A Grain of Eternity: A spiritual mystery of genetic terror

By A.C. Williamson

This is the true story of a child on the cusp of puberty struggling to survive within the malignant world of her dark truth—a dark reality she was unwittingly thrust into. Learn how this child survived within the strength of her grandmother’s staggering helplessness; learn how she matured and coped within the shadow of a childhood premonition that haunted her and whittled away at her conscience until she had no choice but to bring her dark reality into the light of a new generation of women—women who would deny and dismiss her.

Journey with her into the world of four generations of courageous women as they battle the demons of their genetic heritage. Discover the courage and resilient power of a helpless old woman, her gnarled body disfigured by the plague of arthritic cement, and her eyes blinded by glaucoma. Encounter the tragedy of her daughter—a young mother of six fighting for survival in the world before genetic testing. Step through the looking glass of time as her granddaughter struggles between the dark truth of adulthood, the mystical realm of her childhood, and her tragic fate—a fate she knew intrinsically would befall her and many of the women in her immediate family—a family that would deny and turn away from her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Red Penguin Books
• Release date: Apr 6, 2023
• ISBN: 1637774206

Book preview

Prologue

She was an ancient Asian woman, not tall, her body bent with age.

But she was a giant to me.

It was a chance meeting—only a few shattering moments—and my life as I knew it slipped from my grasp…

The day was warm, and my senses were heady with the fragrance of spring and the probability of adventure. It was a day etched in the core of my immature brain—one that would have fallen away like most of the memories lost to my forgotten childhood, a chapter brushed away with the opaque paint of the expunged had it not been for that chance encounter on that promising spring afternoon, an afternoon filled with all the inspiring hope only a ten-year-old could imagine.

It was the first true warmth after a bitter Brooklyn winter, battered by howling winds whipping through the city streets, rattling our windows like drunken demons, and threatening our power with each flicker of our dimming lights. My father and I searched for candles and scrambled for blankets. Mounds of snow, hard and grey, concealed the wrinkled, concrete streets and buried the few clunky cars with rusted fenders and broken headlights that some of us were rich enough to own. Days passed without trolleys, trucks, or cars. Perishables were in short supply. People were replaced by sky-high dirty drifts of snow, menacing in their height—at least to my untested juvenile eyes and seemed to go on forever.

We met at a time when fun in the snow was a fleeting fantasy. It was at a time when socks on our hands and newspapers in our shoes sent us scurrying indoors as soon as our creative hands cooled to the freezing unfeeling point, and our cramped toes tingled to the point of pins and needles. It was a time when my brothers and I built castles of snow and forts of ice. It was a time when I was a soldier with snowballs for defense and my brothers were pilots with bombs to destroy.

It was a time when our blood-red toes, drenched in a mixture of melted ice and brown newspaper slush sent us scurrying from our engineering marvels to the limited warmth of our tenement flat—with jellied stalactites still dripping from our Rudolf-red noses.

We met at a time when birds—not people tweeted, when phones were wired to walls, keyboards needed paper, and TVs burst onto the scene in all its slow-witted infancy: bloated bellies, small snowy screens, rabbit ears, poor reception, breaking down far too often, and signing off by 11:00 p.m. It was a time when air conditioning was found in movie theaters only and a quarter bought two feature films, a cartoon or two, and a newsreel. It was a time when a dime bought an ice cream cone, the flavor of your choice, with a flimsy paper napkin to wipe the melted sweetness from hungry eager lips. It was a time when seatbelts were a nuisance and not to be worn, a time before helmets and hoodies, stranger-danger, playdates, car seats, and warning labels on cigarettes. It was a time when any kid with a quarter could buy a pack of Camels at any corner candy store and city playgrounds (if you could find one) were littered with unsupervised kids. It was a time when kids flew on swings and hung from monkey bars that were secured in cement and falling meant a body slam into a slab of concrete that sometimes cracked young heads and broke young bones. It was a time when baseball and football were played in the streets—circumventing parked cars and dodging local traffic—from early morning till the darkest dusk.

