Pearl by Deirdre Riordan Hall

Author:Deirdre Riordan Hall [Riordan Hall, Deirdre]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2016-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

As I lie in the twin bed, in room twenty-two, in Vivian Brookwood Dormitory, at Laurel Hill Preparatory School, I no longer feel a sense of gratitude. In its place is emptiness, a desolate vacuum of nothingness. There’s no chime of hope on the wind that my life will be different. The smell of ash fills my nose. I should have died in the fire; it would have spared me this pain. My body aches as if the train wreck of Janet’s life has struck me full on. I’ll never be the same.

I wake in the midafternoon, the quiet of the dorm revealing the time of day. I sneak to the bathroom for some water. When I return, I peel back a pair of heavy socks, neatly folded together, and extract the pills from my hiding place. I pop two in my mouth, swallow the rest of the water, and get back in bed. Sorry, Dr. Greenbrae, I’ll be treating this on my own.

As I settle back into bed, an unbidden reel of images of my mother streams through my head.

There was the time she tried curling her hair, but it turned out looking like the paper fans I used to make to cool myself off on hot summer nights.

I see her wearing a hospital gown when I visited her in the psychiatric ward. Her cheeks fuller and her skin clear. I remember how buoyant I felt that day; she seemed so happy to see me.

I remember the disaster and the ensuing laughter when we tried to make cookies from the government-issued peanut butter and other dry goods doled out for Thanksgiving one year. She’d used salt instead of sugar, but we ate them anyway.

I recall how when she was high, after I’d go to bed, she’d check on me incessantly to make sure I still breathed. Although I’d feign sleep, I could smell her musky scent and sharp breath as she leaned over me, a warped version of a mother tucking in her child. It wasn’t normal, but still, I’d give almost anything if my door opened and her head poked in right at this moment. Sober or high, I’d take it.

I recall her passing me on Delancey Street, looking right at me, or possibly right through me, and not acknowledging me or maybe not wanting me to recognize her, as strung out as she was.

Tears drop from my eyes, pooling on my pillow. Continuously, my mind recalls moments, snippets of memories of my mother and me. After some time, the memories become heavier, like the images move through something as viscous as the past.

My body feels like jelly, spread thin upon the bed. I drift away from memories of my mother and toward Grant. I try to claw my way back to her. I find myself in a boat, but then as I struggle to get to shore, it capsizes, and I sink deeper and deeper into the internal ickiness that swells inside of me. I float further within and then drift to sleep.

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