Writing in the Margins, Bursting at the Seams

Missing

2012-03-07T16:19:00.002-08:00

My daffodils are tall and green and fat with hiddenblooms. Here and there, a bit of yellowpeeks between curtains of green, a fallen slip showing beneath a dress. The robins bounce across the yard, peckinghere and there in sun-softened soil.

At the local garden store, I order a yard of topsoil for mynew raised bed and I see there’s a flyer for a boy—a young man, really—who hasgone missing.

We take V’s dress to the dry cleaners to have italtered. She stands upon a rickety pressboardtable while the woman tucks and pins and marks with white dressmakerchalk. A man comes in to pick up his drycleaning. He chats with Squints and Filibusterthen nods to V, standing upon the rickety table.

“That’s a lovely dress.”

V blushes and smiles and looks down while the woman beginsmarking the hem. The skin on the back ofher hands is taut and I can see thick veins, purple and blue, running along knobbybones. “Every time I measure anotherspot on this hem, it changes.” She yanksout the safety pins and begins again. “It’snot going to have the same hem,” she snaps. "I can't do a hidden hem on my machine."

“We’re not going to be angry about the hem,” I tell her. “I’m sure you’ll do a better job than I evercould.”

She nods and begins measuring and folding again.

Finally, she is satisfied with her work. V steps down from the rickety table and goesto change back into her sweats.

The cashier can’t figure out the register. She sighs and grumbles and sighs some morebefore putting in a random price. “I don’tknow what it’s going to cost you,” she says, handing us a bill for fortydollars.

We run to the drugstore to pick up a prescription and here,too, the cashier is grumpy.

And when we head for milk, I see another poster of themissing boy. He is smiling in the picture;standing in the kitchen. And I can’thelp—on this first day without jackets—but think of his parents and how frustration over the day's trials must seem trivial to them now.

The robins continue to hop across the grass and thedaffodils peek from behind the curtains and even the hyacinths are daring toshow their purples and whites.

I hope the boy finds his way home, that the posters willbe removed from store windows.

Tonight I resolve not to dwell on the frustrations of the day.

Withdrawn

2012-03-07T13:06:00.001-08:00

Lilly Jean sat onthe couch outside the branch manager’s office. She’d been waiting for the past fifteenminutes, staring at the sign on the office door. Frank Liebowics, Branch Manager. What the hell was the man doing back thereall that time was what Lilly Jean wanted to know. Likely taking a nap, she mused, crossing herlegs and drumming her fingernails on the arm of the chair.

A woman entered the bank and strode to the manager's door. "Frank, I’m kind of in a hurry here.”

Lilly Jean lookedup. Frowned. Nobody barged in front of Lilly Jean Jacobs. She opened her mouth to speak. Closed it just as quick. Lilly Jean suddenly regretted her decision tostop putting on makeup; to stop doing her hair of a morning. This woman was drop dead gorgeous. She wore awool suit, red. An ivory scoop neckshirt beneath. Gray pumps. A pearl necklace and matching earrings. Her nails—fingers and toes—wore shiny redpolish. Her long blonde hair waspulled back into a casual but neat bun. “What’re you starin’ at?”

Lilly Jean felther skin grow hot; she looked at the floor. She felt awkward in her postal uniform. She felt ugly and unbalanced and uncoordinated. She wished she’d at least put on a spot oflipstick that morning.

The woman openedthe manager’s office and stepped in.

“Good morning, Miss Jackson.”

Jackson? Ellie’s name was Jackson. Lilly Jean tilted her head. Pretended not to listen.

“You used to callme Neala, Frank.” The woman gave asultry laugh. “Remember that?”

“May I help you,Miss Jackson?”

This was gettinginteresting. Lilly Jean pulled a bookfrom her purse—some science fiction thing Howard had loaned to her. She held the book to her face and strainedher ears.

“I’d like to make a withdrawal from myaccount.”

“Did you fill outthe proper paperwork?”

“I have all thepaperwork I need. Remember these? I saved every last one of your letters,Frank.”

“You said youdestroyed them.” The man was whisperingnow.

“I say a lot of things, Frank.”

A drawer opened and then closed. “This account is inyour daughter’s name, Neala. Are you thecustodian?”

“Well I ought tobe, don’t you think? I am her mother,after all.”

Lilly Jean heardsome keys being pressed on the computer. “You’re not listed.”

“Why don’t youjust list me then, Frank?”

“I can’t do that…”

“Ellie needs tomake a deposit at Ohio State. If she doesn’t, she’ll lose her place.”

“Bring herin. I’ll be happy to help her withthat.”

“I want tosurprise her, Frank. I’m trying to turnmy life around; do something right for once.”

“Neala, Ican’t. It’s against bank policy. I could lose my job. I’m sorry, but I just can’t…”

“Frank, I’mtelling you, if you don’t put my name on this account, the entire town willknow about us.”

“Please, Neala. I’m a married man. I have children.”

“You were married then. And your wife was pregnant. I saved more than the letters, Frank. I never destroy anything. You don’t help me out, I’ll cook yourass. You’ll lose your job. And your family.”

“You wouldn’t dothat.”

She laughedagain. “Try me.”

The managersighed.

“All you have todo is list me as the custodian, Frank. I’ll take care of the rest.”

“The letters?”

“You can have‘em.”

“The other stuff?”

“Good as gone.”

Lilly Jeansquirmed in her seat. She brought thebook closer to her face. She listenedharder than she’d ever listened in her life.

“You’re now the custodian of Ellie’saccount. I hope you’re not screwing withme.”

“Oh, I’m notscrewing around with you Frank. You are amarried man, after all. Here are youletters. Don’t worry. I’ve got copies at home.”

The woman emergedfrom the office and walked up to the counter. “I’d like to make a withdrawal.”

Lilly Jean turneda page. Looked up over the top of thebook. Yes. She could definitely see the resemblance. This was the famed Neala Jackson.

“How much?”

“All of it.”

The teller lookedup. “That’s quite a sum.”

“Five hundreddollars is nothing.”

“Miss Jackson.”

“Ms.”

“Ms. Jackson,there’s over sixty-five thousand dollars in this account.”

Ellie’s mothergasped. “What?”

Lilly Jean graspedthe edges of her book tightly.

“Still want to take it all out?”

Lilly Jean watchedNeala Jackson consider. “All but fivehundred. I want to transfer the rest toa new account. In my name only.”

Frank Liebowics,Branch Manager finally decided to haul his ass out of his chair and make anappearance at the door. “May I helpyou?” The man looked about as bad asroad kill. His face was red andsweaty. His hair stood up in thefront. His tie was loosened and his suitjacket was rumpled.

Lilly Jeanpaused. She’d wanted to see how thisplayed out. But…She glanced at herwatch. “I’d like to open an account,please.” Reluctantly she stood andfollowed Frank Liebowics, Branch Manager into his office.

Pageant

2012-03-05T19:23:00.003-08:00

The taxi driver pulls to the curb. Chrissie hands over two twenties and grabsthe suitcase stuffed with sequined costumes and rhinestoned tiaras andcosmetics, oh my lord, the cosmetics.

“Mommy.” Jessie pointsto a man lying on a grate in the sidewalk, entirely covered in newspapers.

“Stay away from him. He’s dangerous.”

“I have a quarter.”

“No. He can findhisself a job; work hard like the rest of us.”

Backstage, Jessie strips to her underdrawers, dingy andgray, because the judges won’t see those anyhow and with the cost of the costumes,they can’t afford new ones. “Rassle intothis dress, doll.”

Jessie steps into her costume; pulls it up.

“Munch on these.” Chrissiepiles a handful of sugar cubes on the table. She takes Jessie’s right hand and begins applying polish.

“Your energy pickingup any?”

Jessie nods.

“Eat another one”

Jessie pops a second cube in her mouth; chases it with herthumb.

Chrissie slaps the thumb out of Jessie’s mouth. “That’svulgar.”

Jessie’s eyes widen. Tears stream down her cheeks.

“Ah, shit. You ruinedyour makeup.” Chrissie opens the makeupbag and re-applies a thick layer of blush. “You see them girls?”

Jessie nods.

“You’re better than all of ‘em put together.”

Chrissie takes a handful of chips from the bag on the tableand stuffs them into her mouth. She wipesher hands on her blue jeans and chews noisily, dabbing blue eye shadow on Jessie’slids. She paints her lips a deep red andapplies mascara. “Go and practice your routine.”

The girl stands and walks to a clear space on the floor,weaving between photographers and suitcases and empty pop bottles littering thefloor.

Finally, Jessie is called to perform.

She dances. Shesings. She struts.

After, Chrissie gathers her in her arms. “You were perfect, baby doll! You gonna’ make your momma a boatload ofmoney.”

They leave the auditorium and step over the man lying on thesidewalk, sleeping beneath last week’s news.

This post was written in response to the Trifecta Writing Challenge. This week's word was vulgar.

This post has also been linked with Yeah, Write

Prom Season

2012-03-04T17:15:00.000-08:00

Robins wake me in the morning now. My daffodils are ready to burst intobloom. I have a feeling the peepers willbe starting within the week.

Spring is here.

And that, unfortunately, can mean only one thing: It’s timeto shop for prom dresses.

V drives us, carefully adjusting the seat for her five-twoheight before backing out of the drive and heading out to what she calls “newterritory”—an area she’s never driven in before.

“Slow down, this road is curvy.”

“I’m fine, Mom.”

“Watch. Two lanesahead.”

“Mom. I can see.”

“Red light.”

Nod.

“Brake.”

Nod.

“Harder. Harder. Harder!” I jam my foot against my imaginary brakefriend, lifting myself from the seat.

“Mom, I think you underestimate my braking capabilities.”

Thirty minutes later, we arrive at the bridal store. This is new territory for me: My daughtershave never gone to prom. Secretly, myhusband and I had hoped to keep it that way.

“Turn.” I point.

V puts on her directional and turns. “Hey!” She grins. “I just turned across twolanes of traffic!”

She parks.

I pry my hands from the door handle and remove my foot frommy imaginary brake friend and stagger into the store.

There’s a woman seated near the entrance. “May I help you?” She gives us a perky grin.

“We’re shopping for prom dresses,” Filibuster says.

“OK!” Perkyperks. “Just let me have your name and I’llsend a sales consultant around to help you.”

“Great.” I roll myeyes. “I think we can handle picking outtwo dresses on our own.”

We run through the racks, rejecting practically everythingwe see: To much pastel. Toocolorful. Too many flowers. Too low. Too high. No straps. Too much beading. Finally, V has three dresses slung over herarm. The sales consultant bustles over efficiently. “Are you ready to try those on?”

Filibuster finds three dresses of her own and we head to thedressing room to find V.

There are several dozen girls picking out prom dresses thisday. And a couple of wedding parties. Mothers and future mothers-in-law gatheraround the brides standing on pedestals before three-way mirrors. Come to think of it, there are mirrorseverywhere. I glance at myselfsurreptitiously, out of the corner of my eye. I notice I’ve got white socks on beneath my leather clogs. And my jeans are torn. I didn’t feel like opening new contact lensestoday, so I’m wearing my ugly thick glasses. And my hair…Well, you know that’s a sore subject anyway. I turn away from the mirrors.

And I face more mirrors.

“V?”

“Yeah?”

I want to get out of here. Everywhere I look, I see me. Chubby. Unstylish. Me. “How are you doing?”

“Good.” She emergesin a long black gown.

Oh, shit. She islovely. “Gorgeous,” I say. “That’s the one.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“But it’s the first dress I tried on. I feel like I rushed it.”

“You have good taste. Go with it.”

“Is it, promyenough?”

“Yes, it’s promy. It’s a promdress.” I hope it’s a prom dress. Do girls wear black to prom? I look at Filibuster. Whisper out of the corner of my mouth. “Is it promy enough?”

She nods. “Yes.”

Now Filibuster’s shopping method is entirely different from her sister’s. She finds what she likes immediately but thenexhausts every other possible alternative before going back to her firstchoice. She tries on dress after dressuntil finally, we agree on one that suits her. “Can I just look one more time?

“Sure.”

My cell phone rings.

“Mom?”

“Yeah, Squints.”

“Can I make homemade potato chips now?”

“Put your dad on.”

“Hang on.”

My husband gets on. “Yo.”

“Don’t let him slice off any fingers. And stay by him when he’s working with theoil.”

“OK.”

A girl decides upon her wedding dress. A cry of joy goes up. The bride-to-be is handed a brass bell toring loudly, to announce her decision to the store. Everyone stops and claps and ooohs andaaaahhhs.

V looks at me. Frowns. “This isn’t my thing, Mom.”

Filibuster reappears holding up a dress. “What about this one?”

I study it. It’scolorful. Lots of layers of fabric. “I have to see it on you.”

Filibuster disappears into the dressing room. V and I go to look at shoes. The sales consultant tries to press rhinestonebags on us.

“We’re good,” I say.

My cell phone rings.

“Mom?”

“Yeah, Squints.”

“How do I know when the oil reaches 350 degrees?”

In a pinch, I’ve been known to use my meat thermometer insituations like this. But…”Just tell Dadto throw a bit of water in the oil. Ifit sizzles, it’s the right temperature.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Filibuster emerges.

She looks beautiful. She looks stunning.

“What do you think?”

“I like it.”

She beams. “This isthe first dress I showed you. You toldme you didn’t like it.”

“You shouldn’t listen to me.”

After two hours, we are done. We head to the counter.

In order to pay for two prom dresses and two pairs of shoes, I have toprovide my name, my telephone number and the dates of the two proms, which Istill don’t have figured out yet (It takes me awhile to get organized).

I’m given the total and pry the debit card from myhand. “You guys are paying Dad and meback, right?”

“Yep.”

“Are you sure?”

We head back to the car, the girls beaming.

V starts the car and heads for the exit. “Turn here.”

She cuts too soon. She hits the curb. Hard.

“Aaarrrrrgh!” Filibuster yells, from the backseat. This from the girl who hours earlier, during her driving time, floored the accelerator, thinking it was the brake.

The car kind of leaps into the air. There’s a scary scraping sound. I think of the tire my husband and I just replaced last week.

The car is hung up on the curb.

“What do I do?”

But before I can respond, V guns it. The car lurches. The bottomscrapes again.

“Stop!” I press my imaginarybrake friend. “Back it up a little.”

“THERE’S A CAR BEHIND US!” Filibuster again.

“Just a little.”

The car behind us backs up. A lot.

The car kind of falls off the curb. “Just go forward,” I tell V, pointing. "Let's check the tire."

V drives across the exit and into acarwash. The guys with towels slung overtheir shoulders look at us hopefully, point us towards their station.

“Ignore them,” I say. “Go that way.”

Finally, we navigate our way out of the parking lot.

We head home.

And as soon as he hears the car in the driveway, Squintsruns outside, potato chip samples for each of us in hand.

Next week: Graduation dresses.

Freefall

2012-03-04T06:45:00.000-08:00

Just before my husband pushed me, he’d whispered in myear. “A Roman emperor used to throw visitorshe didn’t like over the cliffs and into the sea below.”

I felt Phillip’s arms at my waist.

And then, I felt nothing.

I began to fall, the pressure of my husband's fingertips only a memory.

As I fell, the memories flew by, faster and faster until itwas all I could do to grasp at them; as if by holding onto them, I could gain purchaseon my life again.

I thought of the day I’d agreed to marry Phillip.

“Don’t go,” he’d said to me, the week before I was to leaveon a mission trip. “You can help peoplehere—in the United States.”

“This is important to me, Phillip.”

He took my hand. “Therainforest is full of dangers. You’reterrified of snakes.”

I lifted my chin. “I’lllearn to overcome my fear.”

He released my hand. “Atleast come camping with me before you go.”

Phillip killed the snake that I’d found curled inside the tent. And then, holding the snake by the head, he looked me in the eye. “Thereare bigger snakes than this in the rainforest. Marry me, Jules. I’ll keep yousafe.”

