The Lovely Shadow (31 page)

Miss Lilly reached over and slapped Louie on
the shoulder and said, “Knock it off you ol’ Rascal! You be good
an’ let de boy drive. Get dis car out on de road, Boo. You gonna do
jus’ fine, an’ we all gonna get home alive, no matter what dis ol’
rat say.” She jerked a thumb towards Louie as she said “dis ol’
rat”, and I couldn’t help smiling.

“Well, all except Louie, that is,” June said,
and we all had a good laugh, even Louie.

I drove the car cautiously on the way to
town, checking my mirrors frequently and always staying at least
three miles per hour below the speed limit. The drive to town
usually only took about twenty minutes and I made the drive in just
under thirty minutes.

During the journey I chatted with June and
Lilly chatted incessantly to Louie. I looked into my rear view
mirror every three or four minutes and could see Lilly was talking
as animatedly as ever, waving her arms around like crazy.

Louie, who had remained visible for the
duration of the trip was smiling and pretending to dodge Miss
Lilly’s hands every time they swung near to him.

When we finally got into town I asked June
where she wanted to go and she innocently suggested stopping for an
ice cream cone. Ice cream was one of June’s secret weaknesses that
she thought nobody knew about, but everybody knew.

I glanced in the rearview and winked at Miss
Lilly who had stopped gesturing for the time being and saw her
smiling weakly and winking back halfheartedly.

I pulled up to the ice cream shop and barely
had the keys out of the ignition before June was already out of the
car, urging us to hurry up. I laughed and started to get out, but
noticed Miss Lilly hadn’t moved.

“You coming, Miss Lilly?” I asked.

Miss Lilly wiped a hand down her face from
her forehead to her chin and blinked a few times before answering.
A thin sheen of sweat had accumulated on her forehead, giving it a
shiny appearance.

Waving me on with a hand gesture she said,
“No Child, go on ahead. I think I gonna sit dis one out. I jus’
ain’t feelin’ so good all de sudden.”

I felt concern creeping into my veins and
said, “Are you sure, Miss Lilly? We can just go home instead, and
get you to bed.”

“Ha! You tink June-bug gonna get dis close to
de ice-cream an’ go home empty handed? We could no’ do dat to her
anyway, it be cruel. No Boo, I be jus’ fine out here. Now get goin’
b’fore June-Bug eat herself sick wit’ nobody to baby-sit her.”

I reluctantly followed June into the
ice-cream parlor where she had already ordered herself a cone and
told her about Miss Lilly’s sudden illness.

Concern washed over June’s face, and she
headed swiftly for the door, ignoring the clerk who was standing
there holding out a triple scoop of strawberry ripple with a
chocolate sauce coat.

We could see that there was something wrong
before we even reached the car. Miss Lilly’s face was pressed up
against the window, smashing the side of her face into the glass.
Her eyes were wide open and her skin was ghastly pale and a trail
of drool was flowing from her opened mouth and was running slowly
down the glass.

June broke into a run with me close at her
heels, and threw open the door, barely catching Miss Lilly as she
tumbled out of the car. Louie came spilling out of the car right
behind Miss Lilly, the look of terror in his normally twinkling
eyes real this time.

June and I worked Miss Lilly out onto the
sidewalk and laid her on her back. Her breathing was shallow and
irregular. Perspiration was running down her face in streams as
thick as the stream of drool that was still running from her
mouth.

Louie had dropped to his knees at Miss
Lilly’s head, one knee on each side of her head, and was cradling
her face between his hands. He looked up at me with tears running
down his cheeks and worked his mouth silently a few times.

I already knew the situation was bad, but I
suspected that it might be worse than bad when on the fourth or
fifth try, Louie managed to scream out “LIIIIILLYYY!” in the most
heart wrenchingly sorrowful voice I had ever heard.

June was already running back into the ice
cream parlor to call the ambulance when Louie screamed, so she did
not hear his cry and I doubt she would have heard even if she had
been there still.

I was glad she hadn’t heard it. The cry had
shattered me. I was paralyzed with fear, and I could literally feel
a tearing sensation in my chest as my heart broke for Miss Lilly
and for Louie.

