THE VOICE OF REASON
Part of the Paranormal Shorts
By Rome
Copyright 2011 Rome
She had been at it again. It showed in the way she ambled around, in the manner she’d speak incoherently, her body no longer in synch and her soul, warped of the timeless charm and life she had always exemplified. Her mother was on the verge of a horrific breakdown and she knew it. So many times she would cry, sometimes quietly, sometimes hopelessly and many times more, she would just shut herself holed up with only bottles of ill smelling hard liquor to tide her life away.
Mary felt a little tear trail off the corner of her eyes. Not too much, just a little when her heart would feel that stab of pain at what stood before her now. She was still confident that better times lay ahead but each time she saw her drunk, she felt the anger seethe within her that her mother wasn’t trying hard enough the way she and Gillian did. If she raised the topic on Alcohol Anonymous, it would cause a fury in the house and Gillian would cry, much more than she ever wished. Gillian was the meek one who took after her father. She was the tough one, the one who was really like her mother. It was the way they were made of, each stamped with the genetic makeup that their parents had bequeathed upon them.
“Mama, stop drinking that damn stuff! You are killing yourself, why don’t you listen?” she cried out as she wrenched the bottle of bourbon from the broken woman’s hands.
She noticed it was half full and a purchase her mother had made recently to the booze store. It was where the money went these days. Into drinks and more drinks again to tide away the painful loss that was still seething through each one of them. Mama had her way of reacting to that bit of pain and so did she and Gillian, but Mama was killing herself into a drunken stupor ever so often it was making her into something she never was.
There were no lessons to prepare one for the loss of a loved one and Mama fared the worst of them all in the way she coped.
“Give me that bottle Mary. I am warning you!’ she pouted out loud, her clothes looking disheveled and her body language, terribly sour.
Mary watched her mother solemnly as she blinked hard at the sight of the bottle wrenched so fast from her. She stood up to grab the bottle but tilted back, her heels losing grip as she fell backwards into the comforting arms of the soft couch behind. It was the same couch they had for years and the same couch Dad sat on with all his girls on it. Now, it would be empty with one spot yet to be filled.
Mary bit her lips. She would stay strong. She would for Mama and Gillian. Someone had to.
“You are just a child. What do you know about how it feels in here?” she hollered, angry now as she hit her hand on her chest then slumped back into the sofa, groaning, making little sense of herself again.
Mary watched her mother sink in, feeling the pain crested deep within her. She knew the feeling. Couldn't Mama see that in her too? But life still had to go on right? That’s what she had been told a long time ago by Dad. That life always took a step forward regardless of the odds.
She fought hard to contain that sudden pain that hit her. Everything boiled down to what Dad said. Everything and yet, he had become nothing more than a figment of their weary imagination. He was gone and she knew how Mama felt but didn’t Mama know that life had to go on? Didn't Mama learn from Dad that life was always going to go on no matter what the odds were? Why couldn’t Mama realize that essential fact? There was a reason for everything to happen the way it did even if it meant without Dad by them anymore. That’s what Dad had always told her time and time again. Surely, he had said the same to Mama too?
She felt her mother’s eyes bore on her again, her face questioning, wondering what her thoughts were. It was the same look that told Mary that she had simply gone too far with her words and her ways. She felt her face soften seeing more wet tears stain the face of the older woman. She wished Mama would just come around somehow.
She could only wish. When Mama called her hard sometimes, cocky at times, it wasn’t that she didn’t care but she realized she had to fortify herself to make up for all the shortcomings Mama had been making off late. Someone had to be strong and to make it work in a home where three girls now lived.
“Gimme that Mary darling! I need it!”
Mary looked at her Mama. She would not flinch. Can't Mama see that? Not this time. But deep down, she wondered what had sapped the strength and conviction of the woman who had always provided an inspirational hope for their little family.
Gloria Percy was once the wife of a celebrated captain, at least up until July 14, 2008. She was a woman who glorified herself as a soldier’s wife, who preached that the love of the country stood before all but today she looked a complete wreck. She missed Brad, she had said. Not once, not twice but every single time his memory popped into her head like a broken record playing the pieces of the past. And like a machine gun, she would rattle of the days when they courted, chuckling somewhat at the time when they spent the whole afternoon eating ice cream and chalking his father’s AMEX charge card in a restaurant that sat in the plushiest section of their small town. And Mary remembered the restaurant. It still sat today the same way it did since the time Mama and Dad had courted.
“Stop killing yourself this way Mama. Please Mama,” she begged her eyes misting now as she sat down next to the sad woman.
"I can't Mary. It hurts too bad."
For once, Mama calmed down and Mary felt sorry. It hurt when one fought the salty tears back and she knew why. Two weeks more and Mama would have to walk her way to the grave again, her head up high and her body firm when they paid respect to the call that saluted her husband as a war hero, a patriot to the cause of the country. Mary did not think her mother was ready to go through the ceremony yet. Somehow, Gloria Percy still needed to understand that life was about living even without him by them anymore. Perhaps when that understanding became clear, life would be more tolerable and livable for all three of them.
Mary remembered the day when the officers stopped by their house, all dressed in their military gear, looking so fastidious and yet with the look of heartfelt sorrow spelt all over their handsome, chiseled faces. They had come to tell them news no soldier’s family wanted to hear. And when they brought her father home from Iraq in a box, she could not quite remember the man that had once held her so firmly in his hands and told her all those pretty stories that only a loving father tells his daughter. The bedtime stories that promised her everything in life if she did it right all the time, became glassy spoofed tales to tell now. Of course, he was a valiant soldier who fought for his country, a man who gave his life to preserve the American cause but he was also the same man who was dearly missed and loved beyond words could tell.
Now he was just gone, rudely taken with six blasted shots in his body and left to rot six feet under. They were told his life was to be celebrated each year amidst loud bugle calls, his name etched in a commemorative stone that housed and shared the names of all those who lost their lives in a battle gone awry. And when that day came two weeks from now, Mary decided she would read him the very book he captivated her with when she was a little girl. It was the story of the little cinder girl who waited for the day when a fairy godmother finally gave her the chance to meet a Prince who would whisk her off to a better life ahead. She promised to tell him that same story only she wondered if God had whisked him to a better life away from them. She hoped not because she missed him plenty and she would be sure to tell him that if he could still hear her. She felt the burst of sudden hot tears coursing down her cheeks.
It happened so quickly and so suddenly and for once, Mary realized she too wa
s vulnerable. That she too could not contain the painful memory of losing her father. She remembered that each time he was home, they would rush out to the sea to enjoy the breath of natural sea salted air that he had said made life so refreshing and so untainted. It was their own time together when Daddy would tell her about being a big, brave girl and doing the right thing. He wanted her to do law, to be somebody one day and she had promised him she would.
But Daddy was so wrong indeed. Life was so tainted and in ways he would never know. The roots of pain had already sunk into their lives, in ways that destroyed Mama and Mary was not sure if she would get out of her own hole. Indeed, she was strong in spirit but each time she saw Mama, she felt the urge to simply sink in the way