The Bitter Taste Of Ash (1)
W N Dayley

 

The Bitter Taste of Ash
W. N. Dayley





It hadn't been that long since I'd been back here but the place felt alien to me now. The houses seemed tired, neglected. The stores, smaller than I remembered them, were antiquated. Vitality had fled this place long ago, shrieking and insane.
What am I doing here?
As I scanned the decaying architecture, the sensation of being smothered came over me like a wet sheet – cloying, stifling. It was the same all those years ago when, having given all of myself to this place and received nothing but oppression in return, I decided the time had arrived for me to slip quietly away before anyone noticed I was gone.
Now, I was back. But not me, not the person I was then: the new me, a new and magnificent being with aspirations and abilities. With hope: the one thing I could never remember having when these banal streets and even more banal residents were my life.
I thrust my hands deeper into the pockets of my tattered Calvins and strolled down the broken sidewalk toward the diner where my mother used to work. Thirty years as a waitress in the same greasy spoon, doing the same dead-end job had given her nothing but grief. Second-hand smoke and too many chicken fried steak specials had conspired to rob her of her health and ultimately her life. And for what? $2.35 an hour plus tips? She was a good woman: intelligent, beautiful, charming, and warm. Once. Before this town took hold of her.
Why am I here? Because she no longer is.

Bustling around my apartment on a Tuesday morning, my morning coffee in one hand, I was wrangling with the cereal box with the other. It was winning. When the phone rang, it barely registered, as preoccupied as I was with preparing myself for another day of glorious, rewarding toil. On the third ring, the call was automatically transferred to voice mail, the caller receiving the stock greeting of consolation at having missed me. I rushed through the place, skirting stacks of books that were beginning to rival the Eiffel Tower in height and complexity as I gathered the last of my supplies, the bowl of cereal for which I had fought so valiantly forgotten on the kitchen counter.
I rushed out the door never knowing that a message which would change my life was waiting to be retrieved.
That day, as all other days before it, proceeded with an alarming regularity and plainness that had come to feel as comfortable to me as the moth-eaten sweatshirt I kept in the hall closet next to my best suit. I was not simply skating through life, I was flashing past at breakneck speed. Nothing seemed to be able to slow me down let alone stop me. I knew I was going somewhere – several of my friends and co-workers had told me as much – and once I got there, I would never look back. That promise kept my spirits buoyed, shining . . .
Until I returned home to my empty apartment and my half-finished wanna-be masterpieces strewn everywhere, covering every corner of wall space and resting like drunken sentries against the walls.
It will only take selling one of these, I told myself, to raise me to the next level, to make this all worth it.
Wading through sketches of alien landscapes and fever-induced nightmares toward the couch that lay somewhere in the general direction of the center of the room, I tripped on over an unseen object with malicious intent and sprawled face-first amid the clutter, the content of my arms spewing forth in all directions. Pushing myself up to my hands and knees, my face was level with the telephone. I noticed the indicator light blinking, merrily announcing to the world that it had a secret. My heart aflutter with possibilities, I scrambled forward, ripping through the refuse as if it were . . . well . . . paper.
After an awkward fall which once again had me spending face-time with the floor, I managed to knock into the stand on which the phone rested and topple the sleek, plastic receiver into my outstretched hand. The quick depression of two strategically placed buttons had me listening intently to the oddly soothing sound of the automated system's female voice. Part of me was always disappointed not to hear James Earl Jones reciting the message in his best Darth Vader voice. I punched in the 4-digit code as soon as my disappointment abated. As I waited to hear what the unknown caller had to say, a thin sheen of swear began to form on the palms of my hands.
Could this be the call? The one that fulfills my heart's desire?
There was a faint click then silence. I held my breath for two counts, three, before I heard what sounded like a hitch in the caller's breath as they prepared to speak. A moment later, their words sounded, low and emotional, in my ears. “Mother's gone. Call me when you get this.”
I recognized the voice of my sister, Adra, and felt the vaguest instant of annoyance that it was her and not someone offering me a showing of my work. The instant passed as quickly as it arrived as the synapses of my brain began to fire and the meaning of her words registered, shaming me.
“Mother's gone”? Gone where?
  I pressed the END button on the phone and set the receiver down.
I don't remember making the phone call to my sister to learn of the circumstances surrounded this tragedy. Neither do I remember anything of the flight that brought me back here, except the smell of sour sweat and stale peanuts.

