Dearest Rachel –
I’m not sure whether I heard the car approach – I certainly didn’t recognize it, if I paid any attention to it at all – as it pulled up to your parents’ house and you got out to look through the place one more time. I watched through the immense picture window of the great room on the second floor as you solemnly made your way to the porch step, fumbled momentarily for the keys to the place, and let yourself in, never looking up to notice, let alone acknowledge, that I was already there, and the place would be unlocked already.
Then again, why would you? Your parents’ home was a ranch-style dwelling; there was no second floor, no glassed-in great room from which to watch the world go by in comfort (nor, contrariwise, for the world to watch your folks live life in seventies-era comfort, as if in a human-sized fishbowl). The strings of starry Christmas lights that dangled from the ceiling at regular intervals near the windows, while characteristic of your Dad’s aesthetic, never existed, any more than the room I was in, gazing down as you walked up.
It struck me to question why I was even there; not only was the room I was standing in imaginary, but there was no reason for me to be collecting any of your parents’ things at this point. Clearly, we were coming from two different directions at this point; both of us had been brought here by other people – and like the car that I didn’t notice that dropped you off, I had already forgotten who had given me a lift to get here through the winding, hilly streets that led to your old house (which should have been another tip-off that something was not right here).
The only thing I could remember – if you could call it that, since they were still with me, crisply folded up and sitting in my pocket – were the handful of dollar bills that Daniel had won in some trivia game (coming in second or third, rather than first, but still earning himself some money for his efforts), and for whatever reason, turned them over to me for safekeeping, despite the fact that he has had that wallet in a lanyard around his neck for so long that I assume you remember it. There was no reason for him to give the money to me, and yet here I was with it.
Meanwhile, there was this sense of having not seen you for what felt like years; which is probably the most realistic part of this whole tableau. It’s probably the whole reason I practically dropped everything I was doing – which, admittedly, wasn’t much; what would I need, or even want, of your folks’ stuff? – to stare as you made your way to the door and inside? But at the same time, I seemed unable, or unwilling, to do what we both would have thought would have been the obvious reaction of charging down the stairs to greet you enthusiastically at the door, welcoming you back “home” properly. Instead, I just stared from my upstairs vantage point, watching you go through the mundane steps of letting yourself in rather than racing to let you in like I should have.
It may have been that sense of having been apart for so long; it’s gotten to the point where maybe we would be acting towards each other like a divorced couple – or maybe more like estranged siblings, since why should I be at all interested in my ex-in-laws’ place or possessions? Certainly, the fact that we had come from two different directions, by two different means, suggests a certain… distance… between the two of us that didn’t exist in real life.
Of course, this wasn’t real life. You can tell by the various details of my description of the place that this wasn’t, in fact, your parents’ home at all. The fact that I encountered a dog still residing there when I first made my way inside would have been an additional cue; once Sir Silk passed away, your parents had the good sense to realize that they wouldn’t be able to take care of another dog (indeed, they rather assumed that when Rufus passed on, only a few short years into our marriage, that they’d never get another dog, but they fell in love with Sir Silk, and he was a fixture in their home for a good ten years or so). And yet somehow, I found myself encountering one on my way in, and assumed you would be collecting it as part of your part of the haul. Moreover, it even crossed my mind that you were there to take the now-abandoned creature across the legendary Rainbow Bridge, as its own personal psychopomp.
Maybe that’s why I didn’t go running down to greet you, either; at this point, I may not have seen you as “you,” but as a specter of death itself. Oh, you would be a good death, the kind that “came with friendly care,” as the poem goes – and when my time comes, honey, I do so hope you’ll be at my bedside to collect my soul, and show me around our Father’s house – but I wasn’t (nor am I) ready for that moment just yet, I think. Granted, none of that occurred to me in that moment, but on considering it from this vantage point an hour after waking up, I’m pretty sure that explanation makes a certain amount of sense.
In the moment, however, I was surprised not to be able to hear the door open, to hear your murmured “tadaima” as you entered (which you would do even to an empty house – and, without a car in the driveway to give my presence away, you would have assumed the place to be empty), but it may have been just the lack of time. I barely had the chance for it to resonate in the moment that this was a dream before it evaporated, and I found myself lying in the bedroom, dark from the earliness of the hour, with the only light emanating from the computer I had left on after falling asleep in front of. With it on, and with this fresh in my mind, I thought I’d relate this dream to you before I got on with my day.
In any event, I should proceed with it shortly, now that I have this off my chest and in your hands. So for now, honey, I’ll ask that you keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 