Poetry Of Us
It was the next morning. I woke up to Darren holding me. He was on my left side, as I was on my side, and he was holding my waist. My hand ran down his bare side. His skin was cold from the wind coming from the opened window; that must have become open during the night.
I got out of the bed when Darren turned over and he released me. I covered him and went off to the kitchen. I was in a baggy, grey t-shirt and eeyore' pajama pants. My hair was tied up, too. Then, Kity walked downstairs with Claire in her arms. She was talking to her.
"Are we hungry?" She said in a soft voice.
She looked up and saw me. She smiled. "Hi," she said. I smiled, too. "Hi."
Then, from behind me, I could hear Darren walking into the room. I looked behind me and he had black pajama pants on and he was bare-chested. I smiled, he rubbed his eyes and then smiled at me, too.
I noticed that Kity was examining our facial expressions and reactions to each other.
"So," she started with a smile, "what happened last night?" She still held the baby in one arm. She handed her to me to put her back in her crib, for she fell back asleep as Kity was talking.
I was surprised, "Kity!" She laughed. "Nothing happened," I said, I laughed and hit her, jokingly.
I went back into the room and formed a circle of pillows for Claire to sleep in. I shut the window after I set her on the bed and went back out into the kitchen.
The first thing I heard was: "Are you two...?"
I sighed and said: "Yes, Kity."
"I knew it!" She said, then laughing again. She always seemed to be the kiddish type and I loved it because she knew how to interest people and keep them talking.
I sat down at the kitchen table. I wasn't too hungry so I didn't feel like eating breakfast. Darren across from me with a cup of coffee, him setting it on the table. I stared off into space, thinking. (I could feel Darren's eyes looking at me.) I thought of how long I hadn't seen or had any contact with my mother, and I thought of where my father was. I missed her, my mother. I wanted to see her.
"Kity?" I asked.
She looked to me and then I looked to her. "Do you have any stamps?" I asked.
"Yea, why?" She asked.
"I need to talk to my mother," I said.
She smiled. "Sure! The writing things are in the back room," she pointed behind me, to the shut door. The long window on the door was stain-glass, multiple colors painting the glass. I got up and opened the door. When I did, I large cloud of dust flew up. I coughed and then looked back to Kity.
"When was the last time this door was opened?" I asked, still choking on the dust.
"Maybe the 1940s," Kity guessed.
"You have never been in here?" I asked her.
"Nope," the room was left like that when Martha and I moved in. We didn't open it because we were afraid of what we would see," she explained, leaning against the raised counter.
Then, Darren stood, "I'm going in, too," he said.
"Why?" I asked.
"I just wanted to see what was in there," he said.
We both went in. The floors were old and had a fancy rug laid on it. There were book shelves on every side of the room, almost every wall. Papers stuck out of the old books and most of the books were on the ground, them who fell off of the book shelves a long time ago. There was a desk, sitting in the middle of the first half of the room. It was an old desk that looked like it belonged in the white house.
There was an old leather chair sitting behind the desk. A glass globe sat on the right corner and stacks of unused, hard-cover notebooks sat on the top of it.
Behind the desk, there was a large stain-glass window with multiple colors painting the glass, also. I walked behind the desk and sat in the chair. I crossed my legs in it and picked up one of the notebooks. I opened it and only the first page was written on.
It read:
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
I closed this notebook and put it in my lap. I opened the next one and there was nothing inside but a pressed rose that must have been there for over seventy to eighty years. I picked the rose up. Darren came behind me and looked at it, too. I put it back in the notebook and shut it.
"Wow." He said, "this place really hasn't been touched the 40s."
I nodded and smiled. "Yea."
It was about noon when I finally got all of the notebooks into Darren and my room. We brought in every book from the room, too. We looked through each one of them, every page of every notebook and book. I caught myself reading this one book, Great Expectations, a few times. I put it on the window sill above me so I wouldn't get distracted.
Searching through the pages, we found a few things. We found a few old dollar bills from Europe, a few family photos of the family that must have lived here before Martha and Kity. We also found drawings and they were all of the same woman. She was beautiful. She had a perfect face and long perfect eyebrows.
Darren held one of the sketches and was looking at it. He would look at it and then to me. I pretended not to notice.
"She kind of looks like you," he said.
"Oh come on," I looked to him.
I leaned over towards him and looked at the picture that he was holding.
I looked at it. "I don't see how--" then suddenly, he kissed me on the cheek. I had a feeling that is what this was leading to. I came over and sat between his legs. He wrapped his arms around my waist and hugged his arms.
It was five o' clock and everyone but me was out in the kitchen. Even Darren had Claire. She was awake and he was feeding her. I sat in my room, writing to my mother.
I wrote:
Mom, it's me, Jo. I finally found a place to stay after being out on the streets. I had the baby, her name is Claire, I named her after you. How is dad? What has changed since I have been gone? I just wanted to catch up, hopefully, if you get this letter, I will talk to you soon and hopefully see you sometime in the future.
I love you
- Jo
I ripped the paper out of the notebook I was writing in and folded it in half. I reached for the box of envelopes and stamps I found in the room and took one of each out. I put the letter in the envelope and put the stamp on. I wrote the address to the house, here, and then my old address.
I got up and walked out of the room. I opened the door and everyone looked in my direction. I didn't stop, I just walked out the door and went to the mailbox across the street. I walked back and came back inside.
I shut the door behind me, once I was inside and Darren looked to me again.
"Are you going to come out here?" He asked.
I bit my lip.
"I think I'm going to stay in the room."
He nodded. "Okay."
I went back and I saw him looking after me. He looked disappointed but he had something on his mind. I shut the door and went to go sit on the bed. Darren walked in, Claire was in his arm. She was asleep, her head resting on his arm. I smiled at the picture, of him standing with her.
He walked over, before sitting down, he put Claire in her crib at the end of the bed. He came and sat next to me. He leaned over and rested his elbows on his legs. He looked back to me.
"What's wrong?" He asked.
I sighed, "Nothing," I lied.
He sat back up and looked at my face when I looked down, playing with my hands.
"Really? Jo?" He said.
I breathed in, a deep breath and said, "I miss my mom," my voice broke, "I haven't seen her in a long time and she told me that we would find each other again, and--"
I was starting to break down. He moved to hold me and he picked me up to put in his lap.
"I miss all the old stuff, too," he said.