“Beneath the mask we wear is a person we rarely acknowledge.”
I’M BACK IN the white room. With my mind spinning from the funeral, my eyes immediately find the one door I want to open so badly. The top portion of it is faded, almost translucent. I frown and take a few steps toward it.
“It’s disappearing, Riah. You’re running out of time.” The deep voice from before echoes throughout the room.
I startle and jerk around in its direction. My eyes widen when I see him, the man whom the voice belongs to. He’s tall and slender with long, inky black hair. His dark skin in contrast with the solid white suit he’s wearing is striking and dramatic. His skin and features tell me he’s Native American. A kind smile stretches across his face, and the corners of his mouth turn up.
“Who are you?” I ask nervously.
“I’m no one and everyone, I guess you could say.”
In utter confusion, I look at him more closely. “What are you? Are you a ghost? An angel? God?”
“It depends. I’m everything and nothing at all.”
Trying to remain calm, I prod further with questions. “Depends on what?”
His smile widens. “Well, you, of course.”
I shake my head. “I don’t understand. None of this makes sense.”
“Don’t worry, you will soon enough. No one understands at first.”
I just stare at him, speechless.
“How do you feel about what you’ve seen so far?”
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding in. “I don’t know. Mostly sad and regretful, I guess. It’s hard to watch my family hurt.”
He clasps his hands in front of himself. His forefingers meet at the tips, creating a steeple. “Have you learned anything valuable?”
I think about Grayson, the kids, my mother, and everything they’re going through.
“I think I’ve learned that me dying is almost as bad as me living.”
He arches a brow and his smile fades. “Why do you say that? Do you feel your presence in your family’s life was more of a burden than what they’re experiencing in the aftermath of your death?”
Yes.
“As awful as it seems, yes, I do. Though, at the same time, I see myself differently from here.”
He looks intrigued. “Oh? How so?”
“I placed so much importance on such small things, and by doing so I added so much unneeded stress on myself.”
“Such as what, for example?”
I shrug my shoulders. “It’s hard to explain. Like when I’d get mad at Grayson for stupid things like leaving his whiskers in the sink, or when I wouldn’t allow the kids to eat on the sofa. Those things seem incredibly small looking back. I made such a big deal out of them then. I made a big deal out of things that meant nothing.”
Guilt piled on top of sadness builds inside me.
“I also hate that Grayson’s last moments with me were of us fighting and saying hurtful things to one another.”
He steps in closer to me.
“Regret is a painful thing. Few people understand that there are three important things that leave us and can never return. Words. Time. Opportunity. These are things we can never get back. Not even in death. Sadly, your regret is warranted.”
I look around the room and then back to him, motioning with my hands toward the doors.
“Well, if all of this isn’t about redemption, then what is this? Why is that one door disappearing and what is time running out for? What am I supposed to be hurrying to do?”
He starts slowly, taking backward steps.
“You can’t move on until you unlock that door. Otherwise, you’ll be stuck here forever.”
I throw my hands up. “What is here? And where are you going?”
The more steps he takes, the smaller he looks, the further away he gets. It’s as if he’s disappearing into the wall.
“
Here
is your Reflection Realm. Behind that door is where you will be set free.”
“From what?” I plead.
“That all depends on what’s truly imprisoning you.”
And with that, he is gone.
“Hey! Come back. How do I do that? How do I get the key or figure out what’s imprisoning me?”
Silence.
A deafening stillness falls upon the room and I feel lost. Suddenly, a gust of wind blows throughout the space. The stack of papers rustle and several pieces float up in the air before feathering down to the floor. A clicking sound turns my attention to the doors. The second door has opened all on its own. I walk over and pick up a piece of the paper along with the white ink pen. Taking a deep breath, I make my way across the room to the open door. Nerves ripple through my psyche as each step brings me closer to it. When I reach the opening, I carefully peer over the edge, down into darkness. I can’t see anything. It’s a hole of oblivion. I crane my head upward and see a white rope with a large knot tied at its end, just hanging there in the center of nothing. I glance back down and then back up at the rope. It’s within my reach.
