TheBanyanTree: Rachel

[Jena Norton]

Ditto from me.

Jena

Sent from my iPad, so blame auto correct for weird words.

> On Sep 29, 2013, at 5:13 AM, Kitty Park <mzzkitty at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Okay, Monique, you have my attention.  Get up and get back to putting down
> for us more of Rachel's story.  How about a chapter a day?
> 
> Kitty
> <mzzkitty at gmail.com>kcp-parkplace.blogspot.com
> <http://parkplaceohio.com>
> 
> 
> 
> On Sun, Sep 29, 2013 at 7:01 AM, Monique Colver <monique.colver at gmail.com>wrote:
> 
>> 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.
>>