The Forgetting Place - Chapter Thirteen
Novel in Progress
My first bit of memory comes in a dream. I am in the woods, but not these woods. Tall trees with prickly looking green needles and branches that only cover the top third of the tree stand in clusters amidst shorter trees with softer looking leaves. In the dream I know their names. Pine. Maple. A blue sky stretches in all directions above me, punctuated with clouds that look like brushstrokes. And then I see her: a curly haired woman barely taller than me with skin the color of caramel walking alongside of me. The sight of her startles me and I slow my pace and then stop. She notices the absence of my footsteps.
“You good boo?”
There is so much familiarity in the way she looks at me. I can not find my voice to speak, but I nod at her. She smiles and begins walking again, glancing over her shoulder from time to time in a way I think she hopes I won’t notice.
“You feelin’ ok? You wanna stop?”
“I’m ok,” I tell her, but I can barely hear my own voice.
“Let’s take a break.”
We sit on the top of a hill. There is more dirt than grass beneath us but the view is beautiful. The hill we’re on gives way to a valley with a meadow down below. The trees frame either side of it and I feel hopeful. The hope balances another feeling that I can’t seem to touch.
The woman digs in her bag and takes out two parcels wrapped in parchment paper. She hands me one. I find a sandwich inside.
I’m staring at it when she nudges me with her foot. “Peanut butter and honey. Your favorite.”
My favorite. I have a favorite. “Thank you.”
She makes quick work of hers, crumples up the parchment and places it back in her bag. I fold the paper neatly around the half of the sandwich I haven’t finished and hold it out to her. She smiles.
“Do you want to keep going, or do you want to go back?”
“Let’s keep going.”
We find our way back to solid ground, but suddenly I am so tired. My feet drag on the ground despite my best effort to lift them. The gap between the woman and I seems to be widening so I pick up my pace, but it grows ever wider. I try to run to catch up to her but my feet won’t cooperate and one of them catches on a root. She looks back and reaches out her hand to me, like Leo at the mouth of the cave, and I am grasping for her fingers, but she is too far.
I wake up and say, “Resa,” and realize that was, is, her name. And I am sure this woman was, is, real. I don’t know how much of the dream is memory, but she definitely is. I reach over to the nightstand and gather the art supplies I keep there. I write her name at the top and then begin to sketch her eyes, but sketching doesn’t feel right, so I begin writing, and something about that feels like slipping into a warm bath and I am overwhelmed by all the things my spirit seems to know that I have forgotten.
A gentle rasp in her voice. It felt like honey with a little bit of pepper when it hit my ears and settled in my chest. Like a gentle patter of rain underscored by the low rumble of thunder. I felt history there, in that voice.
Finding myself walking beside her felt like waking up. Like a cool splash of water on my face in the morning. She reminded me this, where I am, is not home. I think this is someone who loved, loves, me.
“Don’t forget this,” I write at the bottom of the page, and slip it back into the nightstand. I have a general worry that the potency of what I remember will become diluted from sharing, and something more specific I can not name makes me wary of sharing with Leo. I decide she is something I will keep to myself, for myself, at least for now.
*Next chapter, Friday, July 11th. Read all chapters at A Soft Place to Land.*