I Still Remember Lindsay

Chapter One

Manila Myers

Sunday, 6:41 am

My hands find the silk sheets, as the familiar sound of my alarm clock dawns over me.

It's the last day of summer. I think dimly to myself. My eyes find the antique timepiece and I swiftly shut it off.

Feet outstretched and eyes still closed, I force myself to my feet. Crimson red hue shelters my room as the sun reaches in towards the rubicund glass pane. I quickly fasten it with the dense white curtain and wobble my way through my bedroom door.

I take a hard turn to the kitchen and plant my palms on the spruce counter-top. My feet feel cold and hard against the kitchen linoleum floor. I grab yesterday's leftovers and sprawled on the living room sofa. The walls feel bare and unadorned, with only the painting of the Everglades to accompany me. Mom was an artist, and worked freely at home with the aid of her oil paints.

If it weren't for her paintings this house would feel a lot like a blank canvas. With its white paint jarring to glassy eyes.

The house looked a lot like a museum. Paintings were displayed evenly across each absolute space in the two story manor. Pops of color peppered the chalk ramparts as I gait through the hallway from the living room to the steps of a polished marble staircase, leading to the upstairs lounge.

It was much bigger than the one at the first floor, and the incandescent chandelier masked it fully with royalty. The couch was the same shade as the spruce railings on the sparkling flight of stairs. Everything was of symmetry; only that the copper vase and deep lapis buds contrasted with the glass coffee table.

Landscapes dominated the four walls in the lounge, each having different plates below them. The names read of discreet and eccentric locations like Atlantis, Hillhouse and The Lost City of Bininguan. Yet one of the canvases strayed from the reoccurring theme. It wasn't even a landscape piece, but a portrait.

On the far left side of the wall was a picture of a girl, gleaming in yellow. Strawberry blonde hair framed her face perfectly as her manicured nails brushed against her dainty ears, revealing an exquisite butterfly earing. Her eyes were the same as the lapis buds, deep like the ocean's sea floor would be.

It was as if time had paused and captured the moment so flawlessly. Her cheeks were tinged with red and the gap between her teeth didn't even matter. It was beautiful, she was beautiful. I don't doubt that my mom would ever hawk this piece to a client.

I run my fingers on the plate as my eyes read the label.

Lindsay Myers: 2002-2019.

Melancholy aches in my shoulders as I wipe away the lone tear cascading down my cheek. For a moment I faintly wondered how mom had painted this piece. The wound was still fresh and bleeding, yet my mom had already chiselled her. Disguised her misery with flawless regularity. The thought of her moving on flashes over me and I fill my heart with rage.

How could she have already moved on?

I let go of the piece and storm to her bedroom, leaving the leftover plate of mac and cheese on the crystalline coffee table. My knees lengthen, compelling myself to walk longer strides to her bedchamber. The transition from hard wood to fur carpet warms me from me inside.

Her room was located in the left wing, alongside the several guest rooms in the subsequent floor. Opposite of that are three identical rooms. They shone effortlessly with intricate patterns on rigid spruce entryways. I reviled the way my mother obsessed over paramount equilibrium, it meant that we needed to be exquisite as well.

All three of us. Ilia, Lindsay and I, cultivated with the poise and posture of a flamingo. Always leaning on mortar heels and arched backs. Afraid that we might destroy the picture perfect face my mom has put on this family. Every now and then I wonder whether or not Lindsay left because of my mom's inadequate gesture of love. Or if the statement that Ilia provided to the cops was accurate. That she left because of her.

I turn the knob on the narrow bleached door, not bothering to knock on it. The familiar screeech of the entryway simmers down my anger and replaces it with fear and sorrow. Black sullenness harbors the end of the rectangular room. Dense covers shelter the silhouette of a person in fetal position. On the floor are slopped wallows of paint seeping through the fur carpet.

Yellow, lapis blue and ochre take over the pools of paint. With unfinished canvases frayed and demolished on the far end of the room. An upsurge of guilt prisons my livid heart and freezes me on the spot. I had the impropriety to judge my mother and assume what wasn't true. This was more depraved than the gears my mother had tinkered within us. I was worse than her.

With glossy eyes and my throat closing I pull the door in, drowning the room in shadows once again. I could feel my eyes sting and my knees quiver. For a second they threaten to cry, but I don't let them. Instead, I muster up the strength to walk away from the door, pushing my heel on the fur and feeling my back stretch with grace. Even in gloom, my posture and composure seems to be thriving.

Mom taught us well.

I quicken my pace and finish the mac and cheese on the lounge, leaving it on the kitchen counter-top. My hands flutter on the railings as I take a right on the hallway. I enter my room, expecting harsh black similar to mother's chamber. Instead I find red, spilling in my bedroom.

I peek in the room, taking as much precaution as possible. I breathe in carefully, grabbing the nearby broom as a weapon. But I'm surprised to see that everything was of normalcy, from the dishevelled bed to the piles of laundry in my hamper. I squint my eyes as if trying to solve a tricky puzzle. I try to remember what my room looked like the way I left it. It's only then that I notice the open curtain and the small crack on the window. On the ledge was a blooming bunch of light green flowers, with a pink sticky note underneath it.

I flinch at the thought of someone robbing us, it wasn't impossible considering the fame that my mom put in this family. I strengthen my grip on the broom, cracking the window up with my other hand. I grab the floret pot and set it on my vanity stand, deciding on whether or not to throw it ruminated in my mind but I dismiss the thought. Intead I snatch the hot pink sticky note from the bottom of the pot and read it aloud in my mind.

They're called the Bells of Ireland. I thought you might like them. – L.M.

I shudder at the note and the familiar handwriting. I run my fingers on the letter and felt the ink smudge on my fingers. It was still wet, with the grooves of the pen still prominent on the piece of paper.

Without hesitation I popped my head out the open window, not bothering with the sun's blinding rays. Cold autumn breeze scored through my locks and shielded my face from view, further obscuring my vision. But there was no one there, just the open breeze and the scattered specks of yellow, orange and red on lime grass. The seasons were already changing, I pray to God I won't join with them.