~Jamie Ch.I

     Indeed, she imagined herself walking over and moving the pot into the waiting sink. But instead she watched the smoke rise, and listened to the hiss of water hitting the metallic burner. She could only sit there, remembering the day so long ago that she sat on the couch, watching her mother do the exact same thing.

     Then she began to think how much she really missed her. It had come to a point in their lives when they had just begun to really know each other, as they were finally becoming friends. Cancer has never cared what type of relationship it tears apart. It just tears, rips, gouges, mangles and maims. Without a beating heart of its own, it thrust its talons into her mother's chest and gripped as tightly as it could.

      Eventually, her own daughter came home from school, like she always does, only this time she was early.
"Mom! What are you doing?" Her lovely daughter, the only person her heart bothered to care for anymore, ran to the stove and grabbed the pot, throwing it into the sink and turning on the faucet. Jamie was her daughter's name. She could only stare on as Jamie faced her and started speaking. But the words avoided her, flying over her head or simply falling to the ground.

      The open bottle of pills had its contents spilled over the kitchen counter explaining her unearthly stare. Only three little blue pills remained from the full bottle that had existed just this morning. A three-inch ash lay still attached to the filter of her mother's Marlboro. She snuffed it out to be sure.
Her mother's eyes seemed transfixed on a frame that hung on the wall just behind Jamie's head. Unable to break her gaze, Jamie turned to see what she was looking at. For a second, she was transfixed too. It was a picture they had taken one holiday or other, of when Jamie was no older than six years old, and her father had been there with them, even her grandmother was still there. She looked a second longer. There was still life in her mother's eyes.

      Shaking her head, she went to the sink to check if the pot was still functional. As she turned, she saw the empty white bottle. Looking at the date on the label, Jamie ran to her backpack and got her cell phone out, dialing 911. As it rang, she went over to her mother and shook her. The bottle's date was the same as today's, and the time was no more than a few hours ago.

      "Mom? Mom! Hang in there, okay?"
Her mom drooled on her arm as she looked again at the picture hanging there. She shuddered. If she recalled correctly, her father was standing beside her mom on the right with his arm around her and she was in her Nana’s arms. In the picture now, he was on the left of her mom and HE was holding Jamie. Her mind reeled.

      Her mind was racing, her thoughts were jumbled into different words that could not be transformed into sentences. What would she do? She couldn’t afford to lose her mother, she loved her way too much. She wailed internally as she heard the roaring of the fire truck and several police cars.

      Then a loud BANG came on the door making Jamie jump and stare at it, but only for a moment. Several officers came barging into the house and quickly assisted the scared teen's mother. Tears traveled down Jamie's perfectly shaped face as she watched the men take her mother away to the ambulance car. Cell phone still in hand she didn't move a muscle, not one. She knew she had to breathe but if she didn't, what could possibly happen?

      She stood there as one of the policemen came walking up to her. Everything was just a blur and her vision was clouding up. All around her was turning black and it felt like she was falling down towards the ground. She had no fighting chance to regain her strength, so she let herself fall as the blackness in her eyes took over her vision. As she fell she heard an unfamiliar voice. "What's going on? Get her in the ambulance with her mother! I think she's fainting."

      When Jamie woke up, she was in the ambulance. There was something attached to her face, giving her oxygen. A smiling nurse looked at her and said everything would be okay. She wanted to get mad at her, and tell her nothing would be okay. Because the picture was wrong, and her mother was dying. But she couldn't. She just closed her eyes and tried not to think about anything.

      Jamie tried thinking back to how things were when she was five or six, but it seemed like someone had splashed black ink all over the screen. Then her thoughts spun back to her mom. The paramedics were lifting her on a body board to lay her on the gurney. Her arms were flailing sporadically towards the picture on the wall while she mumbled, “Brian, I love you, I love you, I love..."

      So it was his fault. Everything was always his fault. He just had to leave, and break her mother's heart. Jamie's hand turned into a fist. The nurse noticed, but only checked her vitals and went back to work. After all, it wasn't her job to counsel people. It was none of her business. A doctor came up to her. "What's wrong with this one?" The nurse brought her gurney down from the ambulance.
"She fainted. Too much stress, I suppose. Seeing her mother spaz out like that."
     The doctor nodded. "She seems conscious now." He turned to Jamie and unstrapped her so she could sit up. "Do you feel alright now?"
Jamie nodded. The doctor helped her get off the gurney. "We're going to give you a quick check up, just to make sure." She nodded again. He wasn't worth her words.

      Her cold, distant silence only reinforced her disapproval of her dad.
He placed an ice-cold stethoscope on her chest and suggested that she breathe deeply. She gave it a half hearted attempt, resulting in more of an angered sigh.
After she was given a clean bill of health, she washed her hands furiously
and found the room her mom was in.