It was the time before the world became baby proofed. It was the time I grew up in.

It was the one and only time I met her.

It was one of life’s cruel and spiteful jokes played out on a splendid spring day, a day made for carefree preteens, not too hot and not too cold—and not a parent to be found. The sun kissed my cheeks with warmth and excited my belly with the promise of unsupervised adventure. And it was so very welcome after such an awfully long and bitter winter spent in a cramped and oh so tedious Brooklyn apartment, sparsely heated and dimly lit. It was an applauded day, a day embracing me with sun warmth as comforting and as loving as I imagined a mother’s arms to be. A day teeming with adventure and exploration. A special day, made expressly for me and my absolute best friend, Kim.

A day I grew to hate.

It was many years ago, but the sounds, the smells, and the spoken words still resonate in my head: The Church Avenue trolley clanking, unmuffled cars plodding, their fumes assaulting my nostrils and stinging my eyes, impatient horns blaring, and bits and pieces of conversations rising and falling with the ebb and flow of the rushing shoppers.

We were laughing and giggling as preteens normally do, wandering the city streets—alone, without parental supervision. A first for Kim, ecstatic with her newfound freedom. But I, an urchin of the noisy city streets, made my way through the crowds with all the instincts of a feral cat.

We were the best of friends but opposites in many ways. She was tiny and as graceful as a gazelle in flight with bird-thin bones, pin-straight Cadillac-black hair, sleek and shiny, obsidian eyes that smiled when she laughed, and a flawless complexion the color of faded pumpkin. I, on the other hand, was tall and clumsy with gangly fast-growing limbs and wild, ruddy-brown hair—defiant hair, that I obsessively swept from my edgy eyes, a darkly pale, snow-leopard-green (according to my dad who referred to me as his wild green-eyed leopard). And adding insult to my critically bruised adolescence—nature chose to pepper my prison-pallor complexion with the humiliating misery of huge angry-red pimples.

I was a graceless mess…

But beneath it all, we were basically the same. Cut from the same cloth. We laughed at the same things, we read the same books, we listened to the newest craze, and we loved volleyball. But most important of all we had a tacit agreement—our families were separate entities, never exposed to the other, never intermingled with our special bond.

We were inseparable… When we were together…

But that chance encounter on Church Avenue, on that crowded busy street, on that beautiful spring day—changed it all…

To me, at that time—it was an equitable justice for a worthless person—me.

At first, this stranger beguiled me with her striking eyes—large and black as the darkest night, surrounded by thick lashes as full as the fringes embellishing the prized Coney Island pillows that glamorized my grandmother’s shabby sofa. Lines deeply etched her still beautiful Asian face and wrapped in her weathered arms, she carried two large paper bags crammed with groceries.

But instinctively and within moments—an unexpected chill crawled up my spine. My superstitious and highly overactive imagination infused my brain with thoughts of insurmountable obstacles. Blotches of sweat moistened my forehead and upper lip. I swiped at the wetness with the back of my hand as obsidian eyes dissected and evaluated me. I felt drenched in dread. Filled with an overwhelming sense of shame, I quickly turned my gaze from the calculating eyes to the over-stuffed brown paper bags, the strange greenery drooping over the edges, and then back to the beautiful but stoic face. And still—it stopped my breath. Her ancient eyes were laser-sharp, not clouded by age, but frigid with insight and of an unknown depth—and they were focused, glaring specifically at me. I felt my adored friend—her granddaughter—stiffen with anxiety.

A wave of terror washed over me. My jaw dropped in a dazed mixture of surprise and confusion as I stared at my friend bowing quickly and obediently before the imperious stranger. My brow wrinkled as I watched her remove the brown paper bags from the stranger’s scrawny arms. My eyes watered as the glare of the old woman continued to dissect me. My head ached as she studied me, her ancient eyes burning into my anxious face. My hands trembled as her silence unsettled me. Taking a deep breath, I stiffened, apprehension breathing down my neck.

