Anywhere But Here

I am sifting through old attic boxes, getting distracted by beetle-eyed pictures of myself at 3. I wipe sweat beads off of my forehead, leaving a streak of dust where my fingers were. Grabbing another box, I pull it closer and a spider darts out from behind it. I shudder, and when I take off the lid I place it almost out of reach.

She is there, in some of the pictures. In one, I am five and she took me to the hair salon to get curls. She is standing behind the chair in a hideous peach floral suit, smiling at whoever was behind the camera. I look closer. Her eyes are watching something intensely just past the camera holders left ear. This was a few years before she got lost. I can only remember her face when I look at the pictures. In my head, all I see is her earring. The green one with the elephant and the missing diamond. She never did find the match, always said it had fallen behind her dresser when she was young and exotic and passionate.

I toss the picture into the pile of things to throw out.

Once downstairs, I make myself a steaming cup of tea. I stand and stare out the tiny window at the neighbors scampering pit bull and unkempt patio. Once, long ago, that yard had been part of a forest. I loved that forest until the day she got lost in it. My hands feel lighter suddenly, my feet hotter, and I look down and there is a broken mug on the floor, and my tea is running between the kitchen tiles. I mop it up with a wad of tissues, everything else in the kitchen was already packed away into boxes, all labeled Oz. It's the one place I've always wanted to be, and the one place I will never get to.

I remember when my tenth grade teacher asked me where I imagined myself in five years.

“In college,” I said.

“New York City,” I said.

“Anywhere but here,” I remember thinking to myself.

What I didn't say was “Standing on a balcony in Barcelona, smoking weed with my best friend, trying to use big words to impress the guy in the corner with the gray newsboy cap.”

I didn't answer “Sloppy and drunk.”

It wasn't who I expected to be. Now, with my cobweb womb and empty ring finger, I wish I had followed her advice. “Plan while you can, because someday it will feel like you've run out of time.”

I hear her voice echoing in my head, softer and softer as I lower myself to the floor. The couch is already in the moving truck, far away in Iowa, somewhere past the line of forever. I was supposed to be following the movers, but I'm not ready to leave home. I don't think I'll ever be.

It crosses my mind that maybe I should call my dad because he doesn't know I'm moving and selling the house. When she got lost, he stopped talking. A mute for a dad, and a mute with depression, no less. He never left the house. I had to feed him, bowl after bowl of chicken broth for years, until I finally got a hospital to take him away. I never felt guilty for doing that. If he wanted to stay, he should have tried harder, he should have been there for me. Across the room, a piece of dust clings to the wall, hesitant to drift to the hardwood floor. It reminds me of him, holding on to his life by a single thread. When he lost her, he lost his will to live.

I clench my hand and rub my finger along the bone-white knuckles. A thick, angry tear is welling in my eye. Sometimes I wish I had been his will to live, but thinking about the past can't change it. So I stand and shake the attic drywall off my jeans. In the bathroom, I toss my toothbrush and toothpaste, my shampoo and soap into a plastic bag. Outside, the sun is shining and it feels like the wrong day to leave home. I pause in my driveway, box heavy in my arms, wondering if I should unpack and stay another day. I imagined rain or a cloudy sky, something sad like in all the movies. Instead, the sunlight is warming my toes and I'm annoyed because I like the feel of it. For a moment it makes me forget that I'm leaving home for good.

“I hope you like your new place down in Iowa!” the old lady calls from across the road. She is kneeling in her garden, planting a bunch of fresh orange lilies. I wave to her absentmindedly.

“I'm sure I'll love it,” I say back to her.

“All these damn worms are in my way,” the lady curses as she pulls a worm out and tosses it back over her shoulder. I watch it bounce onto the thin grass and ooze back into the dirt. “Sorry dear, what was that?”

“Just said I'm sure I'll like it,” I call out to her, a little louder than before. She nods her head knowingly.

“I moved around a lot when I was your age. It gets better, trust me. Soon, you can look forward to retirement,” the lady muttered loudly.

“I'm not that old, Ms. Mulberry. You know that,” I yell my usual answer to her age comments.

“Did you remember that wonderful picture of you and your mother down at the Salon? I always loved that picture. Still have a copy of it on my piano.”

“Oh, I must have missed it,” I lie.