The ambulance arrived within four minutes,
but it was four minutes too late. Miss Lilly was pronounced dead at
the scene; all resuscitation attempts had failed.

Miss Lilly died of a cerebral aneurysm, while
lying on her back on the sidewalk in front of an ice cream parlor
on my sixteenth birthday.

I was utterly devastated. My own mother’s
death had filled me with turmoil and confusion in regards to my
emotions, but Miss Lilly’s passing did not breed any such
confusion. It brought with it the deepest and most painful sadness
I had ever known, and that sadness was acute, distinct, and
focused.

As the paramedics draped a sheet over Miss
Lilly’s body and prepared to load her on a gurney, June and I held
each other and wept. I did not want to watch the men hauling Miss
Lilly’s body away, but was powerless to look away.

I watched the men load the gurney into the
ambulance and close the door. Then they walked wordlessly to the
cab of the ambulance and got in. They started it up and drove away,
leaving June and I standing alone on the sidewalk.

I stared blankly at the place on the sidewalk
where Miss Lilly had died and cried all the harder. I closed my
eyes but could still see her lying there in my mind’s eye.

Suddenly I felt cold fingers lifting my chin
and opened my eyes. Louie was standing in front of me, looking me
directly in the eye and smiling. Now that his lover was no longer
frightened and hurting and had gone home, he had regained the
twinkle in his eyes.

He leaned over and whispered in my ear in a
deep raspy voice, “Her love you Johnny. Her done told me ev’ry day
dat her love you. An’ her know dat you love her too. Her goin’ home
now, an’ I got’s to go an’ meet her there. Au revoir, Johnny. We be
seein’ you when we can.”

With a wave of his hand, Louie winked out of
my sight and out of this world to go be with his angel on the other
side, and June and I stood together, intertwined tightly in our
sorrow, weeping in the rapidly fading light of the saddest day I
had ever known.

June and I didn’t get home until after ten
that evening. When we were done weeping on the sidewalk we decided
to finish what we’d started and go have an ice cream cone. Neither
of us would admit it, but we just did not want to have to face
going home without Miss Lilly.

We understood that we were a team—the three
of us—and June and I were not certain how we’d be able to keep
playing the game when we were one teammate short.

Eventually we got tired of bawling in public
and having people cast their pitying looks in our direction, so we
went home. June drove on the way home, and though she normally
drove in such a manner as to make little old men shake their fists
in her general direction, it took her longer to drive home than it
had taken me to drive to town.

We said very little on the way home. We both
knew exactly how the other was feeling, and we both knew that there
were no words to be spoken that would make either of us feel
better, so we were content to simply be together in our sorrow and
draw comfort from each other’s presence.

When we arrived home we each retired straight
to our bedrooms after hugging once more and offering a good night
kiss to each other.

I kicked my shoes off as soon as I entered my
room and lay down on top of my covers. I reached over and clicked
the bedside lamp off and laid there in the dark, weeping and
praying quietly for a safe passage for Miss Lilly’s soul from this
world to the next.

After I’d been laying there for several
minutes I felt something poke me in the ribs and was overcome by
the strong scent of roses.

I knew Elle had come to me in my sorrow but
rather than be grateful for it, I was annoyed. I sat up and turned
on the light. I saw that my notepad was lying on the bed beside me
and was what had poked me in the ribs.

There was writing in the familiar flowing
script on the top page, though it was written in English now
instead of French.

The sadness is deep. Do not drown in it,
Johnny.

“Really, Elle?” I barked out sarcastically.
“Gee I’m awfully glad to know that you can finally show up now,
after I’ve been calling for you for two years, just to tell me that
my heart is broken and I’m really effing sad! I already know I’m
sad! I just lost someone who matters more to me than life itself!
And why the Hell did I go through all the trouble of learning
French if you knew English? Why didn’t you just start off with
English, huh?”

I flung the notepad across the room and
buried my face in my arms and wept. I knew Elle had only come to
try and comfort me and I was lashing out unreasonably at her, and I
felt bad for it, but was so deep in my sorrow that I couldn’t
care.