I had the overwhelming urge to run and be anywhere but there, on that crowded Brooklyn street.

With a voice as shrill as a threatened cat, the old woman suddenly pierced the silence. I don’t like you, she said, pausing as if waiting for my response, her English labored and jagged with the ancient accent of Asia. In the fragility of my pubescent mind, her serrated words were as sharp and as clear as shattering glass pricking at my sense of self with the wretchedness of reality. I struggled to breathe. My body stiffened. My innards trembled. Her broken words assaulted my thoughts like sharp jagged pieces of a glass puzzle—a puzzle I fought not to understand. A puzzle brutally clear in my young super-sensitive mind… my soul… my essence. And then she said, coldly, deliberately, and menacingly, "You have the eyes of the devil."

The words reverberated in my head like a runaway train. My heart stopped. My lips trembled. My soulmate inched from my side. I held my breath and hooded my eyes, but I could feel Kim’s presence, her friendship, her very essence slipping from my life. I wanted to grab her and hold her and tell her it’s not true. I wanted to dissolve my gangly body into nothingness. I wanted to tear my eyes from my head. I wanted to turn back the clock.

I wanted to die…

The trolley halted. The cars stood still. The bustling people came to a stop. Her words reverberated painfully in my head.

The ancient woman marched off, her granddaughter in tow…

Isolated on a crowded Brooklyn street…

Imagining the devil within…

That night I crept into my bed, but I did not cry. I rubbed my eyes until they burned red with fury, but I did not cry. I rubbed my eyes until they swelled with anger, but I did not cry. I rubbed my eyes until I fell asleep, and still, I did not cry…

These are my memories seen through the lens of a super-sensitive, melodramatic, unwanted kid.

I am no longer that kid.

I am now an old woman responsible for the deaths of many.

I am haunted by death. Not mine—but the deaths I have inflicted on others. How many?… I’m not sure... I’m afraid to count... I have managed to block their names and their memories from my thoughts—but they are there—buried in the darkest part of my mind, rising only to have me bury them even deeper… Buried memories that are eating away at my soul…

I am a murderer. Some have said that to my face— You killed my father, and you deserve to die— but no court of law has ever convicted me.

But I have been condemned by the Court of Me…

I am currently working on my latest victim. And by all indications, all is going well. However—and I know you are not going to believe this—I really want it to stop—this murder in progress. There are not many avenues I can take and the few available, are wrought with apathy and indifference. It is only the wealthy and the privileged that have any hope at all. The rest of us are left to fend for ourselves, to muddle through options where expectations are low, and despair is high. In other words—extraordinarily little hope for the future.

I smile brightly to strangers and wave kindly to neighbors, but none know the truth. None can guess the integrity of the old woman with brown hair and white roots, the old woman hidden behind dark, trendy shades and friendly gestures.

I would tell you my name—but at the present moment, it is nothing more than a jumble of letters tumbling about in my undecided head, not yet formulated, just like all the others—the innocents—the ones that need protection—the names that need to be invented, tumbling in the dryer of my thoughts—all lies—every one of them. And don’t dare look at the cover of this yet unformulated book in search of a truthful name—for that too is a lie.

But my story is true.

These memories are wrenched from my past, tattered, old, and forbidden. Whether they survive the journey from my brain to my PC and from my PC to publication remains a mystery to me. Will I ever have the courage to complete it?... And if complete—will I have the courage to send it off?… Face rejection?…

Or worse… publication…?

These demons reverberate through my old brain, a brain that is neither foggy nor forgiving as I sort through my memories, my misgivings, my treachery, trying to catalog them…

All of them…

CHAPTER 1

The Decision

LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK, 1999

Kill the baby? This baby? My baby? Words… Noises… Sounds… No more than that—how can that be? —yet they are screaming in her head, slicing through her soul.

