Letters Written in White (12 page)

Philomena stands and straightens. Her long hair rises from upon her shoulders and she begins to float above the floor. My eyes widen and I start backing up even more to get away from her.

“How do you know I took my own life? Who are you? Who are they?” I say, pointing to the river.

Panicking, I look back, searching with my eyes for the door to get out of here.

“You can’t hide here, Riah Winter. You’re transparent now, and every mask you’ve ever worn is invisible. And they—” she gestures toward the river and says “—they are the voices of the River of Regret. Because I can’t find resolve from my own regrets, I must now bear them all, mine and everyone else’s.”

“I want out of here,” I say, reaching out for the knob of her door. In a rush, a strong wind knocks me against the door, my cheek smashing against the cold surface.

“You could have washed your daughter’s hair again and again. You should have lived, Riah Winter. You should have lived.”

Philomena’s voice loudly swirls inside my ears and begins filling my empty insides with horror and despair.

“I was sick too. I was sick too!” I yell desperately.

“You gave up. You had choices and you chose wrong,” she cries out, and without knowing what’s happening, I’m through the door and plummeting down, down, down.

“Happiness fades into sadness before our very eyes.”

AFTER THE TERRIFYING and eye-opening visit with Philomena, I don’t dare to go back to the room of mirrors and continue my journey into a different perspective on the life I once knew. But I have to. I want the key to that door. I need it.

Doing as I have been told, I move to the next mirror and the next and the next. The one I stand before now seems to emit a sort of warmth. It’s comforting. I step in closer to it and peer inside. All at once the mirror turns into warm waters, suspended in the air. It ripples languidly. I reach out with one single finger and carefully touch it.

“Go for a swim, Riah,” a voice beside me whispers.

I look over, and to my surprise I see a kind-looking woman. Her perfectly oval face is adorned with soft features and caring eyes. She’s dressed in a russet-colored dress. The edge of the skirt is red as if it were dipped in scarlet paint. On her feet are glittering red heels. Long tendrils of platinum-blonde hair tumble over her shoulders, down her back. She’s breathtaking. Her voice is soothing, every word bathed in golden honey.

“Swim?” I ask. I continue staring at her, awestruck.

The red bow of her perfect lips part and she says, “Yes, go on now, jump in. You should not fear what awaits you inside. You’ve seen some of the pain. You also need to recall some of the pleasure, for we so often forget the things that once made us feel loved. Go, remember, and never forget again.”

I blink hard and look back to the mirror and then back to her. I nod and take a small step forward. My front is mere inches from the suspended body of water before me. I look, trying to see through it, but fail. She angles her head toward it, urging me to go. I squeeze my eyes tightly shut and jump. I’m instantly engulfed by silken and balmy water. I attempt to hold my breath but soon realize there’s no need. Opening my eyes, I look around me. I’m like a pendulum in an ocean of cerulean bubbles. They float up around me unhurriedly. Above I see a flickering brightness. I follow the bubbles and start to swim upward toward the tawny light.

Breaking through the water, I emerge. Warm air caresses my face and shoulders. In the distance I see dry land. It’s a beach. The woman was right. Everything here feels pleasant so far. It’s beautiful. I stretch my arms and kick my feet, swimming toward the sandy shore. As soon as I reach it I stand, digging my toes into the soft earth. Just up the shore is a small beach house. I walk toward it, and the closer I get the more familiar it seems. I take a few more steps and stop in my tracks when I hear laughter. My eyes follow the sound and fall upon two people.

The very moment my mind registers what my eyes are seeing, I remember exactly where this is. There’s also no mistaking who the two people are.

Grayson.

Me.

Standing on the beach watching my twenty-one-year-old self laugh and joke around with Grayson during our spring break of our senior year in college, I’m frozen. I can’t look away. My feet have sunken into the sand and I’m almost in a trance as I stare. We had been dating for several months at this point in time. A group of us rented this beach house for the week. It feels like a lifetime ago. Truthfully, standing here looking at our young and carefree selves, it doesn’t even seem real, like it never happened. I’ve forgotten who these people even were.

I used to so often hear people talk about leaving their past in the past or wishing they could forget their past. Looking at us so in love and happy, I can only wish I could become my past. I’d look that young and handsome man in the eyes and tell him it’s going to be a rough road ahead and to be sure, really sure, he’s up for it. I’d tell him I’d try to do my best and be my best for him. And then I would do it. I would fight harder, love stronger, and never forget. That’s the problem with pleasure—we forget. We open up the depths of doom and welcome sadness and pain in without even knowing it. We do it so easily, yet we swear we never did. Pain is sneaky like that.

“Where’s everyone going?” I hear myself ask.

With his arms wrapped around my bare midriff, his front to my back, Grayson whispers, “They’re all going to the bar up the street. Do you want to go because I kind of want you all to myself here for a while.”

