Sleeping Awake (26 page)

**~*~*~**~*~*~**

 
Maman
had
initially refused to go to a hospital once we arrived in France. She was
adamant that she not die in one. Philippe convinced her to be admitted
temporarily so that the doctors could monitor her while he arranged hospice care.
She’d return in a week to live out the rest of her days in a room on the first
floor.

Philippe had a nutritionist
come in and talk to the chef. The doctors had
Maman
on a strict
diet, and until she died, we had to be on it as well. Her nurse arrived the
next day, and when she got to our house, I knew that she’d have a role as well.
We all had a role in
Trischa Jeannot-Thompson (Saint Clair)’s Final Days
.
We didn’t know when opening day would be, but everything had to be perfect
until then.

I walked through our home.
Eleven years had passed, and not much had changed. I didn’t know what death
felt like, but I was sure that what I was experiencing was similar to ghosts
who’d come back to check up on their loved ones. Our family portrait, which was
taken when I was nine, still sat proudly above the mantel in the library. The
rocking chair still sat in the corner of my room. I even still had my old toy
chest. It was as if time had remained still and waited for us to get back to
reality.

Memories of running down those
hallways naked, because I refused to wear clothes, came to mind. I went through
a naked phase when I was three, and my nounou was not amused. After she got my
clothes off for my shower and I managed to escape, I’d run out my room door.
I’d make it all the way to stairs before I had to stop and figure out how to
unlock the safety gate.

Now, there was no attendant.
There was no safety gate to protect the three young girls who lived on that
floor. The maid who patiently waited at the bottom for me to go past her was
unfamiliar. I wondered how things would be with us all back there again. Would
we have dinner together every night like we used to? Would we go to Wallonia
before
Maman
died and go horseback riding at sunrise? Would we go
fishing with Philippe again and tease
Maman
with the scaly
creatures? Would we still have to attend Mass on Sundays?

Maman’s credit cards had been
closed. Her name had been removed from our joint bank accounts. The house in NY
had quickly sold. The furniture auctioned off at a hastily organised estate
sale. The maid had been given a good reference and a hefty bonus. Friends had
tripped up the driveway, like clumsy mourners, to bid their farewell. Her will
had been revised. Mementos had been given to her dearest so that she could live
on through them.

Dying was such a messy
business. There were all the final wishes to be granted. Old memories to be relieved.
Rooms that had to be decorated. Egg shells that had to be walked around. Eyes
that seemed to sink into the back of Maman’s skull. Purple-blue marks on the
skin that had to be ignored in order for you to manage a smile. Bloody tissues
that had to be quickly discarded. Dirty sheets that needed be scrubbed with
disinfectant. Graves that were to be dug. Coffins to be built. Children to be
dragged from one world to the next.

The broken promises of a
tomorrow that would never come, which had to be swept under the rug.

*~*

I missed Maman. I didn’t want
to go to the hospital and sit beside Grandpa as she slipped in and out of
unconscious. I wanted to remember happier times. I took the metro to
Saint-Germain-des-Prés and went to Café de Flore.

I used to go to Flore with
Maman as a child. She would always chide me and tell me that hot chocolate
could not be resplendent, but it was for me. Nothing could have been more
regal, more glorious, than the rich, thick velvet cloak that tantalized my
taste buds. The little brass pitcher that our individual hot chocolates came in
could fill three of the house teacups, yet I always managed to have room for
Maman’s third when she complained, on cue, that it was simply too much for her.

As I was off sugar, I could
not savour my velvet treat. Instead, I sipped on tea and watched people go in
and out of the designer boutiques across the tree-lined street. If Cienna had
been with me, I knew that we would have had to pay a visit to Cartier before we
got back on the metro. I made a mental note to go in there and browse. A piece
of jewellery would not fully express how grateful I was to her for how she
helped me that summer, but with Cienna, sparkling items seemed to be all the
heartfelt emotions that she could tolerate.

“Tout va bien?”

I looked up, prepared to smile
politely at my waiter and let him know that I everything was fine, and almost
dropped my teacup.

