"Hello Paulina. You've gotten bigger since last I saw you."
I smiled at my theia, but I knew the smile didn't reach my eyes. This one time, my theia forgave me. My yaya walked into the living room. She was dressed in all black, like it had already happened. The stark white of her hair seemed unreal, whiter than I remembered, almost as if it were the dot of an exclamation point. I examined her face and was startled by all the wrinkles that made her skin sag with an unseen weight. Yaya's eyes were sunken in, black circles framing them. Even though her hair had turned a brighter shade of white, her eyes frightened me the most. Once full of life and happiness, yaya's chocolate orbs gave me a dead stare. My gaze slipped a little but she didn't notice. Yaya smiled at me, her body shifted as if it was remembering familiar motions, and her eyes were empty. I forgave her this one time.
Mama walked into the room, going straight to her mother and embracing her. I turned my head, avoiding the daughter-mother moment between the two women, and let my sight take in the surroundings. I had been in this room a hundred times before. Behind me was a couch, relatively small by American standards, with just two royal blue cushions and a deep cherry wooden frame. The fabric was thick and scratchy. Not something that you would want to sit on during the summer months but perfect for winter. There was a second one, it had three cushions, and sat along the right hand wall and in front of that was the kitchen table. Five chairs positioned themselves around the thick wooden table. Flashes of memory struck me as I thought of how we would drink fresh boiled cow's milk with cocoa when we woke up. I allowed myself a smile. I never did like the milk.
Yaya and mama were speaking in hushed tones as I walked past them into the dining room. This had to be my favorite room in the entire house. Soft turquoise painted the walls, with a pale white design all along the roof and edges. Whenever I looked up at the ceiling, my imagination made me believe that was what the sky was really like. As I looked up my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting in the room. I noticed the small cracks. They crept their way along the paint making little roads and paths to unknown places, which I couldn't see with my naked sight. One crack caught my interest. I think it was because it was so deep and traveled from one side of the room to the other. It was hollow and empty. I never remembered it ever being there. Walking over to where yaya had a display of pictures, I picked up one of the images. My fingers traced the intricate design of the wooden frame; I could feel the way the wood twisted and turned. They tiptoed their way across the edges before resting on the glass that protected the old picture. It was of my papou in his fishing gear, holding a bucket and rod in his hands while smiling at the camera. He was younger here, the image in a fading sepia tone.
I couldn't stop the chuckle that left my lips. A few years ago, papou had gone out fishing, like he always did, and he brought home a bucket full of small to large fish. Inside the bucket, buried beneath the fish was a small crab waiting for an unwary hand to snap at. Papou laughed as he scooped the crab up and out of the bucket, letting it scuttle across the porch and into my sandal. I had jumped up into my chair, shouting out in alarm. Yaya came out of the kitchen and scolded papou, who was holding his sides with laughter. There wasn't a time when he wasn't laughing.
"Paulina, we're going in to see papou. Come on now."
My baba's voice cut through the memory, waking me from my stupor. Placing the picture down, I followed my parents into my yaya's bedroom. The footfalls echoed in the hallway when they never did before. My heart pounded in my ears. Why did we have to do this? I don't want to go in, please don't make me go in. The door was pushed open and we piled into the tiny room. The window was open, emitting a small breeze that made the sheer fabric of the curtains flutter close to the bed. I stared at the metal frame of the tiny bed that was big enough to hold just two. My eyes were down, not willing to look at anything but that metal frame. Mama gave my back a small push and I stumbled over to the small stool that was next to the bed. Yaya had been using it so she could sit next to papou to keep him company. My parents' voices floated over me like the breeze at my back. They murmured my name and I had to look up. At him. My heart stopped beating.
Papou looked at me with glazed over eyes.
They were no longer brown to me but black pits.
They were empty.
He had no idea who I was.
Time stopped for me in that instance and all I could do was sit next to this dying man who had once been my papou. We sat looking at one another. His brow furrowed as he struggled to remember who I was and what I meant to him. His skin was pale yellow, lips cracking with dryness. His normally black hair was now a salt and pepper color. Even through the thin bed sheet that was covering his slight body I could make out each rib that he had in his chest. Yaya walked in at that point, drawing his attention away from me. A breath I didn't know I was holding left my lungs. Papou started to cough and yaya covered his mouth with a handkerchief, one of her own, as he struggled to catch a breath. My head was down so I never knew if there was blood on the white cloth or not. I didn't want to know either. Baba started to have a conversation with papou, no doubt to pass the time, to make him feel comfortable. Or maybe baba was trying to settle himself. His mama had suffered a similar effect when she lay dying in her bed as well. It must have been hard to see the same thing happen again.
Silence passed between all of us. I got up, the stool scraping across the linoleum floor and left the room. My feet took me back down the hall, past the dining room and back into the room with the couches. It took me a while to realize that my body sat itself onto the larger couch. My elbows rested on my knees, my head was down. The shaking took me a little faster than I expected. Tears streamed down my face. The noise of my sobs were stopped only by the tightness of my sealed lips. I didn’t want anyone to hear me cry. I didn’t want to be seen by anyone. A hand on my head startled me. I looked up and saw my theio smiling sadly down at me. I stared at him for a long while before I lowered my head once more. He walked away, his feet dragging across the wooden panels of the floor, making a soft hiss.
