When we are children we welcome thinking of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind. Patrick Rothfuss
Nope, No Wedding Yet
The rocky ground at the bottom of the street of my grade school home became my mini-mountain, perfect for climbing. It was hidden behind enough trees to be its own paradise, a place for a kid to climb and become king of the world. When I was nine years old I saw nothing peculiar about a strawberry-blond girl king.
The great play arena eventually disappeared as developers plowed through. But in the mid 1950’s Joe and I claimed the world. He was my self-proclaimed boyfriend. In fourth grade I hadn’t graduated from paper dolls and mud pies, so the notion of a white veil followed by a life in the kitchen sounded as appealing as living with a perpetual mop. I was allergic to homework, much less life responsibilities. Imagination was more appealing.
Joe wasn’t like the other guys in my class. We played as equals. I knew his family wasn’t tidy. I didn’t care. Joe didn’t need the meaner boys around him to be okay. He wasn’t the tallest and certainly not the most popular kid. Mom had never met him. That alone was good enough for me. Outside, Joe and I could always be free. From homework or chores. From real life. We challenged an open space where the air moved freely around our imaginations. And the blue sky was on our side.
“Hey,” he said one day. I saw a kind of shy smile in his brown eyes that didn’t match the same dirty blue jeans he wore all the time, and he planted a kiss right smack on my lips.
I thought, oh yuck, but didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Joe wore a kindness that transcended grime. You had to face foreign lands on a fun rock to see past the classroom to understand Joe. We never talked about school stuff. Only the next jaunt into places we created.
“I’ve got a special surprise for you since your birthday is coming up,” he said. “Come to my house.”
We cut through two yards and landed on his street in something like three eyeblinks.
“Hey, Mom!” he called. “Where’s the engagement ring I found? I am going to give it to Mary Therese.”
Mary Therese! My at-school name. I groaned. Oh no. Formal talk. Sounded like a nun. Not me. I’d never hit anyone with a ruler in my life. And I would be off balance with a rosary that big at my waist. A wedding would spoil that lifestyle but neither wife nor sisterhood sounded appealing. And call me Terry, my at-home name.
How could I say something about how I thought girls had to at least have boobs before marriage without sounding personal? Joe’s mom wasn’t mine. The question would need to wait.
“Oh Joe, I’m sorry,” his mother said, not sounding sorry at all. “That ring got accidentally flushed down the toilet.”
Joe groaned. Now that I didn’t need to worry about a commitment, gratitude filled every cell of my tiny being. Who needs a ten-year engagement? Or worse, a lost recess for a wedding ceremony? Yet somehow Joe quickly recovered.
Our relationship ended long before puberty. As time passed, I hoped Joe found someone. Later. Much later. Long after the septic system absorbed my first engagement ring. I always wondered whether it had been born in a box of Cracker Jacks or found on a west-side sidewalk.
At least now if someone asks if I ever broke someone’s heart I can say, “No. The ordinary toilet took care of that for me.”
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” ― Albert Einstein
Kim’s Secret
“Aren’t you tired of ho-ho-ho songs by now?” Dana said, nodding toward the radio on the back counter.
Kim shrugged. Sure “Frosty the Snowman” earned freezer burn by December 23, but Phil’s “Silent Night” could calm a hurricane. She wanted to picture him playing guitar before his first round of chemo. She saw him in his red plaid flannel shirt and khaki pants that didn’t match, his leg muscles strong from jogging, and his dark hair three weeks late for a trim. When Phil plucked a string it answered with a celestial ring, even on his nephew’s student guitar. Phil’s upbeat attitude never fell out of rhythm, no matter how he felt.
What a family he has, Kim thought. And they accepted her the first time she met them, with all her quirks, something Kim never understood. Her mother died when she was two. And the only memory she had of her father came with a belt buckle flung across her back. However, she never saw the belt or her father again after the ambulance came and got her. Just the inside of three foster homes, the last an okay shelter, a good place only because Phil lived two doors away.
Tess, Phil’s mother, always said, “Look for the miracle, Kim.” Even through the worst of Phil’s illnesses.”
“How can you still believe in such things?” Kim would ask.
“You’re here, aren’t you?” Tess answered.
The IV room printer made demands that slowed Dana’s whining and took the edge off Kim’s worry about Phil’s cancer surgery, scheduled at ten, after five years of remission. She sighed. The doctor said the tumor was larger than the first or the second recurrences. She had told no one. In fact, she told no one about anything in her private life, even insignificant details. Fortunately, Phil was in another hospital. She regretted insisting that no one call her at work. Ever. She wondered if even hermits needed to take a breath out of their caves now and then. Her heart beat over time.
“Hey, who was that hunk I saw you with in the cafeteria last week?” Dana asked.
Kim gasped. Hunk? Phil weighed less than she did after all his chemo. His baseball cap fit as if he were a child wearing his father’s hat.
“A friend.” My fiancé someday, maybe. Tess may believe in divine intervention, but … She drilled an unblinking stare into Dana’s eyes. “Is there some reason you need to know?’
“Well, I …”
“Well, we’re running low on 5ml syringes. Should I get anything else before I scrub again?”
“No, but you don’t need to get so testy. I only asked.”
Kim kept her head down as she pushed a cart through the pharmacy’s IV supply aisle.
Dana said little the rest of the day, but the sweet Christmas songs lost their flavor.
Kim had known Phil for ten years, since seventh grade when they played basketball in his driveway. She beat him. Before his growth spurt. Tess gave her a basketball for Christmas. Phil wrapped it with leftover Christmas wrap in haphazard, clumsy patches. Then he presented it with a mock flourish as if it were a work of art. Even Phil’s dad, usually serious, couldn’t stifle a laugh.
Kim knew she had found a home, even if it wasn’t official.
As she got into her car at the end of her shift, she called Tess to get Phil’s room number.
“Oh, Kim, I wish you had let me call you at work.” Tess cried. “I almost did anyway.”
But the connection was so poor in the employee parking garage that Kim couldn’t catch her tone.
“What room is he in? I can barely hear you,” Kim shouted until she discovered at least that much. “Tell me the rest when I get there.”
When she arrived, Kim walked behind two men headed for the elevator.
