My mother and I took a trip to North and South Carolina to see my cousin for his baby shower. I didn’t tell her about the dream I had months before about him.
We were running after him in a daze, trying to keep him from killing himself. The bathroom was overflowing with people, my mother and I creating makeshift flashlights with cardboard. Yelling for him like we were hunting a lost dog. We made it through a white garden gate, and saw him running outside to nowhere, crying and shouting at the sky. I was suddenly in a movie theater sitting next to my sister. A policeman had burst through the blue screen, scaring us all in the audience. I thought for a second that he was searching for my cousin. We had broken some kind of unspoken dream rule. My sister and I had canoes instead of cars, and we left the theater paddling sunset water. I got mad at the end of the dream because there was some kind of band practice at the end, my sisters and I playing our instruments from high school marching band. I had forgotten about my cousin at that point.
The wildflowers in north Florida are turning violet this spring. I saw a roadside memorial on the median that looked like a child leaning over the metal. We stopped at a gas station right before Georgia that had medieval lettering. Oak trees and bell shaped leaves fell over the blue and yellow building. A man sat in the back of his truck, hat on backwards with the hood propped. He looked lonely. We passed by one of those souvenir billboards, proclaiming “LOTS OF WIND CHIMES AND TOYS!” with cartoon baby alligators smiling. A cluster of firetrucks parked underneath. Thought of a firetruck with a wind chime siren.
Georgia had yellow wildflowers. An ambulance passed us by, with wildfire smoke leading the way in the distance. Charleston, South Carolina was our stop that night. I opened the door to the car, and mist coated my face. Cold wind came from the marsh, scratchy violins and children shouting in the distance. The sky seemed deeper here. That night, we went on one of those trap ghost tours. I had tried the day before to keep my mother from going, but to no avail. My priest advised against it. I felt doomed that day at work, smiling all fake. I kept an icon of the Theotokos in my pocket. Mary is framed in gold, two angels come down from the corners. Christ is a child and smiling. The horse lead us into an invisible world. We saw the two churches where supposed ghosts were, one Episcopal red and mud brown with a gold clock. The other was Catholic and all white. The stories seemed more sad than anything. It would be so lonely, being here alone forever, a pair of eyes in space walking back and forth.
I went to bed early that night, still hanging onto my work schedule sleep pattern. My mother and I found a Gardenia candle the next day. My twin sister’s favorite flower as a child. The drive to Raleigh felt strange. It was overcast the whole day, and my mother insisted on playing some true crime podcast. We stared at a gray wall, listening to a disembodied voice speak about various murders. I read a wikipedia page about a long-forgotten roadside attraction on the highway we had passed. People complained about bedbugs. There were various theories that it was a place for drug movements, but it looked like a tattered amusement park on the outside.
We picked up my little sister and her new boyfriend at the airport that night, and I noticed how few road signs and streetlights there were. We all ran for the car the next morning, not used to the cold. The new boyfriend voted on a diner-style, popular breakfast restaurant for breakfast. Construction cranes littered the parking lot, the pale yellow blending with the restaurant logo. A redbud tree let go of its petals in the wind. Our waitress was new, but uncompromisingly sweet. New boyfriend kept talking about how “friendly people are” in the south. We put on paper hats and the whole place passed around claps when a couple behind us got their picture taken. It felt like feeling the sun in winter. Like holding my grandmothers hand. I missed my sister. One of my favorite feelings is the good kind of longing.
My mother, new boyfriend, my sister and I then walked around downtown. It did not produce anything, but I was reminded of John Prine. One of my cousins had recommended we go down there, say hi to one of the bus drivers. We got to the baby shower early, the neighborhood a 55+ community. My sister convinced my mother to go to one of the open houses, since we were early. We screeched a bit, taking a new turn on the roundabout. The grass was pale, pale brown here, but somehow still bright. My mother said that it depressed her as we exited the car, walking through the mud in our best meet-the-family clothes. She gave a fake name to the agent, and we admired the little details. Dust covered everything. My sister thought that one of the owners had died, perhaps. I thought how that depressed me.
We made it to the baby shower, my cousin unloading boxes of decorations and supplies, already with a disinterested but playful scowl on his face. We helped him with a few boxes, and my mother asked him if he was ready. “I’m ready for this to be fucking over. I don’t want to talk to everyone here. Except for you guys.” We saw my aunt and uncle, cousins and their spouses. Technically they are my half cousins, and half aunt, but they don’t feel like it. It’s been forever since I’ve seen them. I think it’s such a beautiful word. Forever.
