When we stay in hotels, my mother has a hard time falling asleep in the silence. She needs something on in the background so she likes to keep the television on. Shea can deal with the television, but she can’t have anything on with a story or she’ll pay too much attention to it and never fall asleep.
After some discussion, they compromise by putting on the Home Shopping Network. It’s just past midnight, and the host, a dark-haired woman in a red pantsuit, is announcing the special deal of the day—a delicate diamond and sapphire ring for four easy payments of $71.55. A running tally appears in the bottom left corner of the screen, recording the number of rings sold. It ticks rapidly, dozens of people from all over the country phoning in to buy jewelry at midnight.
My mother and Shea are both turned away from me, the light of the TV screen bouncing off them as they sleep under a white blanket. I can see the shapes of their bodies, mounds of snow glowing in artificial moonlight. Clarisse is already asleep, her hair tangled and still smelling of chlorine. When I came out of the shower, Clarisse was already snuggled in our bed, the blue fuzzy blanket she brought from home pulled up to her chin.
I hate being the last one to fall sleep in any kind of group sleeping situation so that’s exactly what always happens to me. Shea would call it a self-fulfilling prophecy, but that’s sounds so mystical. It’s just that I try too hard to fall asleep first, and then my mind stages a revolt and does the opposite. You know that saying, The heart wants what it wants? Well, in this case, the brain wants what it wants, and in this case, my brain doesn’t want to fall asleep.
There are too many things to think about. What will I feel when I see the house where my father grew up? What will his bedroom look like? Did Ella keep it in original condition, a shrine to his childhood? Or was it turned into a home office, a den, an exercise room, or a guest bedroom? Will it have a distinct smell? Smell is most closely connected to memory for me. I might smell Ella’s house and it will lock into my body somehow. Will I be trapped in the scent of her house, my life reduced to a constant search for the smell?
Like the small bottle of perfume that my mother wears only on special occasions when she has to get dressed up, like weddings or holiday parties. She never wears too much to make it overpowering, just dabs a touch between her breasts before she gets dressed. When I was younger, I would sit on her bed and watch her get ready for these occasions, and I thought she looked so glamorous—in black pantyhose and heels and a bra, but nothing else.
When she opened the perfume bottle, the room took on the scent of musk and amber. As I got older, I stopped watching her get ready because my body started looking more like hers, more like a woman, and the act took on more of a voyeuristic quality. But still, to this day, when I smell a hint of that perfume, those subtle, warm notes, it takes me back to being a little girl and sitting on my mother’s bed. You can’t control it, the way scent connects to memories, to moments in time. You can’t break the association no matter how hard you try.
I look over at Clarisse, damp spots on her pillow from her swimming pool hair, her chest moving gently as she breathes—up, up, up, then down. I sync my breathing with hers, and I close my eyes. I focus on the Home Shopping host’s voice as she talks about diamonds—the cut, the color, the clarity—ways to measure what is precious in this world.