Lamby
The salty and sweet taste of caramel fills my mouth. I’m telling him how this little kid in my class is obsessed with her collection of small pizza tables. He laughs and licks the strawberry jam off of his finger. I love it when the clouds in his head are scared away. I live for the days when he can say who I am. His laugh slowly turns into a still smile and his eyes stare into nothingness. And just like that, I’m gone again. “You okay Pop?” His eyes slowly roll on the pastel yellow wallpaper until they land on my face. “Lamby will take care of her, Marianne.” With his face tilted, he smiles and puts his shaking hand on the right side of my neck. His expression turns into a confused one when a tear lands on his thumb. “Why are you crying baby?” I take his hand and put it back on his lap before cupping my own face and crying my guts out. When I look up again, I’m alone in the room and a pile of dough and strawberry jam is on the floor, crushed by his wheelchair.
My eyelids weigh a ton each. My throat is dry and my head is throbbing. I can smell urine. There’s a buzzing in my ear but I can hear distant shouts and babies crying. I want to sit upright but it’s like my body has a mind of its own and decides to stay in the twisted shape it has taken. I want to breathe, I have to, but the air is thick with dust and my lungs are screaming for fresh air. I have to open my eyes; I have to know what happened.
I feel my stomach churning and somehow manage to turn my head to one side just in time before I vomit. I feel like my head is going to pop up open any second now. I try to sit a bit straighter and I finally manage to open my eyes as the devastating pain of my left side brings tears into them. It’s dark, pitch black. I blink a few times until I can see some rays of light, blurry and dancing. Big chunks of the ceiling and walls have crushed my furniture. A thick layer of dust has covered everything and little particles of it are hovering all over. I wait a few more minutes, trying to steady my breath. It’s not blurry anymore, but there are dark spots in my eyes. Did I hurt my head? Do I have a concussion? Am I going to be okay?
I start to breathe fast and off-beat again. I try to drag myself into a sitting position and that’s when I see it. I look down at my left arm and for a second I don’t recognize it. It looks like a pile of dough covered with thick strawberry jam. The sight of it makes me feel sick again. I groan as I try to move it. It’s not broken but the pain is unbearable and tears come into my eyes again. I can feel my left leg is stuck, but I can’t quite see it in this position. “It was sunny today. You would have liked it.” I look around to see if I can use something to lift the metal piece that’s fallen on my arm. “I got a caramel donut for myself and a strawberry one for him. I told him about Becca.” I don’t find anything. I start to get dizzy. “They have changed the wallpapers. It’s pastel yellow now, your favorite. Such a beautiful coincidence, isn’t it?” I try to unstick my arm by twisting it, but I end up screaming and crying from the pain, the arm still stuck. Fear and tears fill my eyes. “I can’t. I can’t move. I can’t breathe. My head is killing me. Help me, please!” The panicky breathing comes back and I black out from the unbearable pain in my chest and arm.
“You look gorgeous honey!” Ma said as she took a step back to check out my new dress. “Yellow suits you so well!” She continued, smiling. I’m 7 years old and it’s my first day of school. I picked out the yellow dress myself because it was her favorite color. “What’s wrong sweetie?” Ma asked. I looked up at her with eyes filled with tears and without saying a word, she knew. Ma smiled and held me tightly against her chest. “Oh pumpkin, it’s okay. It’s gonna be alright, I promise! If it ever happens again, and if I’m not there, you’ll always have Lamby to talk to. She can make you feel better and then I’ll be there before you know it.” Then she kissed my forehead.
I wake up from the pain. My fingers are numb. The buzzing in my ear has started to fade, and I can hear shouting and things falling but it’s far away; so, so far away. I try to scream for help but no one seems to hear me. My throat is aching and my voice is hoarse. “Do you remember when we found the little kitten in the backyard?” I shift to look at my left leg. “His mommy took the other kittens and left him there. He was forgotten, he was an outsider. That’s what you told me.” It doesn’t look good. It doesn’t look right. That’s not an angle the knee is supposed to bend in. Fear runs in my veins like icy water. My breaths become short and shaky. My chest is about to explode. “Why did you stop talking to me when I needed you the most?” I can’t remember when I started crying but now I can’t stop. “You were the only one I had!”
