The Reflection

The Reflection

“The reflection isn’t quite the same as I remember it,” Jean thought to herself as she passed the long, heavy antique mirror in the foyer.  She passed that same mirror hundreds of times a week, glancing quickly from her ash blond hair, to her hallow cheeks and taut lips, down to her heels, and still, she seemed surprised at the aging woman looking back.  “I must make a hair appointment after tea,” she said aloud for only her ears and the newly plucked blue orchids to hear.

Jean set out the china, made sure the curtains were folded back properly, and opened the windows a bit to shift the lovely smell of the new bouquets throughout the giant living room.  She loved to host afternoon tea for all of her girlfriends.  She loved to entertain period.  The huge mansion was too quiet when she was alone, which seemed to be all the time.  That is half the reason her mirror collection boomed into the incredible size it had become.  At least she was able to look back upon herself when she was alone.

With one final walk through of the kitchen and living room, Jean felt prepared.  In the half an hour she had before her guests arrived, Jean found herself staring into the round, handheld mirror she had hung on the wall.  She remembered when she hung it there, feeling quite creative, she thought hanging a handheld mirror would strike a design frenzy. Of course, between then and now she hadn’t even had one guest to the house. 

“The girls will just love what I’ve done with you, my little jewel,” she said sweetly to the mirror, and with that, the doorbell rang.  In walked five well-dressed, well-manicured women.  Immediately, the grand room was filled with as much clucking and cackling as you’d find on a farm.  “I haven’t seen you in so long,” and “I love what you’ve done with the place,” replaced the airy silence.

“Jean, is this a new mirror?”

            The women stood together, glaring at the wall of mirrors as if trying to solve an intricate math problem.  They looked dumbfounded at each other, and then back at the handheld mirror that hung upside down on top of the mahogany colored, striped wallpaper.

“Yes!  Don’t you just love the new handheld?  So forward thinking.  So Art Deco.  Don’t you think?”  Jean answered as she walked into the kitchen to get more snacks.

“More like coo-coo and Art Massacre,” one woman said to the others as they scoffed behind Jean’s back.  “Really, what is this woman thinking?  You would think she would have gotten the hint months ago since no one visits her anymore.  She has gotten so out of control.”

“You can say that again,” another woman chimed in.  “I’ve heard she talks to all of these mirrors as if they were her friends, her children even.  She really should have been transferred to the nursing home after Irving passed away.  That’s when she really lost it.  I mean, she wasn’t normal to begin with, but his death sent her over the edge.”

“It’s sad, really,” a third woman whispered.  “Someone should sit down and talk to her; tell her just how bad she’s gotten.  I know I would want someone to do that for me if I ever lose my sanity.  She doesn’t have any family, and her butler died years ago.  We can’t just keep coming over here once a month for tea and act like nothing is wrong.”

“What’s the matter?”  Jean’s voice cut through the whispers like a sharp knife piercing a fresh tomato.  “Is there a problem with the tea?”

The women seemed relieved that she hadn’t heard all of their mumbling.  “No, Jean, the tea is great!  Just how we like it.”  The women then took all their seats around the glass coffee table and chatted, superficially, for twenty more minutes until an overused excuse came up and they all had to leave.

“I really did enjoy your company,” Jean said from an open front door as the women descended the long, narrow walkway.  “We really must get together more often.”  But silence answered her as the ladies scurried away.

“I told you they would love you, my jewel!” Jean stroked the mirror slightly as she picked up the china and put away the snacks.  “So cute and clever you are!”

After everything was tidy, Jean took a seat on the chaise across from the handheld.  She gazed longingly at her collection.  It had become even more than a collection to her.  Each and every individual mirror had its place.  Each had its own attitude and spunk.  The collection had become Jean’s family.  With every look at each mirror, Jean could feel its personality.  She knew what the mirror was thinking.  She knew its story; where it had been.

“I know you don’t like to be next to all of the little ones,” Jean said to a medium sized, flower shaped mirror, as she stood and walked closer.  “But until you can reflect the light upon this wall, you will remain here with the small ones.  I’ve told you over and over again, only the grand mirrors that reflect the sunlight right where I want it get to hang by themselves.  I really don’t think I have to repeat it again.”

