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Show Perhaps a noise woke me or a bad dream. Perhaps I wanted a drink of water from the bathroom tap. Or perhaps I knew on some deep level that I was alone. I got up. The lights were on. The furniture, the random shoes, the newspaper folded by my mother's chair appeared as they had when I went to bed. Even the TV remained on, as if someone had gone for snack during a break in the evening news. I called and called for my parents. They were not there. From the kitchen to the family room and back into their bedroom, I ran from room to room searching for my parents. In the showers, under the beds, behind the closet doors, I looked for them as I had been taught by my mother to look for lost shoes or a necklace, thoroughly, by retracing your steps, and by picking things up. After a few minutes, I returned to the TV chattering in blue tones. Maybe, I told myself, my mind casting for possibilities and panic metastasizing, they were running an errand. Milk, I reasoned, or breakfast cereal. Even as I rationalized their absence, though, I knew they were dead. I knew with the same certainty that I knew upon awaking that I was alone. Within minutes, I was already testing the shores of orphanhood. I went outside. Stars are what I remember. So many stars scattered above me. At that point in my life I was seldom awake to see the night sky. Even in my panic, it was the beauty of the night that I first noticed. Standing on the sidewalk, the trade winds worrying my nightgown like water about my knees, I looked up and down the road for my parents but was met by emptiness. I thought of going across the street to our neighbors, the Kaup's, house to see if my parents were there. Maybe they were playing games, or talking, or planning our next camping trip. Maybe my parents were but footsteps away. As if by 126 |