“I know I’m only on first-year rotation, but I was in the OR. I saw everything,” one man said.
“But I saw the tumor on the scan, less than a week ago, not the first one he’s had either. Things don’t happen this way. You checked his labs?”
“Double-checked.”
“And they just closed him back up again?”
“Yes.”
Kim paled. No, it couldn’t be. But the second man said something about the first tumor appearing when the patient turned thirteen. This could not be some peculiar coincidence. They were talking about Phil.
When she got to his closed door, Tess opened it the instant Kim knocked.
“I should have called you anyway, whether you wanted me to or not.”
Kim hurried to Phil’s bed. He opened his eyes for a moment, then closed them again. “Sorry, sweetie, too many drugs, but the miracle lady’s got news for you,” he whispered.
Tess made a mock swing toward Phil, then laughed. “I understand the confusion in the OR was unprecedented. When they cut Phil open, the tumor wasn’t there. As in disappeared. Gone. Ended up sewing him back up again. He may be released tomorrow.”
“But, how?” Kim asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” Phil said, his voice weak, but clear.
“I’m confused.”
“What matters is that neither one of us gives up. What do you think? Big bash or small chapel wedding?”
Kim hesitated. Carolers began singing at the other end of the hallway. As they passed Phil’s door their harmony reached a crescendo, then settled into a gentle sweetness that faded into the opposite wing.
“Simple ceremony and celebration, lots of family,” she answered. “All I ask is that you be there.”
She caught Tess’s smile and grinned back. What more could she want than Christmas in a family made of miracles?
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it. (Mark Twain)
Joy to the World” rose dulcimer sweet and holiday warm from my car radio as I pulled into the church parking lot last December 23. The song’s bright spirit irritated me. It reminded me of the heat in my ‘85 Buick—hell-fire hot on high or dead cold on any other setting. Turning off the ignition eliminated the carol, but it didn’t solve my problem.
So why was I going to a Christmas program, advertised as experiential, in a grumpy mood? A place where joyous carols were inevitable? I could convince myself that I was here because some random sign recommended the evening: Be in St. Patrick’s lot at seven. A bus will take you to the program from there. Location will not be announced. This is a definite don’t-miss! But my reason was less noble. I had refused to go with Jack and Tara to the airport to pick up my mother. My mother’s plane arrived at seven—I wanted to be almost anywhere else. This sign was the first thing I saw on my escape route.
Tara had brought a white poinsettia for Grandma Paisley. With her own money. I don’t know where my fifth-grade daughter found such fondness for the old witch. It’s not like Grandma gave her any more than an obligatory birthday gift now and then, usually the wrong color and the wrong size—from the double-mark-down, non-returnable rack.
Tara hadn’t even seen her grandma in two years. Mother moved to Florida in November on a whim. She didn’t even say goodbye. She just packed a suitcase and moved into an old friend’s apartment in case she decided to move back. She stayed for six months but didn’t pay rent—the friend evicted her. So much for Mother’s friends. I’m not certain where she went after that.
I couldn’t understand Jack’s enthusiasm for Mother’s visit either. He had been so supportive of me when I went into counseling, so depressed I grew dehydrated by crying. Not literally, but it felt that way.
The counselor was only minimally helpful, too confrontational. She had the audacity to suggest that I intentionally put on weight to hide my obvious resemblance to my mother. Yes, we both have eyes the color of weak coffee, slender noses, and square chins.
However, I’ve never been drunk in my life. And you can be certain Tara didn’t learn profanity from me. Any resemblance is skin-deep. That monotone-professional-doc-distance that the therapist used made me even more angry.
“Anna,” Jack said sighing. “Paisley has been sober for five weeks now.”
“So, you say. She also told you she’s vegetarian,” I said, shuddering because Jack said my name with disdain, yet referred to his mother-in-law by her first name. “She’ll take one look at our Christmas turkey and call us a bunch of carnivores. Then she’ll spread wheat germ into my cookie dough as if she were disinfecting it.”
“But nothing like that has happened yet.”
“Right. The key word is yet. Have you ever heard Mother say one kind word to me? And has she asked to say one word to me?”
“Compliments aren’t her way,” he answered.
***
I locked my old Buick and zipped the keys in my purse, I felt betrayed. Tara was barely ten years old. She didn’t know any better. But where had Jack’s support gone? I knew—to the airport to bring home a woman destined to destroy the happiest season of the year.
I was the last person in line to get on the bus.
“Not much of a turn-out for a production that’s supposed to be so incredible,” I mumbled.
“Oh, people are busy and over-committed this time of year,” the young, pregnant girl in front of me said. She had thin, stringy hair, washed, yet hastily combed, so it dried in haphazard clumps. She wore a faded wool coat that was the same shade of sweet potato orange as her hair. Two oversized buttons connected with their buttonholes at her neck and across her chest. Successive buttons and buttonholes grew farther and farther apart, exposing bib overalls over a belly ripe for birth.
I decided she couldn’t possibly be married. “Too bad you couldn’t bring your husband with you tonight,” I said, with only the barest tinge of regret.
“Oh, but he is here,” she said revealing a mouthful of crooked teeth. “He’s driving the bus.”
Two green, bulging trash bags lay on the seat behind the driver. She dropped them next to her husband, in the space between the driver’s seat and the window. He turned around and grinned. I guessed him to be part Mexican, a good ten years older than the girl. He had long, straight, dark hair that looked even straighter jutting out from a tight, brown knit hat. I wasn’t impressed with him either.
The girl motioned for me to get into the seat first.
“My name’s Marilyn. What’s yours?” she asked.
“Anna Barnes,” I answered. I didn’t really want to tell her, but “none of your business” contains three more syllables. I looked out at the pale flurries swirling in the darkness as if I really cared about them.
“We have an Ann in our famil…,” she said.
“That’s nice,” I said as free of affect as I could.
“I’m sorry you need to be so angry,” she said.
“What makes you think I’m angry?” I turned to face her.
“It’s thick around you, dipped-in-concrete thick.”
“If I were angry, could it be any business of yours?”
“Oh, we’ve had to forgive lots of folks who don’t understand the birth of this child. Haven’t we, José?”
José nodded and I felt emotionally naked and stupid in front of these bizarre strangers, despite the fact that my views were probably identical to the views of the forgiven.
