Heather Buyce-Vasquez
Lyllian, June 2017, Seattle
The day was pleasantly warm. Michael and her father had set up a green swinging bench under the large Holly tree in the backyard and she could just see Vivienne and her father sitting companionably side by side laughing at something her brother Jim had said. This scene made Lyllian’s heart glow.
Two years ago she and Michael had purchased their first home just outside of the city. It was a modest one story with three bedrooms and a large backyard. In the last year they had made some very nice improvements. It had always been a dream of Lyllian’s to paint the rooms multiple colors reminiscent of the homes she’d visited in her youth in Mexico. So now, the living room was a warm rose and the kitchen a sunny yellow. The girls’ rooms were a “middle pink” and a cool blue chosen especially by them.
They’d planted flowers and a strawberry bush. Installed a pretty outdoor lantern and now they were clearing a spot for some apple trees. And the family had come over to enjoy the sun and barbeque some burgers. It could not have been a better day for Lyllian.
Recently things at work had begun to hover near absurdity. The constant barrage of emails, tensions, memos, procedural lingo and schedules was was beginning to push Lyllian over the edge. In between these annoyances she would write. Poems and stories, commentaries and even a sonnet. She realizes that in reality what she is doing could be construed as wasting company time and resources. But she cannot help herself. And she has begun recording her dreams and so-called blackouts piecing together the pictures. Like a puzzle that’s missing half its pieces though she has made little headway.
She hears laughter from the backyard. Her father is demonstrating to a rapt-eyed Vivienne how to deftly throw a Frisbee. It is a serious talk. She feels arms encircle her waist at the kitchen sink and she fades back. Michael nuzzles her neck. “How are those brats coming love?”
She turns in his arms.
How she longs to talk to him about what’s been happening. It would be so easy to share the burden. She had started to and then retreated. It suddenly seemed so crazy. At times she was fairly certain Michael thought she was a mental case. Ever since the anxiety medication it was as if he chalked every not as pleasant remark, disagreement, or silence from her as ‘med-related’ and had even gone so far as to ask her once, after a particularly strong outburst of annoyance, if she was still taking them. It was as if she no longer could be validly angry and that made her angry.
And now this. This nutty idea that she was remembering someone else’s life - not just remembering – living it. No. Not yet. Perhaps there was an explanation. One that would explain the memory of cold winters in a foreign country surrounded by black trees and a language not her own. Sure.
“Ready to go love.” She says instead. She hands over the plate of food, scoops up the mustard, ketchup and buns and they join the others in the backyard.
As she relaxes on the swing with the dog bouncing excitedly at her feet she catches her mother’s eye.
Rose is a small woman with warm brown eyes and soft dark curls. Despite her age the skin around her eyes is smooth and her smile is lovely. There are traces still of the beautiful woman her mother was when she was young. Lyllian knows she is the spitting image of her mother though her curves are a tad bit more pronounced of late.
She’s seen the old photographs of her grandmother Anne who, like Lyllian and her mother, is curvaceous and dark. She can see the resemblance already in both Frankie and Vivienne though they are both blessed thus far with their father’s litheness. The gentle roundness tends to hit around puberty as she recalls.
Her gaze is somehow knowing and Lyllian is unsurprised when she says “Lyllian love, I’d love to see the progress on those apple trees out front.”
They stroll slowly around the house under the drooping hemlock in the neighbors’ yard. The front yard is slanted and alive with color. There is a flame colored climbing Joseph by the porch and a bright rose- colored rhododendron plant blooming alarmingly high under Vivienne’s bedroom window. There are small twists of wildflowers dotting the earth under the windows and around the old stump. It is, she concedes, slightly overgrown. But in this she loves the wildness of it. With the large Boxwood hedge bordering the yard by the quiet road you can almost imagine as if the world outside does not exist.
She and her mother sit side by side on the grass just under the hedge facing the house. The breeze is moving the sheer white curtains of the windows and they move like small ghosts in and out of the open windows.
“Tell me,” her mother starts in her low lilting voice. “Has it happened yet? Have you seen her?”
Lyllian continues to gaze at her home. She notices one of the cats slinking around the corner of the garage. Hicks? No it’s Hudson. She sees the white paws peeking out. His yellow eyes stare back at her and his tail twitches. Lyllian finally allows herself to breathe.