Day 33 Read online

“How’s the article coming?” Donald’s smile faded as soon as Evita made eye contact with him.

  “You okay?” he noticed the red veins popping from her eyeballs. Her ebony skin was fading and although it was late fall and the sun lost some of its brightness, Donald was aware her pale complexion was due to something deeper than cold temperatures.

  “I haven’t been sleeping”, Evita turned back around and occupied herself with the article.

  “Look”, Donald propped himself back on the rear desk in the cubicle, “I know you’re a private person but—”

  “Well if you know that then…” Evita never looked up from the paper. Donald hopped back down onto the floor and proceeded to leave. Again, Evita asked him to come back, realizing that maybe for once, she should speak to someone about something other than work and sports.

  “I need that number to the doctor as soon as you can”, Donald promptly apologized for not giving it to her sooner. Evita asked him not to worry. “I keep having weird dreams.”

  “Well, is someone hurting you in your dreams?”

  “No, someone is asking me to help them, but I don’t recognize her.”

  “A woman?”

  “A little girl.” Donald immediately scrolled through his contacts to find the therapists number. He texted to Evita and she slowly stood from her desk chair, extending her arms for a hug. Donald was confused and excited at the same time and returned the kind gesture by embracing her. “Thank you,

  Donald.”

  “Anytime”, he insisted.

  DAY 4

  EVITA stroked the leather arm rest with her right index finger and tapped her left thigh with her left hand. Nervously shaking, her legs trembled fearfully, heavily, and continuously. Dr. Diana Halal accepted Evita’s emergency request for an appointment and squeezed her in early so Evita could return to the Slam office in the afternoon. Evita sat dressed in a black pant suit and white blouse from the sales rack of the department store, which fit her pretty well, considering. She took time this morning to blow her hair out into a full afro, hoping it would make her seem less crazy if she appeared well-dressed and put together.

  The wooden door creaked open slowly, and there she was, the woman Evita hoped could help salvage what was left of her sanity. In walked Dr. Diana Halal. She quietly greeted Evita with a pleasant grin while glaring at her over top of expensive Versace frames. The doctor wore a sleek, short black pixie cut and was even smaller than Evita herself, only standing about five feet tall.

  Her patent leather stilettos gave her an extra few inches. Her cream-colored suit appeared to be especially tailored and matched the tone of her light brown caramel complexion. The doctor examined Evita’s mannerisms with caution, as she shuffled through a manila folder and read through Evita’s file. The doctor was being thorough observing her notes to get a better feel of what she’d be dealing with. Evita was growing more anxious, assuming the doctor found something in her notes for her to be concerned about.

  The doctor finally looked away from her files and made kind eye contact with Evita. “You can call me Diana, I like for my patients to feel comfortable enough to open up, and using last names won’t help”, she stood above Evita, sitting on the leather couch, and extended her arm. Evita slowly extended her reach as well, clasping her sweaty hand against a calmer palm. Diana let out a small giggle hoping to break the ice, but it didn’t work. Evita stopped tapping he foot for a moment and crossed her arms.

  “You’re nervous, I understand. The point of this is to help you. It’s up to you how much you tell me, but the more you open up, the more we can get to the heart of your issue”, Diana clarified.

  She glided down into her own leather seat directly across from Evita and took a sip of strong black coffee. The sound of Diana’s slurping rang against Evita’s eardrums, adding to her already-high level of annoyance. Evita really tried to relax, but the air was too still, the room was too quiet. Everything was a light cream color except for the black and brown leather seating. Even the desk was adorned with a cream-colored marble top, trimmed with light brown oak wood.

  The analog clock on the wall ticked louder than Evita’s heartbeat. Diana’s pen scribbles were audible in a way that Evita had never heard. Her mind started to wander to a negative place again. Maybe her father had been right all this time. Maybe therapists were full of it, getting paid thousands to gossip, so they could pay for fancy leather seats, marble furniture, and fancy stilettos.

