One Lifetime Only

The Circus

We spent the rest of the day with our mother. It was the first time we actually acted like a real family in a year and a half. Since our father died. Eliot and I couldn't get enough. We were on our very best behavior worried that if we did something to make her angry the moment of happiness would end.

We watched cartoons, ate lunch, played games, and read stories together. There had never been a more perfect afternoon. There wasn't anything extravagant about it, no adventures, no trips outside, and no gifts. But our mother spending time with us was the best gift she could have ever given us.

Later, Eliot and I were on the floor in the family room playing with some old toys we had; wooden blocks, a train set, and some small race cars. Everything in the past had been forgotten and we willingly stepped to whatever the feature held. We had our mother back. She sat in a big cushioned arm chair under a reading lamp in the corner of the room. Our fathers chair. I can remember the days when he read us stories as we sat on his lap in that big chair. Our mother looked on from the kitchen as she prepared dinner. We were a vision of the perfect family. After father died the chair sat in the corner cold and unused until our mother rested in it and stared out of the large window next to it with a lost look on her face, like she was trying to see something far away and could just barely make it out.

Now, I see that she was arguing with herself. Struggling between right and wrong. At the time we didn't know it, but our mother had gotten into trouble far beyond anything she could have thought. The drugs and alcohol had taken control of her life and she was sinking, fast. That's why she went from man to man. Each promised the world to her. They soon got stuck in her downward spiral and by the time they got out, it was to late. She had brought them down to her level dragging them through the dirt and mud of her emotional ruin. Each deadly relationship took something from her because she took so much from them.

She had nothing, physical or otherwise. There was no money left in the banks and what little she did have, she kept stuffed under her mattress or in the cushions of the couch. She had been losing her mind too. Eloit and I would hear her talking to herself when she thought no one was around. She panicked. There where times she would throw things around the hose screaming until her voice gave out. The first time we saw her do it, I wanted to run down the stairs and stop her. She was hurting herself, digging herself a deeper grave to lie in. I wanted to be the one to save her. But if there had been something left of her sanity, Henry had taken it away.

She had us though, but apparently we weren't worth keeping.

"Mama?" I said when I noticed she wasn't watching us play anymore. Eliot caught on to my alarm and we both went to sit cross legged on the floor in front of her chair. We looked up at her with fear in our eyes. We could feel that our little bubble of happiness was going to pop, but our eyes also pleaded for it to last a little longer. If only it could have lasted forever.

Our mother looked down at us. "Don't worry darlings," She said in a soothing but distant voice. Our mother could always read our faces like books and knew exactly what to say. But there was a faint tremor in her voice that planted a small seed of doubt in me. I ignored it. I was naïve and wanted the perfect happy ending that all fairy tails had. Things like that had to happen in real life, they just had to. Our mother smiled but I could see her bottom lip tremble ever so slightly. "I was just thinking; what special thing could we all do together?"

Eliot and I looked at each other. What was more special then what we already had?

"And then I remembered," She said. "That the Circus is in town."

That was defiantly better.

The circus was what every kid dreamed about. Especially, what we dreamed about. Our father promised to take us to the next circus that came into town after we begged him for weeks. He always got us what we wanted, even when we didn't beg. But he wanted us to beg him for this one. He played games with our emotions. He did it because he loved us, And when he told us we were going to go, he did it for the look on our faces. We were so excited and couldn't wait.

Our birthday came before the circus did.

The circus was the only thought that made everything better, or at least acceptable, during that dreadful year and a half. We pictured all of the animals and the neat tricks our father told us the performers could do. We dreamed about the people that preformed and created the magic. We thought about every detail from the color of the tents to the names of each of the animals. We even planed our own circus. We were all of the performers, and what we didn't have, we imagined. We were the star act. Our father had taken us to dance classes as soon as we could walk and soon after we became skilled dancers and acrobats. So, for our small circus we created routines that would blow our audience of stuffed bears and dolls away. We went through the closets full of our parents old cloths when mother wasn't looking and created elegant costumes to make everything more real. We practiced endlessly to pass the time and preformed at least two shows a day. We were that loved. The attic became a magical place where we could escape everything and become other people who always looked so happy.

It was never enough, though. You can only wish for something so hard before you eventually give up. And we almost did. We had finally started to give up hope. Our mother was lost to us and it had looked like she was never coming back.

Eliot and I stared up at her with wide eyes and didn't say anything. Could it have really been true? Our Mother, who had basically forgotten that we existed, was going to take us to the circus.

"Don't look at me that way." She laughed but there was no humor behind it. Just an escape of nervous air. "You think I forgot? I know that is what you two dreamed about before... your father... passed." She looked away from us, but I was still able to she the hate, desire, and longing flood into her eyes. Again Eliot and I looked at each other. We knew then that our time was up. The little bubble of happiness and peace had stretched too thin and this was the needle to pop it. Without our mother noticing, we inched away from her.

"But never mind that," she said in an excited voice. "We are going to the circus for the perfect ending to this day." She stood up from the chair with energy and looked down at Eliot and I. "Go upstairs, change your cloths, was your faces, make sure you look like the perfect dolls you are. I will be up in a minute to make sure we all look our best."

Eliot and I watched as she fluttered off to the kitchen back to father's office beyond that. Eliot looked to me with his eyes wide and hopeful, "Can you believe it?"

I gave him my honest answer. "No. I really can't." But it wasn't because of the excitement like I saw in Eliot, it was because of curiosity and suspicion. Why then? What had changed?

* * * *

"I always loved you in that dress," our mother said as she looked at us from the hall way. After she came upstairs and saw what Eliot and I had chosen she ripped through the closet and dressers to find something better. For some reason she had been angry and disappointed in what we had chosen for ourselves. I didn't Understand. What did it matter if we looked perfect or not? Eliot and I had lived on our own and forgotten the standard of living we were once held to. None of the people and family friends we had before would remembered what glory we once were anyways. We were also going to the circus, not and extravagant party. Why did I need to wear a dress and Eliot a jacket?

I pulled and tugged at the hems and seems of the navy blue and white floral dress decorated with a black sash and large bow that squeezed around my body. The sleeves of Eliot's blue jacket were short and pinched at his shoulders. The buttons pulled and threatened to pop as they pulled the jacket closed. He constantl yanked at the little bow tie as it tightened around his throat. I outgrew that dress shortly after father passed. He picked it out for me because when he saw it, he told me, that he couldn't stand the though of any other little girl wearing it. I believe that is why our mother had wanted me to wear it that day. That was the day that our father came back. That was the day we were to be a happy family again, and the only time we were ever happy was with him.

In the mirror we looked perfect. Just like our mother in one of her form fitting dresses that she used to wear all the time. This one was a soft blue color that matched Eliot and I. We were that perfect family again. You couldn't tell that we were broken inside, shattered and bruised, that even time couldn't fix.