I sit on my bed, tousling my red hair between my fingers. I gulp at the reflection in the mirror, I feel guilty, it has seeped into my stomach and poisoned the lining leaving me pained and uncomfortable.
Ben left here this morning after dropping off my birthday gift, a beautiful hard back copy of my favourite poetry book which was terribly thoughtful. He promised tonight to give me my second gift, of which he hoped I would be inclined to accept. Thoughts swirled in my mind, a flurry of worry followed by a hurricane of doubts and regrets that pelted me, stinging every inch, leaving no doubt of my guilt of this whole charade.
Ben was in love with me, and I still didn't feel it. I wished and wished that I did feel something, something more than warm and loving, to feel passion, wanting, but what I did feel, was it love and affection bestowed to family?, or was this love and affection towards a person you were in love with...?
Truth was, I had nothing to compare falling in love too. The thought brought tears brimming upon my eyelashes, threatening to fall. I had kept myself so apart from the dating world, hidden that part of myself, and offered not a thought to it, to anyone. My teenage years were all spent with Willa, and with thoughts of Willa came tears falling, dripping from my chin, because she still didn't know the whole truth of Ben and I, that he had made himself clear to me, that he loved me. I knew where this was going, oh I knew, but the only thing that kept my course on track... was that if I was to have to marry... then wasn't into Willa's family my best and most obvious choice?!
I could most definitely love Ben. I was sure with time, that I would fall for him. The saddest part of it all, was that I was clinging onto Willa so hard that it hurt, she had picked to go to Michigan, and it was far, much too far for a weekend visit or a trip of ease. I wouldn't see Willa much at all, and my god I was free-falling, a ridiculous reaction I knew, but she had been by my side since forever, what was life like without her?! If I married Ben I would spend every holiday with her, all of our lives would be shared and entwined, our children would be cousins, our family would be eternal...another reason to let Ben take it, my heart, like it was an offering to the devil, take my heart but let me have Willa, please let me keep her...
"Alberta" my mama called across the landing from her bedroom, where she was dressing my squirming two year old brother Hyrum into a little suit for my party.
I heard his squeals, as my mama tried to push his arms into the shirt. I wiped my eyes, dabbing my cheeks with a tissue and composing myself. I walked across the hall to the open door of my mamas room, and let out a small laugh at Hyrum, one arm in a shirt, an adorable shirt that looked fitting for a doll, his face red with frustration to be placed in anything other than a diaper.
Hyrum was a little nudest, constantly removing his clothing and streaking across church on Sundays to my mamas horror. It was an age thing, but it did make my mama hold in a hundred curses she didn't see fit to release in front of others.
"Help me Alberta" my mama begged.
I walked over and took Hyrums flailing arm, bending it and pushing it into the arm hole as my mama pulled the navy pant legs up and over his diaper. "There" my mama said falling back onto the bed in a heap of frazzled mess. "I swear Alberta he's part octopus. I never got a sweat on whilst dressing you girls, or Abraham. Hyrum was sent to teach me patience, that's for sure" she said letting the air out of her lungs. She had one hand on her stomach as she lay and catch her breath, composing herself.
"Mama you look beautiful" I compliment.
I lift Hyrum up into my arms, running my fingers through his red hair, it was thick and full. I swept it neatly to one side.
"Do you think" she asks, sitting up on the edge of the bed and looking into her mirror.
How my Mama didn't see it, her beauty, I would never know. She had her red hair braided in a curled Plait that wound around, a red swirl of glossy interwoven hair that looked perfectly placed.
"Alberta sit with me" she asked, as she patted the bed beside herself.
I placed Hyrum down, and he ran off to annoy Merrit in the hallway, her displeasure voiced instantly "get away from my new dress Hyrum... you have sticky hands"
My mama places her hands on mine, in my lap "I can't believe you are eighteen" she muses capturing my cheek with her thumb, letting it run over it affectionately "my little shadow... eighteen. I'm so glad you are staying home for college, and I know thats selfish of me, but I can't imagine you gone from me, not just yet..."
I smile "I know what you mean. I wish Willa was too"
My face must fall, because my mama frowns "Oh Alberta... she will be home for holidays and the summers, don't worry, she will always be your best friend. You two are as close as can be, you don't make friends like that everyday. You and Willa grew up together honey, you can't replace friends like that. I have no doubts you will be friends for life" my mama says with a smile as she tries to lift my spirits. "Willa is family" she adds. "At this point I think of her like an extra daughter, she's spent so much time here over the years I consider her one of the Anderson pack"
"I know" I reply sitting up a little straighter, and gathering myself.