Am I supposed to pull it? Climb it? What?
Not knowing exactly what to do, I fold the piece of paper in half and place it between my teeth along with the pen. Then I reach up and grasp the knotted end of the rope. As soon as I feel the roughness of it against my cold skin, it begins to turn red. It’s almost as if my hand is bleeding the color into it. Abruptly, my body jerks and the rope is moving. I reach up with my other hand and hold on tightly, interlocking my fingers and squeezing. My body is yanked upward in a whoosh. Flashes of white on both sides of me speed by, one by one.
When I realize what it is, I’m stunned. I pass by white room after white room. It’s like I’m flying up the outside of a multiple-story building with glass windows allowing me to see inside each unit. They’re all the same as my white room, only I’m not the one standing in them. Women, men, young and old, there are people dressed all in white. Are they trying to find freedom too? Or are they stuck? Before I can contemplate them any further, I’m jolted to an unexpected stop in front of one of the rooms. Suddenly a floor materializes beneath my feet, and the now red rope disappears into the darkness above me. I take the pen and paper from between my teeth and try to right myself before I figure out what I’m supposed to do next. Just then, the door before me swings open and the man from before is back. He holds out his hand, welcoming me into the room.
“Come in, Riah. There’s someone here you should meet. Philomena has been here a very long time. She should be able to answer many of your questions. Maybe she can give you the perspective and clarity you are seeking.”
I nod. “Okay, thank you,” I tell him as I step inside the room.
Looking around, I see that the room is much like mine, only running down the center of the room is a river of crystal-clear blue water. Where it flows from or to I have no idea, but it’s breathtaking. It’s glistening like diamonds are floating on top; it’s a sight to behold.
“Riah, this is Philomena,” he tells me when a tall slender woman appears before us. She’s sitting on the floor, her knees pulled in toward her chest. There’s a white cat at her feet. She’s stroking its fur.
Placing his hand on my shoulder, he says, “I will leave you now. Ask your questions, but you should also fear her answers.”
When I turn to ask what he means, he’s gone. I look back to her and introduce myself.
“Hello, I’m Riah.”
“I know who you are,” she says coldly.
“How did you get here?” I ask.
“I’m here pretty much the same way you’re here. I’m dead. Only I didn’t choose to be here. The choice was made for me by my cancer.”
Her long fingers continue caressing the cat’s fur. She looks up as if she’s looking at more than the nothingness of this place.
“I spent my last days angry, so very angry. I’m guessing that’s why I’m stuck here, in between worlds like you. I have many unresolved things I need to come to terms with. I have yet to find my key, yet to be cleansed.”
“Your key? You mean to open the locked door? You have doors too?”
Her lips part, and a coy smile reveals her starkly white teeth. A chill slithers up my spine.
“We all have locked doors.”
The stillness in the room seems to shift, and I feel uneasy. Philomena seems harmless, but something about her makes me nervous. She’s too calm, yet her body language tells me something volcanic lives within her, just beneath the surface.
Her body is stiff and she won’t look me directly in the eye for long, but when she does, sadness overwhelms me. Her presence makes me feel like damp rice paper. Fragile.
“I had children,” she whispers.
I stay quiet, waiting for her to say more. She wants to tell me her story, I can sense it.
“When the cancer had me so sick that I could barely take care of myself without assistance, I shut my children and all loved ones out of my life. I shunned them all. I took every pound of the hatred, pain, and self-pity, and I threw it at them like heavy bricks. Every target I hit suffered right along with me. The day before the cancer took me, something profound occurred to me.”
Cerulean tears begin to trickle down her porcelain bone-white cheeks.
“I couldn’t remember the last time I’d washed my daughter’s hair.”
Confused by her comment, I ask, “What do you mean? How old was your daughter?”
