When Will You Be Back?

When we had arrived I was surprised to see the rest of my family. My aunts, my uncles.

How old was I? I don’t recall. I’m not sure I even had an age at all.

The house was filled with furniture, all covered in white sheets. And, oddly, the sheet-covered furniture was all placed haphazardly throughout the space as though it were set pieces – made to look like guests standing around at a party.

A cupboard here, a cabinet there – each one standing alone in some spot in the middle of the floor, facing diagonally across the room at a peculiar angle, sulking introvertedly.

By the looks of it, I had figured we were there to argue over stuff. To take what was left, divvy it up, claim it, pack it, drive it away. The last signs of Nana and Papa’s life. Papa’s writing desk, Nana’s frying pan, Papa’s rifles, Nana’s jewelry.

I wasn’t much concerned with any of it.

The floors were still clean and slippery and I stared down at each milk-colored tile, trying to dredge up memories I had made there. But for some reason, I couldn’t recall a thing. This was, of course, my family, but I couldn’t place how long I’d known them or what they meant to me.

And then, out of a shadowy corner of the room, came Papa, lurching about as if he had already greeted us and had returned to whatever he was doing before.

I was shocked to see him. Not to say that I was disappointed (although his presence was quite unnerving). I had assumed, for some reason, that we were there to collect his belongings after his passing. 

Looking around at the rest of my family, I realized that they were unmoved and undisturbed by Papa’s presence. They seemed not to notice him at all.

Papa was moving through the room as though he had lost something and was trying, in his feeble way, to find it again. His movement was intentional yet meandering, the way a kite soars with force in one direction and then another, abandoning each path for the next gust of wind. For a moment, he stopped in his tracks, mumbling something, then turned and hurried out of the room.

I had become so absorbed in my grandfather’s odd behavior that I hadn’t noticed the silence that had swallowed the room.

My parents, uncles, and aunts were all slowly walking about, inspecting things. Each of them would shake their heads every so often as they lifted up a sheet to see whatever antique was hidden beneath. Then, dropping the sheet, they’d move on to something else, continuing to inspect without much of an agenda.

I walked over to my mother, who was strolling about now with her mouth and face relaxed into a soft frown. She didn’t turn to look at me, but slowed down enough that I could join her.

We stopped before an elegant shape, like a moose hidden beneath a tablecloth. She lifted up the sheet to reveal a large, wooden vanity with an oval-shaped mirror. She and I looked at each other in the reflection.

“So beautiful.” She pointed her finger with its long, smooth fingernail at the mirror’s frame. It was carved to resemble vines, curling around the outer edge of the mirror. Around the two of us, standing beside each other inside the oval. 

The reflection was just as beautiful as the frame. With the white wall behind us and my yellow sweater and my mother’s cream-colored blouse, it looked like a diagram of an egg. The image in the mirror.

Then, in the reflection, walking behind us was my Papa again. My mother’s eyes followed his movement.

“Dad,” she said. It was the whisper spoken by a child in a scary movie. The whisper that leaves frost on the mirror.

Papa just kept moving this way and that. I wondered what it was that was eluding him.

My mother’s eyes returned to me in the reflection with a flash of surrender. She continued holding the sheet up above our heads, although it could not have been comfortable.

I turned my head to look at my mother’s face rather than her reflection. My mother’s face was in profile - she was still staring forward into the mirror. Now she too was seeing my profile. 

Behind mom, I could see Papa vanishing into the dark hallway ahead of him. 

Then mom whispered, “I think you might have to hang back for a little while. We have to go pick up a few things.”

“Ok.” 

I’m not sure if I even said it out loud. 

I was never close with my Papa. 

If there was one thing I was sure of regarding my relationship to my family, it was this. Papa didn’t know me at all. We were hardly ever around each other. I wasn’t sure what the color of his eyes were. What was his favorite weather or type of music.

Rain. Spanish guitar.

Those were my favorites. I’m sure he wasn’t aware of them.

Mother let the sheet fall back down over the vanity and walked into the foyer.

I stood there for a moment, another awkward figure in a room filled with large looming things. I came to realize that I wasn’t even sure what room this was I was standing in. The living room? Dining room? I wasn’t sure I recognized this house at all.

I turned towards the foyer and saw the rest of my family exiting through the front door.

“When will you be back?” I asked, but my uncle was closing the door behind them as the words were spoken.

After a few moments, I looked around again. Nothing to do but explore.

I walked into another room close by, one that was darker than the first. It had few (if any?) windows and the walls were a grayish-blue colored paint. The whole room felt as if it were for some very specific purpose. Perhaps it was a black box theater or an art studio or a warehouse.

But once again, the room was scattered with oddly placed furniture.

An old throne, for example, stood in the center of the floor. I was drawn to the throne as it appeared to be, for some strange intuitive reason, the most valuable item in that room.

I felt something rush up behind me, as if a wild cat were leaping towards my back. I turned –

“You and I are the same.”

Papa stood there, inches away from me. His finger was pointed sharply at my face and his eyes were locked on mine in a way that I had never experienced from him before.

He wasn’t someone I recognized anymore, he was filled with urgency. He was filled with something terrifying.

“We are the same. We forget. We are bad and we forget.” He said it as though these were his final words. As though the entire weight of his existence rested upon the delivery of this message. I was completely confused.

I wanted it to hit me like a lightbulb turning on above my head, but instead, I shivered. I was freezing cold and Papa was staring into my eyes with so much energy that I couldn’t take it any longer.

I reached backwards for the throne I had been inspecting earlier. I sat down. Papa lowered himself down in front of me as I did so, maintaining his eye contact and staring like a black crow stares with elusive, endless eyes.

His finger remained a heat-seeking missile, aimed at my face. And I shivered again.

It was like staring into the face of death. The face of a bird or a fish or some animal that seems to know something dreadfully important.

But I was just a child. Or something. I couldn’t figure it out.

I covered my eyes with my hands and rubbed hard. I expected him to reach forward and wrap his finger all the way around my throat. But when I dropped my hands, he was gone, and I could hear the door opening.

My mother came rushing into the room I was in. The rest of my family too. I looked up at them and smiled a tired smile.

I hunched forward, trying to stand and greet them, but my mother came rushing over and grabbed my arm. 

“Woah, woah,” she said. She was holding me as though I were about to fall. 

“Don’t,” I tried to say, but she patted my hand as if I were one hundred years old. Then she turned, glaring at my uncle, who darted to my other side to stabilize me.

They tried steering me towards another chair, lowering me down gently.

My body felt as if it were made of styrofoam and I tried to speak but everyone stood above me, shaking their heads as if to silence me. So I closed my lips and lowered my head.

“We didn’t mean to leave you for so long,” my mother said.

“We love you,” my uncle said.

“Relax,” said my father.

“Hush.”

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