I hated him. I hated him for yelling at me when I was crying. I hated him because he gave me the silent treatment. I hated him because he would stare at the floor for hours but not look me in the eye even for a second. I wanted to tell him how much I despised him. I wanted to tell him I wish he was dead instead of Ma. I wanted to tell him he’s the monster who chases me in my nightmares every night. But instead I swallowed my too-salty carrots and uncooked chicken, burnt toast with strawberry jam, soggy cereal, answered the door when he’s too drunk to do it, held my tongue when he mocked Lamby, and tried to stay away from him when we were under the same roof so I could have some peace in my own mind; where I begged Lamby to talk to me again, where I stepped into my memories and laughed with Ma again.
This time the sound of something heavy crushing down wakes me up. For a second I don’t realize where I am until I feel the pain rising up in my leg. It’s like someone has lit a fire to my heel and the flames are devouring my leg and stop going up as they lick my knee. Oh god, oh god, no. I’m on fire. The house is on fire and I can’t move. I can smell the burnt flesh. I look down at my broken knee with a shriek, expect to see all kinds of scary-movie flesh and bone, but no. It’s just the pain that feels like fire burn. I groan and lie back again. That’s when I hear Max crying. Cara Bell has just moved into the next apartment with her son, Max. I call out to him. He tells me his mother is with him, but she isn’t moving. The icy water turns back in my veins. “Mrs. Bell? Mrs. Bell, can you hear me?” Nothing. Max sobs. “It’s okay, it’s gonna be okay sweetie.” But a voice in my head yells “IT WON’T” over and over again. I call out louder “Mrs. Bell are you there?” I swallow painfully and wait. She doesn’t answer. I try to concentrate on Max rather than the voice in my head and the pain. “Max, sweetie, can you move? Can you get out of the building?” He sniffles and tells me that he can. “Listen, I need you to get out and get an adult to come and help your mom and me okay? There are adults out there hel…” he cut me, crying hard and tells me something I can’t understand. I try to calm him down but he just wouldn’t shut up. My head and chest are exploding, I feel like my leg is cutting off, I can’t breathe right, the dark spots are still dancing in front of my eyes, the darkness is eating me alive, and for a second I can’t take it anymore. “Max!” I yell. I don’t recognize my own voice. “If you don’t stop right now there’s no going back, there’s no hope. Stop it, stop!” His voice has lowered to a whispering sob. “I’m stuck and I can’t move. No one else can hear me and you’re the only one who can get help for me and your mother. You have to hurry; do you hear me?” he complains under his breath and I completely lose it. “Stop fucking crying and go get someone!” I’m panting, I’m bleeding, I’m dizzy. He shuffles and then I hear him leave, running and limping. I start to cry, loudly. Not because of pain, but because I have just yelled at a little kid who has probably lost his mother. Because this time, I have become the monster.
My shoes were hurting my toes and the dress was ugly and black. Ma was gone. Lamby had stopped talking to me. Dad had stopped talking to me. I felt like I was in a bubble and nothing could penetrate it; like I was in a dream and I was floating.
Max never came back. Was he even there? Did I really talk to him?
I feel like a little doll that’s been tossed under the bed and forgotten. Forever. Except the doll will eventually be found and the memories stuck to it remembered.
I’ve lost so much blood. I dream, and I have nightmares. I wake up and everything hurts. I see light and darkness; I see darkness inside the light. Bright blue sky and Ma’s face. Pop in the nursing house. I dream of a life I never had. I shiver and I know I have a fever. I whisper the things I wish I could’ve told Ma, and I regret not telling them to Pop when I could. I feel like I’m falling down a tunnel and it’s lit brightly. It’s shining. My eyeballs scream with pain. I close my eyes and open them again. I’m still in the tunnel and the dark spots in my eyes are growing; bigger and bigger and bigger until they cover almost everything. “You came back!” A cold tear escapes my right eye and falls on the birthmark on my neck. I smile faintly and touch Lamby on my neck, where the tear has landed. “You came back…” I repeat as I fall into a deep sleep.
