As I walked into the cabin up on the Missouri mountain that first time, my ears still buzzing from the shock of learning about Ramona, the very first thing I laid eyes on was a purple cigarette case lying on the rustic wood coffee table. I took in the wood paneled walls, the striped earthtone olefin sofa set and briefly noticed the scent of the place. Musty, stale smoke, some kind of sour whiskey or beer... but my eyes kept going back to that cigarette case. I hadn't seen that case in a few years but I recognized it immediately. It was Ramona's case. I had this hysterical thought that they were wrong, they had to be wrong! Ramona was obviously just in the other room... there was her cigarette case right there on the coffee table after all. Oh and look here is her purse on the floor beside the couch.
I got up and wandered around a bit. Not my house but it didn't seem to matter. Ramona's mom, Nan and her cousin I had never met; CJ and... Ashley! Oh my god little Ashley... with those big round eyes just like her mother...were there too, they were talking, everyone seemed excited and lost all at the same time and I just couldn't focus on them no matter how hard I tried. The house was small. Only 2 bedrooms. It was furnished like it had always been there. The furnishings and decorations placed by some elders in the family years ago and left to be attended by whomever happened to currently possess the house. But there... and there. A cigarette case, a purse, a calendar on the wall. A doll on the floor of the bedroom, a sweater... my god that was my sweater! I had forgotten she had taken it so long ago. Notes scrawled and stuck to the refrigerator under a magnet. Little pieces of Ramona all around me. Somehow I knew they were her things even if I hadn't seen them in years or ever before. I could feel Ramona in every room. They weren't her rooms she had only been there what a month? Two? But she was there now big as life just the same. Any second she would walk through the door and laugh at all of us being so silly; crying and carrying on.
I sat on the couch and tried to focus on Ashley. Six years old, an orphan so young! My mind drifted again to a letter Ramona had written to me just a few years ago. Ashley must have been a baby then. She reminded me of her health. She had become a diabetic so young, at the cusp of her years of teen angst. She rebelled against her disease as hard as any teen ever did against parental rule. She had smoked cigarettes and weed and popped pills, drank and partied like she was fulfilling her destiny to die. They had told her she would not live to see 21 years old. But she was 21 when Ashley was born. The years of self abuse had taken their toll but there she was pregnant and hopeful for the future. She had written to me and begged me to take Ashley if she should die.
We were kids, she and I; 19 and 21 years old. What did we know about wills, lawyers and custody agreements? Yet there was Ashley before me. An orphan.
Reflecting on the events of the day, I thought about how crazy that I should be sitting here at all right now. That Ramona should be gone and I am here. We had planned the trip haphazardly as we usually did things. My marriage crumbling, Ramona had run from hers and was now hiding in the mountain cabin with her cousin.
We had spoken on the phone several times since she had left Orville. She kept telling me, "These people have MONEY!" She had told me all about impromptu helicopter flights to the gulf for shrimp, and obscene money spent on booze and barbecue and everything under the sun.
"They work in oil, you know, THAT'S where the money is," she had said.
Looking around it didn't seem like they had money. Land yes, they had land. The cabin sat on I don't even know how many hundred acres. She had wanted to buy me a plane ticket to visit; hash it all out. Somehow I was sure that my visit would result in my divorce.
I had rushed to the airport in Hartford, Connecticut this morning; an hour drive from Groton where I lived with my husband, Aaron and three kids. unable to find my address book with the new phone number at the cabin. I wasn't able to call to verify our plans for several days before the trip. I was worried but ultimately I trusted her to know my flight information. She had bought the ticket afterall. In retrospect it seemed odd to me that she hadn't called me... but then I was under so much stress at home myself, and really Ramona was like that. How many times had we gone 6 months or more without talking at all only to have the phone ring at 3 am and there she'd be,
"Girl, I know you have a good margarita recipe, right?"
We never skipped a beat, every conversation left off was picked up months or years down the road as easy as if we were never apart.
When I had stepped off the plane into the terminal I was only slightly surprised not to see her at the gate. As I waited for my baggage at the carousel I wasn't really even concerned. I carried my bags to the payphone in the center of the airport and fussed around in my purse for a phone card or cash, I don't remember anymore in the end I think I just dialled collect.
When Aaron answered the phone I asked him if he'd finally found my address book. Ramona wasn't here.
"Are you sitting down?" He asked me ignoring my inquiry.
"Uh... no, Aaron I'm standing at a payphone in the middle of the airport," I retorted in annoyance.
Then came the back and forth... god he could be like a dog with a bone! Telling me over and over to sit down because he has bad news.,. I was becoming more and more irritated with him as a sneaking dread began to come over me and I was suddenly positive that he was going to tell me that my mother was dead
when suddenly I noticed that Nan... Ramona's mom? Nan was walking toward me.
"Why is Nan here? Nan lives in Arkansas, this is Missouri..." my thoughts were swirling as I vaguely heard Aaron finally say,
"Ramona passed away last night."
"What did you say? Why did you say that?" I was suddenly furious! If he had been standing in front of me I would have punched him right in the face.
Then I saw Ashley trailing behind Nan and I knew it was true.
I dropped the phone and we hugged each other so tight right in the middle of the airport and I was screaming and crying. I think she was too. Ashley clutched at our legs. All the years that she had felt like enemy mom, vanished and she was holding me up. My legs quivered under me and I don't know how I didn't fall. I don't remember how we got to the car. I don't know how we did it without losing my luggage. All I really remember now is the long drive in the backseat, with Ashley leaning over on my lap and then walking into the cabin and seeing that purple cigarette case.
That afternoon we drove back to Jacksonville, Arkansas to Nan's home and the place where Ramona and I had become friends in high school. I spent my two week vacation helping to plan my best friend's funeral. I was grateful to be there, if she hadn't bought me that ticket I wouldn't have been able to get there. That was in 1995. I miss Ramona. Everyday.
