Shutter(47)

I needed a drive, to clear my head, to do something besides sit in the house and watch TV. Grandma’s keys hung on a nail in her kitchen. I grabbed them and my camera bag and walked to the truck.

One blank frame remained on the roll of film inside my mother’s Hasselblad, and I hoped I would find that final photo somewhere tonight, wishing that it might close a chapter. I needed to let go of this weight, to find something that could give me hope for my future and the wisdom to cope with my ghosts.

The engine sputtered as I turned the key, finally turning over after a couple of chokes. I drove down the road from the house, dodging a few packs of stray dogs and the occasional pothole. The houses had become unkempt and dilapidated, many of the tribal government homes replaced with trailers and model homes with fake adobe and white frames. The trading post was closed and so was the park where Gloria and I would swing. The town was becoming a memory too, with all of Grandma’s friends leaving the world one by one, replaced with kids and grandkids that didn’t want to be there. I could see why Grandma wanted me to leave, to put behind me the history of this place.

I drove through town slowly until my eyes called out for sleep, but I didn’t want to go home. Instead, I thought of Gloria. I thought of that white house on the mesa where I last saw her alive. I wondered if it still stood, if the things that happened there were cemented in its walls. I was compelled to drive up Choosgai Hill to see if it still mocked me with that one childhood photograph that I could not burn.

I saw it in the distance, standing defiantly. The outside was covered in graffiti, color over color. I drove right up to it, directing the headlights at the front door, and got out. I fished a pack of cigarettes out of my backpack and my mom’s Zippo lighter that she kept with her camera bag. I had no flashlight, so this had to be my torch.

I walked to the front door and kicked it open, flooding the walls with the silver light of the headlamps. The elements had taken their toll. The wind whistled through the bare walls and occasional pink wisps of insulation. On the back of the door were the marks I had left all those years ago, when I raged, trying to set myself free. You could still see where I had banged on the wood until it began to splinter. That is when I saw her.

“Rita, what are you doing here?” She was smiling. “It’s too late for you to be up here.” Her hair was long and straight, her skin a perfect olive hue. I started to walk toward her, inching toward the warmth of her voice. Then, just as suddenly as I saw her, she disappeared through the rays of the headlights.

I came out of that house and cried. I had received my answer. That night still haunted me.

I reached into the back of Grandma’s truck and pulled out her nearly empty gas can. I sprayed the walls, the insulation, the sink, what counters remained. I sprayed more on the trash-covered floors and on the doors and hallways in the back. But mostly, I sprayed the front door—the door that had kept me locked in, that still held evidence of my fear.

I stepped outside. When I scraped the Zippo’s wheel, the light shone on my face and on the cigarette in my mouth. I took a deep drag, feeling the smoke down my throat, finding its way to my lungs. I walked to the door and threw the cigarette in. The light flickered and grew. Within fifteen minutes, the entire house was engulfed, sending the splintered wood and blood stains into the sky.

I pulled Mom’s Hasselblad out of the truck and rested it on the cab as the fingers of the fire swayed, the smoke trapped under the eaves. The house was choking and dying in front of me, and all I could think of was that picture. I wanted to remember the death of this house for the rest of my life. I wanted to see its evil soul lifted into the permanency of eternity. If this curse had to stay with me, I prayed that this purge could bring me some peace.

The fire had become perfectly balanced, the flames and smoke turning the white paint into the dead shade of gray. I looked at the house in the viewfinder and pressed the shutter release. The photograph. The last memory—finally dead.





CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE



Pictures of Dreams


THE KNOCKING ON the bathroom door woke me. I sat up, still in Chris’s T-shirt, my head throbbing from the booze, my heart aching for Gloria. It had been years since I had seen her, and last night was bittersweet. I could feel her presence still, as well as the fear that Erma was pressing into her. Now Erma was coming for my ghosts, and I was letting her.

“Are you okay in there?” Chris spoke through the door.

I looked myself in the mirror, stained with the remnants of my nosebleed, and splashed some water on my face. “Yes. I’m fine.” I opened the door to the sight of him wrapped up in my sheets.

“Do you know where I left my pants?” We laughed. It saved me from bursting out in tears and confessing everything.

We walked out into the kitchen to search for the rest of his clothes. “I just want you to know that I’ve never done anything like this before.” I was embarrassed, both that I jumped on him last night and that I woke up on my bathroom floor.

“I haven’t either. For the record.” He smiled and picked his pants off my kitchen counter.

“And this is yours too. I’m sorry.” I began to remove his shirt but realized that I had nothing underneath. He pulled it off for me and began to kiss me again, right up until there was a knock on my door.

“Just a second.” I let go of Chris and ran to look out through the viewer. My grandma and Mr. Bitsilly stood right outside.