Closure

ORCHARD PRESS MYSTERIES, SHORT FICTION & POETRY

Jun 2008

Closure
a short story
by Mary Caponigro

The phone rang at 1 A.M. It was one of those ominous sounds that immediately forewarns you something bad, something very bad has happened. Nothing good ever comes from a call at that hour of the night.

Before my eyes were open, before I could make sense of the unbidden disturbance of my sleep, I was certain that the far away ringing was an unfavorable omen. A feeling of dread swept over me as I saw in the shadows my husband jump up to reach for the phone before it woke our 8-month old twins.

Maybe it was a wrong number, I hoped in my half-sleep state. After all, who would be calling us in the middle of the night, knowing they could risk the chance of awakening two newborns and their sleep-deprived parents?

"What?" Brian asked, his voice barely audible.

"When?" He whispered with a tone of disbelief.

Although his back was to me, I could detect from his silhouette that this wasn't a wrong number and I was gripped with the foreboding sensation that something terribly wrong had happened. Brian gently replaced the phone in the receiver. He turned to me and said, "Mary, I have some bad news."

It wasn't until days later, when Brian relayed to me the events of that night, that I realized an immediate instinct to escape overcame me.

As Brian faced me I instantly began backing away from him. I didn't want to hear what he had to say. I didn't want to know what the phone call was about. I didn't want to listen to the words he had to tell me. I wanted to get away. I wanted to flee. I wanted to run… run away from the dreadful news.

I wasn't sure if the pounding in my head was the beating of the rain outside or the thumping of my heart.

Reaching across the bed as I tried to retreat, Brian took hold of me by the shoulders and said, "Your father died tonight."

My stomach began churning, my head was reeling. I don't know if I cried or screamed or said anything at all. I just recall a million morbid thoughts whirling through my head.

"Who else?" I trembled thinking it must have been a car accident. My parents along with a few other relatives and friends had been at a banquet that night. I had spoken with my Mom and Dad on the phone earlier in the afternoon. They told me their plans for going out that evening. We talked about how the twins were beginning to crawl in every direction, how they enjoyed squishing peas in their little fists more than eating them, and that both of them were babbling nonsense words to one another and laughing at their own unique language.

"Who else?" I repeated imagining a car filled with my family careening out of control on a slippery rain-beaten highway.

My mother? My sisters? Was it on the way home from the banquet? Did they hit a tree? Another vehicle?

My mind was spinning with gruesome scenarios!

"No one else," answered Brian. "Your father died of a heart attack."

A heart attack? My father had a heart attack? I couldn't wrap my mind around that. It was so shocking that it jolted me from my reverie.

It couldn't have been a heart attack. My Dad was the picture of health. He had stopped smoking years ago and was in great shape. Every summer we had marathon volleyball games and he played toe-to-toe with every one of us. He could set and spike as well as those who were 20 years his junior.

"He had a heart attack?" I asked. "While he was driving?" More of those horrific scenes began playing out in my mind again, relatives crashing to their death as the car spun wildly over a bank.

It hadn't been that way at all. Fortunately, my worst fears of losing more family members existed only in my overactive imagination.

The banquet had been underway. The meal was over and as waiters and waitresses cleared away the remains of the dinner, the clanging of plates and silverware was drowned out by the orchestra's first number. My parents along with several other guests had taken to the dance floor. My Mom and Dad were dancing to their all time favorite tune "Mack The Knife." He was humming the melody to my Mom as her petite frame stepped lightly to keep up with his long effortless strides. At the end of the song our cousin Barb cut in to take a twirl around the floor with my Dad.

"C'mon Uncle Moe," boasted Barb, "Let's show these young people the real way to dance."

Smiling graciously, Dad took Barb up on her offer and the two glided across the floor.

No sooner had they reached the center of the room, when Dad gently let go of Barb's hands, slowly fell backwards, and lost consciousness.