“And you,” she said as she straightened a square black mirror, “I really don’t appreciate how empty your reflections are.  This is a mansion after all.  Would it kill you to maybe show some of the flowers, or the birds outside the window, or even reflect my actual hair color?  I swear, you’re boring AND colorblind!  Not like my jewel,” she repeated as she returned to the handheld.  “Every time I look into her precious face, I see light.  My lips look full, my face young, my hair blonde.  Nothing interferes, the view is clear, in my jewel.”

Jean turned on a dime. 

“What did you say to me?” She began shouting at the door-sized mirror at the end of the hallway.  “Did I just hear you call me crazy?  You don’t even know me!” 

She rarely looked down the hall since her husband, Irving died.  She remembered the rain and the thunder storms as if it happened yesterday.  She was doing a little re-decorating with a handful of her mirrors while the storm banged at the windows and stomped at the doors.  Irving was in his study, at the end of the hall.  It was his nightly routine, after dinner, to go to his study for some puffs of a cigar and a swig of Brandy.  Normally it was quiet and Irving wouldn’t even have to shout if he had a request of his wife.  But amidst the terrible thunderstorm, that night Jean had some jazz playing in an attempt to hide the pounding of the rain.  Between Louis Armstrong and the violent thrashing of rain, Jean didn’t hear Irving when he yelled for her.  They said it was a heart attack, but Jean blamed the door-sized mirror at the end of the hall for the unexpected, blinding reflection of the lightening that struck the flagpole right outside the house.  She should have heard him call and saved him, but that mirror wanted him.  From that day on, Jean avoided the dark hall with the widowing mirror as often as she could.

“It’s your fault Irving is gone!  You were having an affair with him.  You stood there outside of his study every night, staring at him.  You couldn’t stand the idea that I was just down the hall and that he loved me.  You thought you were the only one in his life.”  She fell to the ground in tears.  The tears turned quickly into sobs.  The sobs morphed into growls.  She, all of a sudden had to deal with that which she hadn’t dealt with in years.  Twelve years to the day, in fact.  She had been avoiding that hallway, that mirror, for twelve whole years, and just like the vigor of the thunder that fateful night, Jean was immersed in pain and rage.  It was time for her to handle it once and for all, and Jean wasn’t going to be forgiving.

She jumped up from the cold, salty puddle of tears and tore through the house as if she were on wheels.  She went straight for the mud room and grabbed the old, rusty axe.

“I heard what you say to the others,” Jean screamed as she rolled through the house.  “I can hear the names you call me, trying to convince everyone that I’m bad.  You make me look like an old skeleton when I pass by; like a witch!  All I’ve ever done,” she continued, “was dress you up and be a friend.  You even got your own wall!  You know how jealous that makes the others?  And this is the thanks I get?”

Jean stopped at the entrance to the hallway.  She took a deep breath.  Her usually neatly tied hair was loose and strewn all directions like a lion’s mane.  She had ripped her expensive houndstooth skirted suit, and her perfectly manicured nails had chips and nicks in them.  And the mirror at the end of the hall pointed it all out to her in a smoky, dark way, which infuriated Jean even more.

“How dare you,” Jean growled under her breath as she started running toward the hall’s end faster than she’d run in her life.  “How dare you!”

The axe swung mindlessly, tearing the mirror to pieces.  The thick wooden frame shredded like a turkey on Thanksgiving.  The glass ricocheted off the walls and bounced down the hall. 

Jean sat laughing hysterically on the hall’s floor, bleeding on her rich hardwood floors from her hands and knees and feet.  She almost couldn’t remember what had happened in the last ten minutes, before the door-sized mirror was chopped to bits.  She stopped for a moment, and looked panoramically down the hall and around the room.  She couldn’t begin to understand how pieces of the glass made it all the way to the front door. 

Before she stood to clean up the wreckage, she whispered, “You had it coming.”  With that, Jean stood up, grabbed the broom and started sweeping. 

“Don’t worry my lovelies,” she said to the vast collection of mirrors in the living room, “I know you will never betray me the way she did.  I know you are good and honest and faithful.  I know we will enjoy our lives together.  Especially you, my jewel.”  Jean stroked the handheld one more time as she passed to dispose of the swept shards of glass.  “You really are so cute and clever!”