“Qu’est-ce que tu fais là?”
I exclaimed. Nicolaas was
smiling down at me.

“I went to your house looking
for you and Cienna—”

I did not need to hear the
rest about how he managed to find me. I came alive in his kiss.

“But what about spending your
summer with Bryn?” I asked once we were seated.

Nicolaas shrugged.
“Tu m’as
manqué.”

“And so you just told Bryn
that you had to leave because you missed me?”

“Bryn was otherwise occupied.”

“Anjali?” I guessed.

“Yes.”

I rolled my eyes as the waiter
came over and Nicolaas ordered a special. I could have been a child at the
gingerbread house for how lucky I felt. We stopped in at Cartier afterwards,
and I bought Cienna a ring to match the necklace that she’d recently become
obsessed with. Afterwards, we walked, hand-in-hand, from Boulevard Saint
Germain to Boulevard Saint Michel, where we took the metro to his apartment on
Avenue Gabriel.

“Show me your bedroom,” I
said, once he’d finished giving me a tour.

“Right this way.”

When you were possessed by a
desire that was as strong as mine, nothing would satiate it but the one that
you yearned for. As Nicolaas’ kisses rained all over my body, I cried out from
the pure delight of his touch. That afternoon, I learned the true meaning of
the term ‘making love.’ I never wanted to come down from this high. Strangely
enough, the new realisation didn’t bother me. I was at peace with my demons,
and I wasn’t afraid to give myself wholly. When I awoke, it was to find
Nicolaas staring down at me. The same emotions that I felt were held in his
gaze.

“Je t’aimerai toujours,”
he said. I knew that when he
told me that he’d love me forever, he really meant it.

“
Moi aussi.”
The words were simple, but
they were my promise to love him until the very end.

*~*

We spent the next day
wandering around Paris. We had lunch at the restaurant in Hôtel Le Bristol. We
strolled through the farmer’s market in Belleville and had lunch there. Afterwards,
we went to the Latin Quarter and had ice cream at Bertillon. Later that night,
we danced until the sun rose at the jazz club on Rue de la Huchette.

When we got back to his house,
we made cheese
crêpes
and listened to Nina Simone. During those moments,
the world belonged to us and there was no pain and no dying mother, just the
sweet, sweet sounds of Nina’s sultry voice and Nicolaas’ kisses. The rain
poured outside and washed the city clean, and we made our own heat to fight off
the cold.

“Live with me,” he said
calmly.

“When?” I asked. There was no
need to pretend that it wouldn’t happen.

He kissed my hand. “Whenever
you’re ready to. Sooner, hopefully, than later. I can rouse you out of bed with
a cup of tea and make you breakfast in the morning while you shower.”

“
Every
morning?”
A cup of tea as I opened my
eyes would be a blessing.

“
Every
morning.”

I sighed and thought of the
heaven that life with Adonis would be. “And what else would happen?”

“You’ll go off to create
beauty with your paint brush, and I’ll study law. Then we’ll host dinners for
our friends in the evenings, or go to see ballets that open at the theatre. We
can tour every single jazz club in Paris until we’re playing the saxophone in
our sleep. On the weekends, we’ll visit Madrid or go to Greece, or we can just
sleep in and lounge in each other’s arms.”

“Really?” I asked. I could
easily see myself living that kind of life, especially with Nicolaas.

“Yes.” He kissed my lips. He
tasted like amaretto. “And we could turn one of the rooms into your studio.
There are two spare bedrooms, so your sisters would be more than welcome to
visit you and spend the night. I’ve got this huge apartment all to myself, and
I’d like nothing more than to share it with you.”

I’d always have someone there
who understood me
¾
a safe haven. “Do you really
see me in art school?”

“Where else would you go?” He
kissed my cheek. “Business school and hate your life?”

“I still haven’t applied to
any school.”

“So take some classes this
fall and then start next year. Start the year after that if you want.” Nicolaas
shrugged. “You’ll get in no matter what.”

