Broken Marilyns

I'M COMING HOME

I'M COMING HOME

Stepping out of bed, I felt the familiar crumple of notebook paper. The stuff covered my carpet. Post-its, napkins, anything within arm's-reach fell victim to my late-night psycho scribbles. I'd been working as a Researcher for the past four years and could hear my Journalism Degree crying from its fancy wooden plaque every time I helped someone else develop a story that would catapult their career.

The humid Seattle air curled in through my window screen, carrying with it the scent of Chinese food from the restaurant on the corner. Stepping out onto my balcony, I breathed in last night's rain and looked out into the city, whimsical and gritty.

My doorbell rang - a welcome distraction. Opening the door, I was immediately tackled with hugs by my co-worker and foul-mouthed friend Holly.

"Thanks for coming to help out, lady," I muttered, forcing a smile.

"I can't believe you're leaving me to go to Nevada - seriously, what the fuck?"

A house that's paid for, and reality, that's what.

"I'm gonna miss your mouth," I teased. Holly licked her lips at me and winked.

Seattle was great for twenty-something's, which I was still but didn't feel like. I'd outgrown this phase of my life. Birthdays had turned into a depressing reminder that I was going nowhere and fast. Now approaching my 30's, debauchery didn't seem as appealing as it once did.

Mom stayed in Nevada, forever chained there by Charlie's death - obsessed with it. I couldn't blame her but I was out of that town as soon as I threw my graduation cap in the air. I had to. Everywhere I went, I was followed by Charlie's ghostly whispers. "Remember, Jenna, remember." I needed to run away from myself and everything I knew.

Dread sprawled its heavy limbs across my body while I slept, waking me every hour as we wrestled with memories, demons, and uncertainty. Was I doing the right thing by moving back? Only God knew, I guess - if I believed in God, which I didn't anymore.

My last day was riddled with hugs, kisses, and encouraging words about my future. If only I'd known.

* * * *

Aldbrook, Population 14,563. I felt the finality of it all as I passed the town's wooden welcome sign to my left. Aldbrook wasn't much, but it was home. Now that I was back, I had to figure out what I wanted my new life to look and feel like. I had to rebuild myself the best I could with broken fragments.

Spinning the antique doorknob to my mom's...my house, felt surreal. The light smell of lemongrass wafted out as soon as I opened the door. I knew she was gone, but the air still felt occupied - as if at any moment my mother could come popping out of the kitchen with a cup of coffee in her favorite sunflower mug. I had to look in all the rooms just to be sure I was alone, and my heart sunk a little farther down realizing I was.

Sitting down at the kitchen table, I pulled out the pictures of my mother I'd requested from the crime scene. I had the morbid need to see her final moment with my own eyes. I needed to sort out my thoughts and anger - try to understand and make peace with what happened. It just didn't make sense. Was my mother depressed? Yes. Was she probably drunk? Yes. Would she kill herself? These pictures say yes, but the little girl inside of me says no.

What sat in the bathtub resembled my mom, but the oddly contorted body was just that - a vessel, an identity. The stuff that made her swirled around beneath crimson tap water. Her soul evaporating somewhere beyond the tiled hell that had become her tomb. My mother sat hunched to the side with her arms dangling out of the tub as if she'd changed her mind and tried to get out, leaving a bloody mess all over the white ceramic.

A flood of childhood memories permeated inside of me and I convulsed. Tears poured over things I should have said and done, as well as things I shouldn't have said and done - it all soaked my heart with a heaviness that swelled throughout my chest like a sponge. I watched the sun penetrating through the blinds, creating strips of holograms. Tiny flecks of dust danced freely in the light and I envied them.