Page 4 of Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

Mom.

She loved that hula girl.

Using the outside sill for balance, I squat down, ripping large handfuls of weeds from the flowerbed, tossing them to a pile I might actually get to clearing later, until my knuckles scrape the rough cement surface of the rock.

I toss over that last pile of flora, prying up the rock, and immediately drop it back to the ground. So many bugs, from long roly-polies to earwigs, wriggle their bodies over the edge, scurrying across the damp mud-bottomed stone to get back to the safety of the soil. The problem being, I have to touch that muddy bottom to unscrew it from the top of the rock to reach the treasure, also known as the spare house key, inside.

But I’m so tired. Not just from the drive but from days, weeks, months of not sleeping. I need to see if this will finally be the day. The day I can close my eyes and not fear the darkness.

I have to bash the fake rock against a real one to loosen the two sides enough to separate the top from bottom.

Upending the top, a brass-colored key spills into my hand.

Door successfully unlocked, I push it open. The space appears shadowed but not dark. All the curtains pulled closed years ago, but being so bright outside, the rays try desperately to infiltrate. Hence, shadowed.

All the furniture sits covered by white sheets, which is good, seeing as after almost twenty years of no occupancy, a blizzard of dust swirls up from just walking in.

Cleaning could wait.

Exploring could wait.

Well, except for finding a bedroom. I walk down the one hallway in the house because it seems the most plausible spot to find a bed.

At the very end of the hall, I open the door to a kind of deconstructed bedroom. Deconstructed because only the skeletal bones of the bed, headboard and footboard and springs, were left for whatever reason.

So I go looking. Nothing bed-worthy in the bathroom or second bedroom.

The third bedroom, pay dirt.

All bedroom furniture, as in tables and dressers and thankfully, mattresses, fill the room. The mattresses up on their sides, leaning against the wall.

It isn’t hard to find the one for the back bedroom. The only queen.

Why does sleep have to be so difficult?

Moving the other two twin mattresses to an adjacent wall, I then take up the arduous task of switching between pulling and pushing the queen out the narrow doorway, back down the hallway to finally flop the mattress down onto the springs of the big bed.

Now I’m not just tired, but too fatigued to go any longer without some shuteye. I give up and belly flop onto the naked mattress. Because although I have a naked mattress beneath me, Ihaveanaked mattress beneath me. Sweet surrender.

The moment my face plants against the soft, fluffy surface, my eyes close and sleep finally, finally,finallyfinds me in a shadowed room outside Smithfield, Virginia.

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