“Nice lofty thought,” I said. “But some people deserve to be kept at a distance.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But keeping them off saps my energy. Besides, this baby is due any day now! He’s my first and I have no idea how long my labor is going to be.”
By now we were thirty miles east of the city, cornfield country. José turned down a narrow, unpaved road. The loose rocks made it difficult to drive with any speed. About one-half mile down, he stopped the bus at a farmhouse. One light shone from what was probably the living room. Silently he got out of the bus, walked to the door, and knocked. No one answered, he knocked again. The light in the house went out. José climbed back on the bus.
“We’ll try farther up the road,” he said to Marilyn.
He started the bus again and drove ten more minutes until we came to another house. He got out again and knocked. A man came to the door. Gesturing and pointing, he said something to José we couldn’t hear. José smiled as he re-entered the bus.
“Maybe not what we’re looking for, but this is it,” he said to Marilyn. Then he took the green trash bags to the back of the bus. Most of the people in the bus looked puzzled as the men and women in the last three rows reached into the first bag. Inside were angel costumes, white robes with gossamer wings attached. The angels sang as they pulled the robes over flannel shirts and faded blue jeans, “Silent night, holy night. All is calm. All is bright…”
Their voices blended a Capella—bass, alto, and tenor—with simple, unpretentious strength. A man opened the second bag and brought out shepherd costumes. He passed them out to anyone who would take one, then stood carrying a lantern. Outside the bus he lit the lantern while the angels continued to sing, “Oh, holy night. The stars are brightly shining…”
José took Marilyn’s arm and led her behind the house to a barn.
The people inside the bus followed.
The man with the lantern opened the door of the barn as Marilyn and José went inside. “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus,” he began, loud and clear without help from a microphone.
There were no chairs, but I didn’t feel like sitting anyway.
The singers directed us to join them in “The First Noel.” I don’t have much of a voice, but even I couldn’t disobey angels.
Marilyn looked at me and smiled. Somehow, from center stage she didn’t look like an ignorant young girl to me anymore. She was smiling into my soul as if she could see all the concrete-angry ugliness I cherished. Yet she chose to care for me anyway. I wasn’t ready to accept or give that kind of love yet. But I was willing to learn—difficult visitor at my house this Christmas or not.
Merry Christmas
The illustration was made from a public domain image, color paper, and a piece of an old Christmas card.
Confidence is ignorance. If you’re feeling cocky, it’s because there’s something you don’t know.Eoin Colfer
DOING RIGHT BY MAMA AND THE LORD
In Lime Creek, Kentucky we had rocks for farmland, a truck garden with more weeds than tomatoes, and a cabin set up on stones with copperheads underneath. But the snakes didn’t call us hillbillies like the folk in Ohio did, and me and my brothers and sisters didn’t have a stepmama who’d sooner kick us than share a loaf of five-cent bread.
We had Mama then. She got sick and couldn’t do nothing no more. Didn’t change her being Mama. Not to us. All of us kids took over chores. At four years old I held the metal pan for her to puke in. The blood scared me, but I never dropped the pan.
Then Mama got so skinny she hardly had enough skin to cover her bones. She asked all us kids to gather around her one day before the sun woke up. She told us an angel had come. She was going to heaven. That morning. She said she loved us. We didn’t want to hear it. Mama didn’t talk about loving—she done it. That was enough. We wanted her to stay right there in the cabin with us. Even if TB had stole all her breath and she couldn’t get out of bed no more.
Then Papa, my brothers and sisters, and me moved to Cincinnati in the summer of 1930. I had turned seven by then.
My big sister, Cloda, talked about heaven, where Mama lived, all the time. She talked about hell, too. Though I can’t say how she knew about either one. Neither Papa nor Mama ever brought us to any kind of church. And Cloda took care of Mama while she was ailing. Cloda never had time for schooling.
Cloda got this notion that she had to take me, my bigger sister Violet, and younger sister Elva to church to learn about God. Soon as we had proper clothes. So, when some folk from school dropped off a box of used stuff on our doorstep, she decided the time had come, a sign from God and a sign from Mama.
“Toy,” Cloda told me as us four girls settled down on our mattress one night, “I don’t want to hear no fussing from you about this. We’re going to honor the Lord and we’re starting this Sunday.”
My sister, Violet, groaned so I guessed Cloda had already told her about it. She leaned on her elbow and stared at us. “When you get your head on something, it sure stays stuck there. A tick don’t hold on the way you do.”
Cloda acted like she didn’t hear her, though in our tiny house, it wasn’t likely words could hide. Our room and mattress fit almost to the walls. Our bed didn’t have a sheet. We had one dingy window that opened to the morning sun, and a wood floor so worn that cleaning it was like trying to wipe the dirt off the top of an old sponge.
“Good night.” Cloda’s voice gave the notion everything would be okay. Just by setting in something called a pew and listening to a preacher talk.
I doubted it. Even as the dullest and oldest kid in third grade, I knew God took Mama away and didn’t bring her back. I couldn’t get excited about something I didn’t know nothing about. Besides, cracks around the window leaked cold air, and Violet smacked me when I leaned into her.
***
“So, what church we going to?” I asked Cloda that next Sunday as we walked what seemed a awful long way down Amity Road.
“Church of Eternal Holiness.”
“The Methodist church on Beech is a lot closer,” Violet said. She was smart and always acted like she had a bee buzzing around her that needed swatting.
“We can walk. It’ll be good for us. Besides, I like the name, with holiness in it and all.”
“What kind of church is the one we’re going to?” my little sister, Elva, asked.
“Don’t know, but a girl I work with at the trunk factory likes it.”
The church looked more like a old store than a church, no cross on it or nothing. We set down in the back, on this long bench. The room looked plain as a barn. Up front, right in the middle, stood a small, slanted table with one leg holding it up. A man, probably the preacher, leaned into it. He talked soft and down-home at first. I liked the sound of the a’s and o’s I remembered from Kentucky, more like music than in-a-hurry Ohio talk.
“Praise the Lord,” the preacher says. His voice sounded a little high for a man, something like our old neighbor, Homer’s, one of Papa’s drinking buddies.
“Praise the Lord,” the people answered, some loud, some mumbling.
