A WHISPER. IT’S not coming from anywhere nearby, but from somewhere too far to be real. And that’s exactly why it is so unusual. Jessica opens her eyes. The living room is dark. The time on the cable box reads three thirty a.m. The wind is howling outside, setting the windows creaking. Even so, it’s stiflingly hot inside.
A whisper. Jessica sits up. Who’s there? Jessica thinks, even though she knows the voice belongs to her mother; it was once the most beautiful voice in the world. She remembers sensing it as the sun’s rays penetrated her closed eyelids. She remembers the delicate hands that picked her up and held her. Their noses touching in an Eskimo kiss.
A whisper. Mom must know that Jessica is awake. So why is she whispering? What is it, Mom? But her mother doesn’t answer; she just sits there at the long dining table with her back to Jessica. Am I late for breakfast? Are you mad, Mommy? Don’t be mad, Mommy.
A whisper. Jessica slowly stands. Her feet feel featherlight. Her knees are sturdier than they normally are in the morning. Nothing aches. She glides effortlessly toward the kitchen table.
“Mom?” Jessica says, and now she realizes that she doesn’t recognize her own voice. It’s not the voice of a child; it’s an adult’s voice. Her mother doesn’t turn around. The black hair unwinds on bare shoulders. Her mother looks as if she is on her way to a party. A pair of gorgeous spike heels has been set out under the chair, next to her bare feet. She is wearing her black evening gown, the one she wore to her first major award gala.
A whisper. Jessica smiles when she understands that Mom is speaking a foreign language. Jessica speaks English with her friends at school, Swedish at home with her mother, and Finnish with her father. But the language her mother is whispering this morning is unfamiliar to Jessica. She doesn’t understand what the words mean, and there’s something ominously mechanical about the way Mom is speaking. It sounds as if she is reading something from a piece of paper, something she doesn’t understand herself. Suddenly a frightening thought creeps into Jessica’s mind: what if the figure sitting there with her back to her isn’t Mom after all, even though she sounds like her? Jessica still can’t see her face. The shoulders are alabaster. The moonlight shining through the window forms a bridge to the chair where her mother is sitting.
“Mom?” Jessica says softly as she walks toward the dining table. She wants Mom to turn around and show Jessica her beautiful smile. Take her into her arms. She wants to feel like a child. She wants the world to once more look the way it did through the eyes of a six-year-old.
John Lennon’s “Imagine” carries from the speakers. The room smells sour, a bit like the stuff Dad pours into the sink sometimes. But there’s no sign of Dad this morning.
A whisper. The words hiss, as if they are slithering out between teeth; they contain a measure of stifled aggression. Jessica is behind Mom now; she touches her bare shoulder. And then Mom slowly turns around. It really is Mom. But the smile is not at all the one Jessica was hoping for; it is not the smile Mom had on her lips on those many occasions she woke her daughter. It is anything but a happy smile.
Jessica feels horror wash over her body; she can’t move. She tries to cry out, but all she can produce is a gasp. Mom languidly rises from her chair; her movements are stiff and unnatural, as if someone crushed every single bone in her body and randomly glued them back together. Jessica tries to take a step backward, but the soles of her feet remain firmly on the floor. She has been fixed in place.
“Look in the mirror,” Mom whispers, and takes a step toward her, hands extended, fingers hooked like a vulture’s claws, ready to sink into her hair.
And then Jessica feels like she’s falling. Her fingers are gripping the blanket, and the sofa’s upholstery is wet with sweat.
The living room is dark; the timer has turned off the television. The time on the cable box reads three thirty a.m. The wind is howling outside, setting the windows creaking.