The Long Road Home

 Nicole awoke to her own screams, shrieking at the very top of her lungs.  Her voice was distant to her as though she was in a cave.  Her throat burned with each wail from days of the same.  The dream awakened her at the same time every morning.  She lay in a puddle of sweat, the perspiration and tears soaking her eyelashes.  Her heart beat without any rhythm, just hurriedly.  It was like someone striking a key of a typewriter over and over as quickly as possible until the chime would ring announcing the margin had been reached.  Her whole body ached as though it had been running a race that it was not conditioned for.  It would only be a moment before her aunt would burst through the doors to make sure she was okay.  She began taking deep breaths to calm herself and wiped her face furiously.  She looked around the strange room that was to become her own and felt like a flower that had sprung up in a desert.  She was wilting in a foreign land, dying in a place where she was not supposed to be, where she could not breathe.
 The door swung open and her aunt stood there as a dark silhouette—an illumination surrounding her slender figure.  “You alright, sis?”
 “Yes, I’m sorry I woke you,” she said as she realized just how sore her throat was and how hoarse she sounded.  Nicole was hoping that her aunt would let her off the hook and just turn and leave.  However, to her dismay, just as the previous two nights, she walked into the room and sat on her bed.  Nicole swallowed hard and took in her figure.  Her Aunt Trudie looked to be a hundred years-old, but Nicole knew she was probably in her seventies.  Her face had deep-set wrinkles and the texture of leather.  She always smelled like coffee and Red Door even after a shower.  “I don’t mean to keep you up; you can go back to bed.”
 Trudie sighed heavily.  “Nicole, you’ve been here since Saturday and you ain’t told me a thing about what happened.  Now, I promised you that I’d keep them doctors away, but I can’t if you won’t act right.  You ain’t even left this room.”
 Nicole just looked at her.  Did she have no compassion?  Did she have no love for my mother that she supposedly raised?  Was she herself not grieving?  “I’m not ready,” Nicole said and she turned over to face the window away from her judgmental stares.
 “When the sun comes up, I’m callin’ in the calvary,” Trudie threatened.
 Worried, Nicole half-turned as the bed sprang-up slightly from Trudie arising.  “Calvary?”
 “Etta Mae McKenzie,” she said with a grin.
 “Is that a psychiatrist?” Nicole quivered.
 “Worse,” she said with a laugh as she slammed the door.  Nicole jumped at the sound and wondered to whom this woman was she referred to and how she could possibly be any worse than all the doctors she had to talk to for weeks before she came to this horrid place.  She lay there for around an hour or so until she fell into a very deep sleep.  It was dreamless and peaceful; the exhaustion had really taken its toll.  However, this piece of heaven came to an abrupt end when she was dashed with an entire pitcher of ice cold water.
 Nicole jumped out of her skin in shivers, screaming.  She looked around quickly and saw Trudie and another lady holding the pitcher—both were grinning.  The lady looked a little younger than her aunt; they were probably the same age, but she looked like she took better care of herself.  She had gray hair that was almost white around her face.  It was done up in a French twist.  She had green eyes and it was very possible she was really pretty in her prime.  That, however, did not matter to Nicole at the moment.  “Why did you do that?” she demanded in her most accusatory voice at this stranger.