Within a year, I’d given birth. I busied myself with bottles and diapers and doctor’sappointments. As I began to navigate thewaters of motherhood, my confidence increased. I became aware of my power as a person.

And then, the baby got sick.

“It’s not your fault, Jules.” But Phillip’s were eyes dark and angry as heturned away and knelt to pray in the hospital chapel.

The baby recovered.

My confidence did not.

There was an accident.

I totaled the car.

There was a dinner party.

My food sickened the guests.

But Phillip was there every time, to pick up the pieces andpat them back into place like a clay figurine, raw and unfired and malleable.

From this height, I could see the way the earth knit itselftogether. The fields were anchored inplace by pristine farmhouses and pretty red barns. The roads crisscrossed here and there; somany places to get to where you are going. So many paths to take. Furtheroff, the interstate cinched itself around the ever-expanding waistline offactories and malls and discount stores.

My mind returned to the snake, the baby, the accident, theparty. All of those events, I realized, werelinked: Phillip had put the snake inside the tent. Phillip had sickened the baby and slit thetires and poisoned the dinner. And everytime, Phillip was there to rescue me. Now there was this; Phillip's birthday present to me, ostensibly to help me overcome my fears.

Phillip had cinched a belt around my confidence.

I wondered how he intended to save me now.

I pulled the rip cord. My chute deployed.

Time slowed.

I relaxed.

So this was what it was like, I mused, to be weightless. This was what it felt like to be free ofworry. This was what it felt like to befull of confidence. This time, Phillip's plan to rescue me had backfired: When he pushed me from that plane, Phillip had set me free.

I studied the gentle swell ofthe earth rising up to meet me. I washere. I had arrived. And as soon as my feet hit the ground I was goingto ask Phillip for a divorce.

Post script: Phillip had cut the cord on the parachute he’d intended forme. But just before the jump, whilePhillip was in the front of the plane, the instructor switched chutes.

Apparently my husband had planned to save me mid-air.

No divorce proceedings were necessary.

For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Eric Limer challenged me with "Write something where the viewpoint character is in freefall for the duration of the story's timeframe. (Your POV can, like, think back on things, but he/she should be in the air at the beginning of the story and in the air at the end.)" and I challenged Chimnese with "You're given the opportunity to meet your mother or father at a point before your birth. Who would you meet? When? What would you talk about?"

Broken

2012-03-03T12:27:00.001-08:00

Largely, my sisters and I dismissed the authority of thebabysitter. She was a playmate. She brought us treats. We styled her hair anddemanded that she style ours as well. Finally,at the appointed hour, she gave us piggyback rides to bed and tucked us in andbrought us water and let us go to the bathroom one final time. Wearily, she clicked off the lights and leftthe room.

A few moments later, we sneaked out of bed and tiptoed backinto the family room where we found her eating popsicles and watching TV.

Teasing each other was my sisters’ and my favoriteoccupation. Three girls—not Irish twins,but rather Irish triplets—whirledinto the family room and then down the stairs into the basement, chasing each otheraround the ping pong table, zipping past the wine rack and then back up the stairsand into the kitchen. I paused to grab awooden spoon from one of the drawers.

“Please, guys, just go to bed.”

We ran into the dining room and down the hallway towards thebedrooms. We ran into my sister’s room, dashedaround the bed, past the little blue table with matching chairs, then back outand down the hall. We ran into theliving room—a room carpeted in dark green, largely unused unless company wasstaying on the pullout couch.

I had my sister in my sights. I drew back the wooden spoon. I smashed it against her backside.

The wooden spoon cracked in two.

All action ceased.

Our eyes widened as we stared at each other.

The merriment ended.

This was dangerous.

This was serious.

This was bad.

I hid the wooden spoon in the coat closet of the livingroom; a closet carpeted in dark green and containing the leaves from the diningroom table, my mother’s raincoat, and a leather bag holding my father’sphotography equipment.

We headed off to bed.

The party was over.

Apparently, the bedraggled babysitter pronounced ourbehavior “excellent.”

And as far as I know, my parents never discovered the brokenwooden spoon hidden in the closet; my mother never noticed its absence.

A few years later, we moved to our new home.

And perhaps the broken wooden spoon is still there—thirty-fiveyears later, hidden away at the back of the coat closet, sitting on a carpet ofmossy green.

* * *
This post was written in response to this week's Write on Edge prompt: One person’s Humpty Dumpty is another person’s omelet. In 400 words or less, write about a time when something was irrecoverably broken and the ensuing scramble.

Let's Keep on Dancing

2012-03-02T17:51:00.003-08:00

“What’s wrong?” I asked my husband, commonly referred to hereas Darth.

He sighed “I’m in my What’sit all about, Alfie mood.” This, ofcourse, was in reference to the song my mother always used to begin singingwhenever my brother, sisters or I would question the meaning of life. Mom has another favorite she used to pull out, too. Is thatall there is? …then let’s keep ondancing.

I understood my husband’s mood: His kids are growing up—and awayfrom him. He’s no longer their hero, butmore of an annoyance.

“I hope you’re not going to write about this,” Darth said. “People will think I’m grumpy and melancholy.”

I laughed. “People thinkabout this all the time." I reminded himof the bumper sticker I’d seen: What if the hokey pokey is what it’s allabout?

* **

I picked up a reserve from the library the other day, a bookon tiny house design. I imagined Darthand me building our own small house; off the grid, with reclaimed materials.

I mentioned the book at dinner; told Darth it would be funto try.

V looked at me. “Don’tyou…you know…have to be in constructionto try something like that?”

Even my teenagers, my question-all-the-rules; don’t-ever-tell-me-noteenage daughters are telling me I can’t. They don’t believe that their parents can builda simple little cabin.

Perhaps they’re right.

Perhaps they’re not.

I don’t think the Hokey Pokey is what it’s allabout. And while I can’t really answer what’s it all about, I can say this: bylearning and growing and changing and dreaming,I’m going to keep right on dancing.

And maybe someday, Darth and I will have our little cabin inthe woods.

Off the grid.

Built by us.

Proposal

2012-03-02T06:35:00.002-08:00

The phone rang at 4am. Caryn didn’t answer: Bad news was best heard overcoffee.

She padded to the kitchen.

Seth’s courage waned. His proposal sounded dull. He disconnected.

Caryn drank her coffee alone, waiting for the ring.

This was written in response to this week's Trifecta Writing Challenge. Here was our assignment:

Complete the following story in exactly 33 words:

The phone rang at 4am.

Leak

2012-02-29T07:45:00.000-08:00

“It’s a cook’s instinct, Mom,”Squints explained, sprinkling a pinch of sugar over his pizza sauce. “Kind of like a Jedi fighter going afterDarth Vader.” It was this same cook’s instinct that led him to addvinegar to his homemade ranch dressing last night.

“That’s going to taste funny,” Itold him. “The vinegar is going to separate the fat in the buttermilk.”

Of course I was wrong. The dressing was delicious.

But I noticed that Squints’ cook’s instinct failed him on the secondnight of our pizza bakeoff: His instinctdidn’t tell him that that night he would blow up the pizza stone in my oven.

The pizza bakeoff has beensuspended until further notice.

* **

But perhaps it was instinct thatled me the other day, to look up at the showerhead and discover the source ofthe leak that has been plaguing us for months. No amount of caulk around the wall where it leaked last time fixedit. An examination by an expert revealedperfectly sound tiles. Until the otherday, I had never thought to look up when I was looking for the leak; to pressmy fingers along the drywall and feel it give under pressure.

I picked up the phone and calledthe handyman who knows my house as well as I do. He showed up, clothes and hair and, yes, evenglasses speckled with paint from another job he was working on. He followed me upstairs, shaking his headsolemnly as I put my hand to the wall.

“So how much would you guess?” Iasked, crossing my fingers behind my back.

"Well, got to tear that entire wallout.” He gestured to the shower tiles. “Replacethe wood. Possibly reset the showerstall floor. Fix the plumbing. Retile. Fix the kitchen ceiling. I’mguessing…” Here, he winced. And I winced, too. “Fifteen hundred?”

Sold. Thelast time the shower leaked, I hired a specialist and spent three thousanddollars to repair a quarter wall of tile.

We arranged for a date for the workto begin. “I may need to bring in aplumber for that shower floor,” he said. “If it gets to be too complicated.”

“I’ve got a good drywall guy,” Iadded, pointing to the kitchen ceiling. “Ifyou need one.”

He squinted at the ceiling. “Nah…Ican handle that. But if you ever needone, forget yours. I’ve got a betterone.” And here he named a man: my drywall guy, a man retired from the businessof rushing up houses, but working on his own, one job at a time, a truecraftsman in his work.

Over the years, I’ve amassed asmall army of independent people to address issues in my house: An electrician whosits at my kitchen table and talks for twenty minutes after he repairs a switch; a handyman who tells me about his latest grandchildren. A drywall man who talks about the old way ofbuilding houses. An appliance repairmanwho pulls out my ice machine, jawing about hisfamily and the government while squinting at a faulty motor, reading glassesperched on the edge of his nose.

Each of these men is engaged in a processdone so seamlessly and so many times in their careers, they appear to work oninstinct.

I envy their skill. I wish I had the knowledge and the courage to do what they do: to hangdrywall; to tear apart an electric switch; to rip out tile.

But instinct tells me I’d betternot try it.

So instead, I head outside to workin my garden.

A small army of birds perches inthe branches of the pin oak, patiently waiting for spring.

Baseball Gardens

2012-02-28T13:48:00.000-08:00

The holidays areover. The Superbowl has come andgone. That mountain of snow in theparking lot of Home Depot is a pile of black sludge. A thin layer of salt perpetually frosts thecars; the roads; even, occasionally, my best pair of black slacks. The house is cold. My feet are cold. Winter, it seems, has lost its sheen.

“Pitchers andcatchers reported the other day,” my husband says hopefully, pulling away thecurtain and frowning at the gray sky. Inod and return my attention to the UPS truck pulling up outside our house. I open the front door. The driver goes to the side of his truck,grabs a huge box and skates his way up our icy sidewalk to present me with…

“Whatcha’ gotthere?” My husband points at the box.

I smile and closethe door. “Seeds.”

He rolls his eyesand returns to the sports page. “Youalways buy too much.”

I open the box andpull out packets of beans, corn, tomatoes, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, squash,broccoli, peas...I tear open the bag just to feel the wrinkled peas in my hand;to marvel at the memory of nature quietly going about her business as she hasalways done.

Invariably, I rushthe season and begin planting: First rosemary. Then parsley. Artichokes. Carefully pressing two or three impossiblysmall seeds into the soil; my little soldiers of spring lined up in peat potsin every available window. And then Iwait, counting back the weeks from the last frost as steadily as my husbandcounts the days forward until Opening Day.

My husband glancesup from his paper and smirks. I knowwhat he’s thinking. Too often, my gardenbrings disappointment. Too much rain,perhaps, or maybe that vacation in June where we got behind and never caughtup. Just one day of neglect may leave myrosemary seedlings slumped over the soil, their withered bodies anaccusation. Too often, my husband endsup disappointed as well: player slumps; injuries; bad calls; plain dumb luck,will leave him frustrated, wanting the season to just end already.

But every sooften, his team wins a championship. Andonce in awhile, in late July, I’ll discover the perfect tomato, still full ofsummer’s warmth when I slice it and layer it over thick wedges of homemadebread with salt and pepper and grated parmesan cheese.

And so, as thesnow falls gently outside, we continue dreaming: of gardens and baseball; of angledhoes scratching the earth; of clean white baseballs whirling through the airtowards the batter, patiently waiting for that perfect pitch. Better days are coming. It’s nearly Opening Day. And last frost is April 15.

Wretched

2012-02-27T14:45:00.004-08:00

A change in the weather; a exchange of winter’s icy teethfor the gentle caress of spring. Thewind will coax the ice from the ground and chase it to the clouds. Spring will bring rain.

His home is damp; the walls streaked with water. Today he will shed his home; trade it in fora new one as easily as a hermit crab exchanges shells.

He drags the box to the dumpster behind the Giant Eagle andthrows it in. He spies a bunch ofbananas, brown in spots, but edible. He smiles:Breakfast is served.

Three months into this experiment, he’s not sure how long hecan continue.

A woman drives up in a shiny red Volvo. She pulls up beside him, puts her window downa quarter inch. Diamonds glitter uponher ears and wrists. A fur coils abouther neck. “How can you possibly livethat way?” Her smile is vapid.

He shrugs. He oftenwonders that himself. He thinks of hisbank account; his luxury car; his expensive clothing, five miles away. His net worth far exceeds this woman’s.

He hated that life.

She looks at the bananas tucked beneath his arm. “Are you going to eat those?”

He nods.

She wrinkles her nose and takes a sip of her takeout coffee. “That’s absolutely wretched.”

“Funny,” he replies, nodding at her coffee. “I was about to say the same thing to you.”

He chucks a banana peel into the dumpster, grabs a new boxand heads for the bridge.

On the way, he passes Leo, homeless for three days; nohealth insurance; hungry.

He takes a crumpled ten dollar bill from his pocket andhands it over.

Leo protests. “Youkeep it, honey. I know you ain’t gotmuch neither.”

“I insist.” He smilesand heads for the bridge where he will arrange a new home, of sorts.

And this life heknows, is worth much more than the life he left.

He’s not certain if he’ll return.

This post was written in response to the Trifecta Writing Challenge. This week's word was wretched.

Dog Days

2012-02-26T16:26:00.000-08:00

Momma burstinto my bedroom, an accusing look on her face. “Billy, you take Brutus out yet?”

“Mmmph.”

“Billy, when we got that dog, you promised me youwas gonna’ take care of him.” Mommabegan enumerating my sins upon her fingertips. “You was gonna’ feed him. You wasgonna’ walk him. You was gonna’ pick uphis doo from the yard.”

I rolled onto my stomach; returned to my video game.

“You mark my words, child. You gonna’ come back as a dog in your nextlife. Then you'll see what it's like.”

“Catholics don’t believe in reincarnation, Momma. You’regoing to go to hell.”

Momma’s voice softened. “I ain’t going nonesuch place, Billy. I was just fooling with you.”

I grinned. Mommadidn’t like talk of hell and sin.

“I’ll tell you one thing, though, that dog’s going topee right on my brand new-carpet and thenyou’ll see me angry.”

“After I finish this game.”

Momma grunted. “You don’t start taking care of that dog, Billy, I swear I’ll take himto the pound. Let someone responsible take care of him.”

“You can’t take Brutus to the pound, Momma. No one in their right mind would adopt that crazydog. He’d just…They’d give him theneedle, Momma.”

“Wouldn’t be my fault, now, would it?” Momma nodded and crossed her arms.

I rose from the bed and went to the garage for theleash. Brutus skittered into the kitchenand began whirling around in circles. Hebarked twice and continued spinning.

Momma laughed. “Looks like he’s tap-dancing out a message in Morse code on them yellowtiles. When’d you feed him last, anyhow? He’s acting hungry, too.” Momma crossed the kitchen to Brutus’s waterbowl. “That poor dog. Nothing to drink, neither. Billy, it's the middle of summer, what are you thinking?”

I snapped the leash on his collar and headed out. Despite the dark, it was still hot outside. I yanked on Brutus’scollar to speed him along down the sidewalk.

When I returned, Momma was sitting on the living room couch, a pile of mending beside her, the eleven o’clock news on low in the background. “Night, Momma.”

She glanced up, pulling the needle through the fabric of the shirt on her lap. “Good night, son. See you tomorrow.”

** *

“Brutus!” Momma’s voice was livid. Sheshook her finger at the mess on the floor. “I told that boy you was gonna’ pee on my new rug.” She looked around the house. “Now where did that boy get to, anyway? Billy? Billy!” She shook her head. “I got me a lazy son, is what I got, Brutus.” She snapped a leash to the collar around myneck and gave a tug. “I’m taking you tothe pound. See if I care if you get theneedle.”

I braced my front legs.

