chapter 4

FLASHBACK

RAMONA AGE 05

OPHELIA AGE 07

Our pace was slow, my heart was not. 

My heart was speeding like a gentle butterfly racing through the field of daisy flowers, trying to reach the nectar before her fellow buddies so they can, together, run through their  delicate tongues the pure sustenance  of the daisies that was much better than the regular food they got from the tree sap.

It felt good having my hand under the water, but having it curled up and embraced by its soft rhythmic motions, felt rather heavenly. 

This was a good day, I thought. We left Mom to guards our stuff back in the beach as she sun bathed her body. We were certain that Mom was avoiding coming with us, and that she was making guarding as an excuse because traveling at sea made her dizzy and very sick. 

Eyeing the fish underneath the blue pure water, I did not feel scared one bit of might getting bitten by one of them, because I had the world in my grip, I had the upper hand. That's what Papa would always tell me. 

Looking at them in challenge, I was trying to provoke  them with my gaze to try and get into my realm, to try and bite my hand, but they were weak, helpless and provoked. Just like they should be.

With my fingertips, I traced the yacht name that was craved on the surface of the wooden luxurious wooden boat. FREDRERICK O JAMES, it read. Father's name. Our name. It screamed power, pride, and wealth, that's what father would always say when we behaved as bad O James', he'd tell us that we smudged it with dirt and we needed to clean it right before he grounded us. Coming from the O James family had always made me feel lucky and precious, but also made me feel burdened and smothered. How ironic.

I looked up at Ophé who with her legs spread and pinned  was still sat on the slide that we helped father setting  up awhile ago. In the booklet they said it guaranteed and promised unforgettable and amazingly  good plunges, and for that Ophelia was very eager to try it. 

After begging and pleading to sit on it, and  be the first one to try it being the oldest and all, Papa let her sit atop it although we were still far from shore, and it was too deep for a person to swim- let alone a child of 7. However Papa insisted and ordered her  to hold on tight, to never loosen up her grip and not to jump until he told her so. Nonetheless, she'd every now and then ask , "Is it time,Papa?" And he would answer, " Not yet, sweetheart."

The sun was everywhere, and I hated my dark hair for burning like a god forsaken road in the blazing sun. Ophelia's hair unlike mine didn't seem to give her any trouble under the sunlight. As serene and calm as ever, but with joy in her deep blue eyes, my sister looked like a beautiful sirens atop that slide in her blue swimming suit, 

I wiped my head from her toward Father when I heard him cursing loudly in frustration, a water motorcycle had passed beside us leaving our yacht behind to soak in water. Father's phone was soaked and he was mad. I looked up to see if Ophé was alright, but she was nowhere to be seen.

Just when I was about to tell dad he found out by his own.Standing  paralyzed in one place, he seemed to be in a world so far, so untouchable. The horizon was so calm. Until Ophelia came out from underneath the water surface, and started taking breathless breaths before the sea drew her back to its heart once again. That was like a slap to Father, and without a second thought he jumped looking for her down under.

I was the weak, the helpless, and the provoked. Just Like I should be. And she was in their realm, their world where they had the upper hand.

After a few minutes and a couple of fail attempts, Father finally brought her back to the yacht,. To our realm, to safe zone. I stood there eyeing Ophelia as she pulled her lungs out, as she spilled big amount of water from the deep of her insides. Lifting  her head to meet my gaze, she gave me a small weak smile. At that very moment it hit me. all this time I was wearing the life jacket and I didn't even throw it to her. 

Bad, bad me.

I shook off the memory away, trying to forget how five year old me had to suffer for an ugly week without Ophelia who had to stay a week at the hospital. The sea water seemed to find comfort and joy in her lungs, and no matter what the doctors did it wouldn't be all brought out until it made sure it left her a gift for the nice hospitality before it went for good. A weak lungs. And although we never talked about it even after she got out of the hospital, I knew she knew that I could have saved her lungs, but didn't. And that ate on me everyday, that she was that nice even with shaken lungs ,she still had a vast heart that could forgive.

Moving my head from side to side in the large hallway, I made sure no one saw me as I tiptoed towards the kitchen. Opening the refrigerator, I brought out all the snacks; but feeling rather dizzy and not much in for a midnight snack, I returned them back to the lonely coldness then knelt down to get the kettle from the cabinet to brew some green tea, after all, I won't' be sleeping tonight with tea or without it.