  “You’re here for nightmares, correct?” Diana looked over to the notebook sitting atop Evita’s lap. The front cover was torn, and the pen ink and scratches told of its wear and tear. It was obvious Evita wrote some of her entries while she was still half asleep, with how sloppy its presentation was. Every night she would scramble to open the book before the images vanished from her foggy mind.

  “They’re not all nightmares.” Evita clutched her notebook toward her chest, protecting herself from this evil being disguised as help. Diana flashed a smirk and took note of Evita’s defensiveness.

  “How about we start simple. Can you tell me your earliest childhood memory?” Diana clicked her pen while Evita chewed the inside of her right cheek struggling to recall. She looked toward the ceiling contemplating her early life.

  Evita had just turned three and her mother was 29 at the time. They were in the middle of a Virginian grass pasture, filled with sun burnt weeds with dried mud caked at the roots.

  The sun beamed down upon their deep brown skin complexions, creating tiny beads of sweat on their cheeks and foreheads. Her mother, Vivian, would run in circles, allowing Evita to catch up to her only for a second, and then she would sprint off again, encouraging Evita’s speed. The two of them had slipped off their brown sandals and felt the moist blades between their toes. Their cotton dresses would fly behind them like capes and they frolicked for hours. Evita vaguely remembered seeing her mother sew the fabric into beautiful masterpieces the week prior at their kitchen table. The skirt bottoms stuck to their thighs as the heat intensified.

  Their laughter filled the blue skies and Vivian would grab Evita by the hips, toss her into the air and catch her as she gracefully floated back downward. They would fall into the tall grasses and roll around while their vocal chords belted pure joy from the bottom of their bellies. They took a break to eat peanut butter sandwiches and drink fresh squeezed lemonade, made with Vivian’s dainty, yet hard-working hands.

  “It sounds like you had a lot of fun with your mother”, Diana continued jotting down whatever notes she needed. Evita did have a lot of fun with her mother. As she basked in the recollection of her youngest memories, all of them included herself, Vivian, and tons of laughter. She recognized that her mother was responsible for all of her youthful, joyful moments. It dawned on Evita; she couldn’t think of any fond, early-life memories with Reverend Thomas. It was almost as if he wasn’t there at all. Evita never spent much time around her father, until her mother committed suicide when Evita was just thirteen years old. Or at least, that was the story Evita was always told.

  Evita helped her mother run errands at the local grocery store and post office, peeled the potatoes and carrots for dinner, and picked the strawberries from the garden on the side of their house. The Reverend was never there for any of this.

  Evita and Vivian would meditate every morning, in the middle of the grass pasture behind their house. Evita could remember her mother holding glistening crystals in her hands and wearing them on tethers around her neck, all different colors glowing in the sun. Vivian would inhale and exhale deeply, stretching her arms toward the sky, and swooping downward, placing her hands flat into the dirt. Evita would try to bend over in synchronicity with her mother, but she couldn’t keep the same balance. She would always stumble and fall over to the side, so instead, Evita would sit alongside her mother, staring in amazement.

  Before Evita reached school age, she and Vivian would take mile long walks to the nearby lake and watch the sun rise a
nd set every day. In the winter, instead of Vivian’s homemade dresses, they’d wear sweaters, knitted by Vivian’s mother. Evita could only remember one time where she met her maternal grandmother in person. She couldn’t have been any older than six. She couldn’t remember much about her grandmother’s features, but she remembered receiving new packages from her every fall. Evita’s grandmother would knit sweaters, blankets, hats, scarves, and anything else that could be made from a ball of yarn, and sent them for the winter every year, just before Thanksgiving.

  “After your mother passed, did you continue to receive things from your grandmother?” Diana inquired.

  Evita realized she hadn’t heard much from her grandmother after her mother’s passing and especially not after her father remarried less than a year later. Evita recalled receiving snail mail letters every Saturday from her grandmother after Vivian’s passing, but The Reverend would always prevent her from responding. His excuse was usually that postage was becoming too expensive, or that due to the rural location of their house, letters had a tendency of getting lost in the mail. Evita was a distraught teenager who had just lost her mother, so the excuses seemed valid in the midst of all the other chaos. Between school and her church chores, Evita had little time to write letters regardless.

