A Journey Within

6

The house still looked basically the same as it had during the years Lisa would visit her aunt. A few things were moved around, new ones were added that she didn't recognize, but basically still the same. Comfortable. Homey. Home.

Lisa always felt completely comfortable in her aunt's home. She walked from room to room looking through, remembering. Once or twice she felt as if she heard her aunt call her name and stopped mid-step to listen. Nothing. Intense sadness overwhelmed her again and she sat on Meri's sofa and cried.

Everywhere she looked, she saw Meri. In the kitchen baking a pie. In her favorite yellow chair, knitting some new something or other. When Lisa was about ten or eleven, Meri tried to teach her to knit. It never took because she could never get the hang of it. She thought about the many hours she and her aunt would sit on that very sofa, Meri's hands over hers trying to teach her the proper knitting techniques and then finally Meri would give up and tell her to run outside and play. Lisa didn't know if she really didn't try hard enough or if she just liked it because that's when she felt that she was doing something that Meri wanted her to like that she just wanted to spend that one on one close time with her that she kept subconsciously messing up on purpose in order to spend more time together. Right now she wasn't sure. When she would come back inside from playing, Meri would always have her mess cleaned up and no remnant of the thing she was working on in sight. After the probably the sixth or seventh time, Meri told her that she had given up. That some people were apparently not meant to hold a knitting needle and that someday, she would find something that she too would love and enjoy to do. Lisa was still waiting for that one. Meri still felt the loss of the closeness to her aunt from that time.

"Oh Aunt Meri. What will I do without you?" she asked the empty room.

Lisa closed her eyes, leaned her head against the back of the couch and sat like that for what seemed like forever. She felt a nudge against her side. For a moment she was too scared to look, thought maybe Meri was sitting beside her poking her with her finger as she often did to get her attention. Gathering strength to look, careful not to move her head even one bit, she opened her right eye first, though the poke was on the left, and peered around. Nothing. She took a deep breath, held it and opened her left eye, looked up, side to side at the wall in front of her and felt another poke. It was at this point she heard a low humming sound like a motor. She looked down with her left eye and caught movement just near her abdomen. The motor got louder. Lisa screamed, jumped off the sofa, ran through the dining room and into the kitchen without looking back.

Panting she stood behind the kitchen wall knowing that she got away from it whatever it was. Her hands splayed against the wall behind her, she slowly scooted toward the doorway, inch by inch. The motor at least had stopped so she felt a little less fear. Her back still against the wall, she craned her neck to look around past the dining room to the living room. There was nothing there. She felt a little more brave so she took small a small step into the dining room, making sure she was out of the view of anything that could be in the living room.

At this point, she felt a little more in charge of her fear so she stepped to the other side of the room, careful not to run into the table or chairs or make any noise at all which in a house as old as this was nearly impossible. Every step she took produced a creak sound on the floorboards so her journey to the other side felt like an eternity instead of only a few seconds. When she made it to the other side, which really was only eleven steps but felt like one hundred and eleven, she leaned hard against the wall, back, legs and arms straight, head perfectly erect then darted her eyes around the room without making a sound. Still nothing.

Again, she repeated her actions from the kitchen, side stepped to the doorway and peeked through. Nothing. She let out the breath she'd been holding since it began. She'd conquered that fear.

"That noise must have been something outside," she laughed. "I probably just moved wrong and my shirt felt like someone was poking me in the rib. It's just because I'm in the old house," she reasoned.

At that exact moment the motor started again when something rubbed against her shin. Inhaling sharply she looked down and jumped straight up. Her foot came down barely missing a grey and white cat. Lisa landed wrong and fell to the floor. The cat came and plopped itself on her lap.

Somewhere between crying and laughing, Lisa ran her hand head to tail down the back of the cat. "You scared me girl," she said though she wasn't sure if it was a girl or a boy so she checked. "Yep, a girl. I didn't know Meri had a kitty. You're a pretty thing aren't you. What's your name pretty girl?" she said. "I guess there was a lot about Meri I didn't know any more." Guilt washed over her.

A knock at the back door startled both her and the cat. By the time Lisa reached the back door through the kitchen, Angela stood inside. The looked into each other's eyes and that was all that needed to be said. At this moment, Lisa knew that this woman would be the best friend she ever could wish for and she saw that Angela knew it to. This would be her confidant. The one person Lisa would always be able to count on for the rest of her life even if she were only going to be here a short time. Lisa could feel it to her core. The air had a charge to it as if an electric current flowed between the two of them. They smiled in unison at one another. A tear fell out of Angela's left eye and down her cheek onto her blouse. Lisa's heart felt full. She audibly sighed. This may be why she came here after all.

In Angela's hands, she held a cardboard box. She placed it on the table and began to bring covered dishes out. Neither one of them spoke, they didn't need to. Lisa knew what Angela wanted without her having to say it. Angela handed Lisa a dish, she put it in the refrigerator until the box was empty. Angela threw the empty box through the back door and onto the porch. Lisa got out two bottles of water, two plates and bag of chips and pulled out two sandwiches wrapped in cellophane which Angela had just brought over. The two women sat at opposite sides of the little wooden table and as they started to eat, they started to talk.

By the time they finished their meal, they knew all they needed to know about each other. Angela was married to one of the town doctors, they had three children who were all away at college. Angela made jewelry and rented a space in the back of Meri's store. She sold her pieces both in the store and on the internet. They had many differences, yet at heart, these two women were alike in the ways that matter most.