papa was gone most of the time “on business” Mama said. When Papa wasn’t away, he stayed in his office for long periods of time. I sometimes tried to listen at his door but could never hear anything. Some days it was the closest I could ever get to him.

Papa was a “working man” as Mama called it.  She said that Papa didn’t have time for trifles and though I didn’t know what a trifle was, I knew that it had something to do with me and that Papa wanted nothing to do with me.  He didn’t usually speak to me or Mama – just a few words here or there, when he needed something from us. Mama said that he had a lot on his plate and that he needed space, but I figured our house was big enough for the three of us and that it wasn’t the space that Papa needed. 

The summer after I went into fourth grade marked a change in Papa. It was late August and he stormed into the house on one of those nights that was really dark and wet. He didn’t look at me or Mama when he walked through the door, he just threw his raincoat onto the couch and then shut himself in his office.  I was frightened because I hadn’t heard any doors slammed in our house before.  The book I was reading was on the couch, and Mama had gone upstairs to her bedroom when I heard the door to the office open. Looking up, I saw Papa walking towards me, a piece of his hair hanging down over his eyebrow. Yelling, he asked about some envelope he had left by the door earlier that day, and when I didn’t answer right away he grabbed me by my shirt, which pinched the back of my neck. I didn’t look at him when he screamed in my face, all I could think about was the bitter breath that I smelled.  Then he started to curse and swing his arms around. After he had thrown me to the floor, that’s when Mama came downstairs and Papa went away again. My face stung as Mama wiped away my tears. She said Papa was probably just tired, but he had never hit me before when he was tired. There was something wrong with Papa and it wasn’t the fact that he had slapped me across the face, but rather the look in his eyes that terrified me.  I hid in my closet for awhile with the telephone from the basement and dialed Uncle Raymond’s number which I had memorized.  His voice was sweet and tender, the same as it always was – and for a moment I forgot about my angry father.  After a few seconds, Raymond asked if I had been crying, and then I really couldn’t stop. As I told him what had happened I heard shouting in the kitchen and then footsteps on the stairs. Covering the receiver, I sobbed into the phone and Raymond sang to me.

            I didn’t see Papa for the rest of the night, partly because he never came out of his office and partly because I was rescued. Slipping downstairs with my pillow and pajamas, I told Mama that I was spending the night at my best friend Sophie’s house, even though she was out of town.  I ran out to meet the headlights of the car which was so familiar, and Raymond met me with a big hug and a warm kiss. The next weekend I called him again and I didn’t see Papa for three whole days after. On these “Rescue Knights,” as we began to call them, Uncle Raymond and I made up a game where I was the damsel in distress and he was my knight in shining armor.  I always felt safe in his arms. Mama didn’t really know where I disappeared to most of the time because Raymond said it was our little secret. She thought that I was at Sophie’s house, though I barely talked to Sophie anymore.

            There was a place in my heart that felt sorry for Raymond. After all, he and my father were twin brothers, though for me that was hard to believe. I had never known two people to be such opposites. It seemed unfair that Papa got what Raymond wanted: a good job, a wife, and a child, while Raymond had no family of his own and has been a 3^rd grade teacher ever since he graduated from college. And yet, I was not sure that Papa wanted what he had anymore. Raymond said he wished they could trade places sometimes and I wished that too. Whenever I tried to speak to Papa, I always felt like there was something behind me, or around me that caused his eyes to wander all about, though I never saw anything. On the day before my birthday I asked Papa if he knew what kind of surprise I was going to get. He told me he had forgotten it was my birthday and that I shouldn’t expect more than I deserved. The next day he left for a business trip and didn’t even leave a card or call, but Raymond did. Uncle Raymond spent the whole day with me. He bought me the prettiest pink dress, and we went out to town together. Raymond called it a date, like what mamas and papas were supposed to go on except I’d never seen my papa take my mama out before. I’d never seen Papa touch Mama like Raymond touched me. The simplest touch from Papa is now painful to me, but Raymond’s simplest gesture is gentle, his arms held me tight and when we hugged I like to smell the extra cologne he put on his shirt just for me.

When I turned eleven, Mama said we had to have a conversation together.  It was a Sunday afternoon, and she was wearing that same light blue dress with the ribbons at the back that she wore every time she went to church. She sat me down in the sitting room, which seemed appropriate with all those chairs in there and nobody ever sitting. Then she told me things about myself that I never knew before, things that were going to happen to my body and what might start going through my head.  She said I wasn’t allowed to spend any more time with Raymond. She told me that Raymond and I were very different and that it wasn’t appropriate for me to be around him anymore. I listened to as much as I could bear and nodded when I felt she needed me to, but I called Raymond after that talk with mama. When I thought she was napping, I sneaked out my bedroom window and ran down the street to meet him so he could take me out to ice cream. We both loved ice cream and always got the same flavor: Chocolate chip cookie dough, and we always let each other have a lick because one scoop might taste different, Raymond said – even though they were the same every time.

            It wasn’t until my thirteenth birthday, when Raymond bought me a diamond necklace and the most beautiful ring to go along with it, that my mama tried to end things for good.  I heard them fighting on the phone for a long time and although Mama went outside I could still hear her yelling. I sat at the table, admiring the sparkling flecks of light reflecting off my first diamond ring. I put it on the same finger Mama wore hers but I was only able to wear it for one day. When  Mama got off the phone she took it away from me, and she took the necklace too. She told me I wasn’t going to be allowed to see Uncle Raymond ever again and I was very upset that she could ruin something so beautiful. I didn’t speak to her for almost a week, until I couldn’t find the bleach for the load of whites I wanted to wash and had to ask her where it was. Mama and I didn’t talk about anything special or important together for a long time.  She had once given me life and now she was a destroyer of life, or what happiness there was to be had in it.  Sometimes I would search her room for my jewelry while she was away, but I never found anything. Though I gave up the search, I was still desperate for some communication with the only person who really loved me.

            Papa still ignored me, and I think Mama was afraid of me. I am their only daughter and yet I never was their daughter. I was only ever Raymond’s daughter, his friend, and his little lover bug as he once called me.  I tried not to forget the way he used to look at me. I tried not to forget the soft features of his face, or the way his rough and calloused hands always felt on my skin. Mama didn’t notice the broken latch on my window sill and she never found the last letter Raymond wrote to me or his last gift; she didn’t know that the earrings I wore on special occasions were real diamonds.