The bright room suddenly grew dim. The malicious lips continued to move making noises, forming words, inarticulate words, loud, but lost in the din of the echo of death now reverberating through her frantic mind. Had she been standing, she would have fallen; had she been able to speak, she would have screamed; but her throat was dry and parched, her vision was blurred, and her heart was pounding, almost bursting within her chest. She brought her trembling hand to her face which was now flushed with fear and wet with sweat. She wiped her brow. She tried to clear her thoughts, but the vicious sounds would not stop, cruel and relentless—they went on. Drowning in them, she felt trapped, trapped by the painful noise now stinging her like swarming bees, attacking the very essence of her being, numbing her soul, blurring her vision, and filling her head with the hissing of the honeybees.

Nothing existed—except for the hissing of the honeybees. It was in the din of this hissing and the detachment of life that a part of her died, drifting into a sinister haze, leaving her to face the shadowy visions of dead babies, dying babies, and babies too sick and too weak to cry out for help. Her baby…

Dark, defenseless, and alone…

A firm hand on her shoulder, another squeezing her trembling fingers and another on her icicle fingers. Are you okay? Can we get you some water?

She may have seen Dan in the background—she may have even heard his voice, but she could not be sure. Stability had slipped suddenly from her life. Slowly air filled her lungs… slowly her vision cleared… Slowly life superseded death; and slowly the firm grip on her shoulder and the churning of her stomach brought her back to the room, the staring eyes, the bright lights, and the brutal truth. Suddenly, too shaky to remain seated and too frightened to stay, she stood, trembling with the unwanted knowledge of it all, preparing to flee, to free herself from the insanity of this room, these people, and most of all their malicious words. Turning, wanting to rush out of the haunting nightmare, she instead found herself rooted in place by cold clammy hands clinging to the back of the chair—her hands trying to steady her.

There are no hiding places in this new-found hell…

But the room soon grew dark and gloomy again. Why had they dimmed the lights? Why are the faces wavy and unclear? Why is my heart beating wildly as if running in a nightmare? Her tremulous, white-knuckled hands grappled with the wobbly chair. Why is this chair unstable when a moment ago it was strong and sturdy like her life, predictable and secure in every way? Why have the words stopped while the soundless lips continue to move? But that was a moment ago or words ago, hateful, and menacing sounds ago. It had all changed. Her life as she had known it slipped from her grasp—vanished into a strange new world. Why are they looking at me with eyes unfocused but piercing…? It must stop! I must stop their words and shut their eyes. Why are garbled words colliding with my thoughts, distorting them until they no longer made sense…? How did it all become so confusing and wretched—yes that was the word—wretched. Yes, I will remember that word… It so best describes what this is, what I am feeling… Wretched….

Hastily putting her clammy hand on her parched lips, she tried to hold back the abrupt and unexpected rush of bile, burning and bitter, as it rose from the pit of her stomach to the back of her throat. Her pale face grew paler still, drained of all color, her mind drained of reason. Debilitating panic. Two more words to add to her growing repertoire. Her head was throbbing. What had she heard? The chaos of a nightmare. The aura of abandonment was palpable. If only the clamoring thoughts would stop, allowing time to dismantle the gruesome turn of events. If only she could begin again… if only…

If only she could somehow wake from her nightmare…

Her belly fluttered like the wispy wings of a fragile moth, but rather than wings it was the foot or the elbow of a fetus… A baby… a boy actually not a fetus—her son, with eyes, ears, a nose and mouth, arms, legs, a beating heart, and a soul waiting to be born… Her Son.

Jesse…

In the darkness and chaos of her mind, her hands moved to the small swell of her belly. He’s there reminding me, begging me, pleading, please don’t forget me… don’t abandon me, don’t judge me before the very first breath of my life.

Somehow, she needed to make sense of the insanity… Somehow, she had to go back to her world of predictability.