“Because he tests our faith and finds us worthy.”
“Amen.”
“Oh, Lord, test our faith and heal our many sins.” Then he started hollering.
Elva scooted closer to me. “For the sins of flesh, the sins of pride and envy will condemn you into the eternal flames of hell. Sin against the word of God and forever after your death.” He stopped to look around at folks. “Your arms and legs, your head, body, and entrails will suffer the burning pain that never ends. And your soul!” He said soul like it was a bullet aimed into my chest. “Your soul will suffer forever.
I looked at Violet. She sat stiffer than the bench.
Would God send Mama down to hell?
I tried to think about something else: spending the day with friends, taming trees and eating chunk chocolate. But I couldn’t shut out the screams of the high-talking preacher up front. Folks started moving around, hopping sideways. The “Praise the Lords” and “Amens” around us kept getting louder, like a train coming closer and closer, then jumping the tracks and running us all down. Some folks hollered stuff that wasn’t words I ever heard. Kinda like gargling or baby babble, but a lot scarier.
“But we will prepare ourselves. Yes, believers, we will prepare ourselves,” the preacher said. “Fast and pray. Pray and fast. Put your faith in God. Next Sunday we will handle serpents without fear. Their poison cannot harm us because our faith is strong.” The preacher raised his arms up like he was making a Y or reaching for the ceiling.
What? I tried to sit as still as I could since I couldn’t disappear. All this yelling was bad enough. Copperheads or rattlers? My heinie wasn’t showing up for that.
As soon as the service was over, I ran out the door, Violet and Elva not far behind. Cloda stopped to shake hands with the preacher.
When we were halfway home Violet said, “Try the Methodist Church next time you get a hankering for religion, Cloda. But I’ll get a book from the library and read next week.”
“Get one for me too,” Elva said. “One about animals maybe, but nothing about anything that hisses.”
“I ain’t gonna take part in no snake handling,” Cloda said. “But it might not be a bad idea to come again a time or two and see about maybe settling in.”
“That girl from the trunk factory, the one who told you about Church of Eternal Holiness?” Violet said. “I hate to say this, Cloda, but she’s as crazy as a chicken visiting a fox den.”
I didn’t say it out loud, but I kind of wondered about my big sister too.“Tell you what,” I said. “If you try the Methodist Church on Beech Street, I’ll go with you. Besides, I heard they got some pretty good cake bakers over there. And the preacher’s sweet as fresh peaches.”
“Well, guess I could think on that, Toy.” Cloda stopped walking and looked at me like I brought up a whole new idea.
Violet rolled her eyes.
I didn’t know nothing about the church on Beech. I made it all up. And I didn’t sit still that good in school, so an extra hour in church didn’t sound like such a great idea. But you just got to help your family sometimes.
“Toy, are you out of your mind?” Elva asked kicking a pebble back into the gravel road.
“Probably.”
“Okay. Okay. I’ll read my book after we get back,” Elva said.
“You aren’t leaving me at home with wicked stepmother,” Violet shrieked.
Cloda smiled like she’d just won a blue ribbon.
We didn’t follow through as good as we could have. After the first time or two, we couldn’t be counted on to listen to a preacher who didn’t have no Kentucky sweetness in his voice. But, Violet, Elva, and me remember that day we saved our big sister from seeing Mama way too soon because she wandered into a rattlesnake pit.
We reckon Mama would be proud of us. Though Mama was proud of us, even when we didn’t do nothing special at all.
originally published in Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel No. 17, Theme: Tricksters, Truthtellers, and Lost Souls
Perhaps you have been looking in the wrong places. J.K. Rowling
DOING RIGHT BY MAMA AND THE LORD
In Lime Creek, Kentucky we had rocks for farmland, a truck garden with more weeds than tomatoes, and a cabin set up on stones with copperheads underneath. But the snakes didn’t call us hillbillies like the folk in Ohio did, and me and my brothers and sisters didn’t have a stepmama who’d sooner kick us than share a loaf of five-cent bread.
We had Mama then. She got sick and couldn’t do nothing no more. Didn’t change her being Mama. Not to us. All of us kids took over chores. At four years old I held the metal pan for her to puke in. The blood scared me, but I never dropped the pan.
Then Mama got so skinny she hardly had enough skin to cover her bones. She asked all us kids to gather around her one day before the sun woke up. She told us an angel had come. She was going to heaven. That morning. She said she loved us. We didn’t want to hear it. Mama didn’t talk about loving—she done it. That was enough. We wanted her to stay right there in the cabin with us. Even if TB had stole all her breath and she couldn’t get out of bed no more.
Then Papa, my brothers, sisters, and me moved to Cincinnati in the summer of 1930. I had turned seven by then.
My big sister, Cloda, talked about heaven, where Mama lived, all the time. She talked about hell, too. Though I can’t say how she knew about either one. Neither Papa nor Mama ever brought us to any kind of church. And Cloda took care of Mama while she was ailing. Cloda never had time for schooling.
Cloda got this notion that she had to take me, my bigger sister Violet, and younger sister Elva to church to learn about God. Soon as we had proper clothes. So, when some folk from school dropped off a box of used stuff on our doorstep, she decided the time had come, a sign from God and a sign from Mama.
“Toy,” Cloda told me as us four girls settled down on our mattress one night, “I don’t want to hear no fussing from you about this. We’re going to honor the Lord and we’re starting this Sunday.”
My sister, Violet, groaned so I guessed Cloda had already told her about it. She leaned on her elbow and stared at us. “When you get your head on something, it sure stays stuck there. A tick don’t hold on tight as you do.”
Cloda acted like she didn’t hear her, though in our tiny house it wasn’t likely words could hide. Our room and mattress fit almost to the walls. Our bed didn’t have a sheet. We had one dingy window that opened to the morning sun, and a wood floor so worn, cleaning it was like trying to wipe the dirt off the top of an old sponge.
“Good night.” Cloda’s voice gave the notion everything would be okay. Just by setting in something called a pew and listening to a preacher talk.
I doubted it. Even as the dullest and oldest kid in third grade, I knew God took Mama away and didn’t bring her back. I couldn’t get excited about something I didn’t know nothing about. Besides, cracks around the window leaked cold air, and Violet smacked me when I leaned into her.