“Such a shame,” Ms. Mulberry says to herself loudly as I pack the rest of the boxes into my car and pull out of the driveway. As I pass her gate, I wave and she waves back, flinging specks of dirt and a large worm onto her newly painted white fence. I can hear her swearing as I drive away down the street.

Before I turn onto the thruway, I decide to pop in on my dad. As much as I don't want to see him, I still love him in some part of my being, and that part of me realizes that he deserves to know I'm leaving. As the hospital inches closer, I convince myself that I will not argue with him over selling the house. He will moan and lash out but I cannot back down to him like I usually do. When I pull into the parking lot and stop the car, I sit with my fingers curled around the leather coated steering wheel. They are shaking. I haven't seen him in years, it isn't fair for me to just walk in and spring this on him. I should have told him already, I think to myself with an underwhelming feeling of guilt. Then, the moment is gone and I steel myself.

The hospital smells like drugs, blood and lemon cleaner. The walls are a light blue, with a not-so-inviting puce colored border. The floor is made up of green and white square tiles, and when I walk along it my flip flops squeak. After I sign in, a dead-faced nurse silently leads me upstairs and down another hallway with white walls instead of blue. Every other light is flickering, reminding me of zombie movies where the hospital is the first to be overrun. I shudder and my flip flop squeaking falters, making the nurse look back at me. She looks annoyed. I push my hair back behind my ear and look down.

“Sorry,” I say quietly.

“He's in here,” the nurse answers as she rolls her eyes.

“Thanks,” I murmur, but she is walking away and doesn't hear me.

I peek into the doorway. It's an unexciting room, with beige walls, a white floor and fake purple flowers on the windowsill. The bed is lifted a bit and I see him, staring at the blank TV across the room. I walk in and stand awkwardly in the doorway, waiting for him to acknowledge me somehow. After a while, I sigh heavily and drop my guard. He makes me think of her, and when I think of her I forget to be angry at him. Then he turns to me and half smiles. I can see something like regret in the deep creases of his cheeks. Sitting on the side of his bed, I say nothing as his hand comes to rest on my knee.

“Dad, I'm moving to Iowa,” I say without looking down at him. His hand stops moving. “I'm selling the house.”

He moans loudly, a sickening sound because his voice is raw. When I glance at him, his eyes are bulging and his other hand is flailing towards the window. He is shaking his head violently. With his other hand he starts to dig his fingers into my knee. I jump off of the bed, away from him before he can hurt me any more.

“I'm sorry. I should have told you.”

His eyes got hard and he stared at me, tears welling n the edges of his eyelids. He made a grunting noise and looked away.

“I was afraid,” I admitted, partly to him, and partly to myself. “Telling you felt like the end. Like if you knew, then I really would be leaving everything behind. I don't want to leave, but I can't live there anymore, dad. I just can't. I can feel her there, even when I sleep.”

As I talk I watch him cry. His tears spill over his cheeks and wet the pillow under his head. When I am finished and he is sniffling, I move to that side of his bed, lift his head and flip the pillow. I try to leave but he grabs my arm, not painfully, but enough to keep me near him. I don't resist his touch.

“Green,” he whispers. I am startled at his word. I didn't think he could talk anymore. I find myself shaking again and I can't tell why. My head and my heart are a confusing jumble of homesickness, regret, and happiness, and I can't decide which is the most prevalent.

“Under.”

His second word stops my shaking. I push the help button on the side of his bed. A few minutes later, another nurse with brighter eyes and a giddy smile walks in. When she sees me she whistles. “I didn't know he had any relatives, but Linda says you're his daughter. Well, anyways, my name's Marcie and I take care of your dad.”

She has a heavy southern accent. I decide I like her, though she makes me feel small because of her overload of energy. I instantly feel drained.

“When did he start speaking?” I ask.

“Oh, did he say green and under again? A few days ago he had a dream and woke up in the morning screaming those two words. I was surprised because I had never heard him speak, and his voice was deeper than I imagined it would be,” Marcie explains while she checks his vitals.

“What does it mean?”

“I have no idea,” Marcie answers. I look up at her.

“Sorry, I meant that as a rhetorical question.”

“Oh,” she said with a chuckle. Marcie turned to me and cocked her head with a sad smile on her lips. “I know you want to see your dad, but visiting hours are almost over. I'll leave you two alone, but finish up.”