I closed my eyes. I tried to
picture myself back in a business or political science class, and I could
barely make out the figures through the haze. The idea of art school was
appealing. Art was the only class that I ever enjoyed in school, and I
did
live in Paris. What was to stop me from enrolling in one of the best art
schools in the world and spending the rest of my days doing what I loved
with
the person whom I loved?

“So
what do you think?” Nicolaas asked. “Will you move in with me?”

It would be nice to come home
to Nicolaas. He loved me. He’d do anything for me. What more could a girl want?

“Yes.”

“I
have one more question. He sat up and reached for something in the side drawer.
I stopped breathing, because I knew what was coming. I said nothing as he
handed me the red Cartier box.

“Will
you marry me?”

It was a gold band with a
solitaire made of tsavorite garnet and a heart shape flanked either side and
formed the band. I instantly recognised that it was from their ballerine
collection. He’d gotten it custom-made without the diamond.

“How’d you know not to get me
diamonds?”

“I know you Noira,” he
replied. “Will you marry me?”

How curious it was that one
summer could change my life. I wasn’t sitting around aimlessly waiting for my
prince charming to come along, yet he got on a plane anyway and accepted my
crazy suggestion of testing the zodiac.

“Noira?”

“Yes,”
I agreed.

**~*~*~**~*~*~**

Maman came home on a Monday.
My French teacher once said that the buildings were gray in Paris because of
the overcast skies, but when they wheeled Maman into her new room, the windows
let in the light of the sunny day. I waited until everyone had had their fill
of her before getting into bed with her.

“Are you scared?” she asked.

“I’m trying my hardest not to
be,” I admitted. I closed my eyes as she kissed me. I wished for healthier
days, where we would cuddle and have conversations about anything else except
for her dying and leaving me on my own.

“Don’t, Noira. It’s my time.”

“That’s what Nicolaas said.”

“He’s right.”

“Regardless,” I said. “I wish
that it wasn’t.”

I buried my head into her
chest and breathed in her scent. I tried my hardest to remember what she
smelled of before the staleness and the bleach had to be covered up by baths in
perfume. I could not.

“I want you to melt my wedding
ring and use it as a part of your own.”

I sat up. “What?”

“You heard me, Noira.”

Wordlessly, I watched as Maman
removed the ring that could now barely fit around her bony fingers.

“I can’t be with you
physically at your wedding, but I want to be there all the same.” She placed
the ring in the centre of my palm and curled my fingers around it in a
protective manner.

“But this is your wedding
ring,” I protested.

“What use is a ring on the
finger of a corpse?”

I looked down at the gold
band, which was as simple as the woman who once wore it. “Don’t say that,
Maman.”

Though her hands were clammy,
I didn’t flinch as she pulled me towards her. I breathed deeply as I became
wrapped in a cloak of perfume and decay as Maman held me and kissed my
forehead.

Maman coughed. The door opened
and Grandpa Bill came tumbling in. In an instant, he was by Maman’s side
getting her water and paging for Sara, the nurse to come as her coughs became
more violent. He didn’t have to tell me to get off the bed. Frozen, I stood in
the corner and as Sara and Grandpa Bill fussed over Maman.

“She needs to rest,” Sara
proclaimed. She looked right at me as she spoke.

“But…” I began.

“I’ll let you know when you
can come back, Noira,” Grandpa said.

He didn’t turn to look at me
as he tucked the sheets under Maman’s chin. She had fallen asleep in the few
minutes that it had taken her caregivers to bring her relief from her plaguing
cough.

“Her fever is back,” Sara went
on. She was speaking to Grandpa now. “It’s barely there, but I suspect that
it’ll continue to rise.”

“Noira,” Grandpa said.

Pausing for only a moment, I
cast one last look at Maman before turning to leave the room. Her lips were as
blue as the chill that I felt knowing that it could very well have been our
last hug. I turned on my heel and left the room. I didn’t stop to close the
door. I didn’t trust myself to not turn back, and I knew that I had to keep
moving forward. Maman would not have wanted it any other way.

