The doorbell rang for the second time.
Felicia stood, her hand grasped the doorknob with white knuckled resolve not to turn it, open it, and answer it. As if holding back the evil that stood behind it, this door was her only protection from what was out there. She wasn't expecting anyone or anything. Who could it be, she wondered? Her panic loomed larger than her sanity. Anxiety controlled her and she was frozen in place with apprehension.
Suddenly, the door grew larger and claimed her, she imagined. The door dominated her. This inanimate door took on a life of its own breathing, seething, pulsating, and nearly bursting open to claim her and the inside of her house as part of the evil that was beyond this closed and locked front door.
She leaned forward and looked out through the peephole, but there was no one there.
"Who is it?" she said through the door. No one answered. "Who is it?" she asked again without response and adding to her growing consternation.
This is the door she hid behind. So long as she kept this door closed and locked from what was out there, she was safe. This is the door that sheltered her and saved her from reality and from the heaviness of the outside world. This is the same door she crumbled against and wept when they gave her the worst news, not once, but twice. Maybe, this time, the door had come for her. This was her door of death and maybe by not opening it, again, she would live. Yet, hiding behind this door and locked away in her house was not living. She was the walking dead.
She never left her house anymore. With the proceeds realized from her husband's insurance policies, there was no reason to go out there anymore. She had everything she needed delivered to her front door, paying for it by credit card in advance, and peering out the peephole and talking through the door.
"Leave it on the stoop, please." And go away, she wanted to add, but didn't.
Never was there anything good behind this door. It was once the door to the outside world and to the life that flourished on the other side, now this was the doomsday door of her self-imposed prison. It was the door that those who wanted to gain access to Felicia stood behind and left finally when she stood on the inside looking out through her peephole to see who it was. Her family and friends came in droves wanting to talk to her, console her, and comfort her. One by one, those who came, and who weren't allowed in, never returned.
She feared more bad news. There was no reason for her to open this damn door. She remembered when she opened the door and saw the two sergeants resplendent in their uniforms standing on her doorstep serious in their mission but with sympathy in their heart for another fallen soldier, their comrade in arms. He was a hero, they told her, but she stopped listening to their words after they said that her husband was dead. How can this happen twice? First her husband and now her son, this loss is too much to bear.
No one came to her door anymore after paying their respects for first her husband and a year later her son. She hadn't come to terms with having her husband taken from her and now her son. The best parts of her were blown to bits in the desert of a land of terrorists and suicide bombers. It was all beyond comprehension why strangers would kill her family. She died, too, only she hadn't fallen down yet. She was still standing, still breathing, and still grieving.
Now, weeks later, no one called her after telling her how sorry they were for her loss. They were done consoling a grieving widow for the loss of her husband and a grieving mother for the loss of her son. They had done their duty as relative and friend. What more could they say that hasn't been already said? There was nothing more they could do. There was nothing they offered she wanted.
Besides, she wouldn't allow them entry by her locked front door. She didn't want their sympathy. She didn't want their food. She didn't want them in her house. She wanted her husband and her son. She wanted to be left alone with her pain. Though they were done and Felicia was now free to live with the inconsolable pain every day, they continued on with their lives, while she stayed home, mourning and losing more of her mind.
"Tick, tick, tick..." The clock on the mantle kept time of life. She knew how long she had lived; she didn't know how much longer she had to live with this pain, suffering, and misery. More than once she thought of suicide. Only, she couldn't do it.
She was glad that before her husband left for war that she gave him a night of passion to make him want to take the extra care he needed to return home to her. Only, the terrorists had other plans for her husband and blew him to pieces at a security checkpoint. There was not much left of him to bury in his flag draped coffin.
Her son, so much like his father, thought that he could avenge his Dad by killing them. The vehicle he was riding was one without armor plating. Her outrage in losing her son to budgetary cutbacks and lack of concern from those same politicians who, with their words of rhetoric and waving flags, had sent her men to fight their war was silenced by the political pressure of more useless words and ineffective action to end the war and bring them home. Congress quietly swept there misdeeds under Washington's rug and the public quickly forgot about it when headline news replaced that with another Britney Spears scandal.