Momma pulled. "Oh, no you don't." Momma dragged me across the yellow tiles and out thefront door. She hauled me into the frontseat of her Chevette. She backed out ofthe driveway and slowly drove to the pound, determined tears streaming down hercheeks the whole time.

And as hard as I tried to tell Momma it was me; itwas Billy who sat beside her, my words came out as a series of of strangled and desperate barks.

For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Billy Flynn challenged me with "You wake and find yourself transformed into an animal. Close your eyes and listen to Blitzen Trapper's "Furr" if you're needing a little inspiration http://www.spin.com/audio/download/33803/03+Furr.mp3" and I challenged Tara Roberts with "You're the janitor at the local school. Tell me what you think about when you clean up after the kids."

This post was also linked here:

Fenced In

2012-02-26T13:20:00.002-08:00

It’s a beautiful, cloudless day. The temperature is in the high forties and isexpected to be in the fifties all next week. My husband made his annual trek to the garage attic this morning,handing down posts and fencing and plastic containers. This afternoon, after the sun begins to warm theback yard, Squints and I decide to put the garden fence up.

In this high-brow neighborhood, it’s a low-brow affair: Uglymetal fence secured with white twine to green posts hammered into the groundevery three feet or so. And I keeptelling myself, as I do every year, I want to grow more; I want to do more; Iwant to have more land.

I pause in my hammering and watch Squints tying the fence toa post. Outside Cat pounces at the fenceand grabs at the twine. Squints laughsand cuts a new piece of twine. “You’renot going to get over this fence, Cat,” he says. “No more messing in the garden.” He pauses. “Hey, Mom?”

“Yeah?”

“Think I have any strawberries yet?”

“No.”

“Can I look?”

“Sure.”

He drops the twine and pulls back the straw we put down lastfall. I set down my hammer to join himand discover that his strawberries have come through the winter beautifully.

And then I take a step back and look at our tiny, hopefulgarden and I tell myself it is enough for now: Squints is learning how to growhis own food. He’s learning the cycle ofnature. He celebrates strawberries grownin the back yard.

We finish and put away our tools and Squints runs over tothe neighbor’s house to play.

Not content to return to the house yet, I head to myperennial bed where I cut away last summer’s foliage and find green shootspeeking up from the ground.

Pizza Cookoff

2012-02-25T19:25:00.003-08:00

“Listen to this recipe, Squints,” I said. “No-knead pizza dough that keeps in thefridge for days. Tastes like sourdough.” I began reading from the recipe printed in myMother Earth magazine.

He wrinkled his nose and grabbed his Bon Appétit. “My recipe sounds better.” He listed the various toppings: bacon, somecheese I’d never heard of, arugula, Brussels sprouts…

Squints has gotten to the point in his cooking where heconsiders himself an expert—certainly he considers himself a better cook thanI: He’ll offer to add some spices to a soup I’ve been working on all day or he’lltell me that I might add a bit of salt to the lentils. Sometimes I find this endearing. Often it irritates me.

“Well, we should just have a pizza cook off,” I said. “Allweek. Then we’ll know who’s got the better recipe.”

“Yeah!” Squint’s eyesbrightened. He scanned the recipe again. His face fell. “Oh.”

“What?”

“We need a baking stone and peel.” Squints likes all that fancy-pants cookingequipment. He wants a waffle iron and afondue pot; he wants real vanilla beans to make ice cream.

I prefer making do. “Wecan just use cookie sheets, like we always have.”

“Those cookie sheets are crappy.”

They are. They’rediscolored and dented and beat-up from years of cookies and pizzas and Frenchbread. “They’re fine.”

But one of our cooking friends learned of Squint’s plightand offered the use of a stone and peel. And now, we’re in business.

Squints whipped up a batch of dough after dinner tonight:Enough dough to make six pizzas. Lookslike he’s got the first three days covered.

Maybe everyone will get tired of pizza before it’s my turnto cook.

* **

V and Filibuster had the entire week off from school. I envisioned days lounging around catching upon my reading; watching movies; sleeping in.

Instead, I ran the kids to various doctor appointments;dropped off their cleaning; picked up their cleaning; ran them to practices andcompetitions; ran them to work; visited three colleges; ran them to parties;ran them to movies; and spent several hours working on driving lessons.

I hate all this busyness. With no time to plan, I tend to take shortcuts: We picked up lunch on theway home from one of the college visits. And after Filibuster’s competition, we grabbed Chinese. Constantly on the go, we grab take-out coffeeand eat lunch in the car.

And this, of course, makes me incredibly grumpy.

So after the kitchen was cleaned tonight and the dishwasherwas humming, Squints and I sat down at the kitchen table to plan ourgarden. “Three things, Squints,” Isaid. “We can’t get carried away thisyear.”

And he was good: He selected pickling cucumbers and cherrytomatoes and sunberries: an interesting-looking fruit we’d never heard of. He slid the catalogue towards me.

“Now you pick, Mom. Three things.” I picked soupbeans for drying, green beans for climbing, peas to trellis. I picked tomatoes for the spaghetti sauce Ifreeze every fall. I picked…

”Mom, you picked more than three.”

“I did, didn’t I?”

Squints grinned. “CanI pick more?”

“Sure.”

Squints added chocolate peppers.

I added basil.

Squints added another variety of cucumbers.

I added red peppers.

Squints added chives.

I picked Italian parsley.

By the time we’d finished, we’d picked fourteen items togrown in our tiny garden.

But that’s OK: Seeds are a promise of the future.

Squints filled out the order form and tallied our bill: Forthe cost of one take-out lunch, we have our garden.

We wrote a check and tucked the order in the envelope

In six short weeks, we will tuck our seeds into the soil andwait for the magic to begin.

Gardening and cooking force me to slow down and notice theworld around me. And I’m happy Squintsis interested.

Because soon enough, other interests—driving and college andpart-time jobs—will call to him and my cooking and gardening buddy will moveon.

And I’ll be making pizzas on my own on crappy old bakingsheets.

And I’ll be planning my garden by myself.

Carol

2012-02-24T10:42:00.000-08:00

“Carol’s here.” Earle insisted.

“She left him years ago,” Tish whispered to Jude. “Poor,sweet man.”

Earle died; They cleared away the remnants of his life.

They found Carol tucked beneath the floorboards.

This post was written in response to the Trifecta Writing Challenge. This weekend, we were to write a 33 word response to this picture:

Unshared Memories

2012-02-23T13:38:00.003-08:00

In late fall, workslowed for Jonathan. In the winter, itpractically stopped. Jonathan was in hiswinter, he knew. A winter withoutsprings. Without summers to look forwardto. Without falls to gather in theharvest and settle in. He pulled thetractor into the barn and shut it off, wondered what this place would look likewithout the barn, without the farmhouse. Full of house after house after house full of people who wanted toescape the city, who claimed to want the land, then did nothing with it exceptcall a lawn care company in to blast it with chemicals once a week. He glanced at the trailer. Where would the little silver trailergo?

God, he loved thatchild. He loved her more than sheknew. More, probably, than he wasentitled to. But not more than he ought. Lord knew she needed as much love as shecould get.

One Saturday nightin May, the story went, long after her stomach had begun to bulge, NealaJackson went to the midnightdrive-in with a girlfriend. She returned to the apartment she shared with hermother and four younger brothers, each produced in quick succession, one everyyear until Neala’s father skipped town. The front door was wide open, swinging on rusted hinges. There was no furniture left behind; no sheetsor blankets or towels. Only a note,taped to the refrigerator, written in her mother’s unsure hand: “I’m sorry, butI’m just too tired to raise up any more babies.” Her mother had left Neala nothing but an oldChevy truck and a bank account—probably long forgotten—with a few thousanddollars in it. Neala slept on the floor of the apartment that night, withnothing but her sadness to cover herself—or maybe her anger. The first thing the next day, she drove rightover to Vincent’s Vintage Vehicles and paid cash for a reconditioned trailer. She hitched it up to the back of the Chevyand drove it right onto the farm, smack-dab in the middle of the alfalfa field.

Jonathan couldn’tturn her away: Neala Jackson reminded him of an animal in a trap. Helpless and afraid. Rabid. The neighbors said he was crazy, at first. Said he was too nice for his own good. Said that Neala Jackson was nothing buttrouble. Then they just stopped talking.

A shallow creekcut the farm in half. Years ago,Jonathan caught Ellie standing stark naked, knee deep in cold water. Ellie must’ve been no more than two.

“This where youbathe every day?”

Shamelessly,almost defiantly she looked him in the eye. “Yeah.”

“Well, then.”Jonathan had scratched at his jaw. “Where do you go to the bathroom?”

“In a little pot. Momma tosses it in the weeds by the track.”

Jonathan shook hishead and pursed his lips and thought about what the neighbors would saynext. First thing the following day, heplumbed in a water line and a small septic system.

In time, Jonathanplowed around the trailer and seeded a tiny lawn. Annie planted some of her perennials in alittle flowerbed near the front door.

And, eventually,after it looked like we were going to stay for good, Jonathan put in a graveldriveway leading to the trailer.

Jonathan looked atthe trailer. Neala Jackson never utteredone word of thanks. But despite herapparent ingratitude, he wouldn’t have done it any other way. Because she had given him—and Annie—thechild.

The house smelledof furniture oil and cinnamon and contentment.

“Annie?”

“In theback.”

The door slammedshut as Jonathan followed his nose down a hallway lined with discolored family photographsin dusty frames. There was his Annie, ather usual post in the kitchen. She’dkept her looks, grown more beautiful, in fact, with each passing year. As thin as Jonathan and nearly as tall. He smiled at her outfit. While most women her age tended towardflowered dresses and blue hair, Annie wore holey jeans and Jonathan’s old teeshirts. And when her hair needed a trim,she’d take a chair to the back porch, tie a sheet around her neck and hand thescissors to Jonathan. Jonathan wouldnever get a job in a beauty parlor. Buthe did a decent enough job. Enough tokeep Annie happy. And that was all he’dever wanted. To keep Annie happy.

She wiped herhands on her apron and turned to him.

“Jonathan, when the Good Lord decides to takeyou, he’ll have to take that old Ford as well.” She smiled and kissed his cheek. “Hungry?”

He took her in hisarms and rested his head against the top of her chest. He looked out the window. Beyond

Beyond the barnand the chicken coop; past Annie’s vegetable garden and the muddy field lay aset of railroad tracks. When he was akid, Jonathan spent hours on those tracks. He’d place an ear on the rails and imagine he could hear the trainapproaching. He’d jump off at the lastsecond and watch the train passing through the farm, chugging its heart out andchanting progress, progress under its breath as it puffed along and disappearedaround the bend.

But it was alwaysa dream: The last train left town years ago, taking progress right along withit, leaving only the tall weeds that grew between those abandoned rails; weedswhere, Johanthan knew, Ellie would hide for hours waiting for her mother tofinish up with her current boyfriend. Hesmiled. Ellie found treasure in thoseweeds: Endless balls of iron ore and heavy spikes that she’d lug home toAnnie. Every time Ellie brought his wifesomething, Annie would stop what she was doing immediately. She’d sit down. Examine the treasure carefully and exclaimover it like that piece of rusted out iron was the highlight of her day. Annie’d kept them, too. Kept them in a shoebox underneath her bed,along with all the other memories she couldn’t bear to divorce herself from, nomatter how happy. No matter how painful.

“Annie?”

“Hmmm?” She pulled away. Smiled. God, how he loved those eyes.

“Where do unsharedmemories go, when someone dies?”

She closed hereyes, thought for a moment. He loved theway Annie took his questions seriously, ridiculous as they may sound. “Some memories, Jonathan, aren’t meant to beshared. Those must die.” She grew thoughtful for a moment. “Depressing, isn’t it?”

“Does place havememories? Does this place,” he gesturedaround the kitchen. “…have memories?”

“Yes. It does.” She smiled. “The people who movein after us will feel our memories, will feel our love and our history. Our pain and, yes,” she nodded sadly. “Our loss.”

“But what if thisplace—after we’re gone, I mean—is no more?”

She frowned. “A place can’t be no more.”

“What if someone toredown the barn and the house? Would thememory of place still be here?”

“This place willnever be torn down, Jonathan. You’dnever let that happen.”

“Humor me…”

“Memories.” She leaned against the oven, arms crossed. “I believe that when a place is torn down, destroyed,then the memories of that place are destroyed as well.”

“What about thetrees? The soil? The plants?”

“Jonathan, ifyou’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, there will be no trees left onthis farm.” She frowned. “This is hypothetical, isn’t it?”

“I’m getting a lotof pressure to sell.”

“No one can forceyou to do what you don’t want to do, Jonathan. I ought to know that.”

“They keep tellingme that there are no heirs to the place; that sooner or later I will be gone,and you will be gone, and there will be no one holding on.” He stared out the window. Blinked back tears.

“Ellie,” Anniesays. “Give the farm to Ellie.”

“Her mother…”

“Doesn’t need toknow. Jonathan, you love that child just asmuch as you love this farm. Give thefarm to Ellie.”

Spin Class

2012-02-20T19:04:00.000-08:00

So I finally returned my husband’s holey sweatpants andinvested in a pair of yoga pants. Tocelebrate, I signed up for a spin class. I arrived with my daughter this evening, late as is our custom.

We were woefully unprepared: We’d forgotten hand towels, ofcourse. And water bottles. One of the students grinned at us, taking inour trendy yoga pants. “You might wantto invest in some thick bike shorts.”

I smiled. I didn’tneed bike shorts. What was a spin class other than riding astationary bike just a little bit faster than normal?

The instructor, a petite thing with maybe one percent bodyfat, helped us adjust our bikes and showed us the emergency brake. I looked at V. “Really,” I scoffed after the instructor dimmedthe lights and started the music blasting. “What would we need an emergency brake for on a stationary bike?” We giggled.

“Start cycling,” the instructor said. She was awfully perky. “Now arm circles.”

I looked at V. “Areyou kidding me?” I hissed.

“Reverse direction.”

“No way.”

“One arm up. Drop theother to the side.”

V’s eyes widened.

After a torturous five minute warm up (Who knew you could docrunches on a stationary bike?), the real workout began.

“Tighten the tension.”

I reached down and pretended to move the dial.

“A full turn.” Theinstructor said, eyeballing me. “Nowstand for eight.”

I stood.

“Now sit for eight.”

I sat.

“Stand.”

I stood.

“Use your core topull up. Your core!”

Now, I know that somewhere deep within my body there’s supposedto be a set of muscles—this core all the fit people talk about—that I’msupposed to be using. But somehow, afterthree children and thirty thousand cookies, I seem to have misplaced mine.

“Sit.”

I sat. I looked at V. I looked at the clock. This was hell.

We went through the stand up, sit down, fight, fight, fightroutine for about ten minutes, before the instructor came up with a new meansof torture: Sprinting.

My trendy yoga pants slipped down on my hips. I yanked them up. I wondered where I could find my core.

V’s foot slipped out of its cage. Round and round the pedal went, smacking herin the back of the foot with every turn: thunketythunkety thunk. “This isn’t fun,” shesaid.

“Hit the emergency brake!” I yelled, pointing to the red dial. “The brake!” (V’s used to this kind of yelling from me: I’mteaching her how to drive.)

I slowed my bike, ostensibly to aid my daughter in distress,but the truth was this: I couldn’t go on.

“Now stand and sprint!”

I sat. I didn’tsprint. I tried to slow mybreathing.

“Do what you can,” the instructor said, too loudly.

The rest of the class glanced over at me.

I stood. Isprinted.

I tightened tension. I loosened tension. I stood. I sat. And every time I sat, I became painfully aware of how essential bikeshorts are to this sort of thing.

“Now rest and hydrate.” The instructor looked at V and me. “Now you understand the importance of the water bottle.”

I reeled my tongue back in and tried to smile throughgritted teeth.

Finally, mercifully, the class ended.

We stretched and cleaned off our bikes and headed home.

“I feel like C3PO,” V said, as she headed in the door.

My toenails hurt. Myteeth hurt. Even my hair follicleshurt. The rest of me is just blissfully numb.

