Lullaby and Goodnight

Lullaby and Goodnight

It was an oppressively hot and humid late summer afternoon in August. Our third-floor apartment was over 100 degrees. I sat in my underwear, a sleeveless undershirt and flowered panties. My hair was pulled up in a ponytail. Sweat trickled from my brow down the sides of my face and the back of my neck. The heat was miserable, but worse was having to sit there with my mother in her underwear. Her Playtex Living Bra was more than a ten-year-old wanted to see. 

The air was stagnant, no breeze from the open windows, just the relentless clanging, hammering, and pounding from the machinery in the factory directly across the street. I could see the factory workers hanging out by the windows. I thought if I can see them, they can probably see us. We sat in the living room waiting for the thunderstorm the weatherman had predicted.

As promised, the ominous clouds moved in. The sky darkened. The light outside turned a yellowish green. I could hear a distant rumble as the storm began making its way toward us. It began with a pitter patter, then the plop, plop, plop of much larger drops. The wind whipped through the window sending the Venetian blinds and curtains billowing into the room along with drops of rain. My mother rushed to close the windows. 

“Go into the kitchen and close the window,” she shouted. 

I ran down the hall into the kitchen and tried to pull down the only window. The ropes always got hung up on the pulleys, and the weights in the sash banged as I tugged on the frame. Down it came with a bang, startling me. Streak lightning lit up the sky. From the third-floor window I could see the willow tree branches thrashing wildly in the backyard, leaves swirling through the air. I had a feeling that something fantastical was about to happen. I hurried back down the hallway and sat in the living room and waited. 

The storm’s energy was building. Lightning lit up the room. The rumbles became loud cracks. The wind howled around the windows and the rain came down so hard I couldn’t see the men across the street anymore. 

Suddenly there was a loud, crashing boom that made my head spin around towards the kitchen down the hall. A glowing ball of white light about the size of a basketball floated gracefully down the hallway toward the living room, suspended in the air like a bubble. It was bright and translucent, like someone had turned on a giant light bulb. The light drifted from the kitchen, illuminating the walls with a celestial glow, as it entered the living room where my mother and I sat opposite each other, she on the sofa, frozen in fear, I in the matching easy chair, frozen in awe.

Slowly the ball made its way around the room, rotating slightly and gently bouncing as it hovered about four feet off the ground. The air in the room seemed to vibrate. I felt a tingling sensation all over my body, especially on my scalp, as if tiny sparks were dancing on my head. A metallic taste filled my mouth and an acrid smell irritated my nose. I could hear a buzzing sound echoing inside my head. My heart pounded. I felt dizzy. My eyes followed the shimmering orb inch by inch as it seemed to ride on an unseen current of air. I turned my head and watched as the otherworldly ball slowly made its way back down the hall and disappeared.

And then it was over. The buzzing stopped; my body began to relax. The whole experience lasted less than a minute. My mother and I just sat there, stunned.

“What was that? Did we get hit by lightning?” I asked.

“Are you okay?” My mother came over and checked me out. We were both okay. There was no damage to the room. No evidence that anything had happened.

“It must have been a lightning strike,” she assured me and herself.

I went to bed that night thinking about the ball of light. I had watched it float back down the hallway towards the kitchen, but then it had just vanished, as if it had never existed. I wondered, where did it go? I was certain it was still in the house. It had come to visit. I couldn’t shake the feeling that it had come for a reason.

I wondered if I would see it again.

I lay in bed, my eyes wide open unable to shake the uneasy feeling that something was still in the house. The light from the street filtered through the Venetian blinds creating shadow monsters on the walls and ceiling that shifted with every breath. My stuffies were all lined up on a shelf, their glinting eyes watching me as if they were aware of my apprehension. It was still very hot. I had only a thin sheet to protect me from any ghosts or monsters. The window was open allowing a gentle, albeit warm breeze, to flutter the sheer white curtains and to rattle the metal blinds. I listened. I could hear a soft, tinkling sound, like from a music box, wafting in from the kitchen. I strained to hear more. 

There was a cubby hole in the kitchen that provided storage under the eaves, a small space where shadows seemed to gather. I was convinced it was haunted. A sliding latch kept the door to the space securely closed. There were no windows and no light in the space. You needed a flashlight to see inside and even then the narrow, low space felt confining. It was so low that even I had to bend over to walk in. My mother stored our Christmas decorations, toys I had outgrown, and other forgotten things we no longer used in that space. Every time she opened the door, I feared all sorts of creepy things would find their way out into our apartment.

I sat up, put my feet on the floor and very slowly walked down the hallway towards the kitchen, listening. I scanned the room. The sink, the stove, the refrigerator all seemed to be standing guard in the hazy darkness. The clock on the wall told me it was sometime after 1:00 am. My eyes moved to the cubby hole door. It was slightly open. A line of light seeped out around the door. Curiosity pulled me closer. I could hear the sound. I recognized the tune.

I wasn’t afraid. I was curious. The ball of light had not hurt me earlier. I trusted it would not now. I slowly opened the door, peeking around it as I opened it wider. The blinding light lit up the kitchen. My body began to tingle, the metallic taste in my mouth and the buzzing in my head were back. 

The brilliant glow flickered and gradually faded enough so I could see inside. There, on my old rocking chair, sat the ball of light, rocking back and forth. The music box, nestled on the bottom of the chair, played Lullaby and Goodnight. 

I knew right away who was rocking in my chair. 

Donna Lee was born fifteen months after me. She came into this world too soon and had lived for one day. Each year my mother and I made the pilgrimage to her grave on her birthday, honoring her brief life. We went yesterday, as we always did and brought a bouquet of pink roses.

As I stood by her gravestone, I thought about the sister I had but didn’t have. I imagined what she might have been like. As an only child, I felt a deep sense of longing for a companion, someone to confide in and share my life with. I envisioned us playing Barbies for hours, roller skating on the neighborhood sidewalks, racing our bikes down the street, doing all the things sisters do together.

I stared at the ball of light, mesmerized, as a face slowly began to emerge from its glow. The features were indistinct, yet somehow familiar. There she was. My sister.  

A warmth I had never experienced before spread throughout my body. I felt tears prick at the corner of my eyes as I stood there, captivated by her ethereal presence. It was as if she was telling me that even in her physical absence we shared a bond. 

And then she spoke.

“I never left.”

Time seemed to stand still.

The rocking chair slowed to a stop. The music box played its final notes and fell silent.