TheBanyanTree: Rachel

[Monique Colver]

It is 2:42 in the morning, almost another Sunday, and the dog and I have
made our regular trek down the stairs and, for him, outside, and for me, to
the kitchen, where I survey the wreckage and grab a bite of brownie. By
then Ash is ready to come back in, so I open the door, make sure his feet
are clean (a habit he regards as odd, but tolerates), and we head back to
bed.

We do this most nights, though on the nights we don't I'm never sure if we
hadn't or if I just don't remember. Also, there are usually not brownies
present, but when I'm sick I am provided many things that are not good for
me.

Before plopping himself back into bed Ash has some water, but within
seconds he is sound asleep again, and so again I am left alone in my
wakefulness. It'll pass quickly though, and then I shall be asleep like
everyone else in my bed.

But first, I have questions.

Is the old woman who keeps insisting she has written books, though none can
be found, a victim of intellectual theft, or is she delusional? We suspect
she's delusional, that the dementia that has been creeping up on her like a
once jilted suitor determined to at last get his way has convinced her that
these books do exist. We could be wrong, but no one wants to admit to that.
Instead, we tell her she is mistaken, which either angers her so her cheeks
turn red and she tells us to go to hell, or saddens her, so she cries, as
if she's lost something precious.

Perhaps she has.

She lived in the house on the coast for so long, on her own, with so little
contact with the rest of the family, that none of us can say with any
certainty what she did with her time.

Even she cannot tell us, not in a manner that makes attendee. Her memories
are out of order, as if someone had spilled the card catalogue of her life
and then just threw the cards back together in whatever random order they'd
fallen in.

This is no way to live out a life, but it's the only way she has now, with
the house on the coast boarded up and she with us, in the second floor
suite I'd setup for my in-laws, who'd had the nerve to die suddenly instead
of move in with us. Just as well for Aunt Rachel though, I suppose, since
she had to live somewhere, and no one else wanted her.

I didn't particularly want her myself, I barely knew her, other than the
stories my mother had told of her, stories that seemed wild fictions at the
time.

And they still did.

Sometimes her recollections were so clear and even verifiable that I
thought the books a certainty. At other times, such as when she denied
having ever been married to Uncle Albert, denied ever knowing him, I
doubted everything she claimed as true, even those events that were part of
family history.

Uncle Albert had been my father's much older brother, and my father spoke
about him as if he were a minor deity. It was Albert who had made granddad
treat dad as a member of the family, though granddad had never wanted his
wife's bastard child in the house, much less did he want him as a coherent
reminder. but Albert had insisted, and even granddad would not defy Albert,
his favorite  oldest child.

when uncle Albert went missing all those years ago, leaving behind Rachel,
grandad was inconsolable. that's what killed him, in the end, though his
car going off a cliff certainly didn't help matters much.

but i digress. As much as I've resisted the idea that Rachel had written
any books, her insistence that she had began to gnaw at me. With Anders
working all the time and the kids off at college, I had nothing but time to
let it gnaw, and take care of Rachel. maybe it was time to visit the old
house on the coast with Rachel, see if there were any signs of any books,
see if there was any chance we could sell the house.

perhaps that was just what Rachel needed, a trip back to her past to help
her remember what was true, and what was not.

from my phone at 3:59 am. it's raining now, the sort if downpour
nonresidents suspect we have daily.