Infused

Writing class prompt: June 2023

The call that change my life

 

The call that changed my life came in on October 20 at 9:42 AM. I was in the kitchen, the phone on the wall, its long coiled cord like a huge banana curl nearly reaching the floor. 

 

I wore pink shorts and a tank top, ready and grateful for a bike ride ahead.  The year before I’d had a 50-50 chance following a grim surgery and now could peddle through the neighborhood.

 

Hello, I answered.

 

I heard my son’s twenty-one-year-old voice. Mom where have you been?

 

Been here, I said, left the phone off the hook, you know Nana calls all hours of the day and night …

 

I’ve been trying to reach you since 2:30 this morning.

 

2:30 this morning?

 

My body instinctively tensed. Time diffused.

 

Mom, Carole died.

 

Carole, my sister Carole?

 

The sister who could expand mythologies, explore the hidden power of inanimate things, extend them, make them malleable, turn them inside out. And suddenly — whish — a beginning appeared bright and alluring renewed by a fresh perspective, her words transmuting the order of the universe. She with a knowledge that preceded our birth. 

 

That sister, the love of my life?

My sister, Carole?  

Gone?

*

I dream,

and dream,

and dream, of you 

as if we

were infused.