The Education of Oversoul by Jane Roberts

Author:Jane Roberts
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-12-05T11:16:40+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Lydia 's Children Grow Backward in Time and Tweety Delivers a Message (Aspect Two)

Lydia sat staring petulantly at her grown children. She'd been in the Medford house for a week. It was Sunday, visitor's day, and she sat propped up in the wheelchair like an ancient doll, powdered and perfumed, and dressed in one of the few dresses she owned. They'd thrown out her slacks and dungarees. Her eyes kept drifting off to the right, and she kept trying to bring them back into focus.

"We have her all fixed up for visitors. Doesn't she look nice?" the nurse said. Like Lydia's children, the nurse was in her fifties. "Shit!" Lydia said under her breath.

The nurse, Mrs. Only, smiled indulgently and chuckled. "Don't pay any mind," she said to Lydia's daughter, Anna.

"Mama, you're looking well," Anna said nervously. She was a big woman with a large bosom; well‑educated, at a loss as to what to say.

Lydia just stared.

"She's tranquilized," Mrs. Only said.

Roger, Lydia's second son, grinned: "Any particular reason?"

"She got upset the other day and threw her milk glass across the room. Then she cursed everyone out, ran down the hall, and was heading for the stairs when we caught her. "

"I'd do it again if I had the chance." Lydia tried to say the words clearly. They came out garbled, slurred. It was the damned drugs. She strained to get out of the chair.

"See, she can't articulate," Mrs. Only said. "The blood thinners should help bring more blood to the brain, but her condition is really irreversible."

Lydia threw them a fantastic scowl this time. How could she get them to understand that she knew what was going on quite well? And who wouldn't try to get out of this stupid place?

"Mama, what is it?" Anna asked. She took off her hat and gloves, laid them carefully on an empty chair, and came closer.

In her mind, quite sanely, Lydia formed the mental words: "Get me out of this hellhole. And stop calling me Mama, as if you were ten." But all that came out was a mess of gibberish, with a few recognizable words mixed in. Worse, something else happened. Before her startled eyes, Lydia saw Anna quickly change from a stout woman in her early fifties to a woman in her ... thirties ... Lydia gasped, no longer able to keep track of the rapid transformation. In the next moment she saw Anna, aged approximately seven, standing there in a starched yellow dress. Lydia trembled in recognition and shock. The dress‑she'd just ironed it for Anna's birthday.

"Mama, tie my sash," Anna said.

"Say please," Lydia said automatically.

"I said please, didn't I?' Anna asked.

"No, you didn't," Lydia said. "But come here and stand still."

"She said quite clearly, 'Come here and stand still,' " the grown‑up Anna said to Mrs. Only and Roger.

"Well, do it and see what happens," Roger said.

The grown‑up Anna came close to Lydia's wheelchair, and stood there with a silly I‑don't‑know‑what‑to‑do look of embarrassment. For Lydia, the two figures merged one into the other.

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