I felt a hand stroking my hair as I wept and
the smell of roses grew stronger than I’d ever smelled it before. I
opened my eyes but could see nothing out of the ordinary in my
room. I knew Elle was there, I could feel her stroking my head, but
she chose to remain completely invisible to me.

I tried to mutter an apology through my tears
but was startled out of trying when I heard a whispered “shh” in my
ear.

I felt my head being pulled gently into the
cold softness of Elle’s invisible bosom, and heard her whisper,
“Johnny, I know it hurts. It will always hurt, but you will heal.
Lilly is in Paradise. Have peace in your heart, Johnny. Do not let
your grief swallow you.”

Elle’s voice was as soft as a butterfly kiss,
and the thick French accent added a level of intimacy that I did
not think could have possibly been achieved in any other way. While
her words did little to alleviate my sorrow, I was glad she was
there, and I allowed myself to fall into her embrace.

After weeping into her chest for ten minutes
or so I finally felt all cried out and sat back away from her.
“Thank you Elle, I needed that,” I said. I reached a hand out where
Elle had just been but found only empty space.

“I’ll never understand why you hide Elle; I
don’t want you to go. I want you to stay.”

My request for her to stay had no impact; the
scent of roses slowly dissipated from the room and I eventually
drifted off to sleep, still fully clothed, on top of my blankets,
and with the lamp still shining.

When I woke up the next morning I had no need
to dress and instead went straight outside. The sun was shining
brightly in a cloudless azure sky, and there was only a breath of
wind outside; just a breeze as soft as a baby’s breath exhaled
across its mother’s face. Butterflies were flitting to and fro in
the pasture and birds could be heard chirruping happily from the
willow by the pond.

The air smelled as clean and warm as fresh
baked bread, and the grass was a brighter green than I could ever
remember having seen it. The morning dew was still sparkling upon
each blade and looked like a million diamonds twinkling in the
early sun.

Everything was beautiful. The sight was not
diminished by the shimmering auras that I still saw outlining
everything, but was instead, enhanced by the shimmering silver
outlines.

I looked towards the sky and wondered if Miss
Lilly was looking back at the same beautiful day that I was seeing,
albeit from the other side of the mirror. I walked down to the
willow and sat in my favorite spot and spent some time
reminiscing.

In my mind’s eye I could see hundreds of
different memories of Miss Lilly flashing by all at once. The time
she taught me how to make a cake, and smashed an egg on my head
when I got distracted; the time she caught me melting army men in a
frying pan on the stove and beat the Hell out of me with a wooden
spoon; the time she hid in my closet at bedtime on Halloween and
burst out after I turned out my lamp, screaming like a banshee and
scaring me so bad I fell out of my bed and hit my head on the
table.

Those memories and hundreds more like them
flashed through my mind, and every memory ended exactly the same
way; with Miss Lilly smiling, holding me in a gargantuan hug and
telling me how much she loved me and how special I was.

I wept and prayed silently beneath the great
willow, begging God for every blessing that could possibly be
served up for Miss Lilly in the afterlife.

I knew that there was going to be a void in
my heart for the rest of my life that could never be filled, and a
small part of me longed to join Miss Lilly in death, rather than
face life without her.

I looked back towards the house and saw June
staring out the kitchen window. I knew that on this morning, of all
mornings, she needed me to maintain our morning ritual at the
kitchen table, and I knew I needed it as much as she did.

As it turned out, June and I spent the entire
day sitting at the table, telling stories about Miss Lilly, and
finding the beginnings of healing in ourselves by celebrating the
memory of the life that Miss Lilly had lived.

The rest of the week was punctuated by
frantic activity as June worked tirelessly to organize a funeral,
find Miss Lilly’s will, and contact friends and relatives of Miss
Lilly’s back in Louisiana to give them the sad news.

Nine days after Miss Lilly’s death we had the
funeral. As per the desires she had set forth in her will, her body
was cremated and her ashes were added to the urn that held Louie’s
ashes, which was kept in her bedroom.