CHAPTER EIGHT Mike
Ipulled the rental car into the driveway of my childhood home.
Not much had changed. Mom’s flowers weren’t nearly as abundant as usual due to her declining health.
The lawn needed mowing because I’d arrived home on a Saturday and the lawn service came on Mondays.
All the blinds were down and hid the interior of the house from where I sat.
Mom loved to have the windows open so a summer breeze could fill the house, so I was surprised.
Stepping out of the rental I turned to look at Cooper’s house. His folks had sold three years ago and moved to South Carolina for a job opportunity that Charla had. After going away to college, I didn’t stop by their house anymore because the heartbreaking memories were too much for me.
My eyes went to the second story where Cooper’s old bedroom window faced mine.
If we weren’t crashing at each other’s houses, we always waved goodnight after turning out the lights.
I laughed at the memory of him baring his ass to me from his bedroom one night about a month before he died.
I think that was the first time that I had seen Cooper as someone sexual, someone that was appealing to me.
The feeling scared me and I tapped it down as quickly as it had arrived in my mind.
A cat stared at me from the windowsill of his old bedroom.
Maybe I’d tell Mom in case she thought it could be a sign from the beyond.
Maybe that was who was visiting her lately.
The front door was unlocked when I tried the handle.
You could leave doors unlocked in a town like ours.
Even though Idaho Falls was the second largest town in Idaho after Boise, there were only about sixty-five-thousand inhabitants.
The town was big enough to have strip malls full of dining options and a decent theater for viewing the latest Hollywood blockbusters, but as a kid growing up, it was too small and too boring for us desperate-to-get-away teenagers.
Cooper and I wanted out when we turned eighteen.
We’d both applied to Washington State University across the border and both of us were accepted.
The university had over thirty thousand students in attendance every year, and was located in Pullman, Washington, a town with just over thirty-two thousand residents.
The ironic thing about it was that the combo of the college and the town had less folks than the town we were eager to leave.
Pullman’s population doubled every September when college began, swelling the local business and available rentals.
After Cooper died I accepted another offer to attend The University of Washington in Seattle instead. He hadn’t wanted to attend Seattle’s home university so I decided to choose WSU as well so we could remain together. But after his death, I joined Jennifer at her first choice.
“Mom, I’m here,” I yelled once I stepped inside. I immediately smelled incense burning, something I had endured my entire childhood. It was Saturday and I wondered what today’s scent was and what it meant in Mom’s belief in the otherworldly. “Mom?” I yelled again.
I rounded the corner to the kitchen and found her curled up on the sofa in the adjoining rec-room, wrapped in a heavy blanket even though August was hot with temperatures in the nineties.
“Hey, honey,” she croaked weakly. She tried to sit up but I got to her before she could muster the strength. “You caught me in a weak moment,” she began. “I’m resting up for my next adventure. The marigolds on the patio need to be dead-headed before the blooms get too ugly.”
She loved marigolds and planted them every single year.
She’d told me that in many cultures the marigold symbolizes purity, divinity, and the connection between life and death.
She regaled me with a story once about how the potent fragrance of them was thought to attract the souls of the departed.
“When I die and return, you’ll know it’s me when I mention marigolds,” she’d commented on the phone just last week.
“Still inviting the dead in, are ya?” I asked, sitting on the edge of the sofa and moving her bangs out of her eyes. Her once beautiful blonde hair was stringy and gray in color as if the hair itself had died before her final breath. “Still got your hair I see,” I teased.
“Is that what this hay is?” she responded, tugging on a few strands and checking her fingers. She motioned to a glass of water with a straw in it. “Can you?” she asked.
I lifted the glass and adjusted the straw to her mouth and waited for her to slowly take a drink.
“Now don’t be thinking your momma is done here on this plane, because I’m not.”
“I didn’t say a thing,” I argued.
“Your face says it all, son. I might be a whisper of my old self in this strange shell, but I am still as bold and wise as ever.”
“I think you’re beautiful and wonderful, Mom,” I stated. “A tad koo-koo I might add, but still my mom.”