      Her mother was asleep, probably dreaming of a time where the hospital was only for yearly flu shots. Jamie sat in a chair by the wall. Where did she get those pills, anyway? The doctors said they would keep her mother here, and give her counseling to make sure she was stable.
What was stable, anyway? Certainly not this. But now, she knew if people found out they would tiptoe around her. Treat her like a china doll. Again. Jamie glared at her mother. Why did she change? She always said Jamie was the reason she still smiled. What was so different now? What had she done wrong?
      Jamie's fist hit the armrest of the chair. She stood and ran out of the room, ignoring the nurses asking her if she was okay. How she was wasn't really the problem. The problem was: No one else was okay.

     Why has the whole world decided to crumble all at one time? She stared blankly down at the parking lot,
watching people walking hurriedly towards the revolving emergency room doors.
She made her way back eventually to tell her mother goodbye. Again.
The bus she had caught had suddenly come to a screeching halt just one block
from their apartment in the city, belching its fair share of toxin into the air. Which way
to walk after stepping off of the bus was her next dilemma.

     Jamie took her time getting off the bus, ignoring the complaining lady behind her. She looked towards the east, away from her apartment, and started walking. After all, it was better to be alone on the streets than to be alone in a room. Jamie walked in the same direction, until all she could see was a two-way road, and desert all around her. Not the kind of desert you read about in books. This desert was full of dry bushes, stretching their leafless branches out like fingers. Plastic bags, busted tires, and cigarette butts littered the border between road and nature.
     There were carcasses. A dead dog here, a rabbit's head there. There was one animal that could have been anything. It sat on the side of the road, torso eaten out, only the skull for a head. It looked like a small deer. But it could have been a sheep or another dog. Jamie shrugged and kept walking.

     A storm was raging within her fragile mind. The sun was getting hotter as it reached its perigee,
and the pooling sweat began to sting her angry blue eyes. Walking on the shoulder with her head hung low thinking about where her life may be heading, for reasons unknown, she looks up into the steely staring eyes of the driver of a slow moving silver sports car. She looked as if her eyes had crossed and she had to shake her head to realign them. Could it be...?

     The car stopped and the passenger window rolled down. "Do you need a ride? It'll be easier to get past immigration check." The driver was a white man, a bit chubby around the stomach. Jamie could smell cigarettes. Techno music cascaded out of the car, beckoning her like a siren.
Jamie got in. What else was there to do? She'd never get past the officials ahead on foot. The sun was frying her like an oven from hell, and the man had an air conditioner. She put on her seat belt and closed the door just before the man sped down the road.
     "So, what are you doing walking out here by yourself?" Jamie glanced at him. "Just walking. Visiting my aunt in the next town."
"You're aunt, huh? Sure it's not your boyfriend?" Jamie smiled and looked out the window. "What's your name?"
Jamie looked back at him. "Ashley." She had to lie to him. Jamie was an uncommon name for a girl, and they could easily find her if this man ratted her out. But Ashley was common. It'd take forever for them to find her under that name. They pulled up to the checkpoint and an officer came up to the car.
"Are you both U.S citizens?" The man who was driving nodded, and the officer waved them on.

     Jamie, wanting to seem older, asked the man with the steel blue eyes for a smoke.
He pointed to the pack of Marlboros and said, "Help yourself." She grabbed a cigarette and packed it like she had seen the druggies in the park do. She picked up the black Bic lighter accompanying the pack and rotated its wheel and created a flame. Turning her head sideways with the cigarette in her lips grasp, she put the tip in the fire and drew a deep breath.
The rich, thick smoke swirled toward the slightly opened passenger window. She exhaled her first puff.
     Her eyes welled up and she quenched an unborn cough. He watched her every move without letting her know how closely he was really watching. "Those things'll kill ya," he said with his rough husky voice and a chuckle.
There was something about this man that wasn't sitting right with Jamie. He seemed so familiar, so she felt at ease in his company. She looked to him with a "Don't I know you from somewhere" look as she took another draw off of her cigarette. She thought back to looking at the picture in that black shellac frame over the couch at home. This guy sort of looked like her father. She felt her anger well up deep inside her again, barking, fighting to come out.
Instead, Jamie breathed in the smoke from her cigarette. Instead of making her want to gag, the smoke wound its way down her system, controlling the anger, if not making it completely disappear. As Jamie exhaled, the strange calm fused itself with her fury. Jamie looked at her reflection in the mirror, and looked again at the man driving the car.
     "So, are you married?" Jamie was going to get some answers, but she had to be careful. If this man wasn't her father, she couldn't possibly accuse him.
"I was, once. But it fell apart. Even had a little girl."