So, if I can manage to make it up the stairs, I’m headed off tobed.

Perhaps a cookie first.

And, hey, if any of you find my missing core?

Could you let me know before next week's class?

Fool

2012-02-20T12:58:00.000-08:00

Midwaythrough his junior year, Julian DeSantos left Harvard and moved onto atwenty-acre plot of land in upstate New York. He gave away his possessions and constructed a simple one-roomcabin. He gave up electricity. He gave up plumbing.

He evengave up the internet.

Friendssaid it was the stress: triple major; pressure from his folks. He simply snapped. And his mind snapped, too.

The years passed. Old friends went on to lucrative careers and vacationhomes; pretty boats and second wives.

Julian married Louise, a plaingirl, a simple girl, by townstandards.

Together they had fourkids.

Julian played in the dirt. He played with his children. He found he had all the time in the world todo what he wanted.

As he learned to fend forhimself—to repair the tractor; to mend the roof; to raise chickens—he feltinstinct taking over. He remembered all thatwas forgotten. The collective memory ofhis grandparents and great-grandparents and even those before came rushing back,happy to have found a home again in Julian.

When he wandered intotown wearing his dirty jeans and torn shirts, the people took pity on him. They tried to press money into his hands;were angry when he refused it.

“Poor fool,” the bankersaid one day, after Julian had passed. “Reallyought to be locked up.”

“He’s harmless,” thepoliceman said.

“But for his own good,”the banker insisted. “The man can’t eventake care of himself, let alone his family.”

The policeman agreed tolook into the matter.

But then the bottom droppedout of the market. Overnight, houseslost their value. Portfolios wereworthless. Life savingsdisappeared.

The dollar lost allvalue: The enlightened masses burned their cash and their stock certificates and,yes, even their diplomas for fuel and lined up at Julian’s door for his wife’s eggsand milk.

“Lucky bastard,” theysaid, watching Julian smile as he pulled a stray weed from beneath a strawberryleaf.

This post was written in response to The Trifecta Writing Challenge. This week's word was fool:

3 a : a harmlesslyderanged person or one lacking in common powers of understanding

The Memory of Memories

2012-02-20T08:44:00.000-08:00

Droplets of dew dry in the slanting sun. She lay there in the cool meadow; spongy mossbeneath her; the smells of earth—life and death, decay and growth—circling. She feels the arms of the earth, steady and strong,supporting her. She stares at thecloudless sky; the red rose sun beaming down hot and bitter and powerful likethat first cup of coffee after a restless night spent wandering the housewaiting for sleep, checking windows and doors and the gas on the stove and thecoffee pot, mentally rehearsing a habit in a role she’s played far toolong. She opens her eyes. “I have been here before,” she announces tothe air, thin and stale. Her chillywords are carried away on a cloud of mist. Why the sun warms her body but not her words is still a mystery to her. She fells the pull of something, a nigglingagainst her brain, like a word she cannot fasten to her tongue. She feels the memory of a memory. She frowns. “I have been here before,” she repeats.

Joe looks up from the card game, startled.

“Never mind her, Joe. Miss June say that every day at nine.” The bigger one tosses down a jack. “Your turn.”

The cards are glossy and slick in Joe’s hands and he hopeshis eyes don’t reveal the truth: He is terrified of the disease Miss Junecarries within her head.

He remembers his momma making cornmeal mush every Fridaynight; cutting the cornmeal into thick pieces and frying it up withonions. She’d take the piece of liverthe butcher had given her for half price—nobody wanted liver those days—and sliceit thin, coating it in a mixture of flower and salt before laying it in the panupon a bed of oil. And as Joe and hislittle brother watched, the liver would dance and curl upon the stage of thetwelve inch cast iron pan, blackened with time and use.

“Don’t put that pan in water,” Momma would always say, afterthe dinner had been dealt onto the nine chipped plates she’d bought from theSalvation Army. “Jest wipe it out with atowel and set it back on the stove.” Shewould smile then to soften her words, revealing her chipped and yellowed teeth. Just before dinner, Momma would clip one rosefrom the bush outside the back door and set it in the vase in the center of thetable. “There,” she would clap her handsand admire the bloom, red as anger, “don’t that look fine?”

And they would sit and eat.

“How come you favor them flowers so much?” Joe’s eldest brother would always ask. “You fuss over them things like they was your own children.”

“My roses is good company,” she would reply. “I can love ‘em as much as I want and theywon’t push me away. They don’t give meno lip, neither.”

The boys would laugh, then. Joe supposed that, in a houseful of boys, his mother needed a spot ofbeauty to bloom within her sad and bitter life.

One day, Joe came in from hunting to find a man he did notknow sitting at the kitchen table.

“Say hello to your granddaddy, Joe.”

Joe frowned. This wasn’this momma’s momma.

His mother forced a note of cheer into her voice. “This here’s your daddy’s daddy.”

Joe wondered why the man was here when his daddy was longgone to God knew where. He approachedthe table. “Hello.”

The man—his grandfather—looked at Joe without appearing tosee him.

“Don’t mind him, son. His mind’s gone to mush.”

“Don’t say that, Momma,” the eldest son, who figured himselfan intellectual, said. “The connectionshave gone bad, that’s all. Can’t you seeyou’re scaring them boys?”

Within two years, his mother’s rose bush withered and diedwhile she cared for her ex-husband’s father.

“Your turn, Joe.”

Joe startles.

The bigger man laughs. “You look like you seen a ghost.”

“Do you mind if I take my lunch early today?”

The bigger man shakes his head. “It’s alright by me. Long as you get your work done.” He picks up a pencil stub and tallies the scores. Joe gathers the cards and tucks them into thebox. He grabs the handles of Miss June’swheelchair and pushes her back into her room. He stands before her, leaning forward, his hands pressed against hisknees. “I’m gonna’ get my momma a rosebush, Miss June. Now what do you think of that?”

She lays a palm—cool and moist—against his cheek. “I think she’d like that mighty fine, Joe.” She pats the bed. “Now crawl back into bed here and let me getyou tucked in.”

Joe slides into the bed; allows the covers to be tucked upall around him, the way his momma did when he was but a boy. He falls asleep, dreaming of roses.

Miss June tiptoes from the room on thick-soled shoes andreturns to the common area.

“How’s our patient?” The bigger one asks.

“Talking about roses again.”

The bigger one nods. “He does that every day.” Hetosses down a jack. “Your turn, June.”

On the Head of a Pin...

2012-02-18T19:03:00.000-08:00

The entrance to the diner opened, sending in a blast of cold air. Bitsy frowned. “Lilly Jean, you know we don’t open until sixo’clock. I can’t keep letting you in oreveryone else will be coming in for their morning coffee before we get itbrewed.”

“Bitsy, I…”

“I know you and Spank are sweet on each other now. But that doesn’t give you special privileges.”

Lilly Jean walked behind the breakfast bar. She reached underneath the bar and grabbed a filter. “Regular or decaf, Bitsy?”

Bitsy stiffened. Of all thenerve. But the call for coffee wasstronger than her indignation. “Regular.” Lord, she needed a jolt. Anddecaf wasn’t going to do it.

Lilly Jean tore open the packet of coffee and poured it into the filter. She nodded to the kitchen. “I hear Spank’s got his music on again. How he canlisten to that shit is beyond me.”

Bitsy sighed. She’d have to talk to Spank; tell him to keep his girlfriendin line. She studied Lilly Jean as shetook out two coffee cups from beneath the counter. Seemed to Bitsy that Lilly Jean was actingpretty fast; hooking up with Spank when she was still married to Daddy Sheriff. Coming into the diner like she owned theplace. “Lilly Jean…”

“Cream?”

“Why do I feel like a guest in my own diner, Lilly Jean?”

“Cream?”

“Please.”

Lilly Jean tore open a creamer and poured it into one of the cups.

“Sugar?”

“No.”

Lilly Jean emptied three packets of sugar into the other cup. “Icome to help, Bitsy.”

“I don’t need help.”

“You lose your best waitress, you need help.”

“And how will people get their stamps today?”

“Not my problem. I quit.”

“Why?”

“Daddy Sheriff got me that job.” Lilly Jean shivered. “I’ve washedmy hands of that man.” She picked up thecoffee pot and poured out two cups.

“So you just burst in here, looking for a job? I’mlosing customers right and left.” She’dbeen a fool to end her business relationship with Jonathan. She’d never expected it to backfire the wayit had. “I can’t afford to hire you,Lilly Jean.”

Lilly Jean shook her head. “I ain’tlookin’ for a job, Bitsy. I’m here tohelp you. As a friend. Now where do you keep your aprons?”

“In the kitchen, with your boyfriend.” Bitsy sighed. The last thing sheneeded was Lilly Jean mooning over Spank, keeping him from his work.

Lilly Jean pushed through the swinging door and returned a second later,trying an apron around her waist. “Putme to work, Bitsy.”

“Lilly Jean, I…”

“Tell me everything that needs done before opening.”

Bitsy began counting on her fingers. “Tablesneed to be set. Water glasses filledwith ice. More coffee made. Baskets lined with napkins and filled withsweet rolls…”

“Holy, shit, Bitsy. How many thingsyou got to do every morning?”

Bitsy sighed. “How many angels candance upon the head of a pin?”

“Oh, don’t go getting all spiritual on me, Bitsy. I’ll start with the tables.” Lilly Jean grabbed a stack of placemats andbegan setting them neatly upon the tables. “Well, go on,” Lilly Jean said, casting a glance over her shoulder. “I reckon a woman knows how to set a tablewithout a body watching over her.”

Bitsy nodded and pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen.

A moment later, she returned to the dining room. “Hey, Lilly Jean?”

Lilly Jean looked up. “Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

Lilly Jean nodded. “Happy to do it,Bitsy.” And she returned to her tables,humming along to Spank’s music drifting in from the kitchen.

And for the first time since Ellie left, Bitsy allowed herself to smile.
For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Kurt challenged me with "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" and I challenged Jay Andrew Allen with "I've just made a horrible mistake..."

Rapunzel

2012-02-17T15:18:00.000-08:00

“Throw down your hair!”

Rapunzel grabbed her binoculars; studied the Prince.

“We shall marry; have children! You’ll cook and clean! We’ll be happy!”

“I’m good.” Smiling,Rapunzel stepped away from the tower window.

* * *

This post was written in response to Trifecta's Writing Challenge: Retell a story in 33 words.

Made Up

2012-02-15T18:27:00.000-08:00

Howard looked at her, wide-eyed. He pointed to the door.

“I ain’t going nowhere, Howard. Your daddy don’t scare me.” Shegathered up glasses and plates and set them in the kitchen sink, humming alittle as she did so to steady her nerves. When she saw Daddy Sheriff standing in the hallway, she startled. “Well, speak of the devil. Where you headed with that big ole’ suitcase?”

“I’m going hunting.”

She looked at the oversized suitcase, the zipper gasping and straining. “How many articles of clothing does a man requireto go romping through the woods after helpless animals?” And where were his guns, anyway?

“Don’t expect me for some time.” The door slammed.

“Enjoy yourself, asshole.” LillyJean returned to the kitchen and ran water in the sink.

Howard switched off the television set and got the vacuum from thecloset. Lilly Jean smiled. “Why thankyou, Howard. I wish I’d met you beforeI met your daddy. Lord knows, you’remore considerate of other people’s emotionals.”

And then, since it was dark and since Daddy Sheriff wouldn’t be lookingfor dinner, Lilly Jean went to bed.

She woke refreshed and felt oddly pleased with herself. She found, without Daddy Sheriff beside her,that she’d slept well. She washed herhair then deep conditioned it. Sheshaved and exfoliated and moisturized. She wrapped a towel around herself and sat at her vanity. She opened her makeup bag and looked in themirror. She spoke to herreflection. “Why are you doing this,Lilly Jean Jacobs?”

Her reflection gazed back passively.

She thought back to Mrs. Murphy’s classroom. She must have been a sixth grader then. She counted back the years. Her daddy had moved them to Memphis that year. He became a musician. Lilly Jean became one of them latchkeykids.

In latchkey she fell in love.

She tried everything to get Bobby’s attention: She helped him with hishomework. He wasn’t impressed. She laughed at his stupid jokes. He smiled at her in the hallway. She curled her hair. He brushed her hand against hers. She moisturized and painted her nails andbought all manner of cosmetics. He askedher on a date.

They agreed to go steady.

Two weeks later, he dumped her to pursue a more popular, prettier girl.

The following morning, Lilly Jean went to school dressed to kill.

All the boys noticed.

She’d thought at the time she enjoyed it.

“What a waste,” she told her reflection. “Men just ain’t worth it.” And she imagined her sixth grade self noddingback in agreement.

“I suppose mistakes are building blocks.” She laughed then and her reflection laughed,too. “Hell, with all my mistakes, I gota whole construction company of my own.”

Lilly Jean studied herself. “Whydo you paint all this shit on your face every morning? For some dumb-assed man? They all end up screwing you over, LillyJean. They either find someone withbigger boobs or a perkier caboose. Orsomeone just a shade younger or prettier or smarter. All this makeup, Lilly Jean? It’s like putting gravy on one of Spank’sshoe-leather pork chops. You can’tdisguise what’s underneath.”

Her reflection grinned.

Lilly Jean put the makeup bag aside. She stood. And for the first timein years, Lilly Jean went to meet the world without a speck of makeup on.

This was writen in response to Story Dam's prompt.

Main Street, Valentine's Day

2012-02-14T19:08:00.000-08:00

I sit at the bar of the coffee shop, looking attraffic on Main. Across the street, headlessmannequins model matching bra and panty sets. A woman in a thick red scarf and purple hat waits to cross thestreet.

A man sits at the far end of the bar and takes outhis iPad. Two others claim a tablestrewn with newspapers. They talk of marketsand clients, writing furiously on white tablets.

A car parallel parks. A woman emerges, wearing furry boots and apeek-a-boo shirt and crisscrossed chopsticks stabbed into her bun.

A delivery man carries a vase of flowers.

Outside, two yellow balloons are snagged in a sweetgum tree still strung with Christmas lights.

The door opens. Kathy walks in. She wears apurple coat and red pants and white New Balance tennis shoes.

She makes the rounds, greeting people she knows. She finds a seat and watches. She speaks to herself. “No one is listening to me. Why is everyone ignoring me?”

A man passes.

She asks, “What did you do to my head?”

He pivots. “I’msorry?”

“What did you do to my head?”

“I don’t think I did anything to your head.”

“You’re right. You didn’t do anything to my head.”

Kathy leaves. Outside, she sits on a bench and ties a brown scarf around herhead. Moments later, she rises and walksaway.

Within ten minutes, she’s back, clutching a bag ofDoritos in her hand. She sits, eatingand watching. She makes her rounds. She leaves and sits on the bench.

Another fifteen minutes pass. Kathy returns. I listen to the reactions of the people. Mostly, they are kind.

I don’t wonder why Kathy returns so many timesduring the day to the coffee shop on Main. I can tell: The coffee shop is Kathy’s safe place.

I gather my things and head outside. I meet Kathy at the corner. “Good morning,” I say.

“Good morning.” She enters the coffee shop.

This prompt was written in response to this week's Trifecta's Writing Challenge. The word was safe.

A Place Called Disney

2012-02-12T14:32:00.000-08:00

“Mother,” I asked, “what is a cell phone?”

My mother screamed and dropped the wooden tray ofvegetables she was carrying to the table. My siblings left their seats and began crawling on the dirt floor,gathering up the vegetables—carrots and parsnips and turnips—and holding them totheir parched lips.

My mother approached me, hand raised. She smacked me across the face. “Never ask such questions, again, True."

Later that night, after my siblings and I were tuckedinto the bed we shared, I listened to my parents through the cloth curtain mymother had woven and hung to separate our sleeping alcove from the rest of the hut. “True’s got the gift, Seth. You see that, don’t you?”

