Page 18 of Play of Love
Chapter 6
Josh
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Istrayed into one of those dreams again.
It always happened in the space between asleep and awake where my mind would take over and drift to happier thoughts. That was where I saw them. This was where Mom and Clarissa existed for me. Here they were alive and they still loved me.
I had them in my life again and I never wanted to wake up…
“She’s amazing, isn’t she?” Mom said, leaning into my shoulder as we sat side by side in the grand theatre. Dad sat next to her and looked at Clarissa with the deepest pride.
I nodded, not wanting to take my eyes off Clarissa’s performance. Not even for one second. Amazing was too meager a word to describe her as I watched her glide across the stage as Odette, the Swan Princess. She was the star of the show, the prima ballerina, and a star she was indeed. I was used to her giving her best, but when she did performances like this it was more than her best that came out. She danced with soul and talent comparable to an angel.
I didn’t even lie like I used to anymore when I had to explain to my friends that I was going to the ballet. I was so proud of her that I just told them straight that that was where I would be.
I watched her, getting absorbed in the music, the mood, the atmosphere. Like always, when the performance ended my skin tingled. My parents were crying and stood up to cheer with everyone else. The cheers and applause were deafening, euphoric and joyous. I stood too. Clarissa and the cast truly deserved the grand-standing ovation. I’d never experienced the blissful exhilaration I felt anywhere besides here.
I had flowers for her. She loved oriental lilies, pink oriental lilies. They were her favorites.
I looked at my mother as she reached out to cup my face with one hand. Her smile proud and brimming with love. While I had my father’s strong Italian features, Clarissa looked exactly like Mom. Same jet black hair that hung in soft waves, same mole on the left cheek. Same hazel-colored eyes.
I leaned forward to hug Mom, anticipating the warmth I’d feel when I touched her, but in that second everything changed. It was like my body shifted out of time and instead of being at the theatre I was at the gravesite, in the cemetery in California.
I recognized this.
This part wasn’t a dream. It was a memory. This was the memory of my mother and sister’s funeral.
Dad was on his knees crying, completely inconsolable while my uncle tried to comfort me. I stood over by Clarissa’s coffin, staring at her cold dead body. The oriental lilies in my hand hung by my side as I tried to work out what had happened and if this was real. She still looked so beautiful.
In this part of this whatever it was that was a dream, my mind ran wild and made me visualize the accident. The head-on collision that claimed their lives.
Then screaming…
I jumped up. Cold sweat ran down my face and neck. My back was wet with it as well.
My heart was pounding so much I had to put my hand at my chest and take several deep breaths until I calmed. I looked around my room and felt relieved that Allegra and Cindy weren’t there. I wanted to be alone, to put a rein on my damaged mind and painful memories.
My dreams were getting worse and taking on an eerie edge that pulled me into dark memories that weakened me. Perhaps it was the effects of having too much alcohol.
This wasn’t getting any easier, and I was growing weary of waking up and feeling like this. This guilty self-reproach that reminded me that it was my fault why Mom and Clarissa were dead.
Last year this time they were alive. They were both alive and living their lives. I’d gotten all worked up because Pete, Clarissa’s longtime boyfriend, had proposed to her. She was going to accept because she was head over heels in love with him. That was what she’d told me. In those exact words.
I acted all high and mighty with poor Pete, calling in my big brother cards, giving the poor guy a full-on interview before I would give my blessing. Mom and Dad told me off, chastising me for being such a jerk. Mom said I should take a leaf from Clarissa‘s book and tame my wild ways. It was a running family argument for weeks.
Mom was a charity worker who was always doing some service project at every chance she got. She came from a poor family and had a difficult upbringing so that was her way of helping people. She always told me her stories and called meeting my father her happily ever after. I used to laugh at her because people didn’t speak like that in real life, and I thought my mother lived in a world of her own. She and Clarissa both did.
The week before the first game they went to help out at a soup kitchen event in Missouri. To catch the game they were supposed to leave the night before but the storms made it dangerous to travel. Me with my arrogance, selfishness, and ignorance didn’t think that anything could happen to them. After all, why would God let something happen to two of his angels? Especially if they were doing charity work. So when I spoke to Mom I practically demanded that they come to the game.
“We’re opening up the season, Mom, it’s not exactly little league. Just drive carefully.” That was what I said. That was what I had said to her.
I didn’t stop and think that this was a woman who’d gone to every single game I’d ever played. Right from my first when I was five and could hardly throw a ball, to the Super Bowl that closed off the season before. She’d been there, and if she thought there was a chance she’d miss one I should have understood. It should have been no problem whatsoever.
But no, I wouldn’t hear of it. I was the Mancini Machine and it was a must to have my whole family there. The press would be there taking pictures and I wanted them all there so I would look good.
When I didn’t see them at half time I had the audacity to be angry. I remembered thinking this was the game of my life and they were missing it. How dare they miss it?
