TheBanyanTree: Rachel

[Monique Colver]

Well, yeah, because if I type on anything else at 3 am it disturbs the
other occupants of the bed.

I've got to do some work now, but here's the first part again, and the
second part.

_______________________________________________________________________
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
suspectshe's delusional, that the dementia that has been creeping up
on her like aonce 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 that.
Instead, we tell her she is mistaken, which either angers her so her
cheeksturn 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
anycertainty what she did with her time. We were busy with our own
lives.

Even she cannot tell us, not in a manner that makes sense to us. 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. Her stories start with her death, and go backwards
and then forwards again, and sometimes, often, there are pieces that must
be total fabrication. We can say with certainty that she has not visited
the red planet, but we cannot say for certain that she once lived in San
Francisco. We know she has not been to the Saharan dessert, or we’re fairly
certain, but perhaps she did grow up in a small stucco house with tyrants
for parents and a dog named Harry.

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
floorsuite 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 thetime.

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
deniedhaving ever been married to Uncle Albert, denied ever knowing
him, I
doubted anything 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 had
spoken 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 constant 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 Rachel behind
and alone, 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
Andersworking 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. The cost of her care
was straining our budget, and Anders had suggested we, or she, sell while
she still had enough sense to sign the papers.

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

_________________________________________________________



We left on a Monday morning in the Suburban, Rachel propped up in the
passenger seat like an excited child. When I’d packed a bag for her, she’d
been upset, but once I explained where we were going, back to her house,
and that we were both going, she calmed down. Calm, for Rachel, means less
agitation than normal, but it certainly isn’t calm by any other standard.

“I thought you were sending me away,” she’d said, her lower lip pushed out
petulantly, as if she were 10 years old. “I thought you didn’t want me
anymore.”

I’d never wanted her, but I didn’t say that. “Of course not, Rachel, I just
thought this would be fun for us, to go see your house.” I didn’t add that
it was time to think about selling it, because the last time Anders and I
had mentioned it to her she’d said that was impossible, that there was no
way she could sell the family home.

Granddad had grown up in the house, and before that his father had grown up
in it. He’d left when he was 18, going first to war, then to the east to
live with his wife and his new family. He’d never returned, not even when
his father had died, nor his mother. He’d said he had no interest in seeing
them again, that they’d put him through enough before he’d left home. But
then he’d had an empty house he didn’t care for, and so he gave it to his
oldest son, Albert, and Albert’s wife, Rachel.

None of us cared for it, except for Rachel. It was on the northern coast of
California, perched above the ocean, in an area that was sparsely
populated. It was desolate, despite the ocean, and it was old, and in need
of repairs, or it had been the last time I had been there, and there was
bound to be little change in the intervening years since Rachel had come to
live with us.

We had a local look in on it now and then, and the last emailed report had
been dismal. “The roof needs some work. And the siding. The cemetery needs
some cleaning up too.”

The cemetery. A dismal little plot of land next to the house that had a
stunning view of the ocean and old worn tombstones leaning every which way
but up. The family cemetery, with family Granddad had run from, people none
of us knew. It was overrun with weeds, because no one cared, and if the
buried minded, they weren’t saying.

“The family house has to stay in the family,” Rachel had said, “Maybe David
will want to move there, after college, or Jenny.”

I was fairly certain that neither of them would. They loved the city, they
might end up in San Francisco, but no one would want that old house, far
from any sort of civilization.

We drove for six hours, stopping for In and Out burgers on the way. Rachel
ate her French fries slowly, examining each one before consuming it,
eschewing ketchup and pronouncing the fries a bit salty, but edible. She
ate half her hamburger, and said she’d save the rest for later. “No,
Rachel, we’ll get you something to eat later, but we’re not taking a
half-eaten hamburger with us.”

She’d glared at me, as she often did, and said, “Waste not, want not.”

“Right,” I agreed. There was no use arguing with her; she would forget all
about it in half an hour, or less.

She talked as I drove, her ability to talk far greater than her ability to
make sense. “There’s no stop sign on the highway,” she’d say, and “I don’t
know why you never liked me,” and “I miss Albert.” I stayed silent. I had
no response for any of it. It was peaceful, driving with Rachel, because
she expected nothing from me. And nothing is what I gave her, except when
she talked of her books.

“I wrote those books, you know, eight of them, and they were good, but then
they were stolen from me, and I never could find them again. And no one
helped me find them.”

“We’ll look for them at the house, Rachel.”

“They’re not there, I’ve looked. They were taken from me.”

“We’ll look anyway, maybe you just forgot where you put them.”

She turned to the window then, her lower lip set, and muttered, “You never
believed me.”

I couldn’t argue with that.

We drove up Highway 1, so far north there was very little traffic, and very
little in the way of anything that wasn’t nature. Farther inland there were
farms, and country stores, and vast expanses of nothing at all, but here,
at least, was the ocean, blue and white and green, the waves lapping at the
shore. It would have been nice, if the house hadn’t been sitting at the end
of our drive.

At last we pulled off the highway, and into the driveway of the house, and
Rachel clapped her hands together, smiling for the first time in hours. I
smiled too, unable to help myself. She was so happy to see her house, the
house she’d lived in with Albert and then, when he’d gone, by herself.

They’d never had children, so it had been just the two of them, and then
just Rachel, on her own, for thirty years.

*
*
*We appreciate your referrals!*

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


On Sun, Sep 29, 2013 at 11:23 AM, Kitty Park <mzzkitty at gmail.com> wrote:

> You typed this on your PHONE??  I would have lost my thought before I got
> through the first sentence.
>
> So "clean it up" later; right now your audience is itching for the next
> episode!
>
> Kitty
> <mzzkitty at gmail.com>kcp-parkplace.blogspot.com
>  <http://parkplaceohio.com>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Sep 29, 2013 at 1:45 PM, Monique Colver <monique.colver at gmail.com
> >wrote:
>
> > 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.
> >
> >
> >
> > *
> > *
> > *We appreciate your referrals!*
> >
> > 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.
> > >
> >
>