A half smile crosses my face as I remember a night when I tried to teach her to play poker. She had failed spectacularly, and my victory was sweet. The taste of her, even sweeter.
Her personality changes over the years, and all I can deduce after eons of study is nature controls her physical appearance while nurture nuances her personality. Rediscovering her over and over is like trying different vintages of my favorite wine. I amstarvingfor her taste, desperate to sample this lifetime’s bouquet.
My littleRozamakes a face at the barista and then, in response to whatever they say, shoots one eyebrow to her hairline. This particular facial gesture is seared into my brain and is one of my favorites. It’s a face she makes a hundred times a day and has made at me a thousand times more than that.
She is irritated with the poor barista, waving her hands around until both eyebrows are stuck near her hairline. I chuckle to myself. My girl appears to be a firecracker this lifetime. Oh, to watch her explode…
I bask in the warmth of just being in her presence. After she leaves, I slink back into the shadows, where I belong. There is no light without her.
Only my darkness.
Biscotti and latte in hand, I dash back across the street with a minute to spare, bracing for the usual busyness of a Saturday morning. The skies open into a torrential downpour just as I close the door behind me.
“Thanks, angel,” I whisper. Part of my “overactive imagination” included sightings of a beautiful man with white-blonde hair and amazing blue eyes. As a child, I was certain that he was my guardian angel, while my parents were certain I was just a lonely and peculiar child with an imaginary friend.
Once they realized I wasn’t in danger from a man following me, they shushed me any time I brought him up and reminded me who I should always be thanking for my blessings and looking to for guidance. I quickly learned not to tell other kids or adults about my angel, either. People get real uncomfortable real fast when a child’s “invisible friend” is an adult male.
I thought surely my pastor would be able to see my angel and he could convince my parents I wasn’t making this up. I was so confused when he told me that wasn’t possible, so I pointed out the stained-glass windows in the church and the pictures in my children’s bible of the blue-eyed, blonde-haired celestial beings.
In response, he turned a fascinating shade of red above his white robes, and my father just about had an apoplexy. Both men made it crystal clear not only was I not to bring up the subject again, but I was to purge the entire blasphemous idea from my mind.
Seeing the adults so upset, I nodded solemnly in acquiescence while secretly crossing my little fingers in the folds of my Sunday dress. If they hadn’t been so pinched in my second-hand black patent church shoes that were a full size too small, I would have crossed my toes as well.
As the years passed, my angel appeared less and less often. As a teenager I had started to think perhaps the pastor and my parents were right; he had never been more than the figment of a lonely child’s imagination.
Then one final encounter cemented his significance in my life for all time. I had finally got the nerve to sneak out to a bonfire party in the woods, my last chance to go to one before high school graduation. Time got away from me as I enjoyed feeling like a normal kid, drinking my first warm beer, so I started asking around for a ride home instead of walking back all that way in the dark.
Shocked when one of the popular guys offered me one, I didn’t stop to think how everyone had been drinking. Just as I was about to climb into the backseat of his car, a high-pitched laugh had me glancing over my shoulder. Just beyond the group of cackling teenage girls, at the edge of the woods, stood my angel, the bonfire glinting off his white-blonde hair.
We locked eyes and despite the distance, I could see the flames dance hypnotically across endless blue. A slight shake of his head was all it took for me to reconsider my decision and pick a different ride.
To this day, I am thankful for his warning. The car full of kids I was about to get into never made it home. Since that night, nothing. But the childhood habit of thanking him had stuck with me. After all, he saved my life.
Pushing aside the memories, I put down my goodies and check in on my laptop as it chugs along. Since a spinning circle is the only thing my computer has accomplished so far, I turn on my phone’s playlist and pop the lid off my beverage. As I stare at the screen, I dunk my morning treat. Eagerly, I blow on the steaming biscotti and take a bite.
“What the–” I exclaim. “Ugh, shitty matcha!”
If I hadn't been trying to multitask, I would have seen my latte was the wrong color before plunging my breakfast in. As I turn to go dump the disgusting beverage, I catch a glimpse of someone out of the corner of my eye. Startled, I slosh green liquid the temperature of liquid hot magma over the side of my hand.
“Fuck!” I scream, racing for the powder room. I dump the shitty six-dollar matcha down the avocado green sink, noting the similarity in colors, and run cold water over my hand.
“What a morning,” I mutter under my breath. I hope the rest of the day will be better. Bit by bit, the scald fades to a faint pink under the running water.
I look heavenward, praying for patience, and study the wallpaper covering the little powder room. It had taken me forever to find the perfect one, but the velvet-flocked gothic print was worth the wait.
The paper pattern blurs before my eyes and the present fades away. The burning sensation morphs from just my hand to overwhelming heat as an incredible inferno of fire licks up my limbs. I can just make out an indistinct crowd beyond waves of visible heat erupting around me. My screams echo in my ears.
A desperate voice calls out to me over the noise, “Alice! Alice!”
I turn to the voice, somehow knowing this is my name. Through the shimmering haze of fire, a set of amber eyes, so like my own, frantically search for me. My heart has already reconciled my fate; he cannot save me. We are out of time.
"I will find you. I will always find you," he cries out, hands outstretched.
His desperate declaration fades away as I push past the sensory overload and reach for the grounding methods I’ve practiced over the years to carefully pull myself back to the present. I had finally found a great counselor, once I had left my small town behind for college, who had helped me find a few techniques to work through these episodes.
Dr. Samantha was the only one who had been more interested in helping me than pleasing my parents by slapping on a label to force me into a tidy little box. She had been an incredible source of support and helped me along in my transition from an awkward small-town girl to a young woman coming into her own. I still miss her.
“You are safe in Grimm. You are safe in Grimm. You are safe in Grimm,” I repeat out loud while firmly planting my Doc Martens into the floor, imagining roots from my feet digging deep down into the earth, anchoring me into the present.