And that was a gruesome lifetime ago, and as alarming as it was—the weeks to follow were proving to be no better. She could feel it in the very depth of her being, a gathering storm, gaining momentum as reality reared its ugly head, stripping her former life, yelling in her ears, ravaging her soul, until all she wanted was the removal of this unmitigated hell that was so brutally and suddenly thrust upon her. The baby kicked—no, it was more like a flutter, like a small, frightened fish in a pond of predators, and she put her hand to her swollen belly. Her son was still there… still safe… still healthy…

Still alive…

She closed her eyes realizing that she could now put three words together. Wretched debilitating panic. It was what urged her to run and yet shackled her in place.

So, she remained still and seated, shoulders erect, for all the world to see. A young woman, in the prime of life, with pin-straight blonde hair, high cheekbones in a pale, oval, porcelain-pretty face—a face unmarked by the ravaging storm raging within her. This would be her face to the world—uncommitted and serene.

But, she was no longer the person of yesterday. Those days were gone forever. Stolen from her life. She had matured and moved into a new world, a world filled with fear and trepidation and most importantly—a tentative unknown world.

She is ignorant now, but she is learning and what she doesn’t know today she will study, absorb, and acquire tomorrow, and if not tomorrow the day after or the day after that—for as long as it takes. The ignorant person of yesterday is gone forever, and she is determined to fortify herself with the power of knowledge. She has already started the process. Unlike that very first day, the room now remains still and clear, no longer blurred and spinning, and the bile no longer comes up to her lips, but remains in the pit of her belly, although still churning and bitter.

Although her comfort food—a cup of freshly brewed coffee did little to mitigate her pain, she was nonetheless home, in her kitchen. She was safe.

What? —Safe—no. She would never be safe again!

In her home—a home where nothing has changed; her world has been toppled and turned on its side; her life has been shredded by a ruthless tornado of change—but her home remains untouched, her kitchen undamaged, the glass door to her deck intact, the cherry tree outside, tall and thriving, the birds still chirping and flying.

Go home and think about it, they had said…

Go home and think about killing your baby?

Are they crazy?

Taking a deep breath, she stared at her mother who was sitting across from her in her newly renovated kitchen. A bride’s kitchen, with all the amenities newlyweds needed. But the kitchen was no longer newly renovated, and she was no longer a bride. She was now five years into her marriage with a three-year-old daughter, Sara.

Maria hugged her belly—a baby on the way—a son, her son… with a beating heart and a name… Jesse.

You don’t understand, she shook her head and lowered her eyes, staring at the swell of her belly and her pale arms hugging the infant she had yet to hold. Strange, she thought, they are not mine… They are not trembling. But inwardly she was shattered.

But no one said— Her mother cut in.

Maria scoffed. What? The big C word? Yes, they said it, preceded by the big benign words: They don’t know. They can’t be sure. They need a biopsy… And if— Maria stopped abruptly, her broken voice suspended, hanging in the air between them as if deciding to go on or not. She began to sway slightly, her hands soothing the swell of her belly. But then she sat up quickly, straightened her back, and stared into the clear, green eyes of her mother. I have a very small window of time— she said, her intended confidence failing, her voice cracking under the strain. She cleared her throat and looked away— "to abort the baby. They called it the operation. Maria paused and took a deep breath and when she spoke again it was rapid, her words tumbling from her lips like poison that needed to be purged. But what they really meant was kill my baby. Kill my son… They said it yesterday, and they thought it the day before and the day before that. God only knows how long they suspected before they would tell me what all their wretched evidence pointed to. She stopped, squared her shoulders as if to gather strength. Exhausted from her sleepless night, she struggled to clear the dark fog from her head. Her throat was dry, and her golden-brown eyes glistened with moisture, but she inhaled deeply, brushed stray strands of blonde hair from her eyes, and plunged ahead. But I knew something was wrong. The pain was so bad, and I told them so—repeatedly, but they dismissed me as if I was just one more complaining, inexperienced mother." There was another long pause, and Maria’s eyes glazed over, looking beyond the white walls of her trendy kitchen.

