TheBanyanTree: Rachel

[Monique Colver]

Good grief, it's a mess. The swype on my phone likes to correct my words
for me as I type. And in the middle of the night, I don't really pay
attention.



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Monique Colver
Colver Business Solutions
www.colverbusinesssolutions.com
monique.colver at gmail.com
(425) 772-6218


On Sun, Sep 29, 2013 at 9:05 AM, Gail Richards <mrsfes at gmail.com> wrote:

> I hope there's more of this!!
>
>
> -----Original Message----- From: Monique Colver Sent: Sunday, September
> 29, 2013 4:01 AM To: Banyan Tree Subject: TheBanyanTree: Rachel
> 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.
>