THE SECRET TO HEAVEN - FINAL DRAFT

[susan.burdorf]

THE SECRET TO HEAVEN
By Susan Burdorf

   I?d forgotten how long the walk was when I started out earlier this morning.
   Reaching into my backpack I pulled out the bottle of water I?d brought. Cold when I began three hours ago its temperature was closer to lukewarm now.
   I swallowed the liquid anyway, grateful for the momentary reprieve from the onslaught of memories I was sure were coming.
This trip had been Brian?s idea.
?You need to face this history sometime, might as well be now.?
His blue eyes, usually so warm and tender, were serious and wide. A psychologist by profession, he knew all about repressed memories and the damage they could do if not faced.
?Joke?s on you, babe,? Clara said as she stood on the hilltop just out of sight of the object of this trek, ?I?ve faced them, and found them too hard. Too sad. Anything worth salvaging died with mommy last year.?
The wind ruffled my short-cropped dark hair, another sign of my independence from tradition. All my life my mommy reminded me that women of my tribe always wore their hair long and loose until marriage. An antiquated and stereotypical view of the Native American girl that I refused to adhere to once I reached my teen years. One of the first, of many things we argued about.
But that wasn?t why I was here.
?She did the best she could, under the circumstances,? Brian?s voice echoed the old argument in my head as I stared ahead, tears forming, blurring the kaleidoscope of images that grew from deep green to the orange of the small house standing sentinel on the hill, a guardian of my youth, a home lost to time.
My legacy.
A ghost-house of what might have been.
I half-smiled as I imagined a small girl playing in the dirt while a slender woman, dark hair falling in a single braid down her back hummed a song as she hung laundry on the line stretched between the house and a pole long since gone.
The picture dissolved into the air with my next step.
I was struck once again by the isolation and desolation of this place. Flowers bloomed in the scrub brush to my left, a reassurance that from despair might come hope. Tall trees bowed in greeting as the wind rippled the leaves, turning green to silver as the temperature cooled slightly, the petrichor-tinged aroma a hint of the rain to come.
I breathed deeply.
The sharp crackle of the water bottle reminded me that I was still holding it. I slipped it into the side pocket on the backpack and walked another few steps forward. I reached out to touch the rough wall of the house. My fingers tingled at the warmth left from the sun?s kiss.
   Without letting go of the house I walked around until I found the door to the home I grew up in, a small square structure devoid of decoration or adornment. A ragged curtain rippled in the breeze as I opened the door.
   Inside the dark house I stood still, taking a moment to let my eyes adjust from the brightness outside to the gray interior.
   The floor was still dirt, the cobwebs in the corners of the single room a testament to the lack of any habitation.
   I bit my lip as the anticipated memory flooded back to the day my mother lost her battle with the demons that gathered in the corners of the house and in her mind. The day my world turned upside-down and I lost my beautiful fragile mother forever.
   I fell to the floor, tears spilling into the dirt as they had that day. I rubbed my arm, comforting myself from imagined bruises long since healed.
   I pulled out my phone from my jeans pocket to call Brian, just as the heavens above me opened with their song, rain pounding on the tin roof in a melody I used to find comfort in when I was enveloped in the arms of the one I most trusted, and most feared.
   ?Mommy! Mommy, the thunder is loud. I?m scared.? Little Clara cried.
   I sobbed, begging the memory to leave me alone, pleading for relief. But memories are relentless when they have a purpose.
   ?Shhh? shhh?my little wren. You have nothing to fear. Mommy?s here. The thunder is only the sound of the heavens opening their secrets to you. Listen? listen??
   I whimpered, my voice small and young in my ears, ?I?m listening, mommy. I?m listening.?
   I began humming, rocking on the dirt floor; her face swimming before me. Her arms around me, warm and slender and so fragile held me through my fears, through my trembling and tears.
   I wrapped my arms around myself, moaning for her touch once more, wishing I could hear her voice, raspy and deep as she aged thanks to the many cigarettes she?d smoked, a habit she?d picked up in rehab.
   They?d taken me from her that night, in the middle of the storm, no wonder I hated thunder and lightning.
   It was only fitting I returned her to the place she loved most during one of her storms.
   I reached into my backpack, brushing aside the letter from the funeral home. My fingers closed on the small box that bore all that remained of her.
   Standing tall, wiping the tears from my face I carefully opened the box and sprinkled a little of her into the floor as I whispered, ?Ashes to ashes, dust to dust? I love you, mommy. I miss you. I miss you most in the storms of life and I know the secret to heaven. It?s you.?