Philomena’s drops her head, and her glass tears hit the floor.
“She was eleven. That day I was in my room, and my homecare nurse had just finished washing what little hair I had left. Caroline pushed the door open and shyly stepped inside. She was accustomed to me telling her to go away because I was tired or hurting or simply not wanting to interact with anyone.”
Reaching down, she stretches out her long index finger and touches it to the tears she shed that now rest upon the cold floor. Slowly, she starts making small circular motions in them using her finger. Tears continue to fall from her eyes, and several of them seem to have a life of their own once they meet the floor. They glide across the floor toward the river and then disappear over the edge into the flowing water.
“Caroline asked me if I needed anything. I still had the towel on my head from having my hair washed. I told her I needed a comb. She came back in with her small purple comb and crawled up onto the bed and asked me if she could help me comb my hair. I quickly shot her request down and sent her away. When I grasped that tiny comb in my hands, memories suddenly, unexpectedly began rolling through my ailing mind. I recalled all of the many times I had combed Caroline’s hair after bathing her, washing her hair. And then it hit me—I couldn’t remember the last time I had washed her hair. She was a big girl now and washed her own hair, but—”
She paused and stopped making circles in her tears, now looking up at me intently.
“I couldn’t remember, Riah. I was about to die, and I couldn’t remember the last time I had washed her hair. I asked myself, whenever I was washing her hair last, why didn’t I know it was the last time I’d ever do that simple task for my child? Would I have cherished it more if I had known? Would I have made a mental note to never forget? Then, in waves, I had one hair-washing moment after the other. When was the last time I had sung her a lullaby or read her a bedtime story? When was the last time I had laughed with her or played in the rain with her? Could I remember any of the big little moments? Could she? Would she?”
Her hands begin to tremble, and she shoots up from her sitting position and begins pacing from wall to wall, raising her now shaky voice.
“I was dying and I had wasted my last days, months, on self-loathing rather than on cherishing the time I had left on Earth with the people I loved most. You see, Riah? I should have slowed down, softened my heart and remembered all of the things, made new memories where old ones had faded, and most importantly, I should have known that every moment was sacred, all of them.”
A swift breeze moves through the room, and the walls begin to move. They start contracting and releasing as if breathing. Philomena stills in the center of the room. When she spins around, we come face to face. Her eyes are no longer quietly sad; they’re loud and angry.
“So now you see, Riah. You took your own life selfishly, and when I look at you, all I see is a woman who had the choice to live, a choice I prayed for on my last day.”
Reaching out, she grabs my arm with her long fingers and pulls me toward the river.
“Look and listen,” she demands.
Confused and scared, I pull away from her.
“Listen to what?” I say with wide eyes, looking into the flowing water.
She pulls me down to where I’m in a kneeling position. She leans in toward the river and angles her head so her ear is facing the water. I do the same.
“Close your eyes and listen,” she whispers.
I close my eyes and listen just as she tells me to, and that’s when I hear it. Voices. Rising from the river water is the echo of endless voices. They all seem to have one thing in common: regret. One after the other I hear them, men, women, and children.
I should’ve taken that job.
I wish I would’ve finished college.
I should’ve told her how much I loved her.
Why didn’t I kiss her?
Why didn’t I tell him how important he was to me?
I should’ve forgiven them.
I needed to smile more.
I wish I would’ve traveled more.
Why did I let her go?
Why didn’t I call him back before it was too late?
I never visited my grandmother and then she died unexpectedly.
I didn’t call my dad after our argument and then he was in that fatal car crash.
I wish I’d had kids.
I wish I’d said yes to his proposal.
I wish I would have laughed more.
One voice after the other rises from the river, and with every regret I hear, they pierce me and become a part of me. I feel heavier and heavier with my own regrets. I pull back and stand up. Taking small steps backward, I get away from the river and start searching for the door to leave. I don’t want to be here anymore.