“Ain’t no gift, Mercy. It’s a curse. Throw her to the wolves, is what I say. If we’re caught…”

I slipped from the warmth of the bed. Padded across the cold floor in my barefeet. Peeked through a slit in the curtain. “No, Seth. True is our child. She cannot help if she…”

“Keep her quiet then, wife. If you have to cut out her tongue to do it,then for God’s sake, do it. If thegovernment finds out we have a reader-of-the-past among us, we’ll be banished. And Mercy…” He shook his head. “Cutting hertongue out would be a kindness.”

I felt my eyes widen in the dark. I wondered what it would be like to have notongue; no cushion upon which to balance my words and my food. Nothing to taste the wind. Nothing to catch the blackened snowflakes asthey reached for the earth.

My father stopped talking to me that day. And thereafter, my mother watched meintently. She kept me within her sightalways. I no longer attended the schoolin the village with my siblings. I wasno longer permitted to play with my friends. I became known as the village idiot.

Day after day, I sat upon the bed and called backthe man who called himself Daniel. In mydays of darkness, he was a cheery sort: Red cheeks and spectacles. A full beard of white. He was thin and tall like me and wore a blueshirt with a line of white things he called buttons. He wore heavy-looking pants he called jeans. They were nothing like the one-piece garment my father wore.

Daniel loved to laugh. Daniel loved to tell me stories.

And I loved to listen. What else was a girl of eight to do to occupyher mind when she was locked behind a woven cloth curtain; hidden away from theworld like a poison?

Daniel called himself my great-great grandfather. He said I had the gift. The gift came every hundred years, he said,to one person in the family. We werelinked, he and I: he to the present, I to the past, bound together by aninvisible link of time and space and genetics.

I told him about the floods and the disasters. I told him about the government takeover andthe confiscation of land. He scowledthen, and shook his head. “Is there no…technology in the future?”

“I do not understand, Daniel. What is technology? Is it like your buttons?”

He laughed.

He told me the most wonderful stories. Stories about things called books: words bound together between hardcovers. Stories about things called computers: words and pictures travelinginvisibly through the air. He told meabout cell phones and refrigerators and television sets and cars. He told me of a place called Disney.

He painted wonderful pictures. I nearly believed him.

One day, as my mother was foraging for greens in theforest, Daniel came to me.

“Daniel,” I whispered. “Am I crazy?”

He shook his head. “There is a stone, child. Beneathyour bed.”

He watched as I shifted the bed from the wall. It was dusty there. And, as Daniel had said, there was a large stone.

“Lift it,” he said, standing and coming to my side.

The stone was heavy. “Can you not aid me?”

“I cannot. Mystrength cannot cross time. Only myspirit.”

Bit by bit, I moved that stubborn stone. Underneath, there was a hole.

“Reach inside,” Daniel said.

“Will there not be rodents?” Nevertheless, I reached in my hand. “There is something hidden here, Daniel!”

“Take it out.”

It was a box. I picked it up, blew the dust from the cover. Hands shaking, I opened the lid and withdrewsomething square and blue.

“It’s a book of sorts, True. A book of memories. Open it.”

I folded back the outside cover and gasped. There was an image—a picture—of Daniel. Beneaththe image there were strange marks.

Ipointed. “I cannot understand thesemarkings. What are they?”

“Those are words, True.”

“Tell me what they say.”

“Diary of Daniel Gray Smith.”

“You tell me, Daniel, that you come from theyesterdays. Are you certain you don’tcome from the tomorrows?”

He nodded. “Iam certain.”

I sat upon the bed. “Why are you here?”

“I’ve come to teach you to understand the words,True. And then my mission will becomplete.”

Every day, while my sisters were at school and myfather was hunting our food and my mother was going about her chores, I sat with Daniel. Bit by bit, I learned to read.

** *

The day of the Counting, my father was in a foulmood. He pointed to me. For the first time in two years, hespoke to me. “You’ll stay home.”

“We cannot leave her at home, Seth.”

“It is too dangerous, Mercy.”

“It’s more dangerous to leave her here alone. They’ll suspect something.”

“We’ll tell her she died.”

“No. Shecomes with us.” With tears in her eyes,my mother slapped me again. “Keep yourmouth shut, child.”

For eight hours, we walked in silence. When we reached town, I noticed something Ididn’t notice at the last Counting: Words. Words everywhere.

Words everywhere and no one to read them.

I ran my hand along the stone surface of awall. Fitted my fingers into the letter T.

“What is that, True?” My sister asked.

“It’s a sentence. It says...I read slowly. Carefully. Haltingly: Technology...destroyed... this...society.”

I was seized roughly by the shoulders. My father dragged me up to an officer. “She has the gift. She can read the markings.”

I was taken to the gallows immediately. My family gathered at my feet. Others began circling, watching and pointing.

The officer placed a rope about my neck.

“Any last words?” he said.

I looked at my father. “And what will you have me tell yourgreat-great-grandchildren?”

For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, M. Hunter challenged me with "Every 100 years, someone in your family spontaneously develops the ability to see and speak with one other person in your family with the same ability, usually dead or not yet born. This time, it's you." and I challenged Brad MacDonald with "He slept until noon. When he woke, it was completely dark outside."

Love Scene

2012-02-10T20:15:00.000-08:00

“Wouldn’t you be morecomfortable in the bedroom, Momma?”

Phyllis gives her head a stubborn shake. She scowls. “I was born in this kitchen. Iwill die in this kitchen.”

“Are you thirsty?”

“No.” Sheshivers.

Ellen tucks a blanket around her shoulders. Lorraine stirs the coals and adds a log tothe woodstove. The kitchen is filledwith crackles and sparks and heat, and Phyllis gives a thin smile. She is reminded of the anger that filled thehouse for years: Her children have never gotten along. The thought saddens her.

Thin wisps of smoke wend their way around the room, graspingand searching, searching and grasping.

“You need anything,Momma?”

“Sing to me.”

Silence. She can feelthe children looking at each other; can sense the faint smiles they exchange. She wonders if they like the feel of thosesmiles, shared with a sibling, or whether they still find them bitter andharsh. She wonders if they still resenteach other.

“Sing me to sleep.”

Tears rolling down their cheeks, they raise their voices inthe old songs they know she enjoys. Sherolls on the waves of the sound: the crescendo and decrescendo; the tenor ofher youngest son; Ellen’s thin soprano; Lorraine’s alto thick and smooth. And that deep baritone of her first born son.

This final time, they come together in unison to singPhyllis on her way.

Buoyed by their devotion, Phyllis allows herself to depart. And as she takes flight on the songs of herpast, she wonders whether—once their common bond is gone—they will ever speakto each another again.

She considers coming back.

But she decides against it.

If they are to sing together again, they will have to learnto harmonize on their own.

***
This post was written in response to the Trifextra Writing Challenge in which we were to write a love scene without using specific listed words.

The Lost Things

2012-02-10T06:12:00.000-08:00

I have two trunks in my bedroom where I stash things thatare important to me–a stack of my journals going back thirty-five years; cardsand artwork from my kids; a faded rose from when my son was in my brother’swedding. I have stacks of letters tiedin yellow ribbon; my grandparents’ wedding license; my great-grandfather’steacher’s license; report cards from the early nineteen hundreds. My passport’s in there, too, the one Ithought I’d lost.
Because things do get lost in trunks.

And that’s the beauty of it all; finding memories youthought were long gone.

Sitting there for years, forgotten, the lost things gainvalue.

For years, I corresponded with my father’s aunt. She would type her letters on mimeographpaper, addressing it with Dear Folks tocover with one salutation all the people with whom she exchanged letters. Aunt Edna’s letters are full of errors: wordscorrected with a backslash; words scratched out and corrected in pen; words unseparatedby a space; words missing an occasional letter. When I was a teenager, I’d skim through these letters quickly, lookingfor things that interested me, disregarding anything that mentioned people Ididn’t know; events I was unfamiliar with.

This morning our newPastor began his new ministry here. Heis rather tall, very thin, and preaches very loud…

Mr. K across thestreet is a foreman at a steel mill in Massillon. The mills closed down for 2 months. Last week, I had wanted some dirt taken off ablock of cement at the west side of the house. He came over and asked me if he could do it. He said that he was lost without hiswork. I accepted his offer. He asked me where to put it. I have lived here for almost 2 years and thatis the first time I have ever spoken to him. He has done so much for me. Iguess his shyness comes from being a prisoner of war for 4 years…

Occasionally, I wrote to my great-grandmother.

I was glad to get yourletter and to hear your wonderful news. How happy you all must be about a new baby. There is nothing in the world any sweeterthan a new little baby in the home. Iknow from experiences…

If I send you apicture will you take it to your grandma to send it back to me when shewrites? Don’t forget.

And it’s this admonition don’tforget that gets to me.

How much have I forgotten?

I send my husband an email and text my daughters to tellthem I’ll pick them up at school.

I log off my computer and shut it down.

And I wonder what treasures my children and my grandchildrenwill put into their trunks, tied up with yellow ribbons and forgotten.

Years from now, what will they have to remember?

The Presence of the Past

2012-02-07T06:28:00.001-08:00

When she’s confused by the present, Pearl turns to the past:She struggles to the attic and fetches the box containing the remnants of herhistory. She takes that box into the kitchenand sets it on the table, a table always covered by a vinyl cloth; brightyellow flowers on a white background. Inthe fall of her life, it is perpetually spring on Pearl’s kitchen table.

The plastic flowers cheer her.

Pearl removes the lid from the box, takes up her lightedmagnifying glass and settles comfortably into her past. She feels her body relax and lighten as shereads the letters her parents wrote to one another when they werecourting. She laughs at the familyphotographs of her mother and her nine brothers. She reads old letters from people whose namesshe no longer recognizes.

She frowns. The pastis dying.

No. She correctsherself. The past is vast, ever-expanding. The past is growing thick with memoriesforgotten.

She tells herself that in the near future, she will belongto the past. Even today, the majority ofher life is past. She wonders what willhappen to her history after she is gone. She picks up a photograph and flips it over. Paul. For years, she has wondered about Pauland his place in her history.

The past is too deep to comprehend. There are too many characters, too manyevents, too many faces: How can anyone expect to understand it without a guide?

She will leave a roadmap; a compass; a light illuminating theway back, showing all the twists and turns and connections of her life. She rises and crosses to her desk, tuckedinto a corner of the kitchen. She rollsin a crisp sheet of paper and begins to type.

To Whom it May Concern…

No. That won’tdo at all. She pulls the paper from the typewriter,balls it up and begins again.

My dears,

She smiles, hits the carriage return and continues.

This post was written for this week's Trifecta Writing Challenge. The word was deep, third definition.

Sinners and Saints

2012-02-05T09:25:00.000-08:00

“Well, ain’t just you the little saint, Howard Heacock?”Daddy Sheriff sneered. “Always doing theright thing, the good thing. Paying for the child’s education. Working your ass off for Jonathan Fowler andnever spending a dime of it. And alwaysobeying your father, just like I asked you to. You ever do anything bad in your life, boy?”

Howard nodded, once and neatly. Daddy Sheriff knew he had.

“You think you’re proving some kind of point with all your goodness? Well, I got news for you, Howard: You need me.”

No. Howard had noneed of his father. He remained with DaddySheriff to punish him. To remind him,every single day, of what he’d done. Every time he looked upon his face, Howard knew, Daddy Sheriff was takenback to that night. Every day that Howardkept his mouth closed, he shouted guilty.

“You and all them otherdo-gooders in this world need people to do bad. Sinners need saints, Howard. Goodneeds evil.” Daddy Sheriff lit acigarette. “It’s a balance, y’see. Sinners screw up. Saints scurry around behind ‘em with theirlittle dustpans of goodness, sweeping up the mess, counting on their rosary beads;saying their prayers; shaking their heads and thanking their lucky stars forthe lives they’ve been blessed to lead. Makes you saints feel good, you know. Gives you a purpose to life.”

“Stop talking nonsense, Daddy Sheriff,” Lilly Jeanshouted. “The weather’s on.”

“Shut up, woman.” DaddySheriff waved his cigarette in the air. The ash threatened to spill onto Lilly Jean’s new shag rug. Howard watched warily.

“Where would all you saints be, Howard, if there was no evilin this world? What would all you littlebright spots of sunshine do, if there were no more shadows?” Daddy Sheriffgrinned. “What in the world would youdo, Howard, if I was a good man?” Helaughed. “You may think saints arehelping the sinners, Howard, but you know what? I think you got it backwards.”

For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Sir challenged me with "“What would your good do if evil didn't exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows disappeared?”? Mikhail Bulgakov" and I challenged Janey with "A million drops of water."

Chicken Legs

2012-02-04T18:56:00.000-08:00

“Now you jest come on back here, Lilly Jean, and I’ll rassleup something for you to eat.” Spankhelped Lilly Jean into a chair before tying on an apron.

“I don’t know that Icould eat, Spank. I hurt too much.”

“You’ll eat myspecial soup. Wonton. Cures everything.”

“You’re shittin’ me, Spank. You bin cooking in this here diner all these years making greasy shitfood and you kin cook Chinese?”

Spank beamed. “Yep.” He took a bunch of green onions from the refrigeratorand began to wash them.

“Where’d y’all learnhow to cook fancy?”

“Cable television. Bitsylets me experiment after the diner’s closed.” Spank cut the roots from the onion and beganslicing them.

“I can’t believe you’re making me wonton soup.”

“I’m making you more than that, Lilly Jean. I’m making you a feast. You just rest now. OK if I turn on the radio?” His hand hovered over the dial. “I won’t put on my oldies. I know you don’t like ‘em.”

“No, Spank. You listento whatever you want to.” Lilly Jean leanedher head against the wall, closed her eyes and allowed herself to fall asleepto the sounds of the Lawrence Welk band.

* **

“Lilly Jean?” A handon her shoulder.

“Leave me alone, Daddy Sheriff.”

“Dinner’s ready.”

“You don’t cook, Daddy Sheriff.”

“I ain’t Daddy Sheriff. I’m Spank.”

“Oh, thank God.” LillyJean opened her eyes. Spank had set atable before her with a white cloth; a vase of flowers in the center. She took a slow, tentative breath: Her ribsstill hurt. “Oh my Lord, does that smellgood, Spank. I can’t recollect the lasttime someone cooked for me.”

“Lemme’ get your soup.”

Lilly Jean watched Spank bustle about the kitchen, dishingup soup into pretty bowls. Arranging eggrolls on a plate. Dishing up rice and shrimp. The man had energy, Lilly Jean had tocredit him that. And skinny? “Hey, Spank are them your legs or are youriding a chicken?” Lilly Jean laughed. She instantly regretted it: Spank was theonly person who’d visited her in the hospital.

Spank walked over on his skinny legs and set two bowls ofsoup of the table. He sat across fromLilly Jean and took her hand. And Spanklaughed, too. “You’re beautiful, LillyJean, anyone ever tell you that?”

Love, Outlasted

2012-02-03T13:51:00.000-08:00

Despite thickening waists and skin deeply creased and backsbent beyond necessity, every morning they greeted each other with tender smiles. But his brain began to fuse and confuse andone morning over coffee he looked at her and said, “who are you?”

Their marriage lasted another eight years until she died ofheartache and loneliness.

This is another attempt at Trifecta's Three Sentence Challenge.

First Love, Failed

2012-02-03T07:18:00.000-08:00

She said she liked him; He liked her, too!

She said she loved him.

That was the end

This was written in response to The Trifecta Writing Challenge. The weekend challenge was to write a story in three sentences.

This did happen to me. But it was in Kindergarten.

The Contours of a Man's Heart

2012-02-01T17:18:00.000-08:00

Wheezy Hart laythere in his coffin, waxen hands clutching a shiny black Bible, proof of hisbelief in God, as if, Jonathan thought, God needed any more proof than what wasbound up within the contours of a man’s heart. Jonathan imagined his friend reaching up and hooking an index fingerbeneath the knot of the red tie encircling his neck. Wheezy always claimed he couldn’t wear a tietoo tight, claimed it aggravated the asthma that had plagued him his entirelife. Jonathan shook his head at thewaste. That asthma had forced the Hartsto sell their farm to Jonathan’s parents and move to town, sentencing Wheezy toa life of books, a life that would better have been spent working theland.

