Richmond, GA
NONFICTION
by Erin Malanaphy
The room was slightly hazy as my mom stared, stunned, at my aunt Colleen and I, both sat cross-legged on the small twin-sized bed of her attic, as we passed a small bowl between us. It was my aunt’s; one of those small, brass hand pipes that held barely anything. My mom hated weed. Not the fact that people smoked it, just the smell of it. She knew it mollified my anxiety and it eased the pain my aunt felt from her treatments. Plus, my aunt just loved weed.
My mom hadn’t known about my habit until very recently, which would definitely explain the laughable expression painted across her face. I suppose mine probably wasn’t too far off from hers; I almost felt like the ghost of my seventeen-year-old self, too much eyeliner caked to my waterline and the musky weed scent that habitually clung to my skin masked by too much vanilla perfume. I couldn’t tell you when exactly my family turned into a group of potheads. All I know is that my grandfather would be rolling in his grave.
“God, that stuff stinks,” my mom joked as she grabbed a book from her giant black purse. It was the kind of purse that was just big enough to be a hassle to carry around, stuffed to the brim with necessities alongside many other things I couldn’t possibly imagine her needing while going about her day. I was definitely my mother’s daughter in that way.
It was the summer in the south and the heat was relentless. Sunlight shone down at us in the loft of Colleen’s house in Georgia, the sun basking us in midday glow. A large bay window above her desk allowed the warmth outside to seep in, coating my skin like honey and reflecting off the soft fuzz of my arms. The school year had just ended, and only a few days after coming home for the summer my mom and I had made the fifteen hour drive, split up between two days, down to Richmond. After we had settled in after our six hour trip this morning, my aunt had beckoned me up to the attic where we were staying.
“Stop being dramatic,” my aunt retorted as she struggled with the lighter. My mom and Colleen were the two youngest, with my mom being older by a few years, of four siblings that couldn’t be any more different if they tried. I never had the capacity to grasp it when I was younger, but the more years that went by, the more I gained a quiet admiration for the ways in which my mom and her siblings made such an effort to stay in the orbits of each others’ lives. They didn’t always agree, either, but they were there for each other at the end of the day regardless. They were all as headstrong as they were obstinately loyal. My mom and her brother didn’t speak anymore, but they still always say hello at Christmas Eve. It always struck me as a poignant kind of feeling, in the same way that you may not speak to a person anymore, but always think about them on their birthday.
My mom and Colleen playfully bickered as I exhaled, passing the bowl back to my aunt. I felt a sharp buzzing start by my leg and looked down quickly to see the call coming through. I stared at it momentarily as I felt my aunt’s eyes redirected towards me.
“Hon?”
The heat gripped me that summer, burning hot and feverish. I lived and died by the dog days that presented themselves, exhaling the sting of chlorine from my nose during the week and dozing off in the bed of my first love every spare moment I had.
“Hello?”
The heat consumed me, warming me by my feet but burning me by my chest. It was refreshing but it was heat exhaustion. It’s a daze that can only appear to me now in a sleepless dream; I may forget the heat exhaustion, but I’ll never forget the burning.
“Hey, kid.”
I’m pulled back now to my room, illuminated by the purple light of my lamp and staring despondently at the worried face of my aunt. It’s early November and she’s now made to fit in my phone screen, her glasses lighting up with the reflection of hers. Her hair is growing back salt-and-pepper and she subconsciously rubs her hand through it as she brings me back.
“Yeah,” I whisper meekly back, meeting her eyes. It all struck me as the exact sort of loneliness that you only recognize in someone else’s company.
“You know the pain won’t be there forever. It just wants you to think that it will be so that it can stay around a little longer,” my aunt says, her eyes glassy. She lived in a hot environment and was used to the heat exhaustion, although I wished more than anything that she didn’t have to be.
I don’t think I’ll ever forget the feeling of burning; all I can swear is that I’ll never have to feel heat exhaustion again.