  Evita’s grandmother would draw funny pictures or send old photos of Vivian as a kid on the farm in southern Virginia, where she was born. Sometimes the envelopes contained smaller versions of the crystals Vivian used to wear, like amethysts and rose quartz. However, when The Reverend met his current wife, the letters Evita received from Vivian’s mother ceased to exist. It happened so abruptly that Evita hadn’t really noticed until just now, when Diana asked.

  “For your homework, I want you to go through any old journals you may have and see if your dreams held memories of your grandmother. I want you to write down anything you can remember.” Diana informed Evita that this was just the beginning of the process and that they’d have a long road ahead. She ensured Evita that she could call her anytime and showed her out of the office door.

  Later that night, Brennan was out at happy hour with some friends and Evita had the house to herself. Peace and quiet wasn’t so peaceful anymore, however. She decided to search for any old journals she may have stashed in her house. First, Evita rummaged the bedroom closet, and next was the basement. She wasn’t very enthused about searching the underground dwelling by herself at night, and luckily, beside the basement door at the top of the stairwell, sat a big cardboard box labeled “books”. Evita was relieved, for she avoided a possibly creepy exchange at the bottom of the stairwell.

  Evita struggled to drag the heavy cardboard box into her living room area. She plopped down on her dark gray, microfiber sectional and the box sat close to her knees. She dusted off the top flaps and slowly opened the box. A spider the size of her hand jumped out, landed on her right thigh and almost sent her into cardiac arrest. After stomping the spider and screaming at the top of her lungs, she calmed herself down and resumed her task.

  On the top of the stack, was a green notebook with “Dreams 2004” written in black, permanent marker. Evita took a deep breath before flipping the front cover.

  “11/14/04 – My dreams are becoming stranger, so I decided to start writing about them. My dad already has a new girlfriend, but mom just left only a few months ago. I miss her so much that she’s coming to me in my dreams. We were in the strawberry field, eating peanut butter sandwiches on the yellow blanket that she made me for my 10th birthday. It was sunny and the grass was very green. We were laughing, but I can’t remember why. Then the sky got really dark. There were huge clouds, and the rain was pouring. I jumped up and asked mom to come with me, but she just sat there smiling at me. She wouldn’t move. I pulled her arm and begged her to come so we could go inside. All she said was ‘I have to stay here for you, Evita. It’s okay’. And then I woke up.”

  Droplets formed in Evita’s eyes. She’d forgotten all about this notebook, but as soon as she read these words, the dream popped into her head so clearly, as if she had it yesterday. She could feel herself tugging her mother’s arm, the laughter coming up from her belly, the softness of the yellow blanket, the peanut butter stuck to the roof of her mouth, the heaviness of the raindrops, everything. Everything was so vivid, yet so vague.

  Brennan walked through the front door with his head hanging low, tipsy. “What’s that?” he asked before even greeting Evita.

  “Nothing”, Evita closed the book and stuffed it back into the box and began pushing it back behind the basement door.

  “I’ll help”, Brennan rushed to assist her, and Evita waved him away, assuring him it wasn’t too heavy of a load. He noticed Evita was a bit closed off and asked if she’d been okay.

  “I’ve just been thinking about some things. Don’t worry about me.” They both went upstairs to the bedroom to sleep. Evita lie there, eyes wide open as the moon glowed upon her smooth ebony complexion. Brennan snored louder on the nights he drank. Evita’s eyes grew heavier and heavier, but stress kept her from dozing off completely. She sat up on the side of the bed, and slowly walked into the bathroom.

  She stood in the mirror, examining herself. When she was smaller, people always told her she looked like her mother, but now, she could see her father’s features stronger than ever. The low forehead, thick eyebrows, and thin eyes. Her skin was now on the darker side to match that of her father. She deiced to brush her teeth since she’d forgotten to do so before bed and opened the medicine cabinet for her toothpaste.