“He’s missing hiscane.” Jonathan pictured Wheezy, pickinghis way down Main Street,sucking at his inhaler like a calf on a teat.

“He doesn’t needit anymore, Jonathan,” Annie said.

More faithful thanany woman had ever been to Wheezy, that cane had been Wheezy’s constantcompanion for decades. When he wore thepolish off the handle, the old cheapskate refused to buy a new one, claiming hewouldn’t divorce his wife just because she’d gotten a little ugly over theyears, now would he? Wheezy might havejoked about not having found a wife, but deep down, Jonathan knew, he waslonely. It wasn’t just God who could seeinto the heart of a man.

“He looks good,” Annie murmured.

Jonathan frowned. “He looks like hell.

Annielaughed. “You’re right.” She pattedWheezy’s hand. “William was a goodman.” Jonathan looked at her. “Who decides if a life—when it reaches itsend—is good?”

She stared. Blinked. “God.” Annie was as sure of Godas she was of the sunrise.

“No.” He shook his head. “It’s the judgment of others. The judgment of friends and family andneighbors and children. That’s whatmakes a life good or bad.”

Annie looked athim with clear, beautiful eyes. “Anylife is good, Jonathan. Life, by itsvery nature is good.”

“Even when not oneperson can point to one good thing about it?”

“I believe thatevery person has good in them, Jonathan. But sometimes the good gets misplaced.”

“Even withNeala? What good has come from her?”

Annie put a handon Jonathan’s. “She gave us Ellie,Jonathan. Neala gave us a whole lot ofgood.”

“But Neala,herself. She’s no good.”

“I think you’rewrong there, Jonathan. You’ve been toolong away from the church.” Anniesqueezed Jonathan’s arm before moving away to take a seat in one of the chairsplaced at various angles around the room, in what Annie called conversational style. Jonathan didn’t understand it: Who couldconverse at a time like this? Again, hepictured Wheezy, this time in heaven, laughing at the gathering beneathhim.

Old Wheezy. Getting the last word in, the last laugh asusual. For one brief moment, Jonathanallowed his heart to soften, looking at his old friend laid out before him. He recalled their times together, on adjacentfarms, the two of them perpetually side by side, almost as if they weretwins.

After Wheezy moved to town, theirfriendship continued, of course. Onlyyears later, did Wheezy take that fatal step that lead to the destruction oftheir friendship, separating them as surely, as cleanly as a surgeon’sscalpel. For years, Jonathan longed tofeel that closeness again, longed to fill the aching void left by Wheezy’sabsence. Jonathan mourned him, the wayhe might mourn a missing limb or an absent twin. But still…Jonathan wiped a tear from hiseye. He leaned over Wheezy’s inertbody. Brought his mouth to his ear,feeling oddly ridiculous as he did so, knowing that if Wheezy were able to hear, he wouldn’t be usinghis ears. Jonathan cleared his throat,heard the sudden silence of the room all around him. He resisted the urge to smack the old man’scheek, so fresh and raw was his anger at this latest injustice. “Should’ve left well enough alone, oldman.”

Then he straightened and turnedtowards the room. All eyes were on him,pinning him to the spot. Had they heard? No, there was Lilly Jean, gigantic purse on her lap, grinning inanely athim, as was her way. Next to her, thesheriff, eyes respectfully in his lap. And Bitsy, a bit of flour dusting her brow. To her left Old Spank. He wondered idly who was managing the diner,what with the owner and the head cook at the calling hours. Then he allowed his eyes to take in the restof the people in the room and realized that all of Medford must’ve been in that room. There was Andee Miller, the manager at theIGA. Ellie, of course, sitting next toAnnie, looking miserable. Well of courseshe would: She’d loved Wheezy. EvenNeala, a new sleazebag beside her, had come, most likely for the free food tobe served at the diner after the funeral. And there, far off in the corner of the room, all alone and lookingmiserable in a baggy suit that must’ve come from the Goodwill, Howard. Jonathan glared at the crowd staring at himexpectantly. Everyone in Medford knew hisbusiness, knew everyone’s business. Thatwas the trouble with small towns. Butperhaps, Jonathan thought, as he walked away from Wheezy without a propergoodbye, that was their beauty as well.

Jonathan stalkedfrom the room. As he passed, the funeraldirector quickly rearranged his face into a mournful expression. “Are you OK, Mr…” He put a hand on Jonathan’s arm. Jonathan didn’t bother to stop. “I’m fine.” The lobby was filled with giant vases of dusty silk flowers. There were a couple of wing chairs in thecorner of the room. Jonathan could hidethere.

Light footsteps. Quiet, funeral parlor footsteps. Then…

Lilly Jean Jacobstook a seat in the matching chair. “I’msorry, Mr. Fowler. Mr. Hart was a realnice man.”

Jonathan gave aslight nod.

“I hate thesethings. They make me nervous.” She laughed lightly and crossed her legs,tapping her foot to some invisible sound only she could hear. She leaned forward suddenly, examined the tablebetween them. “What does a table in afuneral parlor need a drawer for, do you think?”

He shrugged. Perhaps it was better in with Annie.

Lilly Jean looked around before grabbing thepull and sliding the drawer open. Jonathan glanced inside. “Look atthese old gloves!” Lilly Jean slipped aglove onto her left hand and pulled it all the way to her elbow. “I wonder how long…” Lilly Jean spotted something else in the drawer. “Oh, my Lord, do you think this is a realpearl?” Lilly Jean held a danglingearring to her lobe.

“I’m not up todate on jewelry, Lilly Jean.” Hesighed. He’d wanted this timealone.

“What’s this?” She set the earring on the table and pickedup an envelope, yellowed with age, from the drawer.

“No,” Jonathansaid. “Put it back, Lilly Jean.”

“Don’t you want toknow what’s inside? Sealed envelopes aremy especiality.”

“No.”

“Some secrets are betterleft locked away,” Jonathan said. WheezyHart of all people should have understood that.

He stood and leftthe funeral home. Annie would be angry,he knew, that he’d be missing the church. But he also knew that she’d understand. Jonathan hadn’t stepped foot in a church in eighteen years. And a man, especially one as full of anger asJonathan, was surely slow to change his ways.

Image

2012-01-31T09:00:00.000-08:00

In honor of his promotion, Lena had made a celebratory dinner. Robert didn’t have the heart to tell her he’dbeen fired that morning. The seven ofthem sat around the dining room table in silence. Robert preferred silence. It was his thinking time, his time to planfor the morrow. The squawking of thechildren distracted him, and he wasn’t interested in Lena’s trifling concernsover curtains or immunizations or making arrangements for boarding the slobberingdog.

Lena handed him the gravy boat. He made a well in his mashed potatoes withthe silver ladle, a wedding gift from a distant relative. He returned the gravy to Lena who handed itto the eldest child. The silence waspunctuated by clattering silverware and the occasional murmured requests forpotatoes or broccoli or bread.

Robert ate around the edges of his potatoes, careful not tomake a break in the wall. He didn’t likethe gravy glopping all over his plate, mixing with the applesauce and thecarrots. He chuckled. His boss had just told him this morning hewas too risk-averse.

“Father?”

He’d asked them to call him that. A stupid request.

He looked up. They’dpaused, expectant, forks mid-air. “What?”

“You laughed, just then. You broke the silence.” It wasthe fourth child. The brave child. Phillip. Robert glanced at the child’s plate. “You eat potatoes the same way I do.” Robert realized that he was looking at animage of himself, in miniature. Thechild resembled him in every way, except for his courage.

“Are you feeling all right, Robert?” Lena pressed a cool hand to hisforehead.

He brushed it away.

He wondered idlywhether Phillip would grow up to become Robert; whether he, too, would be soinvolved with his career that he wouldn’t notice himself reflected in hischildren seated round him at the dinner table.

He dragged his fork across his potatoes. Again he broke the silence. “Who’s up for a game of catch after dinner?”

This post was written in response to the Trifecta Writing Challenge. The word was image.

Driving Lessons

2012-01-29T07:04:00.000-08:00

A sunny day. High forties. Fluffy white clouds streaked across the sky.

A man stands outside with his young daughters. There are two bikes out in the driveway: A two-wheeler with training wheels. And one of those newfangled bikes, bright red seat a couple of inches off the ground. Pedals in front. A giant red handle in the back so that the child can be pushed along the sidewalk.

* * *

“Watch the curb! Watch the curb!”

Filbuster gets too close and scrapes the front tire on concrete.

* * *

I remember Filibuster and V riding their cars in the garage. V year-round in a pink hat and winter boots; Filibuster clad entirely in pink. We’d open the garage doors and back the cars into the driveway. And V and Filibuster would play “traffic,” V pedaling her purple Big-Wheel, Filibuster riding her yellow car, occasionally slapping down on the horn to speed her sister up.

* * *

“Four way stop. It’s your turn. Wait. You can’t go now. You took too long. Go. Go!”

V takes the left hand turn and heads across a narrow bridge. I grasp the side of the seat and press on my imaginary brake.

* * *

After dinner, my husband or I would go out with the girls. We’d drink our coffee and hold up the crappy looking traffic light we’d fashioned from a paint stirrer and circles of construction paper; red and yellow and green.

“Green light, GO!” My husband would say. And the girls would be off. Round and rounding it, going so fast that within a year, they’d worn holes into the plastic tires of their vehicles.

* * *

“Don’t hit that mirror.” I point to the 3 by 5 construction grade mirror someone had parked at the curb. “Watch that truck. Don’t hit that lady. Get on the right side of the road!”

* * *

Some evenings, my parents would stop by. Watch the girls going around in the garage. “Where do you expect they get all that energy?” My dad would ask. “Makes me tired just looking at them.”

“Yellow light, caution, caution, caution,” my husband would say. And the girls would slow their cars to a more reasonable speed.

* * *

“Speed it up a bit, Filibuster.”

“I’m going thirty, Mom. Oh, no. There’s someone behind me. They’re going to beep at me.”

* * *

“Red light, stop.” The girls would stop and catch their breath. Occasionally, they’d run the light, giggling and speeding away, and my husband would chase them and give them a ticket.

* * *

“V, let’s pull over into this development. See what’s what in here.”
“You’re not fooling me, Mom. You just need a break. And you can stop clutching the door handle, by the way.”

* * *

“Green light, GO!”

And the cycle would begin again and the girls would drive away, always circling back.

* * *

After three hours of driving lessons, we return home. My butt has gone numb. My braking foot is stiff. I’ve worn a hole in the door handle from holding it in a death grip. We’ve been tooted at. We’ve been rudely passed. We’ve had a few close calls.

V pulls the car into the garage and, this time, doesn’t hit the drywall. She goes into the house, beaming.

My girls are on their way.

Sometimes, I wish I had a giant red handle for the back of my car.

If There were Dreams

2012-01-28T19:01:00.000-08:00

“Hey, Howie!”

Howard jumped. Now that Daddy Sheriff had taken off to go hunting, he’d grown accustomed to the silences of the house. He liked the quiet, after a day of noise at the farm and the diner. But Lilly Jean had a way of letting the entire world know when she was entering a room. Lilly Jean Jacobs’s goal in life, Howard suspected, was to get noticed.

Whatcha’ reading?”

Howard closed the book, keeping his thumb inside to mark his place. He showed Lilly Jean the cover.

“Steven Hawking? You understand that?”

Howard grinned. Nodded.

“You’re shittin’ me.”

He shook his head.

“I ain’t never seen you read that stuff when you’re daddy’s around.”

Howard shrugged. His father didn’t approve. Never had.

Lilly Jean plopped down on the couch beside Howard. “You know what your daddy told me about you?”

Howard nodded. Of course he knew. It was the same story Daddy Sheriff had been telling for years: Football injury. Likely concussion. Never the same again. Had to drop out of school. Not even a GED to his name. Goddamn waste of a life.

“You ain’t as stupid as your daddy makes you out to be.”

Howard shook his head. No. He wasn’t stupid. He’d had a full college scholarship lined up. But against Daddy Sheriff’s wishes, Howard had wanted to study astronomy. He sighed now, remembering the conversation they’d had nearly twenty years ago: ”What in God’s name will you do with that major? No, Howard,” his father had said. “You’re going to Ohio State on a football scholarship. You need to play ball.”

“But he doesn’t like ball,” his mother’d protested.

“Course he does. Boy’s been playing football since he was four.”

His mother had been right of course: Howard had never liked football. When he was reading or studying or setting up his telescope in the back yard, Daddy Sheriff would mock him. “Think you so smart, don’t you?” And then he’d get the football from the garage and force Howard into a game of catch.

“You like reading that?”

Howard nodded.

Lilly Jean shuddered. “Give me a romance novel any day, Howard and I’ll be jest fine.”

Since his father’d left, Lilly Jean had stopped fussing with herself so much. She pulled her hair back in a ponytail. She stopped wearing all that perfume. And she no longer slathered her face with all that makeup. She looked…Howard felt himself blush…more attractive without makeup. He didn’t understand why his father liked Lilly Jean all painted over.

Lilly Jean picked up the remote. She pointed it at the television. “Mind if I?”

No.

Lilly Jean clicked on the news.

Howard returned to his book.

“Howard?”

Again he turned his attention to Lilly Jean.

“Who is Henry Ware?”

Howard shrugged. Some romance writer?

“Henry Ware,” Lilly Jean insisted. “From Chicago.”

Lilly Jean obviously expected him to know the name. In the background, the television reporter gave the weather for tomorrow. A snowstorm was headed their way. Several inches were expected. He made a mental note to head to the Fowler place earlier than usual.

"You telling me you never before heard that name, Howard?”

Howard stared at Lilly Jean. He felt stupid and dull. He shook his head.

“Henry Ware is Ellie’s father, Howard.”

Howard stared. He shook his head. Daddy Sheriff was up to his usual bullshit.

“You telling me your daddy made that up?”

Howard nodded.

“Well, then, Howard, if you know Henry Ware isn’t Ellie’s daddy, you know who is. Am I right?”

Howard dropped his eyes. Damn that Lilly Jean. Sneaker than a snake in the grass.

“Who is it, Howard?”

Howard shrugged.

“You can play the dumb boy with your daddy, Howard, but you can’t play dumb with me.”

He wasn’t playing dumb with his daddy. Daddy Sheriff knew exactly what Howard was up to.

“Can’t fool me, Howard. I got me a sense about these types of things. I always figured you had more upstairs than you let on. You know something. I can feel it.”

Howard opened his book. Tried to focus, but the words swam before his eyes. In the background, the news droned on and on. House fire. Hit and run accident. Uprisings in distant lands.

“It’s for the child, Howard. The child needs love.”

The child had more love than most people around here, Howard thought. She was surrounded in love. Why was Lilly Jean so focused on finding Ellie’s daddy?

"Hey, Howie?”

He set down his book. Looked at Lilly Jean.

“If there were dreams for sale, what would you buy?”

The woman was talking nonsense now.

“Thomas Lovell Beddoes. English writer. 1803–1849.”

Howard stared.

"Yeah, I’m not so stupid, either, Howard. I actually studied literature in college.”

Lilly Jean? College?

“Surprising, I know. A lot of men don’t like smart women. It’s easier to play the game.” She smiled. “I was lying when I said I liked romance.” Lilly Jean switched off the television. “I guess you and me, we both got a secret now, don’t we? But you didn’t answer my question. I guess you never will. Me? I’m too late for dreams. But Ellie’s not, Howard. You can help me, or you can stand in my way, but I am gonna’ find Ellie’s daddy and haul his ass here to Medford myself, if I have to. A girl needs to know who her people are, don’t you think?”

Lilly Jean wasn't going to find Ellie’s father.

"I can help you, Howard. I can help you talk again.” Lilly Jean’s eyes were animated. “I can help you get your GED. Hell, I can help you get into college, if that’s what you’re looking to do. Think of it, Howard.” Lilly Jean looked at the ceiling. “Think of all them stars out there in the sky, just waiting for you to notice them. They’re waiting for you to find ‘em, Howard. Just like Ellie’s waiting to find her father.”

