Sleeping Beauty
A continuation of "Black's Magic"
Daniel knew this was no fairy tale. He knew that he was neither dreaming, nor hallucinating, nor revisiting one of the many fantasies, featuring him and Mecca in assorted sexual situations, ranging from the really commonplace come-back-to-my-apartment-and-let's-fuck to the . . . slightly disturbing one where he'd fucked her at the cemetery just after his mother's funeral.
The services were over, and everyone had departed, leaving in their respective vehicles, his father and older brother included. He, alone, remained. He'd come alone, and he'd intended on leaving alone. He'd driven himself, arriving in his own time. Instead of joining the family in the front, he'd taken a seat as close to the rear as possible. He'd secretly hoped that Mecca would be seated somewhere in the crowd, but he was later informed that she couldn't come because she'd had to work. Though not there in body, she was certainly there in spirit, and her card of encouragement that he'd stuffed just inside his suit jacket gave him the little extra
push
he needed to stand up, make the long journey down the short aisle to the pulpit, where, much to everyone's surprise, he eulogized his mother.
He began slowly, uncertainly, his voice barely above a whisper. It was nothing written, nothing planned. His first memories of her, her smiles, her laughter. The birthday parties she threw for him that made him the envy of all the other kids, the special lunches she made so he wouldn't have to eat the dreaded cafeteria food, and always buying two of every toy--one to play with and one to keep Then there were the stories she read him, the music she introduced him to, the movies she let him see. Buying him his first guitar, his first car, and after totaling it, his second one.
Secretly changing his sheets while his father slept because he'd had an "accident." Staying by his bedside when a movie monster had invaded his dreams. Sitting up with him when he'd caught cold or had simply eaten too much. And then there was his extended stay in the hospital after wrecking his car.
Commanding him to go pick a switch after mouthing off to her. Taking the TV out of his room when his grades weren't up to snuff. Telling the principal off when he'd called "no good" and a "perpetual trouble-maker."
Daniel sighed.
Then there were the changes they all had to make when she got sick. There were doctor visits in Virginia. Specialist consultations in North Carolina. Radiation, chemotherapy, operations. She lost weight . . . then her hair . . . then some of her teeth. She couldn't cook for herself. She couldn't clean up after herself. She couldn't
dress
herself. He and his brother moved back home to help their father with her care, the women of their family, having lives and families of their own to tend to . . . but it wasn't enough. Defying
them
, doctor's orders and, what should have been, common sense, she tried to get out of bed while no one was watching. They'd been in the living room, watching TV, thinking she was asleep for the night.
She immediately went crashing to the floor and broke her hip.
Reluctantly, they all agreed the best place for her was a nursing home. He visited her every night after work. Watched over while she slept and kept her company when she couldn't. Sometimes she'd scream, she'd cry, she'd hallucinate. He'd try to calm her, console her, keep her from causing herself any harm.
But, eventually, the nurses in the facility found out how she'd been reacting to her meds and strapped her down to her bed. He felt some part of himself die that day, as if all goodness and light had been systematically removed from his life, leaving him hollow, hardened and sad.
Mecca, for her part, did what she could to try to keep his spirits up. Clowning around, talking trash, bringing him food, buying him this-and-that, saying she saw it and immediately thought of him. She was being . . . ridiculously sweet, and he'd felt kind of heartless for not being more demonstrative towards her, but . . . he was losing the only woman who'd ever
really
loved him, and he was having a hard time seeing beyond that.
She'd tried to distract him on one particular occasions, asking him to go out with her and teach her how to play pool. She'd never played, she'd said, and had heard he was quite good. But he'd kindly (and with some degree of embarrassment) refused, choosing to sit up with his mother, instead. The doctors kept saying "it wouldn't be long," and if he missed her passing for
any
reason, he wouldn't be able live with himself.
However, he lived to regret that particular decision after learning that it had been Mecca's birthday, and she'd spent it sitting alone in a bar because she'd been so certain he'd say yes.
His mother had lasted another six months.