  As she closed the mirror door, behind her stood the old lady from her dream with the long gray plaited hair. Her face was covered in deep wrinkles, and had a pale gray undertone accompanying her melanin. Water dripped down the front of her face, as if she’d come in from a rain storm. Mud was caked in the cracks of her skin. She was grinning in a way that sent chills down Evita’s spine, with darkened gums and yellowed teeth.

  Evita gasped and turned around, but the lady was gone. Evita placed her hand over her heart, closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths before turning around to the mirror again. The old lady reappeared behind Evita’s back, still grinning, and stretched her hands forward to touch Evita’s hair. Evita screamed and jumped from her bed so quickly that she woke Brennan up.

  “What’ wrong? Are you okay?” he asked while still half asleep

  “Nothing, nothing another dream.” Evita frantically belted. Brennan frowned and rolled back over to face the opposite side of the room. Evita checked the time, it was 3:33.

  DAY 5

  “EVITA!” Donald yelled as he ran into her cubicle, startling her from the slumber she was sneaking in before a meeting. Donald noticed she was in a daze and slowed his pace. “You sleep?” he whispered.

  “Yeah, I woke up too early this morning. What do you need?” She swiveled around her desk chair as her floral maxi skirt flew to the side.

  “Whoa” Donald reacted to the bags under Evita’s eyes and her uncombed wash and go.

  “Shut up! What did you come here for?”

  “No, that can wait. What’s wrong with you, girl?”

  “Nothing”, Evita tried to swivel back toward her desk, but her dress got caught under the chair’s wheel. She grew frustrated trying to pull it out, mumbling curse words under her breath. She hadn’t bothered to put on any lipstick, mascara, or earrings this morning, and the sloppiness showed. Evita was usually very well put together wherever she went. Donald remembered the information she’d asked for a few days prior.

  “Did you call that doctor?” He plopped his body upon the rear desk as he normally did.

  “Yeah, why?” Evita scowled.

  “No reason, you just look…” Donald knew better than to kick a woman when she was down, especially about her appearance, “tired.”

  “I haven’t been sleeping well that’s all, what did you want.”

  “Evita”, Donald allowed frustration into the tone of his voice for a
change, “that’s not as important as to why you’re walking around looking like Raggedy Anne.” This actually made Evita giggle.

  “I asked for that phone number because I’ve been having weird dreams.”

  Donald leaned in, “what kind of dreams?” he asked.

  “About my parents.” Evita looked downward, avoiding eye contact. Donald had never known much about Evita’s family at all, so this came as a surprise to him. Evita explained that her mother had passed away when she was a teenager. She kept the other details vague. She wasn’t ready to explain seeing the old woman in the mirror just yet.

  “Well, if you need someone to talk to while you’re stuck in this office, I’m here.” Donald explained the assignment he initially came over to discuss, and left Evita with some alone time to rest herself. Evita began dozing off, resting her head on the palms of her hands for support, when the phone rang.

  “Hello?” There was no response, she could only hear a light buzzing indicating someone was actually on the phone. “Hello?” Evita was about to hang up, when she heard a voice saying something, faintly, as if the mouthpiece of their phone was covered. “I can’t hear you.”

  “But I can see you!” a loud male voice blasted through the phone receiver, hurting Evita’s eardrums. She dropped the phone on the desk and covered her ear with her right hand, shouting expletives. She stood up from her desk chair, bumping into someone behind her in her cubicle. She turned around and it was her father. The Reverend Thomas, but instead of wearing a clean pressed suit, his dingy polo shirt was covered in blood, which dripped onto Evita’s skirt. His face was filled with a rage that Evita had never seen. His eyes bulged from the sockets and had red veins all throughout the irises. She turned to run from her cubicle, as he grabbed her left arm and squeezed so hard it briefly stopped circulation to her hand.

  “Evita!” Donald yelled as he ran into Evita’s cubicle, startling her from her nightmare. Donald noticed she was in a daze and slowed his pace. “You sleep?” he whispered.