The Endless Story | Chapter 2 "The leather notebook"

 

"And where had I left off?" 

Aunt Miriam chuckles at my tendency to get lost in the middle of our conversations. I smile back at her somewhat apologetically. I'm glad we found her in good spirits today. Her mythomania combined with schizophrenia torment her often, either together or separately, and I sometimes wonder about the strength she has to stand and fight every day with these two lurking at the edge of her mind.

My father is obviously waiting outside in the car. Although he brought me inside and greeted her, he always leaves us alone to talk. Guards are around us, and the space where we sit is something like a "living room" for the patients and their visitors. A light lilac color fills the walls with certain paintings decorating spots on them. Like a tree with apples on it, or even a child figure on a seesaw.

I smell the lunch being prepared for the patients and my ear catches that soon we'll need to leave so they can calm down and eat in peace. Aunt Miriam waits for me to escape from my thoughts while trying to remove a hangnail from her nail. She's been locked in here for fifteen years. From time to time they let us take her out for an orangeade and cake at the nearest café, which she loves so much, and we return two hours later. When that happens, she rejoices like a child. But today we're here and I want to ask her something important.

"My dear aunt, can you hear me?" Miriam somehow becomes serious and smiles broadly at me. 

"What is it, my beautiful creature?" 

"Lately I've been seeing Mom in my dreams. Or rather, I don't exactly see her, but I feel her close to me," I confess quietly.

My aunt suddenly becomes serious. 

"Lumi, how old are you?" she asks while putting her thumb in her mouth and sucking on it. "Seventeen... I just turned seventeen in January... What does that have to do with anything?" 

"Ah, when I was seventeen, I had made my decision to abstain. I never weaved, knowing I would end up half-mad, but alive." 

I don't know what she's talking about. To weave, half-mad, alive... so much new information that I have no idea how it connects. I guess my aunt wasn't doing as well as I thought today.

"Your mother, on the other hand, was golden-handed. She wove and sewed the dreams of all of us!" she continued, obviously thinking I understood what she was talking about. 

A guard signals me that I have a few minutes left. 

"My beautiful aunt, what are you talking about?" 

"My child, it's not your fault for her death. You didn't know what you were doing, no one blames you..." she answers and smiles. 

"Mom died in a car accident, aunt..." I whisper to her, reliving again the phone call that rang that day to inform me that I no longer had a mother. I tear up somewhat at the memory from two years ago. 

"And whose dream was that?" My aunt points at me with her finger and starts laughing loudly. 

"You didn't know what you were doing, my little one. We all hid it from you because that's what she had asked for. She wanted you to have a normal life and decide for yourself what you would do once you turned seventeen. My love, my Lumi... it's not your fault, but you must find your own path. I'm leaving tomorrow... she had dreamed off it."

"What are you saying, aunt?" I ask terrified, my words faltering. 

"My Lumi, my sweet creature, I haven't always been honest with you. And unfortunately, I'm the only one who should have been. Forgive me that we reached the last moment to tell you this." She bows her head apologetically with tears in her eyes.

We're both visibly upset and the guards continue to signal the visitors that we must leave. Miriam takes in her hands a thick leather notebook that was beside her and gives it to me, looking down at the floor.

"This will answer all your questions. Hide it from your father though."

I take the notebook from her hands and open it. I remain astonished looking at its blank pages. I flip through it puzzled and look at her with curiosity. 

"In the light of night, all will be revealed." My aunt approaches to hug me and I get lost in her embrace. The only maternal figure I have left. A woman who has been lost in truth, lies, and madness.

"Goodbye my aunt. See you next Saturday," I tell her smiling at her. 

"Goodbye my child..." 

As I exit through the automatic security door that separates the patients from their freedom, I look at the leather empty notebook. Regardless, it was too nice for me to write something in it. I put it inside my bag and approach Dad's old but still functional car to go home.

"Finished? That took you quite a while," he only commented and started the engine. 

On the way, I didn't want to think about anything. Neither dreams, nor notebooks, only the illusion of my aunt that I was to blame for Mom's death. I had never blamed myself for that. Yes, we had our tensions, our arguments, but I never wished her dead. She was my mother and I loved her. I didn't want her harm and neither did she want mine, but my aunt seems to have a different opinion based on her sick mind.

How much that saddened me. To not be able to distinguish even yourself whether you're telling the truth or lies. To not know or rather not be able to trust your own mind. How sad and unfair... 

My aunt didn't know what she was saying... that's the conclusion I draw and I'm saddened.