Zelda
December 24th
I took a cab to my Rittenhouse neighborhood, my hands balled into fists in my coat pocket. My breath kept trying to stop in my throat but I forced it down, exhaled it back out slowly.
I can do this.
I took in the townhouses standing shoulder to shoulder on either side of the narrow cobblestone street. The trees were skeletons, their black bony hands spread against the gray sky. In fall they would’ve been dressed in yellow and orange, littering the streets with a carpet of gold.
When we were younger, Rosemary and I would pile the leaves up high and fall into them, moving our arms and legs to make leaf angels…
That’s a good memory, I heard Beckett say. Hold onto it. Keep it there.
With the sound of remembered laughter in my head, I took the steps to my house, a red brick townhome with dark gray trim over the door and windows. I set down my suitcase, raised a trembling hand and knocked.
The door opened and my mother was there. Her eyes, the same green as mine, all lit up and shining with joy.
“Hi, Mom,” I said.
Without a word, she pulled me into her arms. I leaned into my mother’s perfume, the softness of her sweater, the strength of her embrace. I closed my eyes and let the moment be my home. Dad was there too, and I did the same thing, clinging to his sweater.
“So good to see you,” he said into my hair.
Inside, Dad took my rolling luggage and headed for the upper floor where the bedrooms were.
“Wait, I want to sleep in the den, on the couch,” I told him.
He hesitated. “Couch is pretty lumpy, kiddo. I would know—your mom sends me there when I’ve been bad.”
“Which is a lot,” Mom said. She smiled at me but her eyebrows furrowed. “You sure, honey?”
“I’m sure,” I said. My room was too full of memories. Rosie sitting on my bed as I braided her hair. A pillow fight that ended with me knocking her to the floor…
I blinked, and made fists in the pockets of my jacket again. I hadn’t taken any meds but wondered if I should.
Or else I’m not going to make it…
Dad studied my face a moment. “The den it is.”
“Are you hungry?” Mom asked, linking her arm in mine. “Everyone’s in the kitchen, as usual. Let’s get a snack.”
“Everything looks so nice,” I said as we walked through the living room. The tree stood tall by the windows and the mantel was festooned with a lighted garland and candlesticks.
After Rosemary disappeared, I expected my parents to move from this house, at best, or divorce, at worst. I’d read that, statistically, the loss of a child drove married couples apart. Not Lydia and Paul Rossi. My parents loved each other, and the house they’d bought when they first married. They didn’t want to give up either one.
Mom was an interior designer, and the house became her canvas. She redid all three floors—but for Rosie’s room, which would forever remain untouched—and even that wasn’t enough. She never stopped changing things or adding details. I think it was how my parents survived.
To me, the house was the same, just dressed differently. The memories were still there under the fresh paint. Like Clark Kent putting on glasses and a suit and suddenly no one could tell he was Superman.
I could tell.
“You painted again,” I said to my mom. “This gray is new. I like it.”
“Isn’t it pretty?” Mom said, collecting some empty plates from the coffee table. “Your father picked it,” she added. Her smile slipped a little. “It was time for a change.”
From the kitchen, I could hear the din of Rossi-De Luca relations, a dozen voices raised above the rattle of pots and pans. My two Grandmothers jostled each other at the stove, talking and bickering in Italian as they cooked and spiced and stirred simmering pots like Macbeth’s witches. They took turns slapping Uncle Mike’s fingers away from the prime rib.
“Look who’s here,” Mom said.
Like a switch, the room froze and the chatter ceased. A crystal moment of silence, then they descended on me. All at once, I was surrounded by voices and scents and embraces, all threatening to drive me off a cliff into a sea of wonderful memories tainted black with guilt and grief.
I inhaled, and remembered Beckett holding me last night, and hugging me tight on the train platform.
Just be here.
I exhaled and found my smile. “Hi, everyone. Merry Christmas.”
But I knew before I even sat down to dinner that it was too much.
