An Inheritance

Chapter 24

When Lauren entered the kitchen, someone handed her a plate full of a variety of desserts.  She smiled and chatted with several of them, acknowledging their stories and the good works that her grandmother evidently had done.  Abby circled the legs of those standing, showing off her beautiful coat and purring in response to those that fed her bits of leftover dinner or stroked her back.  She knew how to work a room.

For Lauren, it was a relief when soon afterwards, Odilia called everyone back to the living room. When they all entered, Odilia told them to form a circle, to hold the hand of the person next to them and to bow their heads in prayer.  Sarah stood next to Lauren, looked at Odilia who nodded her head.  Sarah grasped Lauren’s hand, closing the circle.  A surge of power flowed through Lauren, the tiredness she had felt earlier dissolved.  She felt strong, she felt hope, but most of all, she felt love.  It wasn’t only the love she felt from the people here, but she knew it was from her mother, grandmother and all of her relatives she had never known.  It was only a split second, but it took her breath away.

Glancing up, Lauren saw Odilia smiling at her, along with Kathleen and a few others.  She quickly looked down again and closed her eyes.  Sarah said a prayer for Alma, their teacher and leader, and hoped for guidance and wisdom to continue where their dear friend had left off. 

With the ‘amen’, each person raised their head and dropped their hands.  One by one, they went over to Lauren and said a few words, then stooped to give Abby a final pat and walked out the door.

Sarah and Odilia were the last ones to leave.  Sarah grabbed Lauren by the shoulders and gave her a big hug and kiss.  Odilia gently touched her arm.  As they reached the door, Odilia looked back to Lauren and said.  “Think about it for a while.  Trust your instincts and you’ll know what to do.”

Lauren smiled faintly, nodded and closed the door after them, leaning against it for support.  She was completely exhausted now; partly because of the emotional stories, but mostly from the discussion she and Odilia had had earlier.  Walking into the kitchen, she was thankful that her grandmother’s friends had cleaned up everything, putting the leftovers into the refrigerator.  Her mind was tired, tired of wrestling with feelings she hadn’t known existed, all she wanted was to go to sleep.  

Looking around, she didn’t see Abby, in fact the cat had been ignoring her since she had acted so strangely earlier.  But at this point, she really didn’t care and headed straight to bed.

Gratefully she fell into an exhausted sleep immediately, but Odilia’s words replayed over and over again in her dreams.  Along with Odilia’s voice, images of her family and events that she just could not grasp swirled around her head.  They were repetitive, one minute she felt calm, safe and in control, then the next something would be chasing her and she would be running without knowing from what.   

Lauren’s heartbeats echoed through her mind.  Pictures of mothers and young teenage daughters floated around Lauren in a gentle breeze.  The picture of her and her mother settled near her while the others floated away.  Her mother reached out from the picture and Lauren was close, so close to touching her, but then her mother faded away.

Lauren jerked awake, heart pounding, gulping for air.  All of those images were still fresh in her mind and the feelings they invoked were confusing.  Some bits and pieces of her younger life were starting to form into something, but too fast, way too fast for her to fully comprehend what it meant.

She turned and reached over for Abby, but she wasn’t in her normal place.  Looking at the clock, Lauren saw that it was still too early for Abby to have wandered over to her food plate.  Getting up, Lauren walked into the next room and found Abby stretched over piles of envelopes, tail twitching and with an unapologetic look on her face.

Sometime during the night Abby had pulled out and emptied an entire drawer of her mother’s letters.  Upset, tired and cranky, Lauren lashed out at Abby.  “Abigail Labeaux!  What’s got into you?  You’ve made a complete mess of my mother’s letters and now I’ll have to go through them and get them in order again.  What possessed you to do this?”

Abby narrowed her eyes to barely a slit and showed her teeth with a glimmer of a growl, just like she had done earlier that night.  Getting up, she scratched around the envelopes as though it was her litter and then sat down in the middle.  She kept her ‘angry’ face on as she watched Lauren intently, tail swishing irritably.

Lauren felt ashamed; Abby wasn’t a destructive cat and was generally very easy to live with.  She couldn’t remember her ever behaving this way before.  Sighing, “I’m sorry Abby; I really didn’t mean to yell at you.  Why are you behaving this way?” 

Keeping at claws distance away, Lauren picked up some of the envelopes, glancing at the date stamps as she began to put them in order.  Looking up and seeing which drawer had been vandalized, she shook her head.  “Abby, these are the letters I haven’t read yet.”  Then thinking back to Odilia’s conversation she whispered  “But maybe it’s time I did”.   

Abby’s eyes became rounded and innocent.  Stretching from the tips of her toes to the tip of her tail, Abby daintily walked over the remaining envelopes and headed toward the kitchen.  Her point had been well taken.  Lauren followed to make them their breakfast, then it would be back to the letters.