Howard stood and left the room. Lilly Jean had a point, he had to give her that. Ellie deserved to know who her father. But Howard wasn’t the one to help her find him.

It was too late for Howard to go to college. It was too late for Howard to finish high school. It was too late for Ellie to find her father. And it was, most certainly, too late for Howard to speak.

He should have spoken up years ago.

For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Tara Roberts challenged me with ""If there were dreams to sell, what would you buy?" - Thomas Lovell Beddoes" and I challenged trencher with "“Everywhere we went, when school was not in session, the children were at the barns, helping with the work, watching, listening, learning to farm in the best way it is learned. Wilbur told us that his eleven-year-old son had cultivated twenty-three acres of corn last year with a team and a riding cultivator.” --Wendell Berry, Bringing it to the Table"

Love Story in 33 Words

2012-01-28T04:39:00.000-08:00

They met in June.

They fell in love.

But there were spouses; children; careers.

With shattered hearts, they held their families together.

Sundays, they smiled wistfully at each other from across the room.

This piece was written in response to The Trifecta Writing Challenge: Write a love story in exactly 33 words.

Gifted

2012-01-24T14:03:00.000-08:00

It was the Boy who conceived me. He sat at a squat table swinging his legs, the laces of both shoes dangling. His tongue stuck out at the right corner of his mouth.

I started life as a piece of orange construction paper pressed up tightly against the other colors in the pack—green and pink and yellow and blue. The teacher opened the pack and fanned us out upon the table. The Boy chose me. The Boy changed me.

The Boy cut me into what you humans call a heart. Coated me thickly in glue. And then, he covered me with a white paper doily and rubbed at it with his thumb to smooth out the glue.

“Mommy will love this,” he told me as he affixed two eyes crookedly to me. The boy filled me with purpose and intent and slowly, I began to take shape.

He painted on a green nose and a smile of yellow.

He shook glitter over me-gold and silver and red and blue.

He attached a thick stick to my back.

“You’re beautiful,” the Boy whispered.

* * *

At eleven o’clock, you picked the Boy up from preschool. His face was beaming. You had your head bowed over your cell phone.

“Look, Mommy!” The Boy held out his gift to you. “Look what I made for you.”

You glanced up. Frowned. “Hearts aren’t orange, silly.” You took me in your hand. You placed a thumb in my wet yellow smile. “Oh,” you said. “Thank you.” You painted on your own smile as some of my glitter spilled across your pretty white sweater.

You looked at another mother. Spoke through your teeth. “Why the hell does she let them use glitter?”

You took me home and posted me on the refrigerator, where I’ll remain until another messy project replaces me. Every time you look at me, I can see you considering: Is it too early to sneak that into the bottom of the trash can?

You find me too gluey, too glittery, too messy.

I know you don’t want me. I know you don't love me.

But the thing is, the Boy knows it too.

This prompt was written in response to Gifted: Dam Burst – Since many of you don’t appear to be being challenged enough, we’re going to step our game up a little for the Dam Burst prompts…starting today. You get to play the part of the gift (Mwah ha ha!) Write a piece in which you, the gift, have fulfilled your destiny—to be given to someone… only they don’t want you. Good luck!

The Beast

2012-01-23T17:36:00.000-08:00

Annie once said thatbabies grew on trees. Told me I sproutedfrom a pink blossom in the apple orchard over yonder hill. Told me she watched me grow fat and redbefore plucking me from the branch to bring me home.

Jonathan once toldme that babies came from potatoes. “Cutone into pieces and you got babies. Justbe sure an’ plant ‘em with their eyes looking towards the sky. The life is in their eyes, Ellie.”

Bitsy said that Annie and Jonathan were fullof shit; said a girl oughta’ know her birds from her bees. But I took their meaning: Life surrounds me on the farm.

Besides, I’d knownearly enough where babies came from: Seems every day my mother told me babiescame from mistakes.

“Ellie, hurry up,we’re gonna’ be late.”

I opened the door,stepped into the kitchen and stopped: A man I didn’t recognize stood and extendedhis hand. “You must be Ellie.”

“I am.” I didn’t return the gesture: I’d shaken thehands of too many of Neala’s boyfriends.

“Ellie, be nice toDuane.”

“Don’t need to be nice. He’ll be gone within the week.”

Duane raised hiseyebrows at my mother. “Wild littlebeast you’ve got here, Neala.” He poureda cup of coffee and leaned against the counter eyeing me. “What grade you in?”

I lifted mychin. “Twelfth.”

“You look older.”

I shrugged.

“Figure out yourplans for after graduation?”

“Ellie’s stayingright here with me after she finishes high school,” Neala said.

“Bitsythinks I could get a scholarship.”

“Bitsydoesn’t know what she’s talking about.” Mymother smiled. “Ellie’s going to stayhere and take care of her old mother.”

AndI knew then that I would never get out of Medford, because my mother—the real monster of this story—would do everything in her power to prevent it, in the sameway that I, by virtue of having been conceived, had prevented her from doingthe same.

This post was written in response to this week's Trifecta Writing Challenge. The word was beast.

Anything But Science Fiction

2012-01-22T18:02:00.000-08:00

Howard put thebroom into the shed at the back of the diner and tossed the bag of leaves intothe dumpster before heading for the IGA. What the hell was Bitsy thinking, sending a man down to the store to buyplants? Couldn’t she have sentEllie? Or did Bitsy believe, like manyof the residents of Medford, that he’d gone soft in the head? Howard frowned at the thought. Just because a man didn’t talk didn’t make himstupid. Bitsy of all people ought tohave understood that.

Inside theLaundromat, one of the Ransom boys stuck a finger into the coin door of the payphone, looking for change. His brotherstuck a hanger inside the cigarette machine and worked it aroundfuriously. Their father Travis sat onthe washing machine, looking exhausted and defeated. Raising those boys would take the life out ofanyone, Howard thought.

Travis raised ahand in greeting, which Howard returned. Many times Travis had sat besideHoward at the breakfast bar, chewing on tobacco and jawing about the difficultyof raising boys without a mother. “Countyerself lucky, Howard Heacock,” Travis would always say, shaking his head. But Howard would have given his eyeteeth forchildren of his own, even if they were like the Travis boys.

“Morning,Howard.” Eloise Dimkowitcz stepped outof the pharmacy, clutching a lottery ticket in her left hand. Howard nodded and continued down Main. That pharmacy had driven Tank Jones out of business. When they were in high school, Tank’sreputation as a nose tackle spread throughout all of Ohio. Tank went to college on a footballscholarship, got his degree in pharmacy and set up shop. Less than ten years later, one of the bigguys came in and took him down. Tankknew he couldn’t compete with that. Hesold the store and put on one of the company badges and put himself behind thecounter, dolling out prescriptions but surrendering the day-to-day operationsof the business to a young manager who apparently knew better. Every day that Tank worked behind the counterof another man’s business, he appeared to get a little smaller.

Andee Millerbetter have those plants all picked out, that much was for certain, Howardthought, as he found himself standing at the entrance to the IGA. The doors slid open and he stepped inside.

“Hey, Howie.” Andee Millerlooked up from the store’s sole cash register where she was ringing up HankDelacroix, the town barber. “You herefor them plants?”

Howard nodded.

“I got themwrapped up. Just bring your truck roundback.”

Truck? How many plants was she expecting him to take? No, Howard would just carry them up the hilland if he couldn’t carry all of them, he could just borrow a cart from Andeeand wheel them there.

“You got yourBible verse memorized, Hank?” AndeeMiller firmly believed she was in charge of single-handedly saving all of thelost souls of Medford.

“You know I don’t, Andee.”

“Save ten percent, Hank, if you can just give me your verse.”

“I got my coupons, Andee. That’llsave me just as much.”

“Hank, it’s right there on the sign. Just read it aloud to me.”

Hank patted his shirt pocket. “Damn. Forgot my glasses again.”

“Oh for heaven’ssake, Hank.” Andee closed her eyes andtook a deep breath. “’For wherever yourtreasure is, there also will your heart be.’”

“I ain’t got notreasure, Andee.” Hank thumped hischest. “And my heart’s right here, wherethe doctor tells me it’s supposed to be.”

Andeefrowned. “I’ll give you the discountanyway. But this is the last…”

“Thank you,Andee.”

Howard sighed andheaded down an aisle to kill time. Hefound himself in the baking aisle: flour, sugar, cocoa and chocolate chips and dustyjars of maraschino cherries lined up on the shelf. There was a little display of Halloweencookie cutters and tubes of orange and black frosting. Howard didn’t understand how people likeAnnie Fowler and Bitsy could take all these independent ingredients and combinethem into something better than they were alone. What was it they did that other womencouldn’t do?

“Now where didthat Howard get to? Did you see himleave the store?” Andee said.

“No, ma’am,” Hankreplied.

“Well he sureain’t here anymore.”

“Howard’s astrange one, that’s for sure. Beam meup, Scotty,” Hank said.

“You hushyourself, Hank. There ain’t nothingwrong with Howard. ‘Sides,” shecontinued, “some of us like the silent type.”

The doors slidopen Another customer entered. “Hey, Wally,” Hank called. “I ain’t seen you in weeks. What brings you to town?”

“Come to pay myrespects to a dear friend. Town’ll neversee a teacher the likes of Wheezy Hart again.”

“It’s a realshame,” Andee said. “No wife. No family.”

“Remember when heused to live outside of town?” Hanksaid. “Whatever happened to thatproperty?”

“His daddy sold itto the Fowlers, after they learned about Wheezy’s asthma,” Wally said.

“And now,” Andeesaid, “someone’s trying to buy the farm off of Jonathan.”

Howard wassurprised by this news: He hadn’t heard it before.

“You ask me, heought to sell out. Lord knows we coulduse the influx of people. On a good dayI have eight clients,” Hank said. “That’snot enough to keep a man in bread.”

“Jonathan lovesthat place,” Andee said.

“Yes,” Wally said. “But we love this place too. That farm is land we could build on. The developer wants to put up thirty housesand a couple of nice stores, too.”

“Stores that willlikely put me out of business. Fancyhouses bring fancy people who want prettified stores,” Andee said. “Besides, what a man does with his own land ishis own business.”

“Not when itaffects more than the man. Jonathan’ssitting on a gold mine,” Wally said.

“Jonathan Fowlernever has two cents to rub together, Wally and you know it.”

“He sells thatplace and he’ll have more than two cents. Hell, he doesn’t even pay Howard Heacock a decent wage. Howard’s on the far side of thirty and hestill can’t afford a place of his own. And that girl what works down at Bitsy’s. He’s got her working her fingers to the boneon the farm. Probably doesn’t pay her adime neither.”

“Jonathan’s a fairman, Wally. And Howard…Where is Howard,anyhow?” Andee asked. “He was supposedto take his truck out back and pick up those plants Bitsy ordered. Oh, Lord.” She walked to the window and peered out. “I promised ‘em to Bitsy before the funeral.”

“Me and Wally willrun ‘em up, Andee,” Hank said. “It’s notas if I have any customers waiting for me back at the shop.”

“Thank you, Hank. Could you help us load up, Wally?”

Howard watchedwhile the three headed to the back of the store. And after they’d left, their arms full ofplants, he sneaked out the entrance. Heknew what Bitsy’s and Annie’s secret was: Both the women cooked the way theylived their lives: with love and not malice. Howard swore he could taste the love in their food. And Jonathan Fowler cared for the land in thesame way—with a heart full of love; a love that no builder would extend to thefarm, should he get his hands on it. No. Howard shook his head. The only thing a builder would love about thefarm is the money it would generate. Hehoped—for the sake of the Fowlers and Ellie and, yes, for himself—that Jonathanwouldn’t sell the farm that had been Howard’s true home for the past eighteenyears.

For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Dili challenged me with "take a good quote you like from something sci-fi, and use it to make something that's anything but sci-fi" and I challenged Chaos Mandy with "The sun winked out and the skies went black.What happens next?"

Witness

2012-01-21T19:33:00.000-08:00

Darkness settles around me. The snow falls heavy and cold. I long for the white blanket Grandmother knittedyears ago. People pass: people in fast carscoming home from work and heading into warm kitchens and soup bubbling upon thestove; people walking dogs that pause and sniff at me and occasionally evenlift their legs. Occasionally someoneslows and glances at me.

Mostly, I amignored.

I am thin. Iam faded. I am dull.

I remember how the children used to jump upon myample lap, eyes shining. There wasalways enough room for all of them. Theywould spend hours with me, constructing ornate forts out of cushions and quiltsor just curled up reading thick books, the cat always close at hand, stretchingout lazily in the sunshine slanting through lace curtains.

We watched movies together, while the father readhis newspaper, the dog parked beside me. The dog and I shared a secret: when everyone was out of the house, he,too, jumped upon my lap and curled up with me.

I remember listening to their games and theirstories and their silliness.

I remember the laughter.

All these years, I absorbed their spills and theirtears and their stories.

And this is the thanks I get.

Someone slows. Pulls up to the curb. Stops.

A man and a woman get out of a pickup truck. “Look at that,” the woman says, shaking herhead.

They go to either side of me. They take hold of me gently and lift meup. They carry me to the truck.

“That’s a real shame,” the woman says. “Throwing away a perfectly good couch.”

This was written in response to a prompt from Write On Edge prompt: Thisweek, tell a piece of your story from the point of view of an object who borewitness.

Hands Slipping Apart

2012-01-21T13:41:00.001-08:00

On a particularly cold day last week, Squints and I went fora walk. He didn’t bother with gloves. And his baseball hat did little to protecthim from the wind that bit at his ears. Hehunched into himself, balled up his hands and drew them into the sleeves of hiscoat. “It’s cold, Mom.”

I took his left hand in my right. Rubbed the back of it with my gloved thumb towarm him a bit.

And we along walked in silence, hand in hand.

A mail truck approached.

Squints dropped my hand. Pulled his own back into his sleeve.

The mail truck passed.

Squints poked at my hand with his index finger. Again I took his hand in my own.

A walker approached. Squints dropped my hand.

The walker passed. Squintspoked my hand.

It continued in this way for the duration of two miles; thisdropping and reuniting of hands depending upon the presence or absence ofpeople.

Each time Squints dropped my hand, I felt a little sad.

And every time he returned his to mine, I was cheered.

And as we reached home and parted hands for the final time,I couldn’t help but wonder if that was the last time he and I would walk handin hand.

Depths of Winter

2012-01-19T19:04:00.000-08:00

Lilly Cecilio takes her books to the checkout desk. The librarian looks at her for a moment. “I can help you here, Mrs. DeGrassi.”

Lilly frowns. “Ellen,I was here first.”

The librarian takes Mrs. DeGrassi’s books and beginsscanning them. “Going to be a cold onetonight. Record lows and a foot of snowat least.”

“Ellen,” Lilly said. “Irun your book sale every year.”

The librarian slides the books to Mrs. DeGrassi. “I canhelp you, Mrs. DePaul.”

Everywhere she goes,Lilly meets with the same. Thepharmacist turns her back on her. Thesalon owner spits on her shoes. And awoman Lilly doesn’t know approaches her on the sidewalk. “My boys’ education is in that fancy house ofyours.”

Lilly stares.

“Is it in the furniture?”

“I don’t…”

“Is it in those plushcarpets you step your pretty feet across every morning?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’tknow…”

“You didn’t know? What kind of a wife doesn’t know what her husband is up to? Are you blind?”

All her life Lilly has been identified in relation tosomeone else. First her father, formerState Senator and recently-appointed diplomat. Now her husband: Venture capitalist. Suspected felon.

“Give me your name. I’llsend you a check.”

“You don’t have any money. Government’s got it all tied up in knots.”

The woman turns away and Lilly heads to her pretty houseupon the hill.