"So, Ben" my mama prods "what do you think of him honey" she asks.
I take a moment to consider my reply, because my mama loves him, a lot, he is so sweet and kind and she senses his love for me, and that he would treat me well. "You know if you were to ever marry him, Willa would be even more like your sister..."
My sister, I consider that term and throw it away instantly, it didn't fit the way I loved Willa, She was my person, my best friend. Willa was something more, that I hadn't even considered yet, she was the part of me that would soon ache day and night, the echo in the void that became my life. Willa was the whispers that found me at night, and the deafening screams in my silent days...
Willa
I don't know how to explain
The broken in me
The part of me that's you
The need to fix it
But how
Manual lost
Answers strewn across years
Piecing together,
Like a jigsaw of one colour
an almost impossible feat
I work it day and night
The puzzle of us
But try as I might
I cannot locate the last piece
Because it seems that piece
It is you
"I don't need Willa to be my sister mama. I need her to stay as she is... my best friend. I just wish she would stay closer. I can't even imagine a week without her, let alone months"
"And Ben" she asks again.
I have completely forgotten her question, my focus landing on Willa once again, to the point I am frustrated with myself.
"I like Ben" I admit.
My mama doesn't smile, she takes me in and searches my features like she wants to know my thoughts "Alberta do you even love him" she asks me.
I frown, sitting up, and I remove myself from her side. The brutal answer was "no" and my mama was poking a hornets nest, one more thrust of her stick into its beating truth would send hornets on a death flight, consuming my life and stinging anybody it touched.
The answer wouldn't be understood, my mama and my father, they had such a deep love, something to be admired and appreciated, so much so that she wouldn't understand my half in and half out approach to Ben. I was not consumed by him, but I did appreciate him, I did, I could let him take me and make me love him, but did I want too?.
I looked back to my mamas worried gaze, and smile to her relief "of course" I lie, " I think Ben is lovely, he's kind and sweet and he knows me mama, he knows me well" I say thinking of the book of poetry he had just gifted me. I had longed for and dreamt of that book since the day Willa and I had seen it in an antique style book shop this spring.
"Good, I'm glad honey. I think you make a beautiful couple. I know he will always treat you well, and that's my number two requirement for letting a man take my daughters hand"
I sit back beside her, and she tucks my hair behind my ear affectionately. "What's number one" I ask intrigued.
She smiles, a genuine and breathtaking smile as she takes me in "That you both love each other my darling" she whispers. "Marrying for anything else but love... it has no place in my children's lives... none at all" she declares.
"Quite right, my darling daughter" my father says coming into the room with Hyrum over one shoulder, his little giggles echoing around the room and making us all smile as my father has half his body dangling down his back. "I found this little monkey in the pantry, helping himself to cookies no less" my father says.
He loosens his grip on Hyrums legs, and let's him slip lower down his back, to his absolute delight "anyone know who it belongs to" he teases.
My mama stands up, and kisses my father on the lips "how was work my love" she asks.
He nods "Not as exciting as it should be when one's book is published, no not on my eldest child's birthday... our beloved child is eighteen Helena. I can't quite bear the thought..." he admits, as his broad grin spreads and he pushes his black rimmed glasses up his nose.
"I know Joseph... why did we let her grow up" she returns, as she pulls Hyrum from my fathers back, and places him upon her hip.
They both turn to smile at me, my dad moving over to wrap me in his large embrace, placing a kiss upon my brow. "The first little love of our lives... your mama and my first creation...how lucky we are to have you Alberta... how blessed" he says squeezing me tightly.
My father is fifty seven, he isn't young, but the way he holds himself, and his spirit, it is youthful and fun, and the way he loves and adores us all, not a sentiment unsaid, not a feeling left as a thought, my father let us all know we were the beat of his heart, and that he and my mama were our biggest fans, always.
My father may have been thirty nine, when he married my mother, and her being nineteen, it drew a few concerns from her parents, but his maturity, and his devotion to her, it was a draw, something nobody could deny and she him. My Mama had found comfort, and safety, and large arms to hold her. He had a huge heart that she knew would absorb her and bathe her in a love and light, as long as she breathed. My father wrote my mother a poem for every day of their courtship, and I must admit, it was where I got my inspiration to write every thought and feeling down. My fathers need to express every sentiment, it had been passed down, and now I purged every thought and feeling and poured it into ink too.
My recipient, my reader, my muse, Willa Jameson... and yet Ben, I hadn't written a thing for, oh how was it not more obvious to my naive heart, what I was getting tangled up in, for if I had known I surely would have turned back? No?!
***