Ken Harshbarger
Rest
for Celia
Things
were going great for
Celia. She had a boyfriend she really liked. She was happy with her
job. Her
two daughters were doing well in school.
But then her sister, Penelope,
moved in. Penelope was seventeen. She had been living with a friend and
the
friend’s
husband. Penelope and the friend and the husband were screwing each
other. At
the same time. Things were great until one day Penelope screwed the
husband
while the friend was at work. Apparently this was bad form. The friend
kicked
Penelope out of her house. So Penelope moved in with Celia.
After that, Celia had a talk
with Bert. Bert was her boyfriend before they had the talk. Then they
had the
talk.
--No, I really like you,
Celia.
-Okay? Then why?
--It’s just that. Well, you’ve
had your uterus removed and you have two daughters--they’re awesome and
all,
but you know? And now your sister’s moving in? It’s just more than I can
handle.
-What!?
--I’m just trying to be
honest with you.
Celia nodded her head, for
she did understand most of what he’d said.
After Bert bailed, Celia
began to have problems with her nerves. Everything annoyed her: the
dinosaur
noises her daughters made, their dirty clothes, their hunger, their
sticky
hands. Everything grated on her nerves, especially Penelope. She had to
clench
her fists to keep her hands from shaking.
So she went to the doctor. Ever
since her hysterectomy, she didn’t trust doctors. But she told him
about the
problem with her nerves. He told her to relax. Can you believe that?
Just
relax, he said. A real genius, that doctor. Anyhow, he also gave her a
prescription to calm her nerves.
The prescription didn’t work.
She had to take it to a drug store and exchange it for a bottle of
pills.
Celia took
the bottle of pills home with her. At first, she didn’t take them. She
tried to
relax. Like the doctor said. For days, they sat in the cabinet above
her record
player. But her nerves just got worse and worse, and she ran out of
records to
listen to.
Everything got loud. It was
all noise. Celia’s daughters came home from school singing a
song about dew
drops
glistening on a spider web in the sunshine. Her sister Penelope cried
on the
telephone. Wailing
stupidly. An apology for screwing her friend’s husband without consent.
It was too much! Celia decided to use the
pills. But to make up for the days she had skipped, she tripled the
dose;
then, to be sure, she used all of them. She made a big pitcher of
lemonade. Crunched
the pills into a fine powder and mixed them in with the sugar and water
and
lemons and ice. She drank a glass, and she left the rest on the
counter.
Penelope
was the first to come into the kitchen. She sobbed and chugged a glass
of
lemonade and poured another. Then the two girls. Her precious daughters.
The pills worked. The two
little girls passed out first. Celia carried them to their beds. It
took
Penelope a little longer. The poor girl. Celia really did pity her. She
made
sure she was breathing, then left her lying on the carpet in the room
with the
computer.
Celia listened to “Lemon Tree”
by Peter Paul and Mary. The song gave her the spooks, but she played it
over
and over and over. Then she took the needle off the record. No more
noises, no
more Penelope, no more drama. Only the spinning record.
Finally, said Celia.
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© 2007
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