A Place to Catch Her Tears

I lifted the blue cup filled with milk and tried to sip. The opening covered half of my face so that the edge of the rim opposite my lips rested on the bridge of my nose. This was the border of a perfect painting. Da Vinci could not have laid paint thin enough to shine a light through that would hold the same incandescence as her skin. She glowed, polished each day with a thoughtful cloth of virtue. She was praying, mumbling in low tones, and I couldn’t tell if it was English or Aramayic. She called me her dakhel deenak, and I didn’t know what it meant, but when she said it my face got warm, like the sun itself had turned to look at me. I breathed into the cup. Nothing in the world smelled like Sitho’s blue cups.

I drove past the house, what would be described as quaint by pretentious, but politically correct types. The porch wasn’t screened in anymore, so I almost didn’t recognize it. In fact, it was not Sitho’s porch at all. At fourteen years old it’d take me two strides, with my thirty two inch legs, to span it. You have to understand, that porch was huge. So big, in fact, that ten years earlier I was afraid to stand at one netted wall by myself, even when my Sitho stood just at the other, telling me she was watching me with her mothers’ eyes. Not understanding the statement I always responded, “You’re mother is dead.” She’d smile, “I know.” I stared at that house and prayed to God she’d talk again.

I’ve been a caffeine addict since I was fourteen. That’s when I read about alzheimers being prevented by a cup of black coffee. I drink a pot by myself each morning now. It was around six o’clock when I got to Uncle John’s house and I hadn’t had a cup since noon. “Take some aspirin!” He always panicked when I felt any pain in my head. He had seen me at my worst, when I was in too much pain to dress myself. That was years ago but the pain still made him panic. “No, it’s just a caffeine migraine, Uncle John. Don’t you have any coffee?”

“I’ll make a pot! Sit down, honey!” His worry always made him raise his voice and I winced at his kindness. I sat down on the couch, next to the big pink armchair that rested right in the middle of the room. I reached over to the arm of the chair and took Sitho’s hand, the same size as my own. “Uncle John says I look like Judy Garland, Sitho. What do you think?” She looked at me with her mouth half open so I could count how many teeth she had left. Her brow furrowed and I knew that if she could still talk she’d be asking me who the hell I am. So I told her. “Who’s your first baby, Sitho? Is it John?” I always tried to trick her. I always hoped she’d catch me at it and shake her head. She nodded. “No he’s not! No he’s not, beautiful!” I talked to her like she was a baby, the way we all talk to her now. “No, no no! Is it Sharon?” I pretended I saw some click of recognition like a quick sparkle in her pupil. I nodded for her. “Yes, Sharon! Sharon is your first baby!” I didn’t need to make it this complicated, but I wanted her to make the connections. I rubbed my thumb over the skin on the back of her hand. Her skin was so smooth, like God had sewn together threads of milk and draped it over her. “Who came after Sharon?” I prompted her in my baby-talk sing-song voice. “Was it John?” Don’t nod. Please, don’t nod. She nodded. “Nooooo, silly!” I put my face close to hers and kissed her forehead, smudging the pencil Uncle John had drawn her eyebrows on with. “Is it Susan? Is Susan your second baby?” I could have sworn she nodded with more vigor, like I had sparked her memory. “And I’m Susan’s baby, aren’t I?”---“CLANG CLANG CLANG WENT THE TROLLEY!”---Judy Garland’s voice flooded the front room and Sitho looked at the TV. I had just lost her. Damn you, Garland! If I didn’t feel bad for you due to the child abuse you endured I’d hate you right now! “Coffee’s done. I’ll sit with Mama,” Uncle John took a wicker chair on the other side of Sitho and I got up and went into the kitchen. I wanted to run back into the front room. I wanted to scream and shake her and make her remember me! I wanted her gaping mouth and furrowed brow to contort into scalding tears of recognition! I opened the cupboard for a mug. Instead I took out a blue plastic cup with flowers etched on the side. I put the opening over my nose and mouth . . . and I just breathed.