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Murmur
by Sharmagne Leland-St.John
She was on the ragged edge of sleep, in those dark velvety moments just
before dawn, in the small, crowded bedroom of the old Spanish bungalow
on
Vista Grande. The small bedroom she shared with her sister, and a year
later
with a newborn baby brother. Her dark-eyed sister, Nicole, lay
sleeping in
the twin bed, which ran crosswise at the foot of her own long, narrow
bed.
Curled up on her side, facing the wall, with its swirls of white wedding
cake
plaster, black hair in pink rubber curlers, her older sister slept,
unaware,
undisturbed.
Some unidentifiable murmur in the dark and distant garden with its
tangle of
fruit trees and brick edged, moss covered, herring bone pathways, had
awakened her, terrified her. She lay there shaking under her thin
blanket,
sobbing into the softness of a feather pillow, encased in its delicately
embroidered slip. Sewn by a grandmother who lived far away, but
dreamt of
her nightly, and sent beaded moccasins at Christmas and braid ties and
bows
for her birthday.
A light went on in the turquoise and gray tiled, deco bathroom that
separated the master bedroom from the small room with its textured,
white
walls and large picture window. The room they called the nursery. The
warm
glow from the nightlight spilled out into the room, from the crack
beneath
the door, with its crystal doorknobs. Shadows danced menacingly
across the
iced walls. There was that sound again. Then the door
opened, and her
mother’s arms were around her. Petting her, smoothing her hair,
brushing her
tawny bangs from her forehead. Patting her on the back.
Whispering ‘shhh’
into her tiny ear, “There baby, don’t cry.” She almost
sang the words,
tender and somewhat out of key. Then the sound again. “Coo-coo
coo-coo, ”
"It’s just a mourning dove calling to his mate.”
“Coo-coo coo-coo” She had not the slightest idea what a
mourning dove was,
but she believed her, she trusted her, she had no reason not to, yet.
The child stopped crying as she breathed in her mother’s perfumed
aroma now
full of the musky scent of sleep and dreams. Then the small body
in the
vastness of the twin bed, relaxed in her mother’s arms, as tears were
wiped
from her emerald, thick lashed eyes, first with gentle finger tips, then
the
silky corner of a chenille dressing gown.
The young mother slipped into the narrow bed with the child, kissed away
the
remaining tears, and held her tightly against her breast, until she
drifted
off once more to the unparalleled safety of sleep.
"Coo-coo Coo-coo"
Years later, lying naked in a spacious, antique, wooden bed in a
bougainvillea-covered villa, in Tuscany, the woman who grew from the
child,
would tell her lover, this was her earliest memory.
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