I tilt my head backward and our cheeks brush against one another in a flirty manner. Grayson places a chaste kiss on my neck. I grin and close my eyes and say, “I like that idea. Let’s stay.”

I spin around and drape my arms over his shoulders. My hands dangle like happy charms behind his neck. I rise up onto my toes and kiss him. It’s a short kiss, but it speaks volumes. Until this night we hadn’t gone all the way. We’d come close many times until this very night. I let out a gasp without even meaning to. The memories start coming in waves. With each one that crashes against me, I feel more and more overcome with emotion.

I watch us take each other’s hands and walk up toward the beach house. I sit on the porch swing and he goes inside. When he comes back out, he’s holding two beers. He hands one to me and I smile. He takes a seat beside me on the bench and we begin talking, drinking our beers and just being twenty-one and in love.

“Have you decided if you’re going to grad school, or are you going to start applying for jobs?” I ask him.

I remember being apprehensive about graduating that year because I was unsure of what that would mean for our relationship. We hadn’t made any clear plans, or at least we hadn’t talked about them much with each other until this night.

“Right now I’m leaning toward trying to secure a job. I’m ready to get out there and start my career. What about you? What’s your grand plan? Am I a part of it?” he says, shooting a clever smile my way.

“Do you want to be a part of it?” I say, part playing along and part wishing he’d say yes.

“I want a lot of things lately that I never realized I wanted.”

He says this with a serious tone in his voice while his eyes are locked on mine. I remember the flip-flop my stomach did in that exact moment. The light and flirty feel of our conversation turned heavier right then and my heart rate kicked up.

“Tell me about these things,” I bravely tell him with a coy grin, wanting to get inside his mind a little. Mostly, I hoped to hear him say he wanted me in his life after college. I wanted us to be more than a fling. I just didn’t know if he wanted the same thing.

“You. I want you.” He stares lovingly into my eyes, and before another word can be said we’re wrapped in each other’s arms, kissing passionately.

Soon we’re no longer on the front porch but making our way into the now empty beach house. “I want you too,” I tell him in between kisses and caresses.

Cradling my face between his large hands, his eyes hold me in silence before we align our mouths again, his lips a bottle I would forever want to drink from. Drunk on him, I am an ocean. Falling to the bed, he divides my waves. We lose our senses and then they all became one. We see without looking, hear without listening, and feel without touching. He kisses my lips, my soul, and my heart. Unstrung by passion, his fingers are as skilled as a musician. He plays my body and it sings a song just for him. We make a beautiful piece of music, humming and thrumming. Entwined, our bodies become one. He melts into me. I burn for him.

Chills fan across me as I watch this man make love to my body. With such delicate care he loved me. I had all but forgotten this night. Standing here now, I can’t imagine how something so beautiful could ever be forgotten.

An overpowering amount of emotion blankets me and I start backing away. I look one last time at us, and then I turn and run as fast and as far away from it all as I can. My eyes burn with tears. My feet pound against the sandy beach and I run until I’m submerged. With a whisper, my mind and body slip beneath dark waters. My eyes are superglued shut with regret and fear. My body is dead. My soul is dying. Nothing can save me now.

Pacing from wall to wall in my cold white room I can’t control my sadness and anger. I don’t want to keep seeing these things that do nothing but confuse what my reality was on the day I took my life. The past is the past. What it became is what it became. I can’t stop crying. Dropping to my knees beside the stack of blank paper, I grab the pen and let my anger flow onto a sheet.

I felt like our marriage was dying more and more every day. I had so much I wanted to give, and it felt as if it wasn’t wanted and it was rarely returned
.
The man I just saw from my past disappeared somewhere in the changing seasons of our marriage. We went from romance to disillusionment and took a nosedive into misery. I know I wasn’t the best wife. I know it wasn’t all his fault. The raw underbelly of the truth is that we jointly dismantled our life. I’ve never wanted to believe I had much fault in it, but I know now that I was just as guilty as he was. Even with my illness, I have ownership in the demise of our love.

Sitting here now in utter despair, facing this harsh reality, I’m gripped with remorse and fear. I want all of this to be a mistake I can take back, a bad dream, anything but real. Like flashes of a light, my mind is scanning memories from our past. Falling in love with Grayson was me falling in love with my best friend. Our friendship was the force that slammed us into love. Our first kiss was at the bottom of the steps of the university library. From that day forward, we were inseparable. The night at the beach house we became one.

Unfortunately, I assume just like in many marriages, our oneness did not last. In the latter months of our life together, our house seemed hollow, our relationship alien, and everything had decayed to nothingness. Artifacts of our shared life would often taunt me with echoes of false hope. Maybe part of it was that I had never been an adult without Grayson. I didn’t know where he ended and I began. I defined myself through my husband and in turn lost my identity.