Dorothy

                                                       DOROTHY

She came to me in my dream. At least I thought it was a dream, considering that I haven’t slept for two days.

I thought it was strange that I was standing in the middle of a car repair shop, a shop that I didn’t recognized. I glanced around looking for sign stating the name of the shop or at least tell me where I was at, but there was nothing.

Leaning up against an old blue Buick Century was a woman that I did not recognized. Even though she was dressed in pair of dirty denim coveralls that mechanics usually wore, she still looked out of place.

“Who are you?” I asked. I slowly walked towards her as she waved her milky white hand for me to come. I was awestruck by her beauty. Her creamy white skin was flawless and her long brown hair flowing over her shoulders, reminding me of a model. But her most prominent feature were her lips. They were the brightest red lips that I had ever seen. They were her natural lips, not the caked with red lipstick.

I asked again, “Who are you and why am I here?” I gave her a peculiar look when she smiled at me. Right away I felt stupid for asking her name when it was there in plain sight over her left breast. A white name tag with DOROTHY embroidered in red.

“I’m Dorothy.” She says. I was shocked at the sound of her voice. It was sweet and melodic, reminding me of a group of children singing in a church choir. Anytime I would hear a children’s choir it would always give me goose bumps, just like it did now.

“Where am I?” I glanced around the dirty shop, again looking for a clue to where I was.

She ignored my question. “You are troubled.” She sounded apologetic. I thought that was odd. Why would she be sympathetic with me? She doesn’t know me nor I her.

“Uhhh…what are you talking about?” I couldn’t help staring at her bright red lips. They were beautiful and perfect. Flawless. Everything about this woman was flawless, from the strands of her thick dark hair to the tip of her perfectly manicured fingers. Wait a minute! What mechanic has perfect nails? Aren’t they usually grimy and caked with grease and dirt?

“You are restless my child. You are worried about your Mother.” My heart sunk to the pit of my stomach when she mentioned my Mother. My eyes became murky as I tried to look her in the eyes.

“Do you…er’ did you know my…m..mother?” I stammered. I still couldn’t say her name without getting a lump at the size of a golf ball in my throat.

“Yes, I knew her. She was a wonderful woman. I was with her til the day she died.” Her voice was soft, soothing as she looked at me with her dark brown eyes. I cocked my head to the side, curious. I didn’t remember seeing her at the hospital on the day that my mother died. The day that she became free from the pain that rheumatoid arthritis had done to her poor weak body.

“Were you one of her nurses?”

She laughed sweetly, “You could say that.”

“Dear child, she doesn’t want you worrying about her anymore. She is at peace and she wants you to be too.” She reached her milky white hands out for me to touch but I kept them deep inside my pockets. My legs began to shake and the tears began to fall.

“I can’t. Not when I could have done more. Not when I could have helped her take away her pain.” I began sobbing as I remembered her lying in her bed sleeping with her forehead wrinkled in pain. “She never complained about her pain. In all these years when the arthritis was slowly destroying her organs and her joints, she never once told me how much pain she was really in.”

“Oh dear child, mothers are like that. They don’t want their children to see or know their agonies.” She took a step towards me, still holding her hands out. I could feel my clenched hands loosening inside my pockets as I debated whether to take them out.

“Did you know how much pain she was in?” My lips trembled as I asked her this question.

“Hmmm…let me see.” She pondered for a moment, then turned her dark eyes on me. “Okay…have you ever ridden a bike up a steep hill, a hill that seemed to go on for miles?” She asked. I shook my head understandably. I was an avid bike rider.

“Well, you know the feeling of how every muscle in your arms and legs and body ache when you are pushing and struggling to reach the top of the hill. That pulling, aching and burning feeling?” I shook my head slowly, understanding exactly what she meant. Tears began to fill my eyes quickly, trickling down my cheeks and onto my shirt.

“This is how your Mother felt 24/7.” Without giving it a second thought I ran to her as she embraced me with her warm loving arms. Suddenly I felt peaceful and at ease and very tired.

I woke up with the sun shining brightly through my bedroom window. When I sat up in the bed, I noticed my shirt was soaked and something black smudged near my left breast pocket.