Rutha stiffened as waves of unwanted memories washed over her. She shuddered. She bit her lower lip as a sudden image of the scruffy old kitchen in a sorry old farmhouse, so many miles to the east and so many years in the past, replaced the bright, trendy kitchen, mauve and white, in a chic middle-class home smack in the center of a cul-de-sac of cookie-cutter homes, some with canals for backyards and boats for pleasure: Hewlett Bay, a fun place to be in the summer. Rutha’s belly twisted in pain, the same pain that had caused her asthma to return as a child, choking the oxygen from her lungs.

The clatter of the bloody knife falling to the floor reverberated painfully in Rutha’s head—clearly and with malice. Don’t forget me…

… if only they had listened to me from the beginning… Maria’s hazy words slipped sluggishly into Rutha’s thoughts like the slow-dripping water from the leaky faucet of the stained and pitted farmhouse sink. The sound of the bloody knife—falling… falling… falling…. reverberating in her head. Everything became gray and unstable. Fear solidified in the pit of her stomach, sharp and heavy. Her daughter was talking, her lips were moving, and Rutha tried to ignore the heavy texture of her past…

… No! —I refuse to take that route, Maria said stridently, and the strength of her voice crystallized in Rutha’s head, brushing away the past, and dragging her into the wretched present, replacing the shabby farmhouse kitchen with the bright trendy kitchen designed by her daughter. It was only then that her glazed eyes became focused, and she squirmed in her chair.

It’s over and done with! It’s water under the bridge, Maria continued, inhaling deeply, searching for a semblance of composure. This was not the time for hysteria. She cleared her throat, shook her head, and took a long, despondent look at her mother, Rutha, so anatomically different now: older, paler, frailer… She turned from the woman’s dismay, unable to deal with her mother’s distress—distress caused by her… Maria slashed the thoughts from her mind, knowing what she was about to say would burden her mother even more.

It was the second sonogram that exposed the truth. I saw it on their faces… The technician’s face grew pale, and her eyes grew large and filled with alarm. That tech saw and she knew, Mom. Maria trembled with anger. That tech—she was so damn young… She kept scanning my belly as if trying to eradicate the ugly truth, or… or maybe trying to understand what she was seeing. I… I don’t know—but I got scared. I wanted her to stop! I wanted to push her hand away—push that damned scanner off my belly and away from my son. I wanted her out of the room. I… I wanted her away from my baby. I thought if I could just push her away—I could stop it all, I could protect Jesse—I could stop the ugliness that she saw on the screen and that I saw reflected in her eyes. Maria stopped, took several trembling breaths before going on. I knew something was terribly wrong! This is my second baby, Mom. Maria looked at her mother then, but their eyes did not meet, for they could not face each other’s pain. Maria dropped her gaze to the floor. I wanted her to stop! I wanted to push her hand away! But she kept scanning and scanning and, in my head, my voice was screaming. Then… it’s crazy, I know—I wanted to scream at her, but instead, a whisper came out so tiny it—it was almost silent. I… I could hardly hear what I was saying. Maria could feel herself slipping from the kitchen into the dreaded sterile room, reliving her nightmare, her truth so many hours ago, weeks ago… maybe even years ago… it was as if this was her entire life and nothing existed prior to that moment in time.

Maria ran a trembling hand through her hair and shifted uncomfortably in her chair searching for words to mollify her mother’s fears.

But then her mother rustled in her seat and Maria came abruptly back into herself, although still dazed by her vivid memory. She stared at her mother, bemused and disoriented, looking at the woman who had always been such a big part of her life as if seeing her for the first time. It took several long moments for Maria’s thoughts to clear enough to speak and when she did her voice, although calm, was still distant, as if lost in a place that Rutha could not see.

