Remembe{red}: Glad to be Home

I am trying something different today.  Stepping out of my comfort zone I have decided to try some creative memoir writing for The Red Dress Club.  The prompt for today:

Think of a room from your past.  It can be any type of room at all.
Take a mental picture of that room.
What happened there?  What is it like?  What is the atmosphere there?  What are the smells, the sounds, the sights?  How does it feel?
Now reveal that snapshot to your reader.
Take us to that room.

This is my first time participating.  I welcome any and all critiques.  Just please don't be too hard on me.

Enjoy!

I awaken from my nap in the mousy brown recliner that has been my bed for the last three days.  I am covered with the old crocheted blue and white afghan that Mom has had for what feels like forever.  The recliner has been the only place that I have been able to get anywhere close to being comfortable.

I look at the dark paneling on the walls that has been there since before my parents moved in 40 years prior.  I stare at the pictures, memories from the past, that hang on the wall.  Pictures of my brother and sister and me as a baby.  Pictures from events that I have no memories of.  My eyes land on my favorite picture.  Mom, Daddy and me.  Mom in her lovely purple dress, Daddy in his blue blazer with a white button down shirt and blue tie and me in my cream flowered dress.  I smile as I remember how silly the photographer was.

Mom sits on the comfy blue couch that she insisted upon having not long after she remarried.  She needed a change.  Needed to remove some of the old memories in order to make room for new ones.  She is reading a book and doesn't notice that I am awake yet.  I want to sit with her.  But my body will not allow it.

I look at the bookcase that has sat in the exact same place for fifteen years.  Everything on it is covered with a thin layer of dust.  It's loaded with old books that have been read many times over.  These books will someday belong to me.  On this same bookcase sits a few of my academic trophies from seventh and eighth grade.  Kaylee always looks at them but to her they are nothing but toys.  Mom tells her that if she does well when she starts school she will get trophies like those.  Just like her Mama.

The crackling of the fire distracts me.  I watch the flames as they lick the wood.  Orange fingers wrap around the logs.  Mom walks over and throws another log on the fire.  I listen as the heat makes the log hiss as it warms and dries out.  I love the smell of the wood as it burns.  I close my eyes and relish the heat as it reaches out and touches my toes.

It is bitter cold outside.  The coldest winter we've had in years.  I listen as the wind howls through the eves and rattles the windows.

I open my eyes again and Mom is watching me.

"Hey there Stash-bug...  How are you feeling?"

I ponder this question for a moment.  I want to cry because she is calling me by a nickname that she hasn't used in years.  I do not feel the greatest but I won't tell her that.  The last thing she needs is more worry.

"Not bad for someone who had a gigantic ovarian cyst removed 6 days ago."

I put the footrest down and sink my toes into the thick, white, plush carpeting.  I gingerly scoot to the edge of the recliner, sore from the line of staples that run up and down my stomach like a zipper.  I contemplate getting up but think better of it and scoot back into the cozy old chair.

Mom has slept here in the living room the whole time I have been here.  She has taken care of me.  Brought me food and things to drink.  Kept Kaylee at bay so she wouldn't jump on me and hurt me.

I love it here.  In this house that I grew up in.  I hate the reasons that I am here but for the moment I am glad to be home...

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