TAIA BOOKS

Genre: Prose, Psychological Fiction, Debut novel, Based on a true story

By Kira D. May

Part #1 https://taia-books.com/2024/08/13/finding-jasmine/

Saturday, August 29, 1988
The sun is bright. At noon, it’s already blazing hot outside, and the heat is utterly oppressive. It’s the hottest month in Peach Valley, with temperatures reaching 110 degrees Fahrenheit. I wonder how high it gets in Death Valley, one hundred and ten miles from us.
My baby finally fell asleep. I’m alone because Edward got paged to St. Mark’s emergency room. He said that someone’s heart pacer is failing. I tried to take a nap but felt agitated. Thoughts are overwhelming me again.
Who am I? I keep asking myself. Am I my Mother’s daughter? Heavens, I hope not. Otherwise, my worst nightmare will come true. Since I was young, I have told myself that I am not my mother’s daughter.
But things that I started to do. Today, I caught myself wishing my son’s eyes would change and resemble mine and not remind me Jack. Is that how it all started for Mother, too?
They say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I pray, no, I beg God not to become like her. If Mother only knew what her rejection did to me, but I can’t tell her. She never hears my voice; like before, I’m just a ghost.
“Mom, there is something I have to tell you,” I initiated a couple of times when I called her, feeling how tears about to choke me.
“It’s something I felt for many years since I was a child.”
Her reply was something like that, “Good. Did I tell you CariAnne is coming next week?” Her excited voice would interrupt me.
“Does she?” After a pause, remember the distance between us. Mother talked for a while, then laughed at something. I had nothing to say. Then I realized that she had been silent, and I needed to say something. I would tell her that baby Christian woke up.
“Bye, Mom. Love you,” I would tell her, putting down the phone in a hurry without hearing her last words. Years ago, I used to hold the phone and listen.
“Bye, then,” she would say. She never said that she loved me. Instead, she said something like, “You know I love all of my children.” I used to nod, thinking about her love for Deanna and Josh. Somehow, I never applied her words to me.  I waited for those words, then stopped.
Maybe she changed, perhaps not; I don’t know. Eventually, after several attempts, I decided that I didn’t need Mother, that I could find peace without confronting her, and that I needed to figure out what to do with myself.
I’ve been thinking and telling myself that if I tracked down my past and cleaned all the cobwebs and doubts, I would find peace and stop feeling what I’m beginning to feel. I promised that to myself. I guess it’s an experiment for now. I just hope it works.
Let’s see. My earliest memories of me start when I reclined on a gray sofa and watched my father vacuum the floor. He rolled the red vacuum back and forth over a big, colorful rug in the living room. I remember feeling surprised at how new it looked after he completed cleaning. Then he trimmed big shears of all the yellow leaves from the indoor plants. It took him a while since Mother loved plants and had them next to all our windows. Dad stepped outside to dispose of the trash. At that point, I looked around, thinking about how neat and shiny everything looked.
I walked to the massive mirror in the foyer. A girl in a red dress with black horizontal stripes smiled at me. She must be three or four.  That’s me, I said to myself. That’s how I look. Yep, same black hair, just a little bit below my ears. I brushed my hair with a small comb that was always inside the tray. At that time, I knew that perfectly combed hair should make a clicking sound and follow the comb. As my hair began to lift, I considered my job done. One last look to make sure the face isn’t dirty. Nope, all good, I smiled.
At that moment, I felt happy and pleased with my neat appearance. Then I walked to the middle of the room and swayed, slowly at first, then increasing my pace until I felt dizzy. I landed on the sofa and laughed, watching everything spin before me, especially the crystal chandelier and wine glasses that Mother displayed on the shelves under a thin glass cabinet. It turned into a thousand light bunnies, reflected in the mirrors, and sparkled throughout the room.
Dad came back from the kitchen. He didn’t smile. Instead, he shook his head and said, “I don’t want you to do this again. Do you hear me, Jasmine?”
“But why, Daddy?” I asked.
“Because you can hurt yourself.”
“I did that before many times and never got hurt,” I insisted.
“Don’t do that again. Ever. Do you hear me?”
Looking at him, I reminded myself that I had to listen to my father because I loved him. My Dad was tall and strong, bigger than all my uncles. Other people appeared much smaller compared to him.
“Daddy, you’re sparkly. Light bunnies are dancing in your hair,” I laughed at the sparkles, twinkling all over his face and dark curly hair.
