Alicea in Wonder - In Progress

It's Like, Damn, Why You Gotta Be So Cold in the Summertime?

After a few hours of gaming Reggie left and I got ready for bed. When I walked into the front room, I saw the couch had been vacated. That meant Ellen had gone into her room. I knew she hadn't left the apartment. I glanced at the counter and saw the dinner I had made still sitting there untouched. I put it into Tupperware and stored it in the fridge before cleaning the dishes.I jumped a mile high and cussed quietly when I heard her voice again. "Alicea," she hissed. "We're late."

"How was your day, Ellen?" I asked.

"We're late, Alicea," she repeated. "We need to go."

"We don't have anywhere to go," I told her, drying the pan in my hands. "We're not late for anything. It's late, we should go to bed."

She slammed her hand on the counter, something I expected. She always got physical when she got like this. "The rabbit is coming," she insisted. "The rabbit is coming and we have to go."

"There's no rabbit," I told her as I put the pan away.

"Listen to me!" She nearly screamed, all pretense of secrecy gone. "The rabbit is coming. We are late and he is going to take us home!"

"Ellen, come sit down." I went and sat on the couch and patted the spot next to me.

She gripped her hair and squatted down on the ground, shaking back and forth. "He's coming, he's coming, he's coming. We're late, late, late."

I watched her for a moment. This kind of scene happened so regularly throughout my life it didn't make me cry anymore. It didn't scare me. It did make me a little bit sad, but it wasn't shocking anymore. This was my reality, the reason I was deciding to go to the local school instead of leaving the state and leaving my aunt. I couldn't leave these fits to a stranger. I couldn't ever abandon my sweet, broken aunt to her own doing. To be honest, it didn't even feel right to leave her to Reggie's care. She was my aunt, my blood, my responsibility. And I loved her.

I stood from the couch and knelt on the floor in front of her, wrapping my arms tightly around her shoulders. "It's okay," I whispered. "It's okay. You're safe and warm and protected and loved. It's okay, it's okay, it's okay."

"It's not," she began to sob. "We're late. Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit, the rabbit is coming. Late, late, late, he's going to tell us we're late. So, so, so late to dinner. Mother will be angry. Father will be sad. Late, late, late."

"Come to bed," I whispered in her ear. "Come to bed and you won't have to worry anymore about the rabbit. He'll find you in your sleep, sleep, sleep." I whispered.

"Sleep, sleep, sleep," she began to calm down. "I'm going to sleep, sleep, sleep."

"Sleep, sleep, sleep," I repeated as I pulled her to her feet and we slowly walked to her room. 

"You're safe, loved, and perfectly on time."

We walked into her dark room. It was full of dark or neutral colors and soft pillows and blankets. Everything except a single painting above her bed. The woman was painted in Ellen's classic yellow, pink, green, and blue tones. I could see pieces of myself and Ellen in her, but her lips and nose were different in some way.

Living with aunt Ellen goes in stages. Some days she's extremely down to earth and happy and wonderful to be around. On these days she always suggests we go out and have a 'day on the town'. We go shopping, go to movies (our favorites are super hero movies), go for fun meals. But after a few days, small things will trigger the melancholy and she'll spiral out of control. She'll see a clock or hear a comment about a rabbit or something silly and she'll get depressed. She'll sit in her room and stare at the painting of the young girl. It was in these moments that my aunt, though only 6 years older than me, looked the most frail. She'll get angry at the drop of a hat and then start to sob uncontrollably. She'll hole up in her bedroom and hide under the blankets, whispering nonsense about being late or rabbits or flowers.