*~*

On Wednesday, against protests
from Sara and Grandpa, Maman insisted that she eat with us. Philippe wheeled
her into the dining room with her night nurse following closely behind. After
the days of separation, we were finally together again.
Grand-mère
sat
to Philippe’s right, and
Maman
sat up as straight as she possibly
could to his left.

“You look lovely, Trischa,”
Grand-mère
commented.

Cienna had done
Maman
’s
makeup for her, making sure to cover all visible signs of her battle wounds. I
had selected a green long-sleeved dress that had magically complimented her
thin figure. She looked exquisite.

“Merci,
Michèle,
”
Maman
replied. Amélie
brought in the first course.

 “Philippe,”
Grand-mère
said. “Have you postponed your business dinner tomorrow evening so that
we may go to the ballet?”

“Oui, Maman,”
he replied.

“Lovely.”

The rest of the conversation
went smoothly into the main course.
Maman
coughed slightly before
she took a bite of her dish. Grandpa looked as if he was about to stand, but
she recovered after a sip of water. As much as I loved my grandfather, he was
being a right ass when it came to us seeing Maman. If she so much as looked
like she was about to cough or if she breathed in a manner that he didn’t like,
he and Sara ushered us out of the room. Thank goodness for Philippe. Had it not
been for his insistence, we might not have even been allowed in Maman’s room at
all.

“I’ve decided what I’d like to
do regarding university,” I announced.

Grandpa looked towards me,
distracted for a few seconds.

“Really?”
Maman
asked. She looked radiant as she gazed fondly at me. “What?”

“I’d like to go to Beaux
Arts,” I replied.

“That’s lovely,”
Grand-mère
proclaimed
. “I went to art school when I was your age.”

“I think that art school is a
wonderful idea,” Philippe said thoughtfully. “One should always follow one’s
passion.”

Cienna winked at me. Just as
peace began to find a home within me, the coughing commenced. Amélie, who had
been refilling everyone’s wine, dropped the bottle when she saw what Maman was
coughing up;
blood. Clotted
blood.

          
"Trischa!"
Grand-mère
screamed. I had never heard my
grandmother scream before.

       Camelea
and Philippe stood and joined Grandpa at
Maman’s side
. I couldn't
let go of my fork; I was frozen from the neck down. The only things that moved
on my body were my eyes as I took in everything that was going on around me.

       Maman
fainted. Grandpa and Camelea caught her before she hit the ground. Philippe
reached into his pocket and began dialling a number as Sara rushed forward with
a syringe. I closed my eyes as she drove it into Maman's skin. I could hear
Cienna’s banshee wails. By the time that I reopened my eyes, Camelea was
staring into the distance as she sat in the spot where
Maman
once
was. Maman, Philippe, Grandpa and Sara were gone. It made no sense to move; I
knew that Maman’s door would be closed.

*~*

“Come along girls,”
Grand-mère
stood.

She ordered for the dishes to
be cleared and for tea to be brought into the parlor. Obediently, we dragged
our way into the room, like the defeated soldiers that we were, and dropped
onto the chaise.

“We cannot allow ourselves to
fall apart,”
Grand-mère
said once we were seated. “Your mother
needs you to be strong.”

The fear in her eyes betrayed
her strong comportment. Minutes later, the tea was brought in.
Grand-mère
opened
a bottle of Brandy and put a rather generous serving in each of
our cups.

“For your nerves,” she said.

Like robots, the cups went
from our laps to our lips and down our unwilling throats. Eventually, the
Brandy concoction stopped my trembling hands. I decided that the extenuating
circumstances allowed for me slipping up on my alcohol-free diet. By the time
that Philippe arrived, Cienna’s bawling had been reduced to mere hiccups.

“How is she, Philippe?”
Grand-mère
asked.

“She’s asleep.” Philippe
nodded his thanks as
Grand-mère
served him Brandy-laced tea. His
hands shook as well.

“We managed to revive and
stabilise her by the time that the doctor arrived,” he continued.