***
“So, what church we going to?” I asked Cloda that next Sunday as we walked what seemed a awful long way down Amity Road.
“Church of Eternal Holiness.”
“The Methodist church on Beech is a lot closer,” Violet said. She was smart and always acted like she had a bee buzzing around her that needed swatting.
“We can walk. It’ll be good for us. Besides, I like the name, with holiness in it and all.”
“What kind of church is the one we’re going to?” my little sister, Elva, asked.
“Don’t know, but a girl I work with at the trunk factory likes it.”
The church looked more like a small, old store than a church, no cross on it or nothing, except in one old window. We set down in the back, on this long bench. The room looked plain as a barn. Up front, right in the middle, stood a small, slanted table with one leg holding it up. A man, probably the preacher, leaned into it. He talked soft and down-home at first. I liked the sound of the a’s and o’s I remembered from Kentucky, more like music than in-a-hurry Ohio talk.
“Praise the Lord,” the preacher says. His voice sounded a little high for a man, something like our old neighbor, Homer’s, one of Papa’s drinking buddies.
“Praise the Lord,” the people answered, some loud, some mumbling.
“Because he tests our faith and finds us worthy.”
“Amen.”
“Oh, Lord, test our faith and heal our many sins.” Then he started hollering.
Elva scooted closer to me.
“For the sins of flesh, the sins of pride and envy will condemn you into the eternal flames of hell. Sin against the word of God and forever after your death.” He stopped to look around at folks. “Your arms and legs, your head, body and entrails will suffer the burning pain that never ends. And your soul!” He said soul like it was a bullet aimed into my chest. “Your soul will suffer forever.”
I looked at Violet. She sat stiffer than the bench.
Would God send Mama down to hell?
I tried to think about something else: spending the day with friends, taming trees, and eating chunk chocolate. But I couldn’t shut out the screams of the high-talking preacher up front. Folks started moving around, hopping sideways. The “Praise the Lords” and “Amens” around us kept getting louder, like a train coming closer and closer, then jumping the tracks and running us all down. Some folks hollered stuff that wasn’t words I ever heard. Kinda like gargling or baby babble, but a lot scarier.
“But we will prepare ourselves. Yes, believers, we will prepare ourselves,” the preacher said. “Fast and pray. Pray and fast. Put your faith in God. Next Sunday we will handle serpents without fear. Their poison cannot harm us because our faith is strong.” The preacher raised his arms up like he was making a Y or reaching for the ceiling.
What? I tried to sit as still as I could since I couldn’t disappear. All this yelling was bad enough. Copperheads or rattlers? My heinie wasn’t showing up for that.
As soon as the service was over, I ran out the door, Violet and Elva not far behind. Cloda stopped to shake hands with the preacher.
When we were halfway home Violet said, “Try the Methodist Church next time you get a hankering for religion, Cloda. But I’ll get a book from the library and read next week.”
“Get one for me too,” Elva said. “One about animals maybe, but nothing about anything that hisses.”
“I ain’t gonna take part in no snake handling,” Cloda said. “But it might not be a bad idea to come again a time or two and see about maybe settling in.”
“That girl from the trunk factory, the one who told you about Church of Eternal Holiness?” Violet said. “I hate to say this, Cloda, but she’s as crazy as a chicken visiting a fox den.”
I didn’t say it out loud, but I kind of wondered about my big sister too.
“Tell you what,” I said. “If you try the Methodist Church on Beech Street, I’ll go with you. Besides, I heard they got some pretty good cake bakers over there. And the preacher’s sweet as fresh peaches.”
“Well, guess I could think on that, Toy.” Cloda stopped walking and looked at me like I brought up a whole new idea.
Violet rolled her eyes.
I didn’t know nothing about the church on Beech. I made it all up. And I didn’t sit still that good in school, so an extra hour in church didn’t sound like such a great idea. But you just got to help your family sometimes.
“Toy, are you out of your mind?” Elva asked kicking a pebble back into the gravel road.
“Probably.”
“Okay. Okay. I’ll read my book after we get back,” Elva said.
“You aren’t leaving me at home with wicked stepmother,” Violet shrieked.
Cloda smiled like she’d just won a blue ribbon.
We didn’t follow through as good as we could have. After the first time or two, we couldn’t be counted on to listen to a preacher who didn’t have no Kentucky sweetness in his voice. But, Violet, Elva and me remember that day we saved our big sister from seeing Mama way too soon because she wandered into a rattlesnake pit.
We reckon Mama would be proud of us, even when we didn’t do nothing special at all.
The other side of the bus door would become a faraway adventure to another state. Faraway, a vague notion that showed up only in Lucy’s story books. The little-kid kind. The ones she could read. She told her boss at the thrift shop where she had worked that she wanted to wait for the bus alone. She would be okay. The new place wanted her, and that made her happy. She could be the strong middle-aged woman her body said she was.
She felt the stare of a small boy who could be five, standing next to her. She knew what he saw. An awning-sized forehead, small green-pea-sized eyes, and a jaw as square and pocked as a sidewalk block. Didn’t matter. Bigger people stared, too. Maybe grown folk weren’t as blunt about it as kids. They were all rude.
Lucy’s mother had a troubled pregnancy and delayed birth. Lucy’s brain didn’t get sufficient oxygen. She understood why that made her learning slow, kind of. But she couldn’t see why she had to be ugly, too.
She turned toward the boy, slightly. He paused, then buried his head into the shoulder of the woman with him. She leaned toward the other side of the long bench, her eyes closed, and either sighed or moaned. Lucy couldn’t tell. She stayed focused on the door that would open soon, her exit from the impossible, thanks to the kind woman she worked for at the thrift store, who saw her frequent bruises and wouldn’t stop asking about them.
But Lucy didn’t have the money for rent and all the bills that came with living alone. She had to stay with her father. He apologized later. Said he missed Lucy’s mother, and couldn’t get over her death. That’s what set him off. How could a woman as good as his wife get cancer? But he wasn’t nice to her before she died, not that Lucy could remember. And apologies didn’t help when, in a drunken rage, he stepped on Lucy’s chest and broke a rib.
