Excerpt: Resurrection

“I think my father was a bear, and I think I killed him.” Those were the first words I heard from Rose Kleinfeld. She’d been talking to me for days, but I was too busy to pay attention. Busy listening to the rhythmic squeak of her rocking chair; busy stopping myself from telling her to be quiet, or worse, from walking away; most of all I was busy watching the trees cast their shadows over the headstones across the street.
That was where we met – at the cemetery. My brother’s funeral. It was the summer after I graduated from high school. He was only sixteen years. I didn’t know why Rose was there. I didn’t even know she was there until I felt a light touch on my shoulder. I turned, and through my hazy eyes saw her face. It was an old woman’s face, but even then I could see what used to be beauty. Her skin was so pale it was almost transluscent. Her eyes were watery and pale, but there was still a spark in their depths. “Come with me,” she said, “and have some sweet tea.”
I shook my head and shook her hand off my shoulder. But as I turned away I saw my mother’s glare. She thrust her head in Rose’s direction, and since I didn’t see any use in arguing, or in much of anything if truth be told, I followed the old lady across the street and onto her porch. I couldn’t tell you what she said that first day; all I know is I somehow found myself back there the next day, and the next, and the next, until I heard that her father was a bear and she’d killed him. You see, it was then that I realized we might have something in common. “What?” I asked, and tore my gaze away from the cemetery and onto her face.
“Ha,” she cackled. She had a surprisingly husky voice for a woman, much less a woman over one hundred years old, but sometimes when she laughed it sounded like a witch from a Disney movie. “I though that would get your attention.” I didn’t say anything, just waited to see if she’d been messing with me or not. “It’s true though,” she said, quietly now. “Do you want to hear about it?”
“Yes,” and I realized I did. For the first time since Paul died, I actually wanted something. I think it was only because I wanted to hear about someone else’s guilt, because I wanted the company, but I stopped thinking about my life and started paying attention to hers.
“I hadn’t talked with him in twenty years. Do you get along with your parents?”
I thought for a moment. The truth was, I didn’t. It wasn’t that we didn’t get along, we just avoided each other. But I was eighteen. This was normal. So, “Yeah, I guess,” I said. I didn’t tell her that my dad had barely spoken to me since the accident, and that I didn’t want him to, for fear of what he would say, or what I would see in his face. And my mom, well, she talked, and I talked, and then we each went our own ways, and the conversation disappeared as if it had never existed. But, yeah, we got along.
“Good. You should always get along with your family.”
I snorted then. “Yeah. Right.”
And I think she knew what I was saying, that I was thinking of Paul, and how my family had suddenly shrunk, because she reached out and almost touched my knee. I flinched it away though, without even thinking, and she brought her hand back to her lap. I noticed that her nails were painted a bright red, and was shocked how I could have missed that. But maybe she had just painted them today. They contrasted sharply with the loose flesh between her fingers and the brown splotches on the back of her palm.
“Anyway, I hadn’t talked to him in twenty years. And then, and I lived back on the old homestead then, this was, oh, sixty-five years ago, Jimmy was still alive, and we lived on the old homestead. You know where that is?”
I nodded. Everyone knew where the old Kleinfeld homestead was. We took field trips out there in elementary school to learn about Resurrection’s history, and every year the town celebrated its anniversary on the grounds. I’d never thought about anyone living there though, as it had been empty my entire life. There was no plumbing and no electricity. I tried to imagine Rose and her husband there, maybe with a baby on her hip, but all I could see were images cobbled together from movies and books. She wore a red kerchief around her hair as she heated water on the wood stove. Her husband wore overalls and chopped wood. I didn’t think that was what it had been like.
“Okay, so I hadn’t talked to him in twenty years. Don’t even know where he was. Anyway, a bear started coming round at night. Left big scratches on the chicken house. Got the door open one night, must have pounded on it until the latch slipped. Killed four chickens. Well, Jimmy was pissed, and I was too, because I loved those chickens like my baby. I had a little girl then too, did I tell you that?”
“No.” I wished she’d get to the point. The point where she kills her father.
“Janie. She’s dead now. Everyone’s dead now.”
I stood up then, because I couldn’t believe she was talking to me like that. “Yeah, well, what are you doing here then?” I asked her. I meant it too. I didn’t understand how she could still be alive if everyone around her, everyone she’d ever loved, was dead. I’d only lost one person, but already I felt like it was difficult to go on without him. I didn’t expect an answer though, so I was shocked when she threw her head back and laughed, harder than I’d ever heard anyone laugh before. She clicked her red nails on the arms of her chair as she laughed, a steady click click accompanying the wild mania of her laugh. Her eyes were shut tight, the fold of flesh that hung around the edges crinkled. Her mouth open wide, and I saw that her teeth were white, whiter than teeth should be, and I wondered if they were real. Her mouth though, looked like a black pit beyond those white teeth, and I felt like she could suck me inside with the strength of her laugh and the darkness of her mouth. All of a sudden Rose looked less like a once beautiful woman, and more like someone who has been to Hell and brought a little piece of it back with her. I turned and ran.