𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐄𝐆𝐔𝐈𝐍𝐄

―𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒍𝒖𝒅𝒆⁵

interlude⁵ | SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME

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EARLY SEPTEMBER 1985.

Barbara Ross-Lee was in front of the fireplace arranging objects into neatly labeled boxes when the doorbell chimed.

With as much intensity as her haggard eyes would allow, she glanced at the clock and then gave the front door the same, scrutinizing look. The sun was still buried under the horizon and the birds were barely up. Someone was on the porch waiting to start—or postpone, depending on who it was—the day. By the time she smoothed dust from her hands and swiped at the flyway strands of her hair, the bell chimes had transformed into weak, spaced-out knocks.

In recent months, when Barbara wasn't up to her eyeballs at work or busy with her five children, this was how she spent her spare time. Roaming the rooms and halls of her mother's home, gathering and packing, storing, donating, or distributing the things she had left behind, and acting as the intermediary between the house and her brothers and sisters. Like her, when Ernestine's image would spring from nowhere, they would come to grieve.

Mourning could be surprisingly productive. The living room furniture was gone, cleared within weeks of the funeral. The parlor, with its closet filled with empty jam jars and other random objects, had taken a bit longer. The kitchen was particularly easy because the bulk of the undertaking involved removing food and other goods from the pantry and refrigerator. The guest rooms and backyard were confronted sometime earlier this year, and the entrances and hallways were completed in a single day. Many of their mother's things were relocated among family, some scattered around Michigan, California, and Connecticut, while the rest had found a new home down south with numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Their mother's bedroom was the only untouched space that remained. All of them had avoided it, tackling other parts of the house in slow discoordination. If the Southfield bungalow was the physical representation of Ernestine Moten Jordan, her bedroom was the nucleus; when that was gone, all parts of the house would cease to function. It would be a vessel, a shell of what it once was. And though she was here quite often, Barbara rarely found herself there.

The irony was not lost on her. Avoidance went against the very nature of her profession. An osteopathic doctor believed in a more holistic approach to health. All parts of the body were interconnected and important in one's journey to maintain overall wellness, and the psychological was a part of that. Throughout her career, much of her focus had been on the physical, but the concept of the mind had thrust itself into the forefront in 1984. Her mother's rapid deterioration and subsequent death had affected them all in various, drastic ways, and hers had come in the form of a silent tug-of-war between denial and acceptance. Refusing to face her Goliath head-on was like turning a blind eye to decades of work, but she was only human. Weren't all humans hypocrites at some point in their lives?

This was where she and her sister diverged. Diane was braver. She typically ignored all other sections of the house and traveled straight upstairs. If life allowed, Barbara was sure she would stay there forever, mingling in the dissipating fragments of her mother's memory. With her hands clenched and her chin squared, Diane faced her Goliath—but seemed to lose every time. Another reason why they had left the room as it was, stuck in the sands of time, all for her sake.

Now Diane was back, ready to challenge her Goliath all over again.

Her movements were methodical. Without meeting Barbara's eyes, she greeted her and quietly ascended the steps. Upstairs, the floorboards made a distinctive groan. Diane had crossed the threshold. Barbara returned to her duties in the living room, crouching just as her mother's door closed with a shrieking creak.