Other Lives (2 page)

I stroke her temple. Her hair is a black cloud under my fingers. I wish she could be back inside me where she’s safe, where we are together and she will not even have to think about being alone, or the separation our very bodies and skins bestow on each of us. She is already her own person. I guess she has been for a long time.

She waits, but I have no answer. She’s beyond me.

“I’m glad you remember, ”I tell her, “even the sad times.”

“Maybe you will someday, Mommy.” She nods her head encouraging me. “It was nice being best friends with you, before the dog men came.” She touches my cheek, her finger tracing the curve. The warmth of her hand feels like the sun.

She is off at nursery school when it happens. I don’t know what opens the door. Maybe it’s the play of a leaf that reminds me of things long ago and clouded over. The black walnut filters the sun so the light falls in speckles. Everything is still. The wind blows and the light shivers like broken mirrors to the ground.

The pictures come.

I see Leah as she was then, her black skin touched with blue and shining purple under the leaves. Her eyes have not changed, they’re the same darkness that they are now. Around her neck gleams a brass tube and I see the miniature picture of me in her pupils. My black skin glows in the orange sun. The dolls that we love are twigs in our slender fingers wrapped in straw, dusted with sand. I see the clay and twig huts that are our homes.

My father is the same father I had who is long dead. I smile to see him, and my eyes fill with hot tears from missing him.

The wind stops. The light speckles on the bushes again and the picture is gone.

The next day is hot. I’m damp by the time I finish breakfast. The raisins are clotted in the granola; the curly ridges of walnuts stick to the side of Leah’s bowl before the water dislodges them and flushes them down the disposal. Again I sit on the sofa and want to read to Leah. She replaces the storybook with one from our past.

“It was like this Mommy. Hot like this. And I could hear the mosquitoes going awww awww aww aww always, and those little bugs got in my eyes. Daddy was wearing a thing like a tall skirt and a long cane and I wanted to go by the river to catch fish and get cool. Our mommies went with us. We held hands. Carried baskets.”

She stops to inhale, her arm raised to point at the wall. “See us holding hands, over there?” Her voice filled with excitement at her proof.

I see. The sun shines through the window and, caught in the beam like a collection of motes, is a wavy picture like you notice sometimes on a hot road. In the shimmering air, I see two girls.

They hold hands and carry baskets on their heads. I watch their backs as they walk from the village of golden houses. It’s Leah and I, lush green surrounds us. My mother is my mother now, but young and graceful.

Leah is on my lap as we watch the picture together. The little girls walk down the path to a river with light rippling on the surface. Hippos laze in the water, their noses make soft bubbles. Fish swim and hump their bodies, leaping out of the water and into our nets. We’re naked and cool in the river. The sun is caught by her necklace which flashes like a star at the base of her throat. Leah catches a fish between her hands. She has waited patiently for it to swim between her hands when between her hands and, when it finally does, she clasps it, brings it out of the water, giggling. It’s her same giggle.

Drops of water are caught in her hair and I see the rainbows in them.

“We have rainbows in our hair, Mommy. See?” Leah asks, her voice sure and hopeful. If I cannot see it now, her manner tells me, she’s lost once again.

“Yes. I see them. And I see the fish and the river and the water in our hair.” Her hand clutches my fingers, hotter even than the rest of her.

“Remember now?”

“Yes,” I say afraid of my own voice. We sit together and watch the two girls caught in a sunbeam as though it is a movie. Leah’s body is warm on mine while we watch the vision. It is as if she has no weight, only warmth.

Other Lives
won a prize in Minnesota Ink literary Journal more than a decade ago. The idea of creating a picture book originally came from a fan who suggested I turn one of my paintings and its accompanying blog into a children’s book. A perfect way to combine my art and writing, and I thought this tale might be a fortuitous virgin voyage.

The illustrations are collages composed of butcher block and craft papers, gold leaf, pastels, as well as paste papers that I created. I have made books as well as written them for some time. You can check these out at
AnnPearlman.net/art-gallery/altered-books-etc

As you see, I’ve had a great fun tearing apart my published books and combining them with my sculpture and art.

I loved illustrating
Other Lives.
While I write, I “see” images and now I have shared some of the pictures that were in my mind as the words flowed. Of course, I plan to do this again. This is a start of an series of storybooks that contain the thrill of illustrations as we loved in books when we were kids, but with narratives slated for adults.

First I must acknowledge Barbara Brown, book artist, friend, and teacher extraordinaire. I love books, both the written word, but also the tactile sense of the paper, glue, cover and anticipation of the journey bound between the covers. When I started painting watercolors, I wanted a way to bind them into a book. And that’s how I met Barbara. She taught me the art of French leather binding, wrapped leather journals, stab bindings, and box books, tunnel books and wonderful ways to play with art, and words. Encouraging as always, she helped turn the paper collages for this book into digital so my visual ideas were easily accessible.

Emlyn Chand and Pavarti Tyler and the entire group at
Novel Publicity
shepherded me every step of the way in spite of it being very busy times in their own lives. They were a complete resource in this first voyage into self-publishing guiding me from formatting to promotion to print on demand options. Thank you.

Ann Pearlman is the author of seven traditionally published books.
Keep the Home Fires Burning: How to Have an Affair With Your Spouse, garnered
the attention of the Oprah Winfrey Show and many other TV talk shows.
Infidelity
was nominated for a Pulitzer and a National Book Review and was made into a Lifetime Movie.
Inside the Crips,
with a foreword by Ice T, took readers into the life of a Crip gang member and the California Prison system.
The Christmas Cookie Club
was translated into six languages and became a national and international bestseller.
The Christmas Cookie Cookbook: All the Rules and Delicious Recipes to

Start Your Own Holiday Cookie Club
was written with her friend, Marybeth Bayer, who is a terrific baker as well as the hostess of the cookie exchange Ann attends.

The paperback of
A Gift for My Sister,
which follows two sisters who first appeared in
The Christmas Cookie Club
will be on the stands in February 2013.