The Woman in the Windowsill

~~~

I wake up and realize quickly that I’m back in Camila’s house again. The same comforting home smell fills my nose as I throw the covers aside and get up off the twin bed. However the room isn’t filled with sunlight this time. It’s a different time of day this time, likely mid afternoon.

“I’m back”, I tell myself as I generate a blue sweater and tan slacks for myself to wear.

I head down the stairs past the paintings in the hallway and rush to look for Camilia by the observation window in the living room. She’s not here this time. I begin to wonder if she’s even here at all. I decide to look for her in the kitchen on the other side of the house but she’s still absent.

I begin to hear a faint rhythm of a song being sung out by the garden. I exit through the back door and follow Camila’s voice in the backyard. The plants are all different now, different breeds of flowers and there’s been some rearranging of the setup of the garden. I continue to follow the sound of her singing as it grows louder as I near.

Then I find her. She’s on her knees facing away with me shoveling out some dirt as she transplants a potted plant into her garden. She’s wearing a sundress coupled with a sunhat, appropriate apparel for a gardener.

“Need some help”, I call out.

Her singing stops and she freezes. She puts the shovel down and turns around to face me. Some of her face is covered by her sunhat but I can still barely see her hazel eyes staring back at me.

“Brett? You’re back?”

“I guess so”, I reply.

She looks at me coldly.

“What’s wrong? You aren’t happy?”

“Why’d you decide to come back?”

“Are you okay?”

“You’re just going to leave again, like you did last year”, she says.

“What do you mean? A year? When we made spaghetti and you showed me around the neighborhood? That was a week ago.”

“It’s been a year for me. Well eleven months.”

“I had no idea”, I admit. “I knew time was distorted here but I didn’t know it was that unpredictable.”

Camila turns her back to me and continues gardening.

“Camila”. I walk around to the side she’s facing. “I had no idea”.

“You’re just going to leave again”, she accuses.

“I think I know how it works now. I think it has something to do with the bracelet. When I wear it to bed, I wake up here. But I don’t get any rest when I come here, not in the real world at least.”

She scowls at me. “The real world?”

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

She throws her hat away in frustration. “See, am I not real to you Brett? I’m still me. I’m just stuck here, but you can still go in and out. You’ll just leave again.”

“I know how it works now”, I repeat. “I’ll come visit you every night when I go to sleep”.

She stands up and looks at me. “I missed you”, she admits.

“I missed you”, I tell her. We give each other a hug. Her hug is much tighter than mine. To me, it’s only been a few days. To her, I’ve been gone a year.

“Let me help you get these guys in the ground”. I take a knee and we both get working on transplanting the plants.

We do some catching up at this point. It’s such an odd feeling. Our worlds are distorted by time, and again Camila feels the need to warm up to me again. It’s frustrating but I decide to be patient, there’s nothing else I can do. She tells me about her changes to the garden, but ultimately there isn’t much more to tell. I begin to pity her as there really hasn’t been anything fresh and new in her life the past eleven months, aside from my unannounced visit today. I try my best to keep her laughing.

“I missed your singing”, I tell her.

“I don’t sing much anymore. I just decided to again today. There’s nobody else to hear it, as you can see.” She comically looks around. “But you’re here to hear it today.”

I smile. Today. The word echoes in my head.

“I see you’re wearing my bracelet. How’d you get it?”

“Your mother, actually.”

“Mom? Do you two still keep in touch? How long again has it been that I’ve been gone again? You know back in your world. Back home?”

“Ten months as of two days ago. You haven’t even been gone a year yet. And yeah, I went to visit her a few weeks ago. She’s doing great. She misses you. Rafe, I mean, your Dad, does too.”

“Are you two getting along now?”

“Rafe and I?” She nods. “Yeah, we have”, I lie. “Losing you sort of just brought us together. I guess it’s one positive thing to go along with your passing, if there is such a thing. I try and visit your folks as often as I can.”

