She was polishing the crystal when she forgot to take her pills. Or at least that was the time she would later report to the police, doctors and lawyers. It was the moment in her day that seemed like the most appropriate time to have forgotten such a thing.
As she searched the fragmented globes of a chandelier that did not belong to her with a flannel rag cut from one of her mother's old nightgowns, Melody said she felt her thoughts slip out the back of her head like rats through a cellar door. She saw them dance along with the dust particles she had liberated and squeeze through the surface of the crystal, where they were then reborn on the yellow dining room wallpaper as a thousand magnificent rainbows.
Light and unburdened in her newfound emptiness, she didn't feel guilty when she halted her labor to admire these by-products of herself as they tentatively circled around the picture frame of a dead Smith family patriarch. By the time the din of the television had snatched her out of her reverie, the all-important reminder had vanished forever under the shadow of a passing cumulous cloud.
Melody followed the voice of what sounded like a woman praying to the dark adjacent living room. There she came upon an old woman glowing in the neon light of a mid-morning religious program. With her body entirely cocooned in the folds of a cashmere blanket, the woman's naked white head seemed to sprout from the red velvet trunk of the armchair like an old, withered twig. It fluttered with indignation upon the sight of Melody in the doorway.
"You forgot my toast and juice again!"
Melody turned to go to the kitchen, but a pale thin branch shot out from beneath the blanket to beckon her back.
"Could you open the shades a bit first?"
Melody obediently ventured over to the other side of the room. Much later, in the small confines of a therapist's office, she told me with tears in her eyes how frighteningly big the room seemed to her. It took near an eternity to journey from the door to the window; the woman's steel blue eyes monitored her the whole way. In the darkness she tripped over a bear-clawed ottoman and tumbled to the hardwood floor, scattering a week's worth of newspapers from the coffee table that broke her fall. Reaching out to get her bearings, she crashed the lower dusty keys of the as yet untouched piano, letting out a loud, dissonant drone that momentarily drowned out the loop of Hail Marys coming from the television.
"Life has a nice habit of reminding you when you've been irresponsible," quipped the old woman.
But Melody was too distracted by the television to register the insult. Onscreen a slackjawed figure wearing an eyepatch rocked back and forth, mumbling and gesturing wildly with a set of rosary beads.
It was horrifying.
"Oh, my Lord, is she ok?" gasped Melody.
"No, Mother Magdalena's not long for this world. Had a stroke a few weeks ago. But, bless her heart, she's been doing the show every day since she left the hospital. Don't you remember?"
"Remember..."
"That I watch the Eternity Network every morning! One of these days I'm going to call Ira and tell him that you never remember anything. He won't be happy with you when he gets home. How about opening the shades already?"
Melody was later at pains to describe to me the transformative effect the shades had on her. She went on and on about the thick, lush texture and the hypnotic purple and yellow paisley design. As I patiently waited for her to finish her frenzied description, I wished I had studied more Freud while I was a Ph.D. candidate. All those courses in behaviorism did absolutely nothing to help me make sense of this stark raving mad housewife's preoccupation with home decor. I merely indulged her until she got to the point.
Melody began to remember when she got to the window. She said that the cold touch of the glass curdled the blood in her fingers and turned her heart to ice. It was the strongest sensation she had felt in months. (Of course, these are all her words, not mine. I'm aware that this is a case study and not a Harlequin novel.)
Standing at the window on that February day made her remember the times she used to gaze out the window on the farm where she grew up. Sometimes she would see a hesitant coyote creep out of the woods and saunter towards the chicken coop. She would yell for her father and he would get his gun. As she got older, he would let her get it herself. She never shot an animal, but she enjoyed firing it into the air, scaring away the coyotes and any other intruders. She enjoyed the sound of the most powerful thing in her world.
On this particular day on her suburban street, though, it was not a coyote, but a woman pushing a stroller by her home. She watched the hooded figure trudge through the snow. The weather conditions were treacherous; it had snowed several inches overnight and a morning shower of freezing rain had crusted over the yet-to-be-shoveled snow. Melody feared that something would happen to the woman and the mysterious bundle in the large, black pram.
She didn't want to leave the dry comfort of the living room to go out and help the woman should she slip on the icy sidewalk. She wasn't in the mood to deal with an injured baby.
Nothing happened.
Or, rather, the unexpected did. The woman successfully maneuvered the stroller over the icy snow, past Melody's house and all the way around the cul-de-sac.
Melody watched, breathlessly, until she saw the two figures disappear behind the hemlock tree on the corner.
It was then that Melody remembered who and where she was. It was then that she decided to do what she did next.
