A Journey Within

7

 When night finally arrived, Lisa couldn't believe how tired she was. Not only from her trip, but from her memories. She climbed into the cast iron bed in the bedroom upstairs that she always used when she visited Aunt Meri. She couldn't even think about sleeping in Meri's room. The walls were covered with faded yellow sunflowers from floor to ceiling. She recalled when she was around sixteen or so and Meri had asked her what her favorite flower was and she told her she didn't really have a favorite one, but if she had to choose, she'd pick sunflowers because they were happy and stand tall and proud.

The next time she visited, Meri had special ordered the sunflower wallpaper and it adorned every wall surface in the entire room. In all the years, Meri never changed it. The white background had faded and the colors had become less vivid, but it was still the happiest room in the house according to Lisa. Lisa slept more soundly than she had in a long time.

As she lay in bed still half asleep after her first her full night of slumber in a long time, she thought she heard a noise come from downstairs. When after she was still a few minutes and the noise didn't come again, she figured she had just imagined it or better yet, figured it was probably the cat so she closed her eyes again to try to grab a few more minutes of rest before the day fully began. But when the smell of coffee permeated her brain, she knew she hadn't imagined it and that she was not alone in the house. Back home in her apartment she would have been afraid, but here at Aunt Meri's where life seemed magical and she always felt safe. She knew she was fine. Besides, what kind of mad burglar would come in and make coffee? It was probably Angela or one of the other ladies she'd met yesterday. Lisa pulled on her robe and tied a scarf around her bed hair, opened the creaky solid wood door and made her way downstairs.

"Angela, you didn't have to make coffee. I would have found everything," said Lisa as she walked through the kitchen threshold. What she saw there stopped her in her tracks in the doorway. It was the back of a solidly built, tight jeans, flannel shirted, cowboy hat and boot clad all-American man. Lisa couldn't move. He was standing at the stove making something that smelled suspiciously like eggs and bacon. The man either heard her or sensed her presence and turned around.

They stared at each other for a moment. He took off his hat and said, "You must be Lisa. Coffee's done. Eggs will be ready in a minute. Pour yourself a cup and have a seat."

Lisa nodded. She couldn't speak yet, so she did as the strange man said. Surely he couldn't be dangerour. After all, he knew her name. This Missouri sure was turning out to be full of surprises.

He placed a plate full of eggs, bacon, toast and hash browns in front of her then got one for himself and sat across from her. She watched him hang his cowboy hat on the back of his chair, smile at her and then procede to eat his breakfast. She couldn't take her eyes off him as she robotically ate and drank simultaneously mimicking his movements. She still couldn't make herself say anything. Who was this man and why was he making her breakfast in her dead aunt's kitchen? Had her aunt taken a younger lover?

The man must have picked up on her questions either telepathically or from the way she stared at him as they both ate.

"Name's Sam. Meri probably mentioned me," he said.

Lisa shook her head.

"Well, no matter. I do odd work on the farm for Meri. I mean for you, now. I've got a farm a few miles down the road. Meri and I had breakfast together once a week. I miss the old gal so I thought I'd come and meet you and welcome you with a country breakfast," he said matter of fact.

Still unable to form a complete thought, she kept eating. He looked at her, waiting for a response and when none came, shrugged then resumed his breakfast. During this time, Lisa tried not to make any eating sounds at all. She didn't know why she cared, but damn it she didn't want to draw any more attention to herself than absolutely necessary. It also gave her something to think about other than this good looking cowboy sitting across the table from her eating breakfast. Ask anyone and they'd say it would be uncomfortable she reasoned.

Sam finished his breakfast first. Try as she might, Lisa couldn't keep up without having choked herself. Still not speaking, he took his dishes to the sink and left them there. He grabbed his cowboy hat and walked out the door with no goodbye or anything which was just fine with Lisa. She finished her delectable breakfast, she had to admit, the man could cook, stood up, took her dishes to the sink and started to wash them.

"I can't believe he waltzes in here uninvited, helps himself to food and then has the audacity to leave me his dishes," said Lisa as she washed then dried them. "Typical man." She could feel her face heating up and turning red with anger. Either that or a hot flash. Sometimes she wasn't sure. Damn it all.

Having washed, dried and put away the morning's dishes, Lisa decided she needed to tackle some of her aunt's personal papers and later, she figured she should go into town to the store and see what she might need to do there. Maybe one of the ladies would be there to show her around a little bit and help her out.

When she opened her aunt's desk, she couldn't believe the mess she found. A paper slipped to the floor. She bent to pick it up, hit her head on the corner of the desk when she raised back up.

 
"Oh what the hell." Her scarf fell off and she put ot on the desk top. She reached up to feel the back of her head, rubbing her hands through the top of her hair hoping she did not cut her head open.

The rest of the house was kept neat and orderly. Nothing out of place. No dust, no muss, no fuss her aunt used to say. Lisa could hear her saying it in the sing-song voice she liked to use when she was silly. But this, this was something else. This was, well, she didn't even have a word for what this was, but unbelievable came to mind. Originally she thought going through her aunt's papers would be the easiest part because she was so organized, but now, she knew sorting this stuff out was going to take a lot longer than she planned and right now, she didn't want to deal with it so she shut the door to the rolltop desk, turned and walked out of the room determined to start somewhere else. 

Maybe Aunt Meri's room. Lisa stood outside the door for several minutes before she got up the nerve to go in and face the ghosts of her memories. She reached out and turned the glass handled knob ever so slowly and pushed the door open a little bit. Just enough that she could stick her head in if she wanted to and peer straight ahead while at the same time holding on to the door so that it couldn't be yanked out of her hands. Yanked by who she didn't know, she just knew she felt safer this way.

When she found she couldn't see anything other than a chest of drawers lined with photographs, she opened it a little more. Slowly and scarcely a few centimeters at a time until she got tired of her own fear and threw the door wide open. "Aaahhhh!" she screamed. Directly in front of her stood a crazy looking face surrounded by streaming white hair. The eyes seemed to be popping out at her. The mouth opened wider as if to emote bone shattering sounds. Lisa slammed the door closed to shut in the apparition and ran down the hall to the bathroom, frantically pulled the door shut behind her and made sure it was locked. There was nothing to put in front of the door so Lisa threw her back against it to help keep it closed. Her thundering heart felt as if it were about to explode through her chest.

After several minutes of panting while trying to catch her breath, her pounding heart slowed back to normal and she calmed herself enough to listen for footsteps in the hallway or scratching at the door. She'd read somewhere that ghosts sometimes scratched the door to try to drive the living insane. Nothing. No noise whatsoever. Through the passage of time and silence, her fear started to dissipate and her rational mind tried to take over.

"There are no such things as ghosts," she tried to convince herself. "It had to be my imagination or maybe just a picture," she said. She moved to the sink to throw some water on her face and get a hold of herself. After she splashed and dried, she looked in the mirror. Her eyes became wide with horror. There she was again, the wild face. The crazy hair. Lisa started to laugh. She stared at her own reflection and realized what must have happened. She'd obviously seen herself in her aunt's make-up table mirror. Now the face in the mirror laughed with her and it didn't look quite as scary any more. Well, mostly she thought and laughed harder. After she got control of herself, walked back down the hallway to her aunt's room to sit amongst Meri's things and remember the good times. And now that she'd been here for a day, she was starting to remember more and more and her sadness and loneliness was slowly starting to fade a bit and in its place, Lisa started to feel a little peace.