Shutter(14)

The sound of a door being slammed forced my attention. I ran to the window and watched my cousin walk away, hand in hand with her boyfriend, into the windy mesa. I felt my heart thump frantically in my chest. She had left me alone there with the desperate drip of a faucet in a white sink, the disturbing melody of “Lost in Love” by Air Supply filling the air. My small hand turned the knob on the front door. It was locked from the outside. I cried. At six years old, I could not help it. I was paralyzed by fear, by the thought of my grandmother never finding me. The start of the engine made me scream. Gloria drove away from the house, from me, in that red pickup truck.

My cousin never did come back for me. After a couple of hours, the lights of a truck lit the tattered government house from the outside in. After hours of fear and desperation, my little face had become swollen. Trails of dry tears ran parallel to wet new ones, the palm color of terror traced on my skin. I strained to see who was there. The lights were so bright and my eyes so sensitive that I could not make out the figure that came through the dry landscape.

They tugged at the door handle and knocked. I could not move. I covered my ears as the knocks turned into kicks and strikes. The door swung open, bathing the room in dusty silver light. My grandmother stood there calling my name, but I still could not move. God only knows how she knew where to find me. I never asked, and she never said.

I had been there for about five hours, from what I was told. For me, it had felt like years. I really believed that I would never leave, that I would be stuck inside that lonely house for the rest of my days.

I remembered the ride back to my grandmother’s house. She held me tightly to her. I could hear the beat of her heart and could smell lilac and ivory soap mixed with the smoky scent of cooking oil. She stroked my head and dabbed my swollen eyes with a damp cloth and hummed a Navajo song as the truck engine hummed its own tune through town. I watched small dots on the ceiling of the truck cab move in and out of focus.

Grandma slowed when the reflecting red and blue lights of a police car took turns dancing on the pickup’s ragged hood. I sat up. Two policemen slowly waved vehicles through a path of broken glass and mangled steel. It was then that I saw it: the red truck. The furry dice were still hanging from the rearview mirror. It looked like it had rolled a few times, coming to rest on its blown tires, Gloria’s boyfriend still upright in the front seat.

Grandma’s truck squealed to a stop amid the burned scent of melted tar. She gasped and sobbed, trying to shield my eyes from what I had already seen. Gloria sat lifeless, trapped in the mangled red metal. I would never forget her face that night. She seemed surprised that she was dead. Her eyes were open and looking at us. My grandmother grabbed a blanket from the back of her seat and went to her, covering her body and face as the police tried to pull her away.

WE PICKED OUT a light-blue coffin for Gloria and had her dressed in her favorite outfit—a T-shirt and jeans. I could still see the cut on her head as it rose into her hairline.

When the funeral service was over, everyone walked past her and looked down at her body. Grandma and I were the last ones to see her before they closed the casket. I didn’t want to see her like that. That wasn’t her. I finally cried.

“Hey, kiddo,” a voice said. “Don’t do that. Don’t cry.”

I pulled my hand out of Grandma’s hand and turned to look. Nothing. I knew that was Gloria’s voice. I looked at her while the box closed. She was as still as a frozen lake. Grandma grabbed my hand again and led me out into the gloomy echo of the church. My little heart ached.

When we got home, people sat around in silence and put food inside their mouths. Father Henry sat with my grandma at the table. They talked about everything except Gloria. I hid underneath the table, watching as everyone’s shiny shoes shuffled by, and the Navajo ladies, with their knee-highs rolled down around their ankles, came and sat with Grandma and talked Navajo.

“Kiddo?” Gloria’s ghost said. She was beautiful, just as I remembered her that day, with her jeans and her T-shirt and red bands around the collar and sleeves. I reached out and tried to hug her, but I went right through.

“Gloria. It’s you. You’re home,” I said.

“Shhhhh,” she said. “They can hear you.”

I looked up to see the Navajo ladies peeking beneath the tablecloth. My auntie Ruth, Gloria’s mom, tugged me out and looked me straight in the eye.

“Gloria is gone, Rita,” she explained. “She’s dead.”

“No. She’s not,” I answered. “She just doesn’t want to talk to you.” I pulled away and ran out the door.

I sat on the edge of a rock behind my grandma’s house and cried. I begged Gloria to follow me, but she didn’t.

When I went back into the kitchen, I could see the eyes fixed on me and hear the whispers from the hallways. They must have all thought I was crazy. Those people would never look at me the same again.

I walked into Grandma’s room and hid in her closet, where the dark was safely scented like Grandma’s clothes. It didn’t take long for Gloria to join me. Her light was warm, but it flickered like a dying flashlight.

“They don’t believe that I can see you, Gloria,” I said. “They all think I’m crazy.”

“Or that you’re a witch. You know how Navajos are,” Gloria answered. Her reply crackled like a bad phone connection. “They’re all out there waiting to see what you do next so they can go home and gossip about it.”