The time has actually been six years. My oldest cousin, a triplet, gave birth to triplets herself seven years ago. Her children look like her, but they all have blonde hair like their father. They run around outside. I think of the time when I was a child, these cousins then teenagers and pulled me around in a wheelbarrow. I take the family photo outside, the sun finally out after two days. Standing on a bench, clicking away. “We’ll fix everything later in post.” I yell out and feel stupid. The camera has been in my hand for almost ten years now. The baby shower ends quick, with each triplet taking one of the triplet children from my cousin back to the house. My cousin that the shower was for points at us from his truck. The house is tall, skinny, made of brick. Dogwoods flower in the yard and small concrete statues decorate the mailbox area. Traces of blue and orange spray paint linger in the combs of grass. A white feather sits there, and I can’t tell if it’s real or not.
We sit in the living room as my other cousins baby cries. I sit next to my mom on the floor and I listen to a half-joke conversation about pill addiction. A game is played, new boyfriend joins in. I see the triplet kids through the window on their scooters on the road outside, ultimately free. My aunt and uncle and other cousins move together into the dining room. Somehow the conversation turns to my sister and I, what we’re doing. I tell my uncle about my temporary job in Florida, half listening to the conversation my mom is telling the table. “… started Lent, so she’s not eating meat… just got baptized Orthodox…” I feel a sharp stab in my abdomen, and try to keep the conversation going. Please God, not now. I apologize to my uncle and run up the stairs to the bathroom. My cousins makeup bags are scattered on the counter, while the rest of the room is decorated to fit a child’s idea of the ocean. I return quickly, almost tripping on the steep wooden stairs since I am barefoot. I walk quietly up to the dining room, listening behind an archway. I hear my one male cousin speaking. “…Well the only reason we’re having kids is through science, not God, and that’s all I’ll say about that.” He drums on the table with his hands and I try to smile at my uncle and apologize.
The dinner is held somewhere else, half of us surprising the other. It is dark red and black, and gets darker still. Conversation is made about shoes, motorcycles. I feel panicked, stupid, like a bird stuck in its cage. Restaurants at night seem to make me uneasy. We drop off my sister and her new boyfriend at their hotel, and I give her a hug. I have no idea when I’ll see her next. I fall asleep early that night.
The next morning I finally I get to see the sunrise here. It is time to leave, we have a ten hour drive ahead of us. I forgot how boring travel can sometimes be, sitting in the car for hours on end. The hotel TV near the breakfast area is playing what looks to be a news show, but they start showing Bible verses and talk about the rapture halfway through. Great, I thought. Here we go again. My mom walks up to the front desk attendant. “Can we change the channel, please? I have a ten hour drive and don’t want to listen to end times prophecies. Thank you.” The attendant shakes her head. “Oh, they’re at it again. I’ll change it to the news.” She apologizes again and my coffee is cool enough to drink now. I look down at my food “I’m sorry about that show.” I try and explain to her the Evangelical view, how different the Orthodox church is. “We look to the Church Fathers to interpret the Bible.” I said. My mother nods. “They seem to be using it for their agenda.” She says. I wish I could tell her the entirety of my feeble theological knowledge, but I let it rest. We walk out into the now sun-filled parking lot, feel the cold wind cutting across the road. The high was 32 that day, nothing like Florida in March.
One more roadside billboard as we drove through Georgia. A smiling child in a too-dark picture. It reminded me of the faces of ice cream I’d get as a child from the ice cream truck. Melting in the southern sun with too-big eyes. I wondered where he was now.
I went to work the next day, got up at 4:00 in the morning. The boss of my boss was there as I manned the desk. It was later in the day, no one was coming in. Calm, for a Monday. “You know,” she said turning to me “there was something I really admired about your interview. I liked that you take time for God and don’t work on Sunday mornings.” I felt startled, as if I had woken up too quickly. There was a hand held out in front of me, a note of recognition. “Well, at my other job, they didn’t really let me. It sucked.” What a dumb response. This woman had something about her that I recognized before, some sort of kindred spirit. She was named after a bird. A customer came in and I complimented the feather in her hat. “Thanks. I got it on the beach during covid times. It helps keep the bad spirits away.” The boss and I looked at each other after she left, and laughed.
I am feeling the same feelings I always do, but I find myself wanting honesty more than anything else. I want to be honest. If words are not enough, I want to offer a hand at the very least. I love stories of angry, defensive, confused people coming to the truth with vulnerability and changing. In a month and a half I will leave for California again, and it will be my Easter.