Free Other Lives by Ann Pearlman

 

     
    “Yes, remember? You weren’t my mother then. You were my best friend.” Leah’s eyes are so dark I cannot distinguish the pupils and I see myself in miniature. ”Don’t you remember? I don’t have pictures. I lost the pictures except in my mind.”
    “No, I don’t. But that’s okay. You do,” I tell her. I sit on the couch of our family room while she stands between my knees. Our eyes are even that way.
    “How come you don’t? I see it. Just like when I see myself in my cup of milk when I drink it.” Her brown hands are on my thighs. She leans into me as though she can get close enough to stare in my eyes and see the pictures that are in my head.
    I kiss her, her arms around my neck and I smell the cheesiness of her hair. “Tell me, then, my darling Leah. Tell me about the time we were best friends together.”
     

     
     “Oh, Mommy. We lived where it was warm all the time, and the trees had feathers on top and scales up their trunks. Birds always called each other. We lived next door and both our houses were made of gold stiff hair. Your aunt was my mommy then and she had the same white hair like she does now. Daddy was my Daddy and Allan was my baby brother.
    I don’t know who your mommy and daddy were. I don’t know them now. I think it was Africa. Yes. Africa.”
    “Africa?” I’m surprised she even knows the word. “What do you know about Africa?”
    “It’s like when we were in Mexico. But different colors and different smells.”
    I guess she’s right. I’ve never been to Africa except in magazines and movies.
     

     
    “It must be Africa ‘cause I see hippos. They’re in Africa,” she tells me so solemnly that she could be giving me a lecture. “We played in the sand with our dolls. I was sad cause my Mommy said, ‘No more pets. No pets in the house.”
    Leah steps back and waves
    her arms, talking in a grown up voice. “ ‘No more animals in this house with their sandy or muddy feet,’ and she went like this,” Leah pretends she holds a broom and sweeps the floor. “’Out, out you go. Scat. Scat.’ My animals were all gone and I was alone with you. Only you and our stick dolls to play with. I missed them already.”
     

     
    “That was the day the men with dog heads came, hair all over their faces. They ran at us and they hit Mommy. She fell down, slow, like she was dancing almost. I called her, but she never answered.” Leah arches her back as though she struggles. “ They grabbed you up, you and me. I dropped my doll in the sand and they pulled us away. I lost my necklace. You reached for me.”
    She clenches her eyes. “We were in some place dark. The dark time. I didn’t see you, but I heard you. I called to you and you called back.
     

     
    But you sounded different. No more mommy. No more daddy. No more Allan. No more pets. Only you crying. It was so dark, I couldn’t see. Hot. A wet hot all around me. I didn’t know the people near me. Then your voice was gone. I was so heavy in the wet dark; I couldn’t move my arms or eat. My tears were all gone. Then there was a light bright and burning.”
     

     
    Leah turns to me, watching me with big eyes. “I don’t have any more pictures, Mommy. Just cold. I was cold and alone for a long time.”
    I have a lump in my throat and feel the darkness. Her aloneness blankets with thick terror. I have an image of myself walking for decades without knowing who I am or caring.
    “The coldness was better than the time of darkness,” Leah speaks again in her far away voice. “In the coldness, I just waited. I waited for you, Mommy. I waited so long I thought you got gone and I’d never see you again. And then, I was inside you and with you.”
    She lifts her head and looks into my eyes. She asks, “Where were you? What happened to you?” in such a plaintive voice it shatters my heart.
    “I don’t know. Maybe I knew once, but it’s gone from me now.” 
     

     
    I stroke her temple. Her hair is a black