Free Shades of Eva by Tim Skinner

my life. If only
I could have done the same for her.
     
     
    ***

Chapter 8
    Shadow Journal entry
    August 19, 1995
    The first thing I told Elmer was that I
couldn’t imagine being born into an insane asylum, that it must
have been hard for him. It was a statement of pity, and perhaps
sympathy. My brother responded to me by saying, ‘What difference
does place make when both of your parents are insane? We might as
well have been stillborn.’  
    It was a mean thing to say to me,
regardless of his age. He was just a baby. And somehow I doubted he
had even said it. It was my hand holding the pen, wasn’t it? Isn’t
it now? Or is someone else controlling these thoughts…these words?
There are other faces watching me write this: Dad’s face, and Uncle
Ully’s, Grandpa Oren’s and, of course, Grandpa Virgil’s. In fact,
wishing me stillborn sounded like something they might
say!  
    Neah Bay Hospital  
    My mother’s mystery involved a firstborn
son, and that son’s conception—a conception Mom alleged to have
occurred by way of a rape. That rape was disputed by my father.
    Dad claimed paternity, and he said it was by
no rape that this baby was conceived. He said there was no mystery,
that there was only the problem of Mom’s holy memory—a memory full
of holes, to be exact. She just didn’t remember the conception, Dad
used to tell me, which didn’t say much about Dad’s performance in
bed. Mom was conducting more electricity than I&M Power in
those days, though. Maybe she did just forget.
    Mom’s mystery involved the fate of that
baby, as well as his paternity. He was born into the mental
hospital where my parents were residing, and taken from there just
days after his birth. He was never seen or heard from again.
    That much—this baby’s birth and his
disappearance—were the two things Mom and Dad agreed on. Thing was,
Dad said the baby was dead, but I don’t know how he would have
known that. Mom disagreed. She said her baby was taken, but not
killed. I don’t know how she’d know that, either.
    Those little disputes about paternity, and
the life or death of this mysteriously-conceived baby, were
probably what Amelia’s aunt—and now Amelia—were interested in
looking into. Just so happens that Amelia was about forty years
late, and I was just about beyond give a fuck.
    Amelia had just finished reciting me her
aunt’s poem, that tragic, grieving poem that seemingly had no name.
I’d just fallen into another dark period of sleep, and when I
awakened, there was another poem on my mind. I gave my arms a
much-needed stretching, and told Amelia, “My mother used to recite
a poem, too. She called it “Two Sons.”’ I asked Amelia if she
wanted to hear it. She said yes, and I recited it as best I could
remember. 
    Two sons born in insane times—
    Similar in every feature.
    One thinks and dreams of things unknown.
    One dies and returns a creature.
    “Mom used to tell me that her best days were
spent in that hospital,” I added, which, to me, sounded like a
pretty schizophrenic thing to say. “If ever there was a definition
of crazy,” I told Amelia, smiling incredulously, and then laughing,
“being happy in a mental hospital is just that.”
    Amelia gave me a chastising look, and then
one of contempt. “It’s an asylum!” She scoffed. “Don’t get the two
confused! They don’t do what they did to your mother and my aunt in
hospitals.”
    I stood corrected. “Fine then! Asylum!
Choose your noun.”
    Amelia shuffled in her chair and then lit
another cigarette.
    “You can’t smoke in here,” I said, finally
addressing the habit.
    “Why not?” Amelia replied, taking in a
defiant draw and then exhaling it right at me. “You aren’t on
oxygen!”
    “They’ll kick you out!”
    “That’s about what you’re going to do if I
read you right, isn’t it?” She smiled and took in another deep
draw.
    I didn’t argue with her. I just held my
breath for a bit. Amelia changed the subject,