Madeline

Anna Brighams fiddled with her pencil before setting it down again. Paper to pen, and back down again. Admittedly, it was very old-fashioned to have a pencil. After all, this was the fast-paced technological year of 2039. People laughed at her as they wrote books with their own voice-boards (you speak and it types it out for you), but Anna just couldn't break out of her old habits. And maybe a part of her, the piece that can grow and learn and truly live, died back there in 2009.

She glanced at the picture on her desk and sighed. Loose pieces of her greying hair fell into her face as she leaned over the picture frame and stared at its unmoving image.

Madeline Allison Brighams. It wasn't an accident that could've been prevented; it wasn't a tragedy that could have been stopped. It was none other than Swine Flu, the H1N1 virus. It had seemed so far away - Mexico, California... Illinois was so distant.... couldn't possibly have been affected. As she aged, Anna wanted to write them all down before she went crazy.

She rolled her cracked lips inward an tried to write again, but she couldn't. The frustration of it all was maddening. She remembered Maddy so clearly, but she couldn't even write a small memoir for her lost daughter.

Born 2001. Anna scratched out the two short words on her paper and reached for her coffee mug when the phone rang. She jerked in her office chair and her hand bumped the mug. The smell of hazelnut and vanilla filled the room, and she inhaled deeply, allowing herself to escape to a calm, perfect world for just a moment.

"Answer," she told the phone. The small, almost tiny machine whirred and connected.

"Jenna?" she asked, wondering why her sister called.

"Hey Anna!" Jenna was cheery and sounded like she had a lot of time on her hands. Her voice dropped. "How's it coming along?"

"Oh, that..." Anna swallowed hard. She had been so optimistic last week when she had confided to her older sister that she was going to write a book about, and for, Madeline. How in the world could she tell Jenna now that she had barely written the first sentence? She spun her chair around, trying to think of words to say. The room was filled with lamps and sorts, but even light casts shadows. Anna would constantly look around and notice the dark, empty corners that even the brightest lamp couldn't light up. Sometimes, like this day, she would open the window and try to get the sunlight to brighten the room.

"Yes that."

Older sisters. Even at fifty-seven years, Anna still felt like she was under Jenna's critical gaze. The wind from the window beat the curtains against the wall, reminding her of little feet long gone.

"Anna? Anna? You there, little sis?"

"Still here."

"How far've you gotten?"

"Far have I... gotten?" Anna tried to push back her mixture of grief and frustration. "I can't even get a good description," she finally breathed out. "Why can't I? I know exactly what I want to write, but I can't." Her words tripped over each other as she spewed her troubles. She angrily shoved her pile of notebook paper away from her and watched some pages flutter to the carpet. They seemed oblivious to the state of the person who got them on the floor in the first place and lifted themselves lightly via the breeze coming from the open window. So light, so carefree. Forget it. Papers don't have feelings.

"An-na!!" Jenna sounded almost disappointed in her. "Relax."

Anna closed her eyes and saw Madeline there again. She had green eyes, unlike everyone else in the family, but blonde hair like her mom. Anna twirled her own now-graying hair and tried to see the details. Maddy was so young back then. Dang, thought Anna bitterly. I was too. She ignored her aching back and paid no thought to her sister on the phone.

"Mo-om!" Madeline scrunched up her face and looked amused to see her mother closing her eyes shut and trying to think back. Anna's eyes flipped open.The girl ran her fingers through her hair, looking expectantly at Anna. There was a soft white glow behind Maddy, but Anna didn't notice it.

Maddy was there. Maddy was there! In Anna's office, standing on the carpet, smiling.

Anna tried to talk, but she couldn't. Her voice cracked, but no words would leave her lips.

"Yeah?" the little girl grinned.

Anna drew a shaky breath as she stepped out of her office chair towards her daughter. "Thirty years," she finally croaked. She hadn't seen Madeline for thirty years since she had died in 2009. She sobbed and fell into Maddy, but she didn't come into contact with anything.

"No-" she began.

"I missed you." Gone was the giggling, carefree girl. Madeline was still a yard away, as if there was a distance between her and Anna that could never be closed up again.

"Good God, I missed you too," Anna gasped out. She stepped forward again, but the gap remained so... wide.... "Come on," she pleaded. Her sister on the phone, meanwhile, was yelling, "Who is that other person?! Anna? Anna!"


"I can't." Madeline didn't look sad, for some reason. She seemed almost content.

"Maddy," said Anna sharply. And then - this was what surprised her - she felt angry. "You will come here." The stern mother in her overtook the softer side and she looked at her daughter pointedly. "Come on," she repeated.

"No!" The word sounded harsh to Anna, but Madeline had barely murmured it. It left her lips like a lone breeze, and Anna could almost hear the unsaid no, not yet.

Anna breathed in, the air obediently entering then running out of her lungs just as quickly. What struck her was how mature Madeline looked. Maybe 11, 12-ish. She hated to admit it, but her Maddy had grown up without her.

"Where were you?"Anna asked.

Madeline looked out the window and almost looked like she wanted to go out and run in the backyard. "Sorry, you can't follow," she answered, smiling a little as a loose dog streaked past the window.

Anna's insides twisted, but her heart refused to understand.

"I have to stay here," Maddy continued. "I can't come back."

"Back where?" cried Anna, throwing her arms out. "I haven't seen you in thirty years and now you say that you can't even come over to me?"

Madeline fingered her hair and smiling, gesturing to the soft light behind her. That was when Anna noticed the light.

"What's that?" Anna asked, then regretted it. She knew what it was. And she knew exactly why her daughter couldn't stay. 

"I love you," Maddy whispered as she moved slowly towards the light and away from Anna. 



"ARE YOU STILL THERE?!"

Anna jerked around to glare at her phone. She turned back, and kept looking - and looking... but Madeline was gone.

"Yes, Jenna, still here." She assured her sister. Suddenly she smiled. "Just... thinking. Sorry."

"Who was that?" insisted Jenna, but Anna ignored her. Again.

The soft light was still there - it wasn't a vision. It was real. The shadowy foreboding darkness had fled, and the soft light seemed to fill any unlit area.

Something fluttered by the window. A large yellow butterfly flew in and danced around Anna's head. It couldn't have been anyone else. "Maddy?" she murmured. "I love you, too."

As the butterfly waltzed around, it stirred up the dust on long-forgotten picture frames. The dust rose, as if being awakened  and began to dance to the silent song of a hope.

Anna Brighams smiled, wiped away the spilled coffee, and began to write.

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1263 words.