Holding the mug of  the hot tea ever so carefully, I strived to make it back to my room without spilling the hot liquid on the expensive Persian rug carpet, or worse on myself.

There was a time back in the days when I was able to tolerate the heat, and rather relish its morbid touch. I would take hot baths that would have skinned a normal person, sit out on the summer sun for hours and even touch very hot surfaces without being pained, hurt or burnt. I used to love the fire and its twisted magical ways, but somehow one night I woke up with a start, and my body all burnt from a really queer and rather scary nightmare and everything was gone. 

That had confused me big deal that I even started questioning my sanity.

At some point, I thought that I have lost my mind and that having the ability to tolerate fire was but a mere product of my imagination, and if it were not for Ophelia I would be still thinking that and would have really accepted the fact that a part of my mind has gone to ruin, but she remembered me being tolerable to fire. 

But Ophelia's reassurance as always made what blurred my vision drift away. She always made it clearer for me, but I,on the other hand, have only made it worse for her from the very start, from infancy.

Glancing at the mug of the tea that had turned cold hours ago, the sun light had started to sneak in through the barred window. Boarding up the window open, I let the sun shower my room with its heat and light. 

Staring at the garden where Ophé had planted all kind of pretty flowers,  I could not help but feel bad for everything I have done to her.

As kids she would be always doing making productive things just for me to ruin them. She would be planting roses and flowers and I would step on them while I got chased by Max, my dog. However, she would always smile at me and say it was alright and that she wanted to plant new flowers anyway. She was always forgiving and nice, everything that I was not. Everything that I and this world both lacked.

It was years back, but the nightmares of that summer afternoon at the beach were still haunting her like an insufferable shadows in fits of coughs, and  although it was all my doing she never confronted me or said something bad about me.

Turning my head away from the open window, I started to move towards the bathroom.

We had a great laugh at the thought yesterday afternoon when Soleil came and we convinced her to make an ugly wedding dress, but deep down I knew that an ugly dress was not the solution to this dilemma. An ugly dress was not going to rescue her from the clutches of this man who could not find a wife himself. I needed to think of something big, to make a plan to get my sister out of this problem.

She didn't deserve such a destiny,  such a sister, such a cruelty from the divine. She didn't deserve to have a nature of a shy kitten, to have a stammer that made a fool out of her in front strangers and sure as hell she did not  deserve to be thrown into a planned marriage, to be moved as a pawn in a business deal just because she was unfortunate enough to be the oldest child.  

She deserved love, but the moment she found it she got robbed of it from her own Father and a beastly man.

Under any circumstances, I will not let dad and this man win. Ohpelia was going to marry no one but Ralph even if I had to do what I was going to do. 

 She deserved love, comfort, and all kind of kindness because she was a better person inside and out. But You deserve this, I pointed an accusing finger at my reflection in the the mirror. You deserve all kind of ugliness, for you were fated to worsen things not to soften them. And at the age of five you promised you'd do anything to make it up for her. It was about time you did what was right.

Opening the third drawer of the stand, I brought out a scissor as I looked deep at my reflection - was it normal not to recognize your own self?-  I looked at my long dark hair against my pale skin. It held within it secrets and lies that made me remember and never forget who am I and what I am to be. I couldn't, for the life of me, cut it. So, I just hid it under a wig.

I overheard- well I eavesdropped on the secretary and Father's conversation this morning. They mentioned something about an interview that was going to take place this afternoon about hiring new servants that were to work the whole night so everything could be perfect come morning of the wedding day. And that was enough information to enable me to shape and form the structure of my plan. Ophelia is not going to marry anyone, but Ralph.

I was in a public bathroom and making my self look like a male wasn't really as easy as I thought. My chubby rosy cheeks were not helping and that wasn't the first time I wished for a cheekbones. The wig didn't match the color of my eyebrows, it was raven black, five shades darker than my hair. I cursed under my breath, the wig, father's bruised pride, legacy, fortune, 
and that dickhead and his barbaric ways to get married. I bet he's hideous.

He was the one who’d taught us to dream big, to chase after them, and never let go of them even if they took me in the opposite direction from where he wanted me to go. Father had been the one person that had planted the seed of rebellion within us, I could not get why he was acting up.

But he was lying at our faces. All along.