The dining room table was laden with bowls and platters of food, and glittered with Mom’s best silverware. Dishes were passed up and down, from grandmothers and grandfathers, Uncle Mike, Aunt Stella and Uncle Louie, to my eighty-three year old Auntie Lucille.
On the surface, we looked whole and healthy. No empty chairs at the table. But I could see the gaping hole left by Rosemary’s absence. It was as if my loud, Italian family was on a dimmer switch, turned a little lower. Sad looks and silences fell into the cracks of conversation when people were too afraid to talk about kids or Christmas or school, or anything else that touched too close to what Rosemary should have been experiencing right then.
Only Auntie Lucille seemed oblivious. She sat to my right, reeking of Shalimar and mentholated cough drops. She reminded me of a crane—tall and skinny, with knobby knees under her floral dresses, and bottle glasses behind which she regarded us all with large eyes. Her eyes were green too—it was a De Luca trait—and were miles deep. They looked as though they contained the wisdom of the universe, a huge contrast to the unhinged ramblings that often fell out of her mouth.
“There was once a movie theater… What was it called? Phantasus. Yes, I remember.” A smile spread over her lips, crookedly painted with red lipstick. She leaned to me. “It was called Phantasus. But it did more than show movies. It was a land where all of your dreams came true.”
“Phantasus?” Uncle Mike said from her right. “Sounds like Phantasos, from Ovid’s epic poem Metamorphoses, if I remember my classics from the old college days. A spirit who appeared in dreams?” He smiled broadly at Lucille, humoring her. “Is that where it comes from, Luce?”
She stared at him as if he were a child and patted his cheek. “Ssssh,” she said. “The movie is starting.”
Uncle Mike laughed and gave up. Auntie Lucille babbled on. Talk went back and forth around me, over me. The voices were too loud, the lights too bright. I sat carefully, moved slowly, afraid the slightest bump would shatter me. I could feel the memories swirl around me like ghosts, and I shrunk deeper into my chair, into myself. If I made myself small enough, the panic wouldn’t find me.
“Zelda, it’s too bad your friend couldn’t come,” Mom said, passing me a bowl of garlic-and-butter green beans. “Is he with his family?”
“Tomorrow he will be,” I said, my voice sounding disengaged from my head. “He’s working tonight.”
“What does he do?”
He keeps me safe.
“He’s a bike messenger,” I managed. The table was blurring and wavering, like a flashback in one of those old TV shows. Beside me, Auntie Lucille prattled on about her mythical movie theatre.
“Phantasus. Isn’t that a wonderful name?”
Now the voices were blurring. First pressing against my eardrums, then fading far away. I struggled to do what Beckett told me. I reached back in time for piles of golden leaves under an autumn-blue sky. I tried to grasp my mother’s hug, her scent and softness. I looked for Beckett’s hand on my cheek. His long, sleeping breaths in the dark. The strength and safety of his hug.
It all slipped through my fingers like water.
Someone touched my arm and it was like the starting gun of a race. The panic sprinted through me, forcing me to my feet. My chair fell over behind me and every head turned.
“I…I’m sorry,” I said. “Sorry… Excuse me…”
Blind with tears, I fled down the hall, to the den, and curled up on the couch, shaking into pieces.
Rosie, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…
Mentholatum and Shalimar filled my nose, then Aunt Lucille’s thin, bony arms slid around me. I was sure my shaking sobs would be too much for her, but the strength of her embrace surprised me, as did the soothing comfort of her hand along my hair.
“Phantasus is where children go to watch any movie they want,” she said, her voice steady and calm. “Only one screen, but it plays each child’s favorite. They eat ice cream and candy, and each one gets a balloon tied to their wrist. Their favorite color.”
She bent her lips toward my ear. “Can you see her there, darling?”
“Red,” I whispered. “Her…f-favorite color was red.”
“Her balloon is red at the Phantasus. And she laughs with other little angels and eats as much candy as she wants, and she’ll never get sick, and she’ll never be scared, and she’ll only be happy. Forever.”
My chest, which seemed about to detonate, slowly imploded. I caved in with it, and I cried against my Auntie Lucille. I wept until I was dry.
Then I slept.