Storymania - Inside A Painting by Christine Fox

Inside A Painting
Christine Fox

She awoke to the crisp gentle breeze hitting her face. The smell of roses surrounded her. Looking around she found a beautiful rose bush to her right and a trickling stream to her left. She stood her legs feeling week and a little unstable at first, walking over to the stream she regained composure and dipped her hand into the cold water and brought it up to her mouth, it was the purest thing she had ever tasted, that she could remember.
She had no idea where she was, no recollection of how she had gotten here. There was a sense of confusion, but she was not worried by it. She had never felt so relaxed, so at peace with the world. This was a place of such serenity. The colors of the grass, the sky, and the trees were so vivid it was as if she were in a painting. She sat down looking at the stream; it was as if she were in a trance when suddenly she was brought back by a child’s voice calling out for her mother. Her first instinct is to go to this child. She thinks if she goes to the child she can find the child’s mother and find out where she is, how such a beautiful place can exist in such a dreary world.
She turns around to see a little girl, probably about five years old. She’s got curly blond hair up in pigtails with the curls falling a little past her shoulders. She is dressed just as a little girl should be a crisp white short-sleeved blouse underneath a red and green plaid jumper, little white socks and shoes. She’s the picture of perfection. She heads towards the child speaking calming words as to not scare the child away. To her surprise when the little girl notices her she comes running towards her. The woman thinks to herself, why is this child not the least bit shy to me, a complete stranger?
“Hi mommy, I didn’t know where you were.” the little girl exclaimed. The woman doesn’t realize the child is talking to her and looks around for the mother. Realizing there is no one else around she looks back at the child “what honey?” she says a little confused. The little girl takes her hand and says “come home it’s almost lunch time and I’m hungry, you said I couldn’t cook myself so you need to make me something.” The woman goes along confused wondering why this child thinks that she is her mother.
After walking down a path through the thick forest she comes to a small rustic house in the middle of nowhere. She follows the child through the doorway. Looking around she sees that nothing is out of place. Vases of roses and lily’s are sitting on perfectly matched doilies on the end tables. On the table is a big bouquet of beautiful white roses. The smell of all the flowers overcomes her and she feels like she is in heaven. She remembers her old home and there was always something that needed to be cleaned but here everything was spotless.
The little girl says “mommy what’s wrong? You look lost.” The woman does not want to worry the child so she goes along and says, “It’s ok honey what would you like for lunch?” The little girl decides on what to have and she fixes it for her. While the little girl is sitting at the table eating the woman walks around she finds a photo album. Picking the album up she finds that it is full of pictures of herself with the little girl. There is one of her in the delivery room that says “Mommy and Abby June 1999.” All the sudden all the peace and serenity she had been feeling disappeared. Why couldn’t she remember this place or her daughter? What was going on, where was her husband her daughters father anyone? Realizing that there was something wrong and even though she felt she barely knew Abby, she felt a deep caring for the little girl and didn’t want to frighten her. How could she answer any of her questions without scaring her?
When Abby was done her lunch she asked the woman if she wanted to look through the old photo album with her. The woman thought this is the perfect opportunity to find some things out. As they were looking through the pictures the little girl would tell her stories about each one. Even though the woman could not remember any of these things they made her happy. She was no longer worried or scared. She knew that even if she couldn’t remember them they must be real so she would be a mother to this child that she had all this love for.
In the next few weeks she spent every minute of every waking hour with Abby. Learning as much as she could about the little girl, what she liked to do, what she liked to eat, what her favorite things were. She developed a bond with the child that was stronger than anything she had ever experienced before.
She had always wondered where the little girl’s father was? It did not bother her to not have him around because in this place there seemed to be no need for him. The little girl had never mentioned him so it didn’t seem to affect her any. She may not have even realized that people have fathers. With no other people around there wasn’t anything that was supposed to be the norms so she was fine with the way things were.
The woman realized that months had passed. She had never been so happy in her life. There was nothing to stress her out, she was able to just go out and have fun every day with the daughter she never knew she had. After a day of running through the streams and fields of beautiful flowers she was putting Abby to bed. As she laid her down she was singing her a sweet lullaby, she kissed her on the head and said, “I love you more than life itself.” She shut the door and proceeded to her bed where she shut her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
It seemed as though only a few minutes had passed when she awoke. She was no longer in such a beautiful place. She opened her eyes to a bright light hanging directly above her bed. Looking down she could see her frail body lying in a hospital bed covered with bruises and cuts. She had a cast on her left arm and it all came rushing back to her.
She had gotten off work late one night and hurried to pick up her daughter Abby and get home to cook supper before her husband got home. It was a dark and dreary rainy night. Her husband walked through the door drenched, his car had broken down and he was already complaining. She knew this was not going to be a good night. He walked into the kitchen where she was cooking and Abby was sitting at the table coloring waiting patiently for supper. “Where the hell is my supper he said” in a hoarse tone. “It’s almost done she said as she was draining the noodles for the fettuccini Alfredo she was making. She could feel his eyes burning into the back of her head, it made her nervous and she dropped the pasta onto the floor. She immediately started cleaning it up but it was too late, he jumped up from the table and grabbed her by the back of the neck. He threw her across the room and Abby started crying. “Shut the hell up” he told her. “Its ok honey, just go to your room I’ll come get you when suppers ready, I’m O.K.” the woman told her. Abby got up to leave and this just angered the man even more. He grabbed Abby and took her into the living room. The woman climbed to her feet, every move made her hurt. By the time she made it to the living room Abby was laying on the floor unconscious. The rest is just a blur; the only thing she remembers is going after the man for hurting her daughter.
She called the nurse to find out where Abby was. The nurse comes in and says, “You’re awake, good I will call the doctor to come see you” she left before the woman had a chance to ask about Abby. The woman sat their worried wondering where Abby was and if she was o.k. After an agonizing 45 minutes the doctor comes in the room, looks at the chart and then at her. She asks where Abby is. “We’ll get to that in a minute” he says. Crying she asks again “where is my daughter?” He looks at her with a look of pity, “you don’t remember anything?” She explains to him what she remembers.
After she is done telling him exactly what she remembers he sits down on the bed looking at her solemnly. “Abby is dead. She sustained a blow to the head that instantly killed her. If it makes you feel any better, she felt no pain.” The woman felt as if her heart had stopped. She wasn’t sure if she had heard him correctly, everything sounded as if it was a hundred miles away and the room seemed to be closing in on her. What was she going to do without her daughter?
The doctor left the room and the woman laid in the bed sobbing. She looked up and on the wall was a painting of a beautiful rustic little house surrounded by trees with a stream running off in the distance. Looking at the picture gave her a little bit of reassurance that everything was going to be ok. She felt that she would be reunited with her daughter and it would be a place just like in the picture.