Three nurses who happened to be guests at the banquet immediately rushed over to offer assistance. They worked on him continuously until an ambulance arrived, then the emergency attendants took over. My Dad was transported to another medical vehicle and rushed to a hospital. Through the pouring rain, the rest of our family followed them only to be met with the unforeseen news that my Dad had died of a massive heart attack. My Mom and sisters were ushered into a small room to see him. They stood around his lifeless body in an attempt to grasp the reality of the situation. Still in shock from the dreadful events of the night, they methodically made their way home trying to come to grips with the circumstance at hand.

Living two hours away robbed me from being able to grieve immediately with my Mother and sisters. The distance also prevented me from sorting out the particulars of this nightmare. As I struggled to comprehend the news Brian had just delivered, an innate energy took over and I threw myself into preparing for this unexpected journey. I packed our bags in a perfunctory manner, and although stunned by the distressing news, I was somehow able to gather my wits to amass the essentials for our undetermined stay.

As the next few days passed, we went through the motions of making arrangements, attending the viewing, greeting mourners, and getting through the funeral. It was real, but none of it seemed plausible.

The days and weeks went by and it was soon after that I began having those disconcerted dreams.

Most of the time I dismissed many of my dreams as the result of subconscious afterthoughts, perhaps self-induced stress, or simply indulging in a midnight snack that didn't agree with me. But from time to time I've experienced a type of dream which was so real that I felt I had in some way, on some level, actually lived it. This was one of those times. I was having a recurring dream about my Dad.

In the world of dreams, there is often a bizarre cosmos that occurs only in this sleeplike mirage which doesn't exist in real life. In my series of successive dreams this was so.

Each time, the dream would start out similarly. My Dad had died and we were all gathered at my aunt's house after the funeral. In this hallucinatory world, however, my Dad had been revived. There was no burial in this phantasmal existence. The procedure in these dreams was that following the final ceremony, a team of miracle doctors treated my Dad and restored life to him. We then went about our everyday routine with Dad back in our lives and everything went on as usual.

Although I was often visited by this dream for many months afterwards, I hardly had time to dwell on its purpose. The dream puzzled me, but with a very active set of twins to raise, I didn't find the time to analyze it.

One busy evening while getting the girls ready for bed, one of the twins tottered into our bedroom. She stopped in front of the dresser to study the array of family pictures which were displayed.

Pointing to the photo of my Dad, she stopped to gaze at it and declared, "Papa Moe, all gone."

Stunned by her remark, I asked, "What did you say?"

She looked at the image in the frame again, stared at me with her big dark eyes, and motioning with her hands in the air as though they were empty, repeated, "Papa Moe, all gone." She scampered away continuing with her bedtime routine.

I felt an indescribable sensation in the pit of my stomach. I wasn't sure what it all meant---the impromptu statement of a toddler, the jolting of emotions inside of me, the unsettling feeling.

That night I fell into bed, exhausted as usual, welcoming a peaceful night's sleep, but, that wasn't to be. The recurring dream called upon me one last time.

The vision I experienced this time, however, was more real than any image I had ever conjured up in all of my nighttime illusions.

It began as all the others with family and friends congregated at my aunt's house after my Dad's funeral. This time, I found myself outside on the front porch having a final conversation with my Dad. The words we exchanged with one another seemed to be meaningful, but none that I could ever recall in my awakened state. We shared one long, last hug. I could smell his after-shave, feel the shadow of his beard against my cheek, see the slightest auburn tones in his hair.

Parting reluctantly, but knowing this was all part of the paranormal procedure, my Dad turned and walked down the stone steps. He continued on the concrete sidewalk, through the black wrought-iron gate, and crossed the street to the other side. Looking back one last time, he raised his hand to wave good-bye. At that moment, two large trucks, each coming from opposite directions passed one another in front of us, blocking our view from each other. After the trucks went by, I looked across the street at the empty sidewalk searching for my Dad, but in my heart I knew my quest was futile.

I awoke in the dead of night with an indisputable sensation enveloping my body. It was the feeling you have immediately after an embrace. I truly felt as though I had just disengaged from a hug. The aftermath of releasing an enfolding grip encompassed me.

The dreams never returned after that.

I believe this was my Dad's way of saying good-bye, letting go, and telling me he was at peace so that I could live the rest of my temporal life happily until we meet again beyond.

Contact the Author - editor@orchardpressmysteries.net