I obeyed Father because I wanted to be a good girl. Disobeying parents was unheard of, and only Deanna, my younger sister, could do that. When my Mother told her that she behaved like a bad girl, she didn’t care, and I felt ashamed and afraid that they would stop loving me and send me away.
“I don’t care,” she’d say with her stubborn baby voice, and I watched her, feeling anxious for her well-being.
Also, a good girl would find things to do without bothering her parents. The window in the living room got my attention. I walked there and hid behind a huge velvet curtain. Standing on my tippy toes, I looked outside at the empty road, the white houses in our neighborhood, and the trees with discolored and yellow leaves. The darkness continued to mix with the light. One by one, the lanterns on the poles began to turn on. As I moved closer to the glass, I kept looking for the person who turned them on.
Where is he? I knew he was hiding from me on purpose. He’s fast, that’s why I can’t see him. He’s as fast as the wind. And he’s skinny. Maybe he doesn’t have food at home. And that’s why he has to work for food and clothes. If only I could see him and smile.
Once, I asked Mother about him, but she told me that no one was running in the darkness to turn on the lanterns. She insisted they turn on by themselves.
 “No, light doesn’t turn on by itself,” I insisted. “Someone has to turn it on. We can’t see him because he’s fast and strong. And skinny. We look for him on one side, and he’s already on the other side. He gets tiny when he stretches his body and hides behind the poles. That’s why we can’t see him.” I explained to Mother.
“Listen to that!” Mother would say. “Go, play if you know everything, and stop asking silly questions.”
 I was sure he could see my face in the window every evening trying to see him. He probably laughed at me, thinking highly of himself because I couldn’t see him. I wondered if his face was dirty and if his clothes were full of patches and had some rips. 
No matter what Mother said, she couldn’t change my mind. Mother is so unfair. First, she said that light doesn’t turn on by itself, and now it does. After a while, I stopped looking for him and focused on the cars passing by. I hoped to see my Mother among the people, hurrying back home.
Why does she have to visit her friend and stay there that long? I wondered. There is nothing to do at her friend’s house — just one boring friend. Mother was rarely gone, but when she did that it seemed like for a long time.
In the kitchen, Father sang as he worked on something. I realized he usually sang when Mother was away, probably distracting himself with songs and chores. From time to time, he would come to the living room, check on us kids, then glance at the big clock with Roman numerals, which hung just above the fireplace, and head back to the kitchen.
One time, he stopped near me, humming an unfamiliar melody. He scrupulously looked through the window from different angles. I knew he was looking for Mother, trying to see if she was coming home. Her friend lived a few houses down the street from us.
Horrifying thoughts tormented me as I looked outside. What if Mom fell and couldn’t get up? What if she was hurt and couldn’t walk home? Maybe she couldn’t find our house in the darkness. Come back, Mommy, I silently begged her. I love you, Mommy. Please come home.
“What if Mom can’t find us in the darkness?” I asked Dad, following him to the kitchen.
Father shook his head, taking ice cream from the freezer.
“Daddy, it’s dark, and she can’t see our house well enough,” I said, surprised that he wasn’t considering that.
“Don’t you worry about that,” Father replied and smiled. “She can see our house. I left the light on for her on the front porch.”
“Oh,” I said.
Mother came home unexpectedly, even though we all waited for her in the kitchen. We ate ice cream in the kitchen when I turned and noticed her standing by the kitchen door. She must’ve snuck upon us. Right at that moment, the kitchen seemed more prominent, brighter, and warmer.
Father’s face beamed while Mother handed us cookies that she and her friend had baked. Eating cookies with milk, I thought about how much I loved Mother, Daddy, Deanna, aunts and uncles, grandmas, and everyone in the whole world, especially my small town in Northern California.
My hand is tired of writing. I think I can finally sleep.

next: https://taia-books.com/2024/08/28/finding-jasmine-3/

All rights reserved in all media. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without written permission, except brief quotations used in articles or reviews.

The moral right of Kira D. May as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs, and Patent Act of 1988.

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locales, and incidents are products of author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual people, places or events are coincidental or fictionalized.