Lucy cried in the bathroom at work because each breath brought a nasty stab. That’s when her boss insisted that she tell the truth. Now. The police came in, and her father ended up in jail. Summer and winter mingled inside Lucy, next to the hurt, both relief and rejection. But her boss turned her confusion into spring. She had a friend who owned a sprawling three-hundred-acre farm. She offered Lucy a home and a job in her house. However, Lucy would have to move to Indiana, more than a hundred miles away. The friend would pay for the bus ticket. Lucy’s boss added a word new to Lucy: stipulation. Her father could not visit until he had been paroled for two years and sprouted wings and a halo.
Lucy fidgeted with the handle on her suitcase. She hoped she had everything she needed: a few pairs of jeans, some T-shirts and sweatshirts, a worn coat wadded into a ball, a toothbrush, and toothpaste. A half-dozen storybooks.
She looked into the glass door of the parked bus but got lost in her own reflection and winced, frightened. Did her boss tell her friend how ugly she was?
The little boy got up from the bench and came closer to her this time. He tapped her on the elbow. “Scuse me,” he said. “You going to Shelbyville, too?”
Lucy nodded.
“My Uncle Red brought me and my mommy here, but he had to go to work. She can’t walk good. Can you help her get on the bus?” he said. “Please?”
A man disconnected the guard rope.“Be glad to,” Lucy said, noticing the woman for the first time, as she leaned into a worn suitcase and grabbed a cane. The woman breathed as if she were in pain.
“It’s a long ride to Indiana,” Lucy said as she took a few steps forward. “If you like, I have some storybooks with me. My favorites.” “Okay,” the boy said. “I got some, too. Let’s share.”Lucy linked an arm around the younger woman’s waist as she looked at Lucy as if she had wings and a halo instead of a broken face. A good omen.
The line paused as tickets were checked.
Lucy whispered. “I have a small pillow with me. It’s new and clean. Your mama can use it. But can I ask if you or your mom have trouble with your eyes? Is your vision okay?”
“We see just fine,” the boy answered. “Why do you ask?”
She laughed and turned to the boy’s mother. “Okay, ma’am, My name is Lucy. I’m glad to meet you. One, two, three, go.” For both of us.
“Life becomes easier when you learn to accept an apology you never got.” — Robert Brault
FINAL APOLOGY
Dear Helen,
I’m sorry. Three syllables, like tiny drops of water offering to renew a desert. I’ll whisper them to Lyle during his funeral. Tomorrow. Even if it is too late.
Remember how Lyle always was a tad different? Borrowed Mom’s lipstick when he was five and painted his lips instead of the wall. Mom didn’t understand. She couldn’t understand anyone. Her actions mimicked the uneven beige wallpaper flowers in our attic storage room. Not only bland. Disconnected. Didn’t matter what anybody did. When Lyle’s report cards dropped from A’s to failing in middle school, she reacted the same way. Numbed on antipsychotics. Better than when she wasn’t.
Then Dad left and took Lyle with him. Good move. At least he graduated. Got a commercial art degree and a good job until his boss found out. You know. About how he was different. Downhill developed into an avalanche after that.
You managed the falls, like always. You were there for him.
Lyle called you from Michigan. Often. You told the latest Mom-sitting-on-the-porch-naked stories and sent him exotic pears. Shared hair dye secrets.
No surprise when Mom died in the expensive facility. Just before her sixtieth birthday. And the cash ran out.
You got busier. And busier. Took on more work than anyone else on the sales team.
When Lyle called and said he needed to talk, you were working on contracts. Two at the same time. You told him you’d call him later. He swallowed so hard you heard it. In the noisy office with rock music in the background. In desperate memory now.
Then came the call from Dad. The note. The details…
I can’t write any more now. Later. Maybe. Can’t sign a letter written to me. When I’m ready to step past the fact that Helen could have stopped her brother’s suicide and didn’t.
And forgive her—forgive me…forgive me… Tell me about how I held up the mountain before it fell. One more time.
“It’s dreadful what little things lead people to misunderstand each other.” ―L. M. Montgomery
Penguins and kangaroos don’t live on the same continent. Yet, Penny and Kango are university students in this tale. Since some human creatures believe space lasers started the California wildfires, I am stating: this story is fiction.
The college name appears distracting. However, even in today’s reality, words have multiple meanings. On the island manure referred to common happenings in real life. Word meanings change over time. For example, internet referred to two nets dropped for the same fish.
Penny and Kango spoke a semi-common language. However, different definitions and idioms often confused them. In Penny’s tribe, the word lounge meant escape. When Kango told Penny he was going to lounge in the common area, Penny assumed his roommate wanted him out of his metaphorical hair.
In Kango’s tribe, Penny’s word for please repeat meant I-am-irritated-big-time. A screaming hyena interrupted Penny when he asked Kango to repeat what he had said about a student who had fleas. A fire bell rang. It stopped Kango from smacking Penny on his left wing.
Fortunately, the words communicate and forgive made a perfect fit in all student dictionaries. Communicate and forgive appeared in an unexpected conversation the roommates had on the grounds between classes. Penny spoke one word and Kango mouthed the other. Exactly how that could happen is another story. It occurred after a lightning strike missed the pair by a miracle and a half. A moment the current world needs. With enough communication and forgiveness.
image made from public domain photo and colored paper
“Our deepest human need is not material at all. Our deepest need is to be seen.” – Eckhart Tolle
TWO FIFTY-DOLLAR BILLS
Cora rubbed the back of her head as she stepped onto the curb. Ooh, that really hurts! Damn, the stress has got me. She turned around and watched the traffic move at least twenty miles over the speed limit. Stress, right. Now that’s something like calling the ocean a tad damp. I’m 67, look 80, and feel 105.
A colorful sign caught her eye on the lawn of a charming three-story red brick house: Housekeeper wanted, great pay, inquire within. She hadn’t recalled seeing it before. The house didn’t appear familiar either. But survival had taken all her focus when she got on and off the bus Monday through Friday—when she’d had a job. She’d gone back today to try to get it back.
“I’m sorry,” her old boss had told her. “The company now requires all employees to have a high school education. You should have chosen retirement last year. Why run around like a dog chasing his own tail?”
I washed stuff and took out the trash for a company that made parts for something, ain’t sure what. You don’t need no education for that. Besides, this old brain ain’t got the energy for homework and exams no more.
