Comfort Me

Comfort Me
1257 words

As I pull in the driveway, I can clearly see that Buster has MacGyvered his way through the doggie gates again. There he stands regally atop my brand new sofa. God I love that dog. He makes me smile. Thank God for pets and their unconditional love.
He greets me at the door with his entire back half wagging crazily. I surprise him with a treat, which technically was a reward for standing on the couch all day! I don’t care. He loves me faults and all.
My black pumps are off before I reach my bedroom. My God, whoever invented high heels really must’ve hated women. My uniform of choice when I am home is jeans and sneakers. Ahh, much better. As I push my pumps back on the closet shelf, I notice something shiny. It’s a key. I don’t recall losing a key and I don’t recognize this one. Maybe it’s been there since the previous owners moved. Who knows? I slip the key into the pocket of my pink hooded sweatshirt and head to the kitchen and my second job as a short order cook for my husband and sons.
Multitasking is my forte, so I have the water boiling for the pasta, the sausage boiling off some fat in another pot, the garlic bread is in the oven and I am balancing my checkbook. Impressive, I know. I’m lost in a haze of numbers and department store names where I frequently engage in some much needed retail therapy. All of this to the detriment of our checking account. I’ve been much more disciplined lately. Baby steps. I shop when I’m sad, angry, or lonely. It makes me feel better for a very brief period, but feeling better is what I need and if a new pair of pink flip-flops happens to float my boat then I will buy them.
The scream from the smoke detector brings me back to reality. The garlic bread is now officially not going to make its way to the dinner table. I run for the smoke alarm, almost tripping over Buster who is not at all happy about the noise either. I’m vertically challenged and coming really close to not making it onto rollercoasters, or so I’ve been told by my 6’ 4” son Joey. Standing on the dining room chair, I am able to grab the smoke alarm off the wall. The screaming has ceased, so Buster went back to his perch on my new couch. Once I put the batteries in their proper positions, again I reached for the hook. I notice the paint is peeled off where the smoke detector had been. There’s a deep crevice in a straight line and after some digging with a putty knife, I found the line ran to the floor. I’m positive my husband will be upset after seeing my demolition in the dining room. By the time I followed the deep crevice line I found it was a door. This door had been wallpapered over numerous times and then painted over too!
I knew there had to be a place where a doorknob would go, or even a key. A key! I continued to destroy the dining room wall in search of a keyhole on this curious door. Finally, I located it. Sure enough, the key fit perfectly. At this point, my heart was pounding frantically in my chest. This was all too weird. In addition, it doesn’t make sense. Behind the dining room wall was my oldest son’s room! How could there be a doorway?
I took a deep breath and turned the key. I pushed on the door but nothing happened. Puzzled, I tried sliding it open and that was the answer. As the door slid open, I was surprised by the strong smell of lilacs. It reminded me of the tremendous lilac bush that was outside my childhood bedroom. My body was suddenly flooded with certainty. A certainty that whatever was happening had to happen for my own good.
It was dark and very familiar. The smells, the sounds, everything about this experience were taking me back to my childhood. Once my eyes adjusted, I realized I was standing in a closet. I closed my secret passageway and concentrated on what I was experiencing. I pushed the clothes hangers to the side so that I could pass through to the closet doors. I could feel the clothes on the hangers and it was mostly jeans and sweatshirts. Again, that feeling of déjà vu was overpowering. I wasn’t afraid, but I was also not myself. I had never felt this way before. I felt complete peace and confidence in myself. Through the slightly open closet doors, I could see a little girl weeping softly. She was in her bed and she appeared to be sleeping. I opened the closet and stood at the foot of the bed.
My mind was trying to wrap itself around what I was seeing. For a moment, I thought I had been in a terrible accident and I was hallucinating. My heart knew everything before me was real. The little girl weeping softly was 11 year old me. I took it all in, the open windows, the Holly Hobby curtains moving slightly in the early morning breeze. The matching bedspread was pulled tightly up around 11 year old me. I could barely see her auburn hair and a pale freckled face. The bedspread was up to her eyes. The smell of lilac was heavier now and I remembered that I hate that smell. It made my stomach turn.
The red shag rug, the light blue walls, the white desk with the matching parlor chair and my collection of horse figures on shelves confirmed what I already knew. I was in my childhood bedroom!
I decided to refer to her as Pooh. It was the only way my brain could make sense of things. Pooh was a name my sisters called me as a child. Pooh was still weeping quietly and my heart broke as I watched.
My heart broke because I knew why she was weeping. Along with the emotional, verbal and physical abuse she endured every single day, she now had to deal with losing her innocence at the hand of her brother. A brother she loved and idolized. She thought of him as a best friend. Now he too had taken a little piece of her heart and broke it in a million different ways.
I’m a mom and Pooh is a little girl. She needed someone to tell her it wasn’t her fault. She didn’t do anything to deserve this. She’ll never really know why it happened. She needed to know she would never be alone.
I could tell she was sleeping deeply now. The weeping had stopped.
I sat on the edge of her bed and gently stroked her hair. I didn’t want to scare her. I whispered words of unconditional love and encouragement. I whispered words of understanding. I whispered how sorry I was that this happened to her. I told her it would take years, but she would heal. I told her the scars would never go away completely and that was okay because she is a survivor. I told her she was strong, smart and beautiful. I told her she could be anything she wanted to be. I told her all of this because I knew she had never heard it before.

All I ever wanted was for someone to comfort me.