White Rabbit Chapter 11

11.

            Delores woke up in a strange bed in warm cotton pajamas she had never worn before. Her dingy-white stuffed rabbit, Herman, was the only thing familiar to her in the room. He was lying in front of her staring oddly with small red button eyes, one dangling on a loose stitch. The room was lit as though midafternoon and Delores looked around frantically but could not yet move her body—the old familiar feeling of regaining consciousness after a seizure. Her mother was by the bed quietly reading a book about Catholicism and her father was standing at the foot of the bed with his chin in his hand breathing heavily, number dancing in his mind like old people in a ballroom. Long ago, he had mastered the curious ability to sleep while standing. The walls of the room were the color of cream soda and above Delores’ head hung a rosary and on the nightstand beside her there was a bronze-tinted lamp that sympathetically glowed as though at vigil. Beside the lamp there were a green box of tissues with a white plume and a framed photograph of Delores being baptized—seemingly put there in her defense while God deliberated.

            “What happened?” Delores asked groggily. She remembered the whale and very little else. “Where am I?”

            “You are home, dear…” her mother said awkwardly, rubbing her arm, adding like a dagger, “where you belong.” Her father looked agitated as though this whole scenario either cost him a great deal of money or time off work, or both. She had seen that look many times before.

            “Home? As in Maine?”

            “Maine?” her mother smiled. “Honey, we moved away, months ago.”

            “Months?” Delores repeated taken aback.

            “At least, let’s see, maybe three. Tim, how long has it been?”

            Her father thought upon it for a second and then answered evenly. “Well, it was August 22^nd, and it is now the 4^th of December, so, nearly four. Four months.” Her father said conclusively.

            “Four months!” Delores gasped. “But I was in the mouth of a whale and remember falling out on a green and gold ceramic tile floor!” Her parents looked at each other the way parents do unscrupulously like, befuddled, perhaps. “I was in the Torgan Sea being sent to Torga to be a slave. I was judged and it was my lot but the,” she paused, “the boatman!” Then she began to cry. “He saved me and—”  

            “No!” Her mother interrupted. “You had a terrible seizure, Lo. You mustn’t work yourself up over dreams. That is all fiddlesticks. Jesus saved you; not some boatman. It was only a dream!”

            “A dream?!” Delores repeated. “No, no, mother! It wasn’t a dream and I feel that I am missing a large piece of it. Please give me a pen and a notepad.”

            “What in Heavens for?” Her mother replied irritably.

            “I have to write this down so that I don’t forget.” Delores sat up Indian style in the bed.

Her mother countered staying put. “Lo, Honey, you need to relax.” Her father’s interest had peaked and subsided and with it he left the room.

            “I can’t relax mother! Four months of my life have elapsed and I remember clearly being somewhere else. What time is it?”

            “What?” Her mother was getting worried that Delores was insane. She had always worried that a seizure would strike her like a San Francisco earthquake, devastating her brain. And though the doctors assured her that they wouldn’t, she still believed it. There was always the possibility, she’d get them to admit, but it is highly unlikely. “Highly unlikely” meant nothing to her, whereas, “always the possibility” meant everything. Her mother looked at her watch. “It is 6:30.” she said calmly.

            “6:30!” Delores repeated. “Of course! 6:30! But it will not stay 6:30 here the way it stayed 6:30 there!” Delores sprang up and retrieved the pen and the notepad herself and scribbled it down. “No it will not! Not an hour from now will it be 6:30 any longer—not even a minute from now!”

            “What on Earth are you—”

            “Mother, it isn’t something logical or reasonable so you wouldn’t understand. I have to get dressed!” Delores hurried to the white dresser and opened the first few drawers. Everything was folded perfectly and they were no clothes that Delores even recognized. She tore through them in search of anything familiar. Her mother cringed and begged her to stop.

            “You have been so normal lately! So nice and good.” Her mother said. “You even admitted that you like it here and were hopeful—”

            “I said none of that! You’re a lying bitch!”

            “Delores Abigail Marlowe!” her mother scolded. She got up for a moment thinking of trying to stop Delores from getting dressed but she sat back down on the chair still feebly holding the book in her indecision.

            “I don’t even know where the fuck I am! Where we are! So how the hell can you say that I have gotten along nicely and that I have been good?!”

“Delores!” her mother objected.

“I know only what I told you! I was in the Torgan Sea rescued by a boatman and swallowed by a whale! That’s all. I certainly didn’t choose these clothes or fold them like this!”

“You certainly did!” her mother rallied.

“Where are we?” Delores demanded.

“Denmark.” her mother replied. “And you have school in the morning. Where are you going?” Delores finished getting dressed as her mother stood up and paced around the room. Her brain was hemorrhaging responsibilities, rifling through a playbook indecisively. Delores was wearing a baggy pair of gray trousers and a gray hooded sweatshirt. She dug some black furry boots out of a closet which she messed up as well. Delores had never been tidy so the fact that her room was so orderly made it even more foreign to her.  “Oh, Lo! You are not going out like that are you?”

“Mother!” She scoffed. “Would you prefer that I dress like a whore?”

“Lo! I would prefer you dress like a lady.”

“What is a lady, mother?” She philosophized as she pulled the earflaps of a flannel stocking cap down over her head. She tucked her hair back into the cap and dug out a pair of mittens and frowned at her mother who stood in the defense of silence by the bed already made. Her mother had no answer to offer—none that she knew that Delores wouldn’t shoot down like a clay pigeon. Behind her mother was the rosary and beside her, the tissue box paired with that pathetic picture of a wet and crying baby Delores. Even at one, she wasn’t so naïve as not to protest.

“Where are you going?” her mother demanded. She had again found her resolve. “Are you going to see Eric?”

“Who is Eric?!” Delores snapped.

“Your boyfriend of two months. He is an American, too. His father works for your father and I think it would be nice of you to call him and—”

“Fuck Eric!”

“Delores! I will not have you talk like that in this house!”

“Well, fuck this house!” She replied. “What time is it?” she insisted.

Her mother exhaled heavily and put her hand on her forehead as though she could take no more or were about to faint. “6:36.” She answered pathetically. “Where are you going?” she again demanded though she was in no position to make demands of the insolent far-gone girl.

“To see a whale and find out how it is that I really ended up here!” And with that, Delores stormed out of the room and the house and into a snowy evening in Copenhagen.