When Marcie is gone, I look down and it seems like he is asleep. I lean over his ashen face and lightly place a kiss on his forehead. I wipe his thin hair out of his eyes and pull my arm out of his grasp. His arm slowly lowers to his side and he turns to face the door, emitting a low moan as he changes his position.

“Bye, dad,” I say quietly as I grab my bag and walk out of the room, never looking back as I walk away from the hospital. In my car, I sit again, this time with my hands in my lap. His words are haunting me. Green. Under. I push myself to think about what he could be talking about and all that comes to mind her. I know it has to do with her and then I'm driving opposite the thruway, speeding back towards the house.

When I get there, I can feel her. Across the street, Ms. Mulberry is nowhere to be seen, her house is dark. The sky is darkening too and I feel a chill in the air. My head plays tricks on me and when the wind blows I feel her hand against my neck, braiding my hair like she used to when I was little. I fumble with the keys, and when I finally get the door open, it feels wrong to be stepping back into the empty, ancient house.

I don't know why, or maybe I do, but I find myself running up the stairs and in front of their old room. Green. Under. The door is stuck and I shove myself into it to force it open. Inside, everything is still there. The bed still has its pillows and blankets, the design partly hidden by the thick layer of dust settled on it over the years. The left side of the bed was his and it is ruffled from the day he left. Her side was the right and it is smooth, not touched in more than twenty years. On impulse, I put my hand on her pillow, leaving my imprint in the dust.

I sit against the wall, waiting for something to happen. I didn't know what but I knew there was something I was missing. Something I was forgetting in the craziness of everything in the past few years. Green. Under. My eyes flutter to her dresser. Green. Under. In the back of my mind I remember an earring, a green elephant with a missing diamond, that she was sure had fallen behind her dresser. I went to the rotting dresser and pulled it away from the wall. Dust flew out from behind it, and a loud, piercing screeching noise along the floor made my skin quiver.

I dropped down onto my knees and stuck my arm behind the clunky piece of furniture. There, under all the dust, I could feel something small. When I lifted it, I blew away the layers of cobwebs and a spider crawled down my arm. I flicked it away, barely even noticing it was there. In my hand sat the little elephant earring without the diamond, but it had a wad of paper taped to it. The paper looked like a news article, a dark tan color, with tiny letters printed all over it. I sit back against the wall, and my hands are shaking as I unroll the paper. On it there is writing. For a moment I look away and gather my thoughts back to me. I think I left them somewhere outside by the car, because when I look back at the paper and the earring, my head is cleared and it no longer feels like the house in haunted with her.

On the paper there is a news article about a body being found in the woods, buried beneath the roots of a maple tree. I skim through the article, already guessing what I didn't what to be real. At some point in the article her name was mentioned and I let my arms fall to my knees. I had read a lot of mystery novels, but I didn't like the way this one was ending. I finished the article, skimming it and skipping the word murder whenever it came up. I wasn't crying, which surprised me, I just felt numb. I stared at the bottom of the bed, wondering why the paper was her with her lost earring, and how my dad had known.

I flip the newspaper over and find something scribbled in permanent marker. As I read it I can feel myself falling somewhere between furious and depressed.

I'm sorry, I didn't think you could handle it. They found her. I'm sorry I never told you but I couldn't find the strength to speak. I figured whenever you found this earring was when you would be ready to know. But I'm guessing it has been a long, long time. I'm probably already dead. You'll most likely hate me now, but try to remember the old me. The me that wasn't a bad father. The me that loved you more.

I was surprised I wasn't crying. The letter was signed Love, Daddy. I feel myself torn between ripping up the piece of paper and keeping it for the rest of my life. At the very bottom there was a P.S. that read It wasn't your fault. With that, I take the paper and rip it down the center before tossing it away on his side of the bed.

When I leave the house, I drive to Iowa without stopping. My new house is green, from the Victorian-era, and it reminds me of the Emerald City of Oz. Somehow, I convince myself I am living in Oz, blown there by a violent tornado, or something of the kind. Later in the week, I am making new friends at a western style bar near my new house. They ask me where I am from and I lie to them, I say New York City. They ask me about my parents and I decide to keep lying. I say my mom was controlling and my dad spoiled me. Meanwhile, I am downing a third shot of whiskey, trying to forget everything I left behind.