“It’s too bad”, she says. I tilt my head in wonder. “I don’t even remember what they look like anymore. I can barely remember how they act. It’s one thing to not see someone for 10 years, but it’s another thing to have no contact at all. For some reason I just can’t picture them.”

I don’t know what to tell her at this point. It pains me to listen and not be able to fix her problem. I decide to change the subject. “I went to see a shrink this week about this.”

“About you being here?”

“Yeah, he told me it’s just a dream. That this will all pass. I don’t believe him. I think this is something real. Unnatural, but amazing.” I draw our attention to the rhinestone bracelet. “For some strange reason, when I wear this guy to bed I wake up here. What’s the story behind it?”

Camila gives a half smile as she removes a tomato plant from it’s pot. “Middle school was rough for me. A lot of the other girls didn’t like me.”

“I know”, I tell her. I’ve heard about it a million times.

“I keep forgetting it’s only been a few months for you since we lost each other. I forget what you know about me. I forget what I know about you. Anyway I’m getting sidetracked.” She plops the tomato plant into the ground and begins to pat away at it. I join in to help her out. “My art teacher showed us how to make them. She came up to me after class and told me whenever things weren’t going right, to just look upon the bracelet. It’ll bring you happiness she told me. One day, you’ll look at it as a key to happiness. I wanted to give it to our child eventually. I was going to tell her the same thing.”

“It’s kind of like a key for me to come here and see you.”

“Our child was never born?”, she asks.

I have a hard time letting the words out. “They tried to save her. But she passed too”. Camila’s hands become sluggish as she molds the plant into the dirt.

“It was a she?”

“Yeah.”

“I can’t even remember why I didn’t want to know the gender. Why would I ever do that?”, she scoffs.

“It was a special time. We wanted one last surprise you know? I only found out because the doctor told me after the operation failed.”

“There’s so much I’ve forgotten in this place”, she says as a teardrop runs down her cheek. I’m quick to wipe it away. “How can you go on?”

“It’s been tough. Seeing you when I go to sleep doesn’t help with the process. But if this can be a regular thing, it could be another chance for us. Like if it were written in the stars.”

“Written in the stars?”, she asks.

“Yeah. It’s supposed to mean being perfect for someone. But not just that, being perfect for someone at the right time. You like the sound of it?”

“Yes, I do. I’ll put it into one of my songs.”

I smile at her, but she doesn’t return mine.

“Brett”, she begins. I nod. “I don’t want you to have to live your life with some dream woman forever. It’s not fair to you. You should find a woman, back in… in the real world. Someone to make you happy. I can’t do that.”

“Yes you can”, I tell her. “You’ve been doing it right now. You make me happier than anyone I’ve ever met. I thank God every day for these dreams I have with you, if that’s what we can call them.”

This brings out her smile. “You haven’t changed”, she says.

“I need to tell you something.”

“Alright”, she says. “Go for it.”

“I’ve been seeing someone. Back home.” I expect her to lash out at me. I expect her to hate me. But instead she looks content as she stares at me with her large brown eyes.

“What’s she like”, she asks.

“Her name is Jessica. David’s cousin. We went to school together when I was younger.”

“Is she nice?”

“Yeah, she’s very nice. She’s great”

“What would she think if she saw you here with me?”

“I don’t think we’d ever need to worry about that. And it doesn’t matter what she thinks.”

“I’m glad you found someone who makes you happy”, she musters. “You deserve it. You deserve someone who you’re written in the stars for. The timing just didn’t line up between you and I.”

I begin to run my hands through her hair and she brings her hand up to mine. “You are written in the stars for me. I’m going to leave her. I have you again.”

Her eyes light up. “But how could this ever work?”

“We’ll make it work. I’m going to come visit you every chance I get. I know the flow of time is different for the two of us but if I visit every night in the real world you’ll only need to go about a week or two at a time without seeing me. I know it isn’t the perfect plan but it’s a start. We’ll find a groove!”

“You really think this could work?”. She begins to get excited. Her eyes light up with joy, and my heart pounds with excitement.

“Camila, I love you. This is going to work.”

“I love you too.”