I reached for a book on her coffee table. The title was ‘Parallel Universes And Your Place In Them’, a typical Mom read for sure.
She thumped the book with a finger. “That book has all the answers, Mikey,” she said.
“Now of course, I’ve only known about parallel universes for a couple of years.
Most people, you see, well . . . they think they’re having déjà vu when they feel like they’re reliving a familiar moment or a particular scene from their lives, when actually they’re witnessing a tear between the two worlds of their lives,” she began.
I pretended I was interested even though I’d dismissed my mother’s ideas about these things years before.
She continued, “What they were blessed to have seen was their other life in one of many universes where they also dwell.”
I turned the book over and saw an image of a woman who looked startlingly similar to Mom.
The second time in less than a week that I’d noticed her doppelganger.
Perhaps I was already looking for her and she was still here on earth with me.
They both shared a kind of ethereal glow about them.
Sure, Mom had lost a bit of her luster but her eyes mirrored her deep convictions.
“What do you suppose we’re doing in our other worlds?
” I asked. While on the flight from Seattle, I decided that I would be open to listening and sharing my mother’s passion with her while I still had the chance.
I knew these ideas were important to her, and since she was important to me, I wanted to participate.
Her eyes lit up as I imagined she was mentally exploring the vast options she’d considered before I’d asked.
Her green eyes sparkled and she released a small giggle, reaching for my hand.
“That world is incredible, son. Marigolds in every direction. A bright sun is out and I feel warm as I garden outside this very house. Dad is there of course. You and Cooper are shooting basketballs in the driveway. Not much has changed, but I am healthy and Dad is with us.”
“That seems pretty specific, Mom,” I said. “How old are we?”
“That was yesterday,” she said delightfully. “Dad is sixty-one so you and Cooper must be what, going on twenty-eight?”
“And we’re together? Me and Coop?”
“Just like always. Two peas in a pod.”
“I like that world, Mom,” I whispered, squeezing her hand. “Now tell me about today’s incense.”
Mom gave me the complete rundown on her latest Japanese incense for divine healing and what the properties of the scent did for one’s mental state as they battled illness. I placed the book about parallel universes back on the table.
“I’d like you to read that when you can, son.”
“I’ll try,” I agreed, starting to stand but she tugged at my arm knowing I was dismissing her request. “I will,” I protested. “I promise even.”
“We have homework to do, so having you read the book is important to me.”
“Okay, I will, but first let’s get you upright and find something to eat.
” I leaned over and placed her arms around my neck.
“Hold on to me,” I said. Mom scooted closer when I held her closer to me.
She weighed nothing and the blanket fell away from her upper body.
I was shocked by the reality of the situation.
Our eyes met and mine filled with tears immediately. “Mom?”
“I know, honey, but let’s not focus on what I look like, okay? Trust me, I am a whole being inside here,” she offered before wiping my eyes.
My mother was wasting away. I’d visited for a weekend three months prior but she’d probably lost another twenty pounds since then. She was a tiny woman even when healthy, but this was too much for me.
“Are you able to eat?” I asked. “Can you keep anything down?”
“Popsicles,” she blurted. “But you know what would be a real treat?” she asked.
“Tell me,” I insisted.
“How about one of your famous tuna melts?”
“Heavy on the cheddar?” I asked. “Pickle juice in the tuna?”
She held up her emaciated hand and pointed her index finger at me. “Exactly like that.”
“Coming up, Mom,” I agreed. “How about we sit out on the patio too. Can you do that?”
“Can you lift a hundred pounds?” she asked.
I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “You ain’t no hundred pounds, missy,” I teased. I stood again and flexed my arms. “And besides, I’m stronger than the last time you saw me.”
“I can see that and I’m happy you’re here, son.”
“Me too, Mom. You and I are gonna have some fun. How about that?” I asked.
“I can’t wait,” she said, giggling like a schoolgirl.
Yes, my darling mother was still in that battered body.
We had some time left and I planned on spending as much of it with her and absorbing her passion.
I could use an infusion of passion and love.
That was who my mother was. Whether in this universe or any other she may eventually dwell in.