“Hey,” she said to the sign. “What the heck. If the homeowner tells me to go to hell at least I can just turn around and say howdy to Satan. Eviction’s tomorrow. Wonder what I should wear for my first day on the streets.”
She walked to the door with her back as straight as possible. A junior high gym teacher had told her that good posture is confidence. Not much else brought it.
“Wish I had a purse,” she murmured. “Could use an ibuprofen. Not sure what hit me, but it had an attitude.”
Uncertain, she knocked so softly only a hound dog could have heard her, but a short, round woman with hair the color of silver tinsel answered. “Come in. Come in.”
“Saw your sign…”
“Yes. Yes, of course. And do you mind cleaning a house of this size? I have twelve rooms, and none of them are small.”
“Huh? No.”
“Do you mind being paid in cash?”
“That’s, that’s fine.” Cora tried not to stare at the woman, at least half a foot shorter than she was. She would have pinched herself to see if she was dreaming if she thought the woman wouldn’t notice. However, this lady seemed to catch every breath and eye flutter.
The house looked fantastic! The polished oak floor gleamed. The blue leather furniture appeared to be new and easy to maintain. Sunshine streamed through the windows and found no dust. How much would she need to clean? And any question she asked in protest would show how inadequate she really was. She could think of only one.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I don’t know your name.”
“Angela.”
“And yours?” Angela cocked her head to one side.
“Cora.”
“Now is $200 a day enough?”
Cora gasped. This woman hadn’t even asked for her last name.
“Then follow me. I will show you your room. Then I will remove the sign from the yard.”
“That’s it? I’m hired?”
“You will clean whatever you see that needs to be done.”
“There’s gotta be a hitch to this,” Cora said, sorry she’d opened her mouth.
“Not a hitch exactly,” Angela answered. “But it isn’t what you might expect. I will pay you half in advance.” She reached into the pocket of her old-fashioned flowered apron and pulled out two fifty-dollar bills. “Perhaps you can confront what is in your way as you work here. And by the way, I suspect your headache has lightened.”
“How did you know…?”
“Your forehead had bulldog wrinkles when you came in. And your eyes were scrunched together so tight you almost had one eyebrow. Easy-to-interpret signs. By the way, I read people extremely well.”
“Oh.” That made sense. Sort of. Cora scratched the back of her neck, a nervous gesture.
“When can you begin?”
Afraid the money could be taken from her as easily as she had received it, Cora stuffed the fifties into her pocket. She glanced around until she saw a broom propped in a corner.
Angela seemed to notice. “Now that is the kind of attitude I like. We will talk later.” She pointed out the door to the room where Cora needed to start, waved, and went outside.
Cora expected her to return with the sign tucked under her arm, but when she peeked outside she didn’t see the silver-haired lady or the help-wanted sign. And she didn’t see anything that needed sweeping either.
She sighed. Clean what needs cleaning? Yeah, sure. This place is sterile enough for open-heart surgery. Then she opened the door. And gasped. Dust filled the air. She opened a window and then ran to find bug spray in a hall closet. Spider webs filled the corners of the windows. Clothes lay on the floor.
When she picked up one of the T-shirts, she recognized it. Her husband’s favorite: tie-dyed with IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO HAVE A HAPPY CHILDHOOD printed across the front. The brash colors irritated her. He had worn it the day he left to pick up their daughter from kindergarten. He’d been home with a headache, like the one she had now, but she was gosh-darned sure he was faking it. He’d had an argument with his fix-it shop partner. Cora figured this was Jake’s way of getting even. The business hadn’t been doing well. So, she insisted he pick up Millie from kindergarten that afternoon. Then she could finish the laundry.
He’d had a heart attack on the way home and crashed into a tree. In those days children were allowed to sit in the front seat. Both Jake and Millie died.
And Cora thrived on bitterness. Friends ran away. So did the money.
She grabbed the shirt, uncertain whether she wanted to tear it apart or cry into it. She screamed, “How can there possibly be two shirts like this one?”
No one answered. Angela had not yet returned. Cora felt the fifties in her pocket. She remembered what the silver-haired woman had said. “We will talk later.” Cora considered running, but she had no place to go. “We will talk about what?”
The only thing she knew to do was clean, get rid of garbage, scrub. She held her breath as she opened the closet. She suspected the unpleasant surprises had not ended. Yet. She saw a cardboard box of toys and knew the next horror had arrived—on top of the stack lay a naked doll with over-combed blond hair. She remembered how she had lectured her daughter Millie about taking off her doll’s clothes and leaving them scattered all over the house—hours before she would never see her again. And this doll was an exact clone.
Cora dropped the doll. Maybe it was better to live on the streets than to face that day again. She sobbed until she didn’t think she had any energy left.
She had not heard Angela re-enter the house and come into the room. “You can let go now,” she said.
“Let go of what?”
“You are doing a spectacular cleaning job,” Angela said. “I trust you destroyed the cobwebs of your past and said goodbye to the guilt you created in here.”
“I didn’t clean nothing.”
“Well, actually I took your experience and gave it shape in here.”
“Who are you and what is going on?” Cora’s eyes widened. She wanted to run but stood frozen.
“You don’t remember how you got that headache, do you? But don’t worry. This memory lapse happens often after a ruptured brain aneurysm. It was fatal.”
“I may be dull as a rubber knife, but I know what fatal means,” Cora said.
“And you are absolutely right. This may not be as terrible as you think it is. Perhaps you need to know you are forgiven. With absolute certainty. Come. You have visitors. They want to take you home.”
The front door swung open, and a five-year-old girl ran inside. “Mommy, Mommy, I have been waiting and waiting for you. Daddy is outside. He said to hurry.”
Cora looked down at her arms and saw young, untroubled taut skin. She reached into her pocket, pulled out the two fifty-dollar bills, and handed them to Angela. “I don’t need these anymore.”
She ran out to meet her family as Angela placed the same sign in the front yard: housekeeper wanted, great pay, inquire within.
“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” ― Lao Tzu
ONE MORE DAY IN THE PARK WITH INGRID
Mick:
“Ingrid, come sit next to me. I brought that blue jacket you gave me to sit on. Not that you need physical comfort. I want something you’ve touched, even if a breeze is more solid.”
