Day 121
This is the final installment of The Scent of Lilacs. Part I may be found on Day 108 and the other segments were posted on Days 109, 110, 111, 115, 116, 118 and 119 …
The first drops of rain plopped and popped on the porch steps. I hadn’t noticed but the sky had become an odd color – not gray, not blue – almost green; not like grass, but like seawater. I’d seen this color sky a few times before when I was little and it made Mama nervous. Should I be nervous? I must be, deep-down inside, ’cause my stomach just flipped over like a flapjack and my heart is all fluttery; but from what I could tell this was just another storm. The wind has picked up again and it feels good; it has been so hot and sticky most of the afternoon. The scrub bushes are swaying in the yard and I hope Aunt Hattie has all her laundering in. I put my crocheting into my basket and sit watching the rain and the encroaching storm. How one day could be so hot and then get so cool was beyond me.
It had cooled off quite a bit and I was thankful for the sweater that hung on the back of my chair. It was one of Mama’s – a bit big for me, but that was all the better; and it was the sweetest color pink you’d ever see. I put it on – savoring its warmth around me and somehow feeling Mama’s arms around me, as well. And what was it about the color pink? It always made me feel so much better – and not just on the outside, but on the inside, too.
I feel it almost before I hear it – hear nothing, that is – for everything is suddenly and completely quiet. No singing birds, no chirping bugs, no swaying branches, no fluttering curtains. The sky out west is so dark. I see something in the distance, and instantly my stomach flips again and my heart races – a “witch’s finger” Mama called it. I know now what I had smelled earlier. Twister weather has a certain odor to it – dry and dusty and wet all at the same time, and the air feels heavy and the sky turns that odd gray-green color. My mind starts to race. I realize that I should seek shelter and get off the porch but suddenly, in my mind, I am transported back in time …
I watch, mesmerized, as the peas bounce on to and then roll along the gray wooden porch and flow down the steps like a liquid waterfall of green unstrung pearls.
I’m much younger and playing in the sandbox out front (Daddy had made it for me) with my twig people. My twig people were just that – people I’d made out of twigs with scraps of cloth, from Mama’s sewing basket, twisted around them and tied on with yarn. They looked mighty pretty and well-dressed even if they were just twigs. I see the memory so clearly … Mama is shelling peas in her rocker, on the porch, when I hear her scream. I think maybe she’s seen a rattler or a Copperhead. I look over to her and see the bowl of peas fall from her lap as she stands up. In one swift movement she is down the stairs and grabbing me up in her arms – racing us across the yards towards the storm cellar. I am looking back over her shoulder and I see those peas flowing down the steps … and the twister, in the distance, getting closer.
I snapped back to the present. Where was Aunt Grace? The finger now reached the ground and the dust around where it met the brown earth was incredible. I sat frozen partly in fear, partly in awe – it was indeed an amazing sight. My fear overtook my senses and I realized I needed to move – I needed to get off the porch! The storm cellar was in the back yard. I could take my chances inside the house, or I could wheel through the house and drag myself down the back steps to the cellar. In thinking this out I realized I would never get the storm cellar door open from lying on the ground – if I got that far.
The wind is amazing – dust, leaves, branches and bits of … fencing (from where?) … fly past me through the air. My breath is caught inside me, somewhere, leaving me dizzy and my brain feels foggy. I wheel towards the porch door and find the force of the wind unbelievably strong against my back. I pull the door handle towards me, but it doesn’t open.
It’s stuck. That latch is always a problem and the wind is too strong.
I need to get inside!
The door is not opening; I cannot get in. My heart is racing. I wheel to the railing and figure I can anchor myself by holding onto the corner post. I’m shielded from the now pelting rain and flying debris – somewhat. Where is Aunt Grace? The wind is incredible and the sound is so awful. It sounds like a hundred roaring locomotives and groaning beasts.
I am so scared. I’ve never been this scared before – not after the accident when I was in the hospital, not at Mama’s funeral, not even when Daddy left me off at Aunt Grace’s and I hadn’t met her but once before. I put my head down, chin against my chest, eyes closed.
The rain, dirt and debris pelt against me. I’m glad I have Mama’s sweater on, but strangely I am also sad that it is probably ruined. I am holding so tightly to the post that my fingers hurt. I can taste dirt in my mouth and … blood.
I open my eyes just before my chair and I become airborne – I am no longer afraid; I have such a calm feeling. I close my eyes and utter a silent prayer. A swift yank and some cracking and I am sucked up like a little speck into a giant vacuum cleaner. The noise I heard before, the roaring and groaning, is gone – and I realize, so is my chair. I am twirling, twisting, tumbling by myself … and the only sound I hear is a whoosh and the beat of my own heart.
My eyes open. Everything around me is white, gray, green. I’m lying in a field. Strangely, knowing I can, I stand up – and walk away. And in the air – there is the scent of lilacs.