Then the doctor moved closer to the screen. His eyes were so narrowed and so focused… I… I wanted to scream and push him away too. Her voice faded, and her slim fingers raced to her trembling lips. The taste of bitter bile came up to coat the back of her throat. Silence filled the room. Maria tried to hold on to her crumbling composure. She took a deep, silent breath. Not now. Not with Sara in the next room. She could not upset her daughter… She could not hurt her little Sara waiting for the birth of her brother…

But Maria could not stop the rush of words, and she began talking more to herself than to her mother. But I saw it. I saw it on the tech’s face and the doctor’s face. I will never forget that look. As long as I live, I will never forget that look… It was… She paused again, tried to clear her throat, but it was dry and parched, and her sight once again grew blurred. When she spoke again it was as if her voice now had a mind of its own, spewing startling words that tumbled from her lips without thought. It was shock and dread that I saw on their faces, in their eyes, and I think a lot of fear—yes—I’m certain of it. It was fear. And it crowded the room, choking me until I could almost smell and taste the fear. I will never, ever forget the sudden helplessness that washed over me. I didn’t need to see the screen. I didn’t need to hear their voices. I saw the expressions on their faces. Whatever they saw and whatever they thought, I actually felt it in my gut. I saw it in their faces when they stared down at that ugly screen, and I knew at that very moment, my baby was in trouble…

Coffee splattered from the cup that Maria cradled in her trembling hands, spilling hotly onto her jeans, and startled, she jumped up.

But what Rutha saw was not coffee. It was a bloody knife falling from a trembling hand… blood droplets on a scuffed-up floor… the haunting image took shape, frail… compromised… pale… bloated… Young—like-her-daughter-young… No! Don’t take her! She’s still alive! Sharp icy fingers crawled up her spine. Her stomach turned. A caged animal trapped in the sludge of her reality, trapped in the blood of her past… plunging into the hell of her genetic dystopia.

Maria looked from the coffee cup to her jeans, unable to remember taking the cup from the table. Just what I need—coffee staining my jeans, she mumbled miserably, the hot blackness seeping hotly into her flesh. The least of my problems. Maria took a deep breath, reached across the table, and pulled napkins from their holder. Slowly and methodically, she sopped up the black wetness from her jeans, her thoughts chaotic, crippled by a future in question.

A brooding silence fell between the women. And when Maria spoke again, it was in a lifeless whisper so soft it was barely discernible above the gloom of stillness surrounding them. But the good doctor said nothing. He quickly cleared his face, replacing his shock with his professional mask, and well-rehearsed BS.

But Maria’s words were almost senseless beneath the dark fog of Rutha’s past. She tried to bring her thoughts back to where she knew they should be. She strained to hear her daughter more clearly… but her past was deafening.

… Mom, you know what I mean, that erudite, ever-present imposing façade of control that these doctors always have plastered across their stoic faces… Maria hesitated, her face lined in thought. When she spoke again, her voice shook with anger. And me—foolish me in my relief—I allowed my stupidity to take over… or… or maybe I just had to reject it—erase it from my life… I… I don’t know… I don’t know what I was thinking…Mom, what was I thinking? Why did I react that way? Maria paused, expecting her mother to speak. The responding silence jarred her back to the present moment and she quickly slid her eyes to Rutha, realizing that her mother had been uncharacteristically quiet. What she saw troubled her not a little. Her eyes were both glazed and stunned at the same moment, fixed on something above Maria’s head—something Maria could not see.

Mom are you okay? she said nervously, suddenly sensing an elevated level of distress. Mom…? Maria loudly tapped her cup on the table.

Startled, Rutha jumped, and after a bewildered moment tried to clear her vision. She stared at her daughter through the diminishing fog of her past. She could see her seated vaguely across from her, the farmhouse kitchen fading in the background… the chrome table—gone… the bloody knife—gone… the tormented eyes of her past—gone… She took a deep breath as she found herself staring down at the glossy ceramic tile, beige and bloodless… and she struggled to force her mind