Everything was so perfect. They had a good life. They were so happy. Her husband had a good job and did his duty to his country as a reservist after serving in the Gulf War. He never figured he'd be called to active duty again before 911 happened when the twin towers fell in a deadly dust that devoured every American and deterred every thought with revenge. When she kissed him and waved her good-bye, as he boarded that plane, pride in her husband doing the right thing for their country replaced the thought that she'd never see him alive again.
When her husband died, when they told her the news of his death, after everyone had abandoned her leaving her alone to her misery, she only had her son left to console. They had one another. They were the only ones who really knew what it was like to lose someone they loved so much.
She felt guilty for going to his room that night. In hindsight, she felt deeply disturbed for doing what she did with her son. Only, she wasn't thinking right. Never would she have done what she did otherwise. All this time, while her son was away at war, she felt guilty for showing her son more love than a mother should. Now, that he is gone too, she was glad that she had given him what he wanted and what she needed.
Every night, she heard her son crying at the loss of his Dad. She tried being the brave one as best as she could. She tried being his strong parent. Only, she was human, too, and she succumbed to her weaknesses. She needed someone to hold her, but there was no one there, just her and her son. And now he was leaving her, too.
She relived what she did every day since her son left for war with guilt and remorse. Now, she relives it with satisfaction and happiness. She did what not many mothers would do. She slept with her son. Only, she no longer thinks of it in those terms. Now, she remembers is as, she comforted her son.
It was late and she couldn't sleep. She heard her son having another nightmare. Normally, she'd go to his room, sit next to him, and rub his back and whisper the things she did when he was a baby twenty years ago. Only, this night, she needed someone to hold her and to whisper the things that she needed to hear.
She stripped off her nightgown and in the light of the full moon; she went to her son's room naked. It wasn't a sexual thing, she thought, until they started getting in to it more sexually and when they both had an orgasm. As soon as she did, the guilt overwhelmed her as much as the grief. Now, she felt dirty, vile, and wicked. How could she do that to her son? She was his mother. She felt that she had used her son instead of comforted him. She felt weak and just as evil as what awaited her outside that locked, front door.
Before that, her reasonable but twisted logic prevailed telling her that it was just what a mother needed from her son after the loss of her husband and what a mother needed to give to her son after the loss of his father. Truly, she had feelings of innocent love and not sexual lust. In her grief, she had convinced herself that she was doing the right thing. For a while, she believed that until guilt consumed her grief. Yet, now, she is glad she did what she did hoping that the last thoughts of her husband and son were of her.
She pulled the covers back enough for her to get beneath them and in bed with her son. As soon as she did, she felt horny. As soon as she did, she had gone beyond the point of no return of the relationship of mother and son. She just wanted to hold him, she said to herself in her efforts to convince herself to go through with this. She just wanted to feel the warmth of his body against hers. She never thought of it as a sexual thing, until she stripped off her nightgown before entering his room and her selfish desire replace her reason. Besides, it was too late because now she was there in bed with her son naked. It sounded like a good plan when she was alone in bed. It was more for comfort than it was for pleasure, she convinced herself to believe.
Only, it quickly escalated and sexual gratification encompassed the both of them with their passion, lust, and desire for one another. Nonetheless, it was something that they both truly needed at that time and it was okay at that moment. For that moment in time, she was not his mother and he was not her son but two grieving, needy people who needed some solace from their sadness and suffering.
She was so cold and her son's body was so warm. She spooned him and as soon as she did, she knew that he was naked, too. He felt so firm and so strong. He felt how her husband used to feel before beer and fast food fattened his body and lack of exercise eroded his muscles. She felt comfort in hearing his breathing and in feeling the beat of his heart. With her breasts pressed against his broad back, the feeling of him in her arms was electric and for a moment, the sensation of him made her forget her grief. With thoughts of her Honeymoon night, she pretended that her son was her husband. The feelings of holding him replaced her feelings of sorrow. He gave her peace for the first time since those soldiers appeared at her door and she felt that she was doing the same for him, too, as he was finally sleeping peacefully without that frightening nightmare.
They lay there for some time before he noticed her. He reached his big hand behind him and touched her knee up to her thigh and continued higher feeling her hip. The gentle touch of him felt good and released the womanly feelings in her. It was something that she needed. When he turned towards her, she didn't turn away. She hugged him and kissed his cheek and neck.