Adra was at the airport to greet me and we hugged for a long time as her tears came unbidden and I held her, soothing her grief as best I could, before she was able to control her emotions enough to speak. “I'm glad you could make it. It's been too long, ya know?”
During my last visit, Adra had remarked how aged she had appeared lately. “Work's really taking its toll on her,” she'd said. “And she hasn't been up to see the kids in a while.” This was unusual in that, since they were born, she had devoted herself to those girls; she'd dubbed them her 'angels'.
I did know. I'd been back for a visit just over a year ago, but until I left, Adra and I had been close. She took the news of my departure hardest of all my family and friends. Mainly because I hadn't told her I was leaving, but also because she wouldn't be able to draw strength from my presence as she was accustomed. Since age fifteen, when our father passed away, I had been the rock of our family. I was the one who kept Adra, Mom and myself together when times were toughest. When I left, the whole structure collapsed. Adra married an Airman and moved with him to the Air Force base an hour away from Mom's house. They had twin daughters, Sadie and Melanie.
Mom, alone in the house for the first time, didn't cope well with the silence. Rather than go home to her empty house, she volunteered for double shifts, choosing to work rather than confront her loneliness.
“I'll talk to her,” I said. “See what's going on.” But Mom refused to talk to me of anything of a personal nature. She was so grateful for the chance to visit with me that she wanted nothing negative or worrisome to interfere.

I concluded my week-long visit and returned home feeling concerned for my mother's health and ashamed of my decision to leave my hometown in search of a better life. I regretted not being there for my Mother and sister, for not providing support for them when they needed it most. I lived in a blue funk for weeks afterward, barely picking up a brush, lethargy dominating my days, and insomnia plaguing my nights. Then, as if the gods themselves pitied my dilemma, I was freed of my guilt: Mom met a man.
Adra called me one night and told me she had taken the girls to visit Mom. A gentleman caller was in attendance when she arrived, and Mom introduced him as Bruce Dennings. Apparently he was a contractor of some sort (Mom didn't go into details) who'd recently moved to town. He'd come into the café every day for the past week and invariably sat in her section. On the eighth day, he asked her when she would be off work and if he could walk her home. She agreed and they'd spent hours talking. They'd since gone out three times, Adra informed me.
“Mom appears to be in love,” Adra said. “They were looking at each other all goggle-eyed the whole time I was there. It was so cute. You should've seen em.”
I admit my first reaction to this news was not what you'd expect. Mom had a history of meeting, falling in love with and marrying the wrong men. So I wasn't exactly optimistic. Adra assured me that I needn't worry. “Mom's simply enjoying his company after being alone for so long. She has no intentions of taking the relationship to the next level. Give her a little credit, will ya. Besides,” she continued in that tone of voice that always told me she thought I was trying too hard to take over for our Father, “she's a grown woman. She can do what she wants.”
“I know,” I said. “It's precisely because she's been alone for so long that I worry about her. You know how she can be about having a man in her life.”
“How she used to be,” Adra corrected. “Being alone all these years has changed her. She realizes she doesn't need to have a man in her life in order to be whole. You haven't seen . . . .” She didn't finish the thought, but I knew what she meant.
“I haven't been around to see how she's changed. I know.”
“I didn't say that,” Adra's tone was contrite: she clearly hadn't meant to go there.
“You didn't have to. I know you. Remember?”
“Yeah,” she agreed after a brief pause.
“And I know Mom. At least I think I do. I trust her, but I also know she doesn't always trust herself.”
“Yeah, I suppose you're right. Sorry.”
“No need for that. You're a good daughter: you're just looking out for Mom. You are to be commended.”
Adra actually raspberried me through the phone. We both broke down into laughing fits that lasted a good minute or more. After we recovered, she admonished me for my haughtiness. To which I promptly raspberried her back. A shorter fit or laughter ensued. We ended the call after pledging to stay in touch.

