Crazy to Say Goodbye
The happy couple sat at the long dinner table, Kitty and John, each on the opposite end looking at each other through the molded candles and caked-on cob webs. Kitty looked over at her husband as if trying to transmit a signal and started to have a conversation with John in her head. Your hair is full of knotted up silk, matted to your head. Your eyes have been closed for weeks now. Dear, you really should take a shower; your body is beginning to smell like two rotten eggs being fried on the stove. I know you have been sick, but you are beginning to turn a pale purple. You don’t need to worry; I will take care of you. I told you I would never let go, and I won’t. Come, Dear let me wash your hair.
The elderly woman was dressed in a light blue night gown that gracefully floated across the aged oak floor; her long crystal locks fell across her brittle and crooked shoulders. She reached up with her long, bony fingers, gathered her hair into a tight bun, and twisted a long knitting needle deep into it to hold the locks off her wrinkled neck. The kids down the block say that she is a witch, and maybe she is. She walks with a limp and wears black shoes. It seems that the maker of her eyes pulled out the plug and let the color drain out because all that was left from her bright blue eyes was a washed-out gray. Her nose was long and ended at a point, and her lips were thin and always tightly pressed together as if they were looking for the lost solids that used to sit comfortably on her gums. Her body has shrunk over the years, and now her back has hunched over. She walks as if each step sends sharp pains into her bones, but she still remains proud. Her mind seems to be locked up in a world long forgotten. Kitty walked into her out-dated kitchen and picked up the silver bowl sitting on the wash table. She made her way to the screen door, slowly, one step at a time. Walking down the crumbling steps she looked around seeing a blur of greens, blues, and browns. She could faintly make out the handle to the manual water pump but remembered the beaten down dirt path that led to it. After painstakingly pumping the water into the wash bowl, the woman carried the bowl back into the house. She sat it on the stove, until steam started to rise towards the heavens. Kitty threw an old, thin cloth into the water and walked back into the dining room. She sat next to her husband, and the chair creaked with a decomposing screech. Kitty stuck her hand into the wash bowl, and let it sit in the warm water. Wringing out the cloth she started to slowly wash John’s face. Kitty was expecting him to curse at her for embarrassing him in front of their guests, but he didn’t. He just sat there in a frozen silence. After finishing her task, Kitty tossed the dingy water outside on the over-grown grass as if to say, Here. Here is your poison. She sat the bowl back on the table and walked up the soft stairs. Reaching the top, Kitty walked over to the mirror. She gazed deep into the reflection as if not looking at her own but one hidden deep in the past.
Ring... Ring... “Come on, Mom. . . . Answer the phone. Doctor, no one is picking up.”
“Miss Jinkins, I need you to calm down. Was there anyone taking care of your parents while you were on vacation?”
“No. Susie, the girl down the road, was supposed to check in on them, but she said Mom, I mean Kitty, looked fine.”
“What about Mr. Jinkins?”
“She said he was sitting at the dinner table. She said Dad never moved the whole time while she was there,” Miss Jinkins said with a slight quiver in her voice as if she were concealing a consuming terror.
“So, have you contacted the police?”
“Of course not. What am I supposed to tell them, that I left my 98 year-old mother by herself to take care of my father who has been so sick that he would die if not in constant care?”
“Okay, okay, good point. Calm down. Meet me at the airport at five, and we will go find your parents together.”
“Are you sure you can do that, Doctor?”
“Don’t mention it.”
As she hung up the phone, Miss Jinkins began to pace around her Beverly Hills home. What if that old bag forgot who she was, where she was at, and killed Dad because she thought he was an intruder? No, don’t think like that. She has the most severe case of Alzheimer’s, but she would never kill Dad, would she? Miss Jinkins, trying to suppress the questions popping up in her conscience, remembered her mission to get to the airport. She ran up the stairs taking two at a time, and when each foot hit the sturdy stair, she gained momentum.
Waking up from her endless sleep, Kitty looked around and saw the moth-eaten curtains. It seemed the place where she chose to rest was decaying in time. To try to figure out where she was, Kitty sat up and walked down the soft crumbling stairs. Reaching the first floor, she looked around. She saw footprints leading into the house from a screen door. They could not be a man’s print but possibly a woman’s or child’s. She looked up and saw spider webs reaching down at her. She felt her body cringe and could not hold in a terrified scream. She ran down the hall until she was in the kitchen. She saw one of the burners was red with heat. She rushed over to the stove and turned the knob. Looking around, she saw an open doorway. She walked through it, seeing the room was styled Victorian, and the splendid decorations made the dining room seem like a step into the past. It was filled with dust but still felt so familiar. She walked over to the long oak table and looked at the clumpy liquid in the Champaign glass. Kitty felt her stomach lurch as if trying to jump out of her throat. She then followed the spider webs until her vision landed on a figure sitting in the darkness. She called out to the creature, but no response was given. She picked up a candle off the center of the table, found a match, and lit it. A breeze from the window sent the smell
of death right into Kitty’s nostril, and this time she was not able to control her disgusted stomach. After vomiting up stomach acid for about fifteen minutes, she fell to the ground with exhaustion. She took the candle and walked towards the creature in the darkness. Approaching with caution, the woman let the light trace the outline of a man. She called out to him, but again no answer. She approached closer and recognized a forgotten familiar face.
“John? John is that you?” Kitty asked with slight fear penetrating her voice. There was still no reply, and she began to lose control. Her mind started to spin in different time periods until it landed with a thump. Finally, her mind stopped running away from her.
“Mom? Mom, are you here?” Miss Jinkins could not help but let the panic in her voice show.
“Mrs. Jinkins? This is Doctor Jacobes. Are you in there?” Still no answer was returned.
“Mom, we are coming in.” Miss Jinkins took a step towards the house, and Dr. Jacobes followed close behind. Looking through the screen, she reached for the cold, metal handle and pulled the door open slowly. She walked inside the door and turned to Dr. Jacobes. “I’ll look upstairs; you try the downstairs,” she said with force and control.
“Okay, yell if you find anything.”
“Okay. You do the same.”
After searching through all of the bedrooms, she heard the doctor’s
terrified scream. “MISS JINKINS. . . . Miss Jinkins, get down here quick!” It seemed she turned on a dime and flew down the rotting stairs. When she reached the dust-covered floor with a slight thud, she never stopped running and followed the doctor’s voice. When she reached the door to the dining room, she stopped dead in her tracks. She saw the horrifying scene that would haunt her dreams for the rest of her life. Her father sat at the head of the table, and
her mother was swimming in her own blood. The doctor confirmed that both were dead. He told Miss Jinkins, judging by the skin color, temperature, and feel of the skin, that her father had to be dead at least two weeks. Her mother, on the other hand, has only been dead for about twenty-four hours. Miss Jinkins fell to her knees with a flood of tears flowing out of her eyes like the Mississippi River after a heavy rain. Doctor Jacobes tried to comfort the distressed woman, but only her final words gave her the courage to leave. “I guess I was crazy to say goodbye, and my mother was crazy to let go.”