“That’s good.”
Grand-mère
sipped her tea.

“No.” Philippe put down his
teacup. “It’s not good. Her temperature is so high that the heat is rising from
her body. All of this happened in the space of half hour. Her breaths are
coming out in
spasms.”                      

“Well put her on a respiratory
machine!” Grand-mère slammed her cup down onto the sofa. The brown liquid
stained Maman’s powder blue selection.

Philippe would not meet
Grand-mère’s gaze; his hands shook violently as he struggled to get the cup to
his lips.

“She’s DNR,” I replied.

“So you mean that she just
wants to...to die?”
Grand-mère
asked.

Philippe’s face mirrored his
inward pain. “She's already been through enough,
Maman
. There's
only so much that she can tolerate and no more.”

“It’ll be all over soon
enough,” Camelea murmured. “Then she’ll be at peace.”                        

*~*

Later, after
Grand-mère
left,
we went and visited
Maman
. She looked as if we could break her by
breathing too hard. The makeup had been wiped off and the blue and purple
gashes were once again visible all over her face, all over her body. Her wig
was nowhere in sight; her head was bald. And she was so
skinny
…bones
really. How could I not have noticed the cancer sooner? Behind me, I heard a
sharp intake of breath. Someone grabbed my hand. Camelea.

“She used to be beautiful,”
she moaned, leaning against me.

“She used to be healthy,”
Cienna came and stood beside us. She no longer looked like the baby of the
family. Forced maturity had worn her features slightly, and it was hard to see
her as the same person who had been prancing down a runway and giggling for
photographers at the beginning of the summer.

“She used to be our
Maman.
”
I sighed.

The woman on the bed, she was
no longer
Maman
. She was still our mother, but she was only a
shell of what she used to be. Slowly, everything about her that we once loved
had been sieved away, and there was nothing left to hold on to.

In the corner, Grandpa Bill
shivered and shook in his silent grief. Just looking at her caused him to erupt
into tremors. I didn’t have the strength to go over and comfort him.

“I can’t stand to see her like
this,” Camelea said.

“Neither can I,” I agreed.

I remembered the days when she
used to crawl into bed with me after I had a bad dream. When I got my first
period and was doubled over in cramps, she was there. No matter how many times
I had tried to quit the world, Maman was always there when I awoke, waiting to
cheer me on and give me strength to want to live and face the day. For the good
and the bad, she was there. Who would be there for the rest?

“Girls,” Philippe said. Father
Delmas stood beside him. He was there to give
Maman
her Last
Rites.

Silently, we stepped aside.

“In nomine
Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen…”

We bowed our heads as he
prayed. The incense filled the room and my body as I breathed it in. I closed
my eyes.

I saw the four of us lounging
by our pool as we read paperbacks and soaked up the sun. I saw us wiping tears
from our eyes, from whatever hilarity one of us had muttered. I saw us walking
through the streets of Aruba, Buenos Aires, and Ipanema together. I saw the
four of us going to dinners together, shopping together, cooking
together—doing everything together. I opened my eyes, and I saw three.

Cienna squeezed my hand. I had
returned home miserable and alone, and I was ending the summer well on my way
to being my better self and with a new sense of family ties. No matter how much
animosity had been between us at the beginning of the summer, my sisters were
how I would manage to survive. My sisters, Bryn and Nicolaas, that is.

Father Delmas stepped
backwards. Holding hands, the three of us walked forward. We sat as comfortable
as possible on the edge of
Maman
’s bed. Philippe took her hand
into his. How sad it was that it had taken Maman’s imminent death to unite us.

“Our Father who art in
Heaven,” Father Delmas began.

“Hallowed be Thy name,” we
continued. “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done…”

I decided not to mourn for my
mother. Camelea was right; she needed peace. As hard as it was to face,
Maman
would not be there the next morning to help me get through the day. I knew that
Maman would not have wanted me to take to bed and waste away. With the memory
of Maman ever on my mind, I was determined to get better and to live the
fullest possible life.

“Amen.”