I entered Tom's Diner, the café at which Mom had waitressed for the better part of two decades, and immediately regretted it. All the patrons and staff turned to watch me enter, mingled expressions of pity, sympathy and reproach on their faces. I smiled weakly, nodding in acknowledgment of them and their sentiments, and made my way to the counter.
“Hey, sweetie,” a heavyset blond waitress named Joyce greeted me. She and Mom had worked together for eight years and they had been close, like sisters. “What can I get for ya?” she asked, setting a cup of coffee and three individual-sized creamer containers on the counter before me.
I ordered a slice of apple pie.
“Cheese?” she asked. I always ordered my pie with a slice of cheddar melted atop it. After all this time she still remembers. I hated to disappoint her.
“Not today, Joy. I'll take it plain.”
I could see the tears beginning to well in here hazel eyes as she nodded and turned away to prepare my order.
I didn't know if I should stay; my presence was like salt in an open wound to these people I realized. Co-workers and customers alike had been fond of Mom. She had been in the business for nearly four decades and knew how to make people feel comfortable and important. That was her charm. But the wayward son had returned to inter her and they despaired of the loss.
“Here ya go, sug.” Joyce set the plate down on the counter, set a napkin and fork next to it. I thanked her, scooping up the fork and digging in to the wedge of pie for my first bite. As I brought it up to my mouth, I hesitated. I glanced to the right and saw a table of customers staring at me. Slowly turning my head in their direction, they unabashedly continued to stare, sadness evident in their veiled eyes. I nodded solemnly, acknowledging their grief. They looked away and I returned to my pie.
The first bite is always the best for me. The center, where the juiciest apple slices settle during baking, always offers the greatest flavor. So I had always thought anyway. Today, as I chewed a mouthful of flaky crust and perfectly seasoned apples, I felt no pleasure from it. It tasted like so much ash in my mouth.
Struggling to swallow, I took a sip of my coffee and it tasted bitter, making the ashes in my mouth into a rancid paste. I set the fork down on the edge of the plate and pushed the plate away. I slid the coffee cup over next to it and, reaching for my wallet, asked Joyce how much I owed her.
Her warm eyes misted as she watched me. At first she didn't reply. I watched her for some sign that she was going to hand me the bill. She just shook her head. “No charge, dear. This one's on the house.
I paused, wallet in one hand, the other poised to retrieve my money, then nodded slightly. Opening the wallet, I extracted a dollar bill, laid it on the counter and set the coffee cup on top of it. “Thanks, Joy.”
“Any time. We're all gonna miss her.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
Without another word, I raised off my stool and headed in the direction of the door. All eyes followed me, boring into my back, as I exited into the gray autumn day.

When I returned to Mom's house, Adra and the kids were there, as were my uncles, Cliff and Stuart, Mom's surviving siblings – their elder brother, Vernon, had died of cancer when he was just a toddler – and their wives; Sue, Uncle Cliff's wife, and Dora, Uncle Stuart's. Their faces were dour: eyes red and rimmed from crying, noses red from wiping away the mucus that invariably accompanied tears. They all looked at me with compassion and understanding as I came in and sat in heavily on the threadbare couch on which I'd slept many a night.
Adra continued to look at me after the others returned their attentions to whatever it was they were doing before I came in. Her eyes questioned me: Did you find what you were looking for?
With a shake of my head, I answered the unspoken question. She smiled ruefully and turned her attention to something in her lap.
I stood, walked over to where she sat in Mom's favorite chair. “What're ya looking at?” I peered down to see a memory book opened on her lap, pictures of the family displayed in faded and yellowed photos, most of which predated my arrival into this world.
“Oh.”
“Sit and look at them with me.” She patted the armrest of the chair.
“Mom wouldn't approve of this,” I said as I lowered myself onto the armrest, a faint smile lifting the corners of my mouth.
Adra returned the smile, which never touched her eyes, and flipped to another page in the book.
Uncle Stuart, the younger of the two brothers, pointed a liver-spotted hand at a black-and-white photo in the lower left corner. “This here is your great aunt Millie. She was Mom's older sister.” The woman in the picture was tall, thin and severe looking, with dark hair pulled tightly up into a bun atop her head. She appeared to be in her thirties. Her style of dress indicated the picture had been taken in the fifties: her dress, a checked frock, fell just below knee length, patten leather shoes adorned her feet. Next to her stood a young man, in his late teens, dressed in a military uniform.
“And that there is Cliff,” he hitched his thumb over his shoulder a this elder brother, “right before he shipped off to Korea. Aunt Millie was always fond of Cliff.” Stuart leaned forward, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Unnaturally so, if you ask me.”
“Hogwash!” Cliff bellowed, cuffing his brother on the shoulder. “She never had any kids of her own. A spinster, that one. So she doted on me. Stuart was always jealous of the attention she paid me. Still is, I see.” He chuckled, and Stuart had the decency to look embarrassed by the revelation.
“Here's one of your mother when she was a baby,” Stuart changed the subject. “Cliff and I were already teenagers when she was born. A surprise, Daddy always called her. But cute as a bug.” Stuart's eyes misted briefly. He wiped the welling tears away with a handkerchief before continuing. “She was a handful, always into things, bugging one or the other of us for everything.” He stopped, emotion getting the better of him. His wife, Holly, rested a hand on his shoulder, deep sympathy in her eyes.
“Not right when the baby goes before the elders,” Stuart said. I looked at him, surprised by the words.
“What?”
“Your mother,” he locked eyes with me, “she was the youngest of us. Look at me, he held up a cane I hadn't noticed at first. “Can barely get around any more without some assistance. And my cataracts are getting worse. Soon I'll not be able to see a foot in front of me. Stuart, he's no better than I am, with his arthritis and high cholesterol. Jan was in pretty good health, still working a lot of hours. No reason why she should go first. Well,” he paused, aware of his mistake, “before us, anyway.”
I looked at him, my face screwed into a mask of incomprehension. “What are you saying?” I demanded.
“She was too young to die,” Cliff stated. “Has grief turned your brains soft, boy?”
“No. No. Just . . . ,” I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of this before. “Just thinking along those lines, Uncle Cliff. Mom was healthy, at least she was when I saw her last.” I paused, ashamed at my lengthy absences as of late. Everyone looked at me as I continued, sympathetic expressions softening their features. “The last I knew, she was still working full shifts at the diner and seeing that guy, Bruce.”
I looked up sharply, looking first at Cliff, then at Stuart, and finally at Adra. “You don't think he could've had anything to do with her death do you?”
Adra and my aunts looked dubious, but Cliff and Stuart were clearly picking up on my train of thought: their expressions indicated the thought had crossed their minds. I stood, returning to the couch, giving myself a little distance and time to think.
The coroner's report had stated respiratory failure as the cause of death. Not hard to believe when the same condition had killed both my maternal grandparents as well as my father. Still, Dad had been a heavy drinker and smoked two packs of cigarettes a day for forty years. Grandma had cooked everything she and Granddad ate in a gallon of oil and poured a cup of salt on it after it was done. Mom, though not the healthiest of eaters, hadn't overindulged in either of these vices: she never drank, had quit smoking years ago, and, if anything, hadn't eaten enough to keep a bird alive. When she did eat, it was usually a salad of some sort, or a hamburger patty and some veggies. How could she have died of respiratory failure with such austere habits? Hypertension? Unlikely, she liked her job and had few bills beyond the usual household expenses. Her grandchildren lived close enough to see them on a regular basis and, according to Adra, she was dating.
Hardly a candidate for heart disease, I surmised, nearly convinced that foul play was involved.
The county coroner, an crotchety man who'd seen too many winters, was far from incompetent but reluctant to autopsy any of his clients unless absolutely necessary. Something about an abiding respect for life, even in death.
I doubted he performed one on Mom.
A long silence followed during which everyone seemed supremely uncomfortable with the possibility that had just been raised. Adra was the first to break the silence. “Why don't you go talk to him. I know where he lives. We could drive over in the morning and I'll introduce you.”
“Yeah,” I replied absently, my thoughts racing. If he did have something to do with it, what possible motive could he have? If Mom was murdered – I shuddered at the thought – what purpose was served by the act? And who stood to benefit from it?
“Yeah,” I repeated, certain I had stumbled on to something significant. “But I'll go alone.”
“Why? I can introduce you and . . . ,” Adra stopped as she noticed the look in my eyes. I didn't want her there in case it turned out this Bruce character was somehow involved. There would be Hell to pay, and I didn't want her to have any part of it.
“I'll tell you where he lives.”
“Good,” I nodded my approval.
“But not 'til tomorrow. Tonight, you need to get some rest: you look like shit.”

I lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling of the room that had been my sanctuary since my family moved into the house almost twenty years prior. Even after I moved away, Mom kept it open for me. It hadn't changed much over the years: the wallpaper – a ghastly pale green – still coated the walls, my various trophies from youth sports leagues occupied their positions on the shelves beside my bed. Even the bedding – the comforter I begged Mom to buy for my fifteenth birthday, with the Chinese dragons and symbols dotting its gray and black surface – still adorned the bed. The only change I noted on my last visit was the absence of the posters of various rock bands I had tacked up – mainly to hide the hideous wallpaper – over the years. The walls still bore the pits from the thumbtacks' points.
I couldn't shut off my mind as I lay there, memories of the life I had led while living in this house, in this room flooding in on me. That the same environs that had kept me sane during the turbulent years of my teens, would haunt me in my early thirties hadn't even seemed plausible. Yet, as I lay there, listening to the silent house, I wandered back through those years, reliving those angst-riddled times, melding the pain of maturing with the present grief.
Mom was gone! The idea of my mother no longer residing in this house, no longer being here to comfort me when I called with distressing news, or came back home to visit, hurt worse than any physical pain I had ever experienced.
This house would never be my home again, I realized. Someone would buy it and move their family in, and make it their home. Their children would laugh and play among the memories of my youth. They would smile and share their fears, support each other in times of need. And the walls would forget my mother in time.
Mother.
Tears came freely, spilling over my eyelids and running unabated down my cheeks. I made no effort to stop them. I heard somewhere that tears cleansed the soul. And mine was in serious need of cleansing. I rolled over, gripped my pillow, channeling all the pain and frustration of the last few days into its pliable substance, and let the tears flow as they may.
Some time later I drifted into a fitful, dreamless sleep.

The smell of bacon and coffee woke me around 7:00 the next morning. And for a brief moment, I thought I was a teenager again, waking up for school. I smiled as I conjured the image of Mom fixing me breakfast. Then the truth crashed in upon me. And the sadness of the previous night returned in force.

 

 

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Copyright © 2006 W N Dayley
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