My wife died five years ago.
I pat the plush lining and wait. My wife won’t take long to arrive. The veil between this world and the other side has been thin lately.
About a week ago she appeared in an early morning lucid dream as the young Ingrid. Even asleep I remained wobbly and weak. We walked hand-in-hand through this same park. I knew that everything I saw and touched would disappear when I opened my eyes. Even so, all the subtleties of nature emerged as we traveled familiar passageways. I saw details in each rock, blade of grass, hill, and squirrel.
Ingrid told me that direct contact with the deceased happens only under special circumstances. I asked her how we qualified, but she told me I would find out later. “Just relax and enjoy.”
When I woke up, she was sitting on the edge of my bed. She comes and goes now. All I need to do is call her—no phone is necessary. I have enough sense not to blab about Ingrid’s visits. Recovering from toxic chemotherapy drugs is bad enough. I don’t need my daughter to worry that I need psych meds, too.
Within about thirty seconds my wife emerges next to me. Slowly. Similar to the way fog comes up from the horizon. But with a lot more warmth. At first, she seems as transparent as air. Her features surface. Young. Beautiful. The way she looked when we first met.
She places her hand on my arm. “Okay, dear, what’s on your mind?”
“Jan told me I could use some Vitamin D from the sun. That’s why I’m out here today while she and the kids hike down to the lake. As if I’d miss the chance. She doesn’t know I heard her talk to Les on the phone last night. He can’t babysit me today. Got a new client coming in. True, I have the hearing of the old dog I am. But Jan’s voice doesn’t need a loudspeaker when she gets excited. Seems lately our daughter has the disposition of a ticking time bomb.”
“I’d say she is upset, and her attitude is more about her than about you.”
“I’d say it’s not easy taking care of your father when he’s recovering from chemo. Not easy at all. Sure glad that the final session’s over! Last treatment forever.”
Her hands have lost all their thick arthritic lumps now that she’s in a spiritual state. Her hands are small, delicate, and gentle again. She runs them over my head, mostly bald, with a few sparse patches of dull, almost colorless hair.
“Ah, Mick! Jan’s not ready for a halo, but I wouldn’t jump to conclusions. Yet anyway. Tell you what. I’ll follow her for a while. Find out what’s going on and let you know. Then I’ll get back to you. The grandkids have been knocked down by your illness. They don’t understand what happened, or why Grandpa doesn’t have the energy to joke with them anymore. But you know you can count on me. We’ll talk tonight. In your dreams.”
Ingrid’s kiss on my forehead could be a warm, gentle breeze.
I sigh as I hear the kids run ahead of their mom up the trail. Much faster than they would have if I were with them. They don’t know I’d feel just as sick at home. At least in the park, the sun casts incredible shadows through the tree branches. The birds sing an avian kind of harmony. The sky is never the same color longer than a few hours. It darkens or lightens, blends in with the clouds or not. A hint of silver has lined a cluster toward the west. Like the gray in the few clumps of my hair that refused to fall out. Maybe I have a stubborn streak. I have always worn my hair short as a hyphen, so I didn’t need to shave my head.
Change arrives slowly. Although Ingrid says the word that I’m searching for is transformation. Sure, I’m glad my wife broke through the impenetrable barrier from the other side. But I’d take the wrinkled-but-solid Ingrid to the see-through-yet-perfect version any day.
Ingrid:
I watch and listen to Mick’s family as they pretend to be aware of what they are doing. Les has brought work home. He shuffles papers like a deck of cards and stares at his computer. “What do we do about your dad? Should we just, I don’t know…” He spit-whispers into the computer screen.
Jan leans her behind into the refrigerator and turns her body into an awkward V. From the look on her face, I’m guessing she wants the stretch to pull out all her anxiety.
“I could scream,” she says. “I won’t. Even though Dad isn’t listening in. He’s heavily medicated and sound asleep for the night. The kids are out for the count, too. It is a school night.
I hover over the kitchen table, one of the benefits of the afterlife.
“I talked to Dad’s doctor,” Jan continues. “No doubt about it. He hasn’t got much chance. A heavier course of chemo could give him a few more months. Tops.”
“So why hasn’t the oncologist told your dad?”
“That doctor has professional knowledge. Yes. But he has the bedside manner of a debt collector. I told him I would give Dad the options.” Jan straightens up again. She groans, her hand on her forehead. “Actually, I insisted. Said he could answer Dad’s questions on his next visit.”
“Then?”
“Okay. Then I sort of chickened out.”
“You mean you chickened out. No sort-of about it.”
“Thanks for your support.”
“So, what do you want me to do? I’m a lawyer, not a social worker.”
“You are also my life mate. Come on. Give me an idea.”
“Okay. I’ll stop by after I see my last client tomorrow. We’ll tell him together. Calmly. Let him decide. In the meantime, let your dad know how much you love him. It’s all you can do. Yeah, you’re nervous about the situation. But all he sees is nervousness. He doesn’t know why.”
Jan drops her head almost to her knees. “Hey for a lawyer that’s not bad advice.”
“Uh, thanks for the backhanded compliment.”
I stop hovering and put one arm around my daughter’s shoulders. She doesn’t know I’m the one comforting her, but after a few sighs she finally says, “Maybe I’m underestimating Dad.”
“More than maybe, sweetheart.”
In a few hours, I will slip into Mick’s dreams. I will break the news about what his children are going to tell him tomorrow. I know my guy. He will allay his family’s fears. Because Mick isn’t afraid. He’s seen me. He knows he will be okay. I will tell him why I broke the bridge between our worlds—because he and I are closer than he knew we were. I slipped through a hairline break between this world and the next one, the designated place where we were meant to meet. When the time came.
When he accepts my invitation, we will be together again. In a few days if he wishes. If he is ready all he will need to do is concentrate on the separation, nothing artificial or traumatic about the transition. In the meantime, perhaps I should set up the scene for his final dream: a sunny day…a park bench…a place where we both can run, laugh, and sing out of tune if we want. It doesn’t matter. Some details look different after passing through the light. But the beauty Mick and I savored will remain the same.
Always. Always.
illustration created from two personal photos scanned together
terrypetersen 