Daniel sighed again, digging his dull nails into the palm of his hand, trying to assuage the growing sadness in the center of his chest. He was
not
going to cry. He was
not
going to freak out the female currently laying beside him by punching the headboard, cussing at the top of his lungs and banging his head against the wall . . . though he was almost certain that was the
only
thing that would make this awful ache subside and fade.
In his dream, the one in the cemetery, as in real life, he'd stayed by his mother till she was safely in the ground, tucked in by a heavy blanket of dirt. The gravediggers left, the sun was setting, and he was alone. He kept standing there, staring at the raised patch of earth, trying to reconcile
it
with all the images he still had of his mother. He felt oddly . . . detached from
it
and everything around him. It was as if he'd fallen asleep and woken up in some hellish alternate reality where everything was exactly the same as the previous day, except something, no,
someone
was missing.
He knew how things would go. They'd watch him and whisper, asking his father how he was doing, too afraid to talk to him directly, fearing he'd break down, lash out or some other unsettling but expected reaction. They wouldn't mention her name, they wouldn't ask anything of him, they'd simply sit and stare, waiting for his inevitable collapse.
He'd watched her die, after all, and planned every detail of her services and burial. He didn't sleep, he didn't eat, and only left her side when the morticians had to do their state-mandated duty.
Everyone kept watching and waiting. He was "the baby," after all, and was fully expected to take it worse than everyone else. But, he held it together. He maintained his composure and managed to hold his head high despite the weight of his grief.
But here, alone in the dying light, he had nothing left to prove and no one to prove it to. It was quite warm, here in the night air. Stars were shining. Crickets were chirping. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear the gravediggers locking up, laughing as they discussed their plans for the rest of the night.
Then it was quiet. So
very
quiet. Like the hospital room after his mother finally stopped screaming and seizing, and she just laid there. Still. Quiet. Silent.
His father had immediately bolted from his chair and started screaming about calling a nurse and getting a doctor. His oldest sister tried to calm him down by burying her face in the crook of his neck, telling him it was over, and she was gone. It felt as if the room had dropped 20 degrees in temperature, and Daniel had to wrap his arms around himself to keep from shivering. It was cold now, and that particular moment in time was forever frozen into his memory.
"Get a doctor," his dad kept saying.
Daniel covered his face with his hand and went down on one knee, too tired to stay upright. "Shit," he heard himself say.
"Lose something?"
His head snapped up at the sound, quickly searching out its source as he ran his hand down his cheeks. Thankfully, his face was still dry. "Mecca?" he remained kneeling on the ground.
She stood there, dressed in white, a single white rose in her hand. "I would've been here earlier, but I had to work. Terri told me where . . . uh . . ." she seemed to be fumbling for the right words, not wishing to offend him or further upset him, he supposed. "Where uh," she gestured to the raised earth, the headstone and all the other plots around them.
She cursed under her breath, rolled her eyes (which were blue that day) and just spat it out. "Where they buried your mom!" She quickly covered her mouth and closed her eyes, apparently horrified at how loudly she'd just spoken and how her voice echoed time and time again around the vacant grounds.
Involuntarily, he cracked a smile. It was very rare that she ever misspoke. "Laid to rest," he mildly corrected her.
She lifted the hem of her sundress and knelt beside him. She was wearing those gladiator sandals again that wrapped all the way up to her knees, and she smelled of cocoa butter and coconut oil. One scent emanated from her skin, the other from the tight ringlet curls in her hair. In truth, this was the closest he'd ever been to her, and even though he knew this was a dream, and she was only here because he wanted her to be, he couldn't help feeling slightly claustrophobic, as if she'd moved too close too fast.
"I really suck it this," she said, tossing the rose on the pile of dirt. "Funerals and . . . stuff. I'm always afraid of saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing and making the person feel a million times worse than they already do and," she drew in a deep breath, "I wasn't even gonna come. I mean, I went to the wake yes-- Wait. Ya'll call it a
viewing
, don't you? But, anyway, I'd already offered my condolences and handed out the cards and--"
"I liked it," he cut her off.
She merely stared at him.
"The card," he clarified. "Every other one was 'sorry about this,' 'sorry about that.' In your time of grief, in your time of loss, in your time of sorrow. With our sympathy, with our