It used to be, Lilly thinks as she slips into a pair of oldsweats and a baggy sweatshirt, that she enjoyed walking around town, basking inthe recognition of the townspeople, people looking upon her with a mixture ofadmiration and jealousy. But now thatshe’s known as that bastard’s wife,she finds recognition painful. She longsto be invisible.

She folds back the sheets and falls asleep with the lightson.

* **

She is awakened by a beeping. She reaches to the nightstand and hits thealarm. The beeping persists. She picks up the telephone. The beeping continues.

She smells smoke.

She runs down the stairs and out the front door. She stands barefoot in the snow watching herhouse burn down. In the distance shehears the sirens. The snow falls thicklyaround the house, melting into droplets that do little to stay the tongues offire.

A blanket is wrapped around her shoulders. She’s led to a pickup truck. She watches her house burn to the ground.

The fire chief slides into the driver’s side. “Can I call your family, ma’am?”

She shakes her head. Herfather had distanced himself following the arrest.

“A friend, then?”

“I have no friends.” She gestures at the house. “Thiswas no accident.”

“A hotel.”

“The bank froze theassets.”

The chief puts the truck in gear and drives down the centerof unplowed streets.

* * *

He pulls up to a church. A sign in the grass reads: Code Blue Shelter.

She’s pointed to a cot, handed a thin blanket.

A woman one cot over smiles and breaks her sandwich in half. “Hungry?”

“Starved. Thank you.”

“You been on the streets long? I don’t recognize you.”

Lilly smiles to herself. At last, she is not her father’s daughter. At last, she is not her husband’s wife. “Not long.”

“What’s your name?”

“Lilly.”

“You got a last name?”

“Just Lilly.” She likes the sound of her name untethered from her husband's. She feels lighter. Freer.

The woman smiles. “Iunderstand. Some things you have to keepto yourself.” She looks through the window. “Awful night out there, Just Lilly. Coldest night on record.”

“Butspring is just around the corner.” And Lilly would live up to her own name in the spring, blooming and growing and stretching herself to meet the sun.

“Just Lilly, I like your style.”

And Lilly smiles, basking in her anonymity and the kindnessof a stranger.

This was written in response to Story Dam's prompt: The dead of winter.

Holey Yoga

2012-01-18T10:13:00.000-08:00

I tell myself, when I need to put a positive spin on things,that I take pride in the worn clothing my husband and I routinely wear. The holes in the knees of our jeans; the weararound the necklines that no needle and thread could ever hope to repair; thesad, frayed sweaters—all are symbols: We are Frugal. We are Salt of the Earth. We Use Things Up.

I tell myself we’re not Poor. We’re not Cheap. We’renot Waiting to Lose Weight before buying new clothes. No, this fable of mine goes, we’re PuttingMoney By for college and retirement.

But this month, we had just enough leftover cash to pay for sixweeks of yoga classes for my daughters and me.

Because yoga’s good for when you’re thinking about collegeexpenses and how to pay them.

* **

The room was dark and smelled of incense. There were battery-operated flickering lights designed to look likecandles strategically placed around the perimeter of the room.

“You new at yoga?” Awoman asked me as we claimed our place at the back of the room.

“I’m not,” Ireplied airily. I had, after all, beenintroduced to yoga when I was a child. Andthen, there was that two month class I took with my mother several yearsago. I nodded to my daughters. “Theyare.”

Women entered in pretty yoga clothes. They carried designer water bottles andfancy-pants mats beneath their arms. With a casual flick of their wrists, they rolled out their mats andsat.

I took my own fancy-pants mat, my just-purchased, industrialstrength, extra-thick, Microban-treated mat in one hand. I gave a casual flick of my wrist. The mat slipped from my hand and rolledacross the floor, bumping into the back of a woman apparently in deepmeditation.

“Sorry,” I whispered, retrieving my mat and spreading it outproperly.

The room was growing crowded. More and more and still more people enteredthe room.

“We’ll have to scrunch in,” the instructor--a tiny,incredibly fit woman--said. Looking ather, I felt like a behemoth. I pulled mystomach in. I sat up straighter. I wished I hadn’t worn my oversizedsweatshirt; wished I hadn’t stolen my husband’s sweatpants from hisdresser. Wished I, too, had pretty yogapants.

“We’re supposed to be downstairs,”the instructor continued. “But theyforgot about a town meeting.” Shelaughed, embarrassed. “We’ve gottwenty-one registered for tonight.”

Another woman entered. A muscular woman in double tank tops and tight black pants. She looked at the crowd. Frowned. She came to the back. She set upshop beside me.

I scooted my mat over. Gave her a pained smile.

“Remember,” the instructor intoned, after bringing us toattention with the ringing of some sort of gong. “Yoga isn’t about competition. Yoga is for you.”

I nodded. I didn’tneed to worry about Mrs. Muscles beside me. Yoga is not a competition.

The instructor demonstrated proper breathing technique. Mrs. Muscles started breathing noisily, so forcefully,that she threatened to blow out one of the fake candles at the front of the room. We sat upon our mats, legs crossed. We began rotating our trunks in smallcircles, gradually increasing in ever-widening concentricity.

V snickered.

Filibuster snickered.

I snickered, too. “Ssssh,”I hissed, between laughter.

We stood. We dangledover our feet, grabbing at our toes, bending our knees, if necessary. We swayed our hips in a circular manner. My hood flopped over and came to rest besidemy face. The strings dangled down,reaching lower than I could.

The instructor walked behind her charges, gently placing a correctivehand on hip, or back, or arm. “Lift thattailbone. Up. UP.”

I listened to my daughters grunting and struggling. I laughed to myself. I stillhave it, I thought. They may be ableto program a cell phone, but I could do yoga.

As we began moving into the poses, I felt myself sinkinginto the stretch. The body remembers.

But then, the sequences got suddenly complicated. There were strange poses and the workout felt like aerobics not beginner’s yoga. Every time I got lost, I looked at Mrs.Muscles’ perfect form. And then, I tried—andfailed—to imitate it.

And, really, the body can remember only so much, andclearly, my abdominals had forgotten everything. Iwatched Mrs. Muscles go from a seated position to flat on her back in onesmooth motion. I watched my daughtersbalance on their butts and lift both legs up, up, up, while all I could hopefor was to not fall over as I extended my legs in the air before me.

Yoga isn’t acompetition, I told myself. Yoga is not a competition.

I looked at Mrs. Muscles, perfectly posed. This isnot a competition, I thought at her.

We stood and went into the tree pose. Mrs. Muscles, I noticed, wobbled a bit.

I remained steady.

I stood tall and smug.

I was a tree. A tree without an abdominal wall. A tree that would love to look like Mrs. Muscles. A tree that would kill to wear double tanktops and neat yoga pants without embarrassment.

Still, I thoughtto myself as I lay in the final resting pose, trying to stay awake, not bad for the first time back.

* * *

“How was it?” my husband asked as my daughters and I gimpedinto the door.

“Not bad,” I said brightly.

“Namaste,” V said.

“Ooommm,” Filibuster said.

“Oh, there are mysweat pants. I was looking everywherefor them,” my husband said.

“Sorry.” I went for asheepish smile. “I stole them from yourdresser.”

“That’s OK,” my husband said, biting into a lemon-blueberrymuffin and clapping the crumbs from his hands. “But didn’t you know?” He paused,smiling to himself. It was a secretive smile. It was a dangerous smile.

“What? Didn’t I knowwhat?”

“Those sweats have a huge hole in the crotch.”

Breakthrough

2012-01-18T04:13:00.000-08:00

“It’s cold.” Will’s words emerged from his mouth upon lazy clouds and hung inthe crisp air. He stamped his feet on theporch of his fiancée’s family cabin and blew into gloved hands.

“There’s a trail through the woods.” Marie pointed to a tree-lined path lit by thefull moon and hundreds of stars pricking through the sky. “It’s beautiful after a snowfall.”

The snow was thickly crusted. It crunched and squeaked beneath theirfeet. Every step they took hovered on theseemingly solid surface of the snow before crunching through.

Marie fell through up to her knees. She hauled herself back up, laughing.

“Walk in my boot prints,” Will said.

She walked behind him, staring at his back. With every step she took in his path, herheart sank. She’d followed himeverywhere: to high school. Tocollege. She’d even followed him to herjob. She realized she’d been followingpeople all her life. Had she agreed tomarry Will out of love or in order to have someone to walk behind? Would this be the extent of their livestogether, he leading, she following?

He paused. Wrapped his arms around himself. “Ihate this weather,” he said, not turning around to look at her. “Let’s move south after the wedding.”

“I like it here.”

He turned. Grinned his dazzling grin, slow and easy and bright as moonlight. “You’d do it for me.”

She shook her head.

“You wouldn’t be able to stay here on your own.”

She removed her glove and slid the ring from herfinger.

His smile disappeared. “What are you doing?”

She took his gloved hand and pressed the ring intoit. “Your love no longer holds sway overme, Will.”

Then she stepped from the path and headed into thewoods, forging a path of her own, her boots breaking through the snow at everystep.

And the snow falling into her boots gave her an unexpected rush of pleasure.

This was written in response to the Trifecta Writing Challenge. This week's word was sway.

Conveyed

2012-01-16T06:47:00.000-08:00

Cameras were outlawed when the Transition Time came. Cell phones, too. Computers. Even the ancient things: iPods and iPads. Blackberries. Nooks. Kindles.

The government no longer trusted its citizens withtechnology. Officials went door to door inblood-red uniforms, tearing apart houses, gathering up digital devices andtaking them away in great boxes.

They took everything.

And the people no longer knew what to do with themselves.

Joseph supposed he’d lucked out: The officials took one lookat his 35 millimeter Nikon and burst out laughing. “Keep that piece of junk,” they spat. The camera wasn’t a threat to them: Film wasno longer available.

Or so they thought.

For years, Joseph had been hoarding film, picking it upwherever and whenever and however he could, hiding it throughout his apartment—somestuffed into the government-issued bag of beans. Some tucked into his regulation-whitesocks. Some hidden in the cinderblock wallsof the apartment basement. It was easyenough to chunk out a piece of the wall. Easy enough to put it back just so. No one—not even Joseph—could tell from a distance that the wall had beentampered with.

Every Sunday, after the proclamation, Joseph switched offthe two-way television; pretended to go out for his mandatory run. Instead, Joseph sneaked to the basement. Joseph sneaked off to his darkroom.

Joseph liked working in the dark, doing things by feel. He liked pulling the film from the canisterand threading it onto a reel. He likedthe pungent smell of the chemicals; the clock with the glow in the darknumbers.

On Mondays, after mandatory inspections, Joseph would sneakto the basement and print his film. Andthen, when he put the paper into the developing solution, the magic wouldhappen: Where there once was only white paper, an image would appear.

Developing film, printing pictures, was what kept Josephsane.

You might say that pictures kept Joseph alive.

* **

But on this particular Monday, Joseph couldn’t print hisfilm. This particular Monday afterinspections, Joseph had his mandatory physical.

The conveyor took him to the office and stopped. He stepped and waited. The doors whisked open. The conveyor took him to the elevator whichhad been preprogrammed to take Joseph to the top floor. No music played. No buttons glowed. There was just the slow, mechanical sound ofthe elevator heading to the third floor. The elevator stopped. The doorsopened. The conveyor moved Joseph to awhite plastic chair. He sat.

“JosephSchmidt?” A nurse appeared at one of thedoors, clipboard in hand. The conveyorled him to the back. He stepped off atthe scale.

“Oh, that won’t benecessary.”

Joseph frowned. “Butit’s required. Every year.”

She shook her head. “Not this year.”

The conveyor took him to a windowless room. Joseph sat upon the examination table. The white paper crinkled beneath him. He rolled up his sleeve. “Don’t bother, Joseph,” the nurse said,leaving the room on silent shoes of black.

The doctor entered, carrying his laptop. Doctors, being employees of the government,were permitted computers. “Hello,Joseph.”

“Hello, Doctor.” Joseph stopped swinging his legs. Sat a little straighter. Again, thepaper crinkled noisily.

“Let’s see. Stitches.” The doctor clicked his mouse.

“Just two. A minorcut.”

“Vision disturbances.” Click. “Tremors.”

“You must have the wrong file, doctor. The computer…”

The doctor glanced at Joseph. “Obesity.”

“I’m underweight,doctor. I never miss a day of mandatory exercise.”

“The population is getting too high, Joseph. The government needs us to Eliminate.”

“But...”

“You missed two days of production, Joseph. I’m going to recommend Elimination.”

“But you can’t…”

“I can. Doctors arequite powerful, you see. We can savelives. And we can…” He shrugged.

“I’m thirty-eightyears old. It’s…”

“I’m sorry, Joseph.” The doctor leaned in. “Unless…”

“Unless what?” Joseph whispered. He could feel his hands shaking in hislap. Could feel the sweat rolling downhis back.

“I would consider a small payment.”

“How much?” He heldhis breath.

“Ten thousand.”

Joseph’s heart sank. “Idon’t have that kind of money.”

The doctor shrugged. “My report is due at the end of the week. Once you have the money, call this number. “Hescratched a twelve-digit number on a blank piece of paper.

“Where am I supposed to find a telephone?”

The doctor smiled. “Ihad one installed in this building. For emergencies only. I’d say, Joseph, that thisis a bit of an emergency.”

“But where…?”

“When you have the money, walk to the back of the building. Go up four flights of stairs.”

“This building has three floors.”

“It’s so easy to deceive people who have fallen asleep.” He smiled. “You commoners and thegovernment. I keep all the contraband upthere, Joseph. My music. My movies. I have cigarettes and potato chips and all the money I need to keep mein illegal goods forever. I’ll bewaiting, Joseph.”

That particular Monday, Joseph skipped mandatory inspections. What were forty lashes when one’s life was indanger? He grabbed his camera and a rollof film from the bag of beans and he headed back to the doctor’s office. Joseph went to the back of the building,stood before a non-descript double door that refused to open for him. Joseph wedged his fingers between the doors,forced them open.

He stood there for a moment, getting his bearings. He was in the back of the building, facing ametal stairwell. They startled him: Besidesthose he’d discovered in his apartment building, Joseph hadn’t seen stairs inyears. He glanced at the corners of theceiling. No cameras. No listening devices. The area was silent as death.

Joseph tiptoed up the stairs. At the second floor, he paused to listen; tostrain his ears in the silence.

Nothing.

Again he continued up the stairs, more quietly this time. More slowly.

Again, nothing.

Third floor. Thefloor that contained the doctor’s office. He paused, hand on rail.

Nothing.

Joseph took the last flight two stairs at a time. At the top there was a red door marked Danger. Toxic Chemicals. Next to the door there was a telephone, alsored. Joseph grasped the doorhandle. Locked. He glanced at the telephone. Picked it up. Listened to the dial tone.

Joseph stood back. Kicked at the door.

The door held.

Again, he kicked. Again and again, not worried about the sound he was making. He was,after all, one floor above the doctor’s office. And the office—like all governmental offices—was soundproofed.

His foot throbbed. His ankle hurt. Again, he kicked.

Finally, the door opened.

Joseph stepped in.

He gasped.

There was television—an old-fashioned one way television—in theroom. And a stereo. He counted three computers and a plush purplecouch—a color outlawed ten years ago. Joseph went into the kitchen. Opened an old refrigerator and found food—real fresh food—inside. Apples and oranges and carrots and lettuce.

Joseph made his way to a back room; a bedroom. There was a shelf full of books, alsocontraband items. Joseph grabbed one andflipped it open at random, reading, soaking in as many words as he could. His watch beeped. It was dismissal time. He had to make it home quickly before theauthorities checked the streets

Joseph went from roomto room, snapping pictures as he went, opening drawers, searching for anythingthat could help him.

The watch beeped again. He was supposed to be home now. The doctor…would he be coming up the stairs tonight?

He continued searching, looking beneath cushions, rollingback rugs, think, Joseph. Think.

And then, just as he was leaving, he found it, sitting inplain sight. A book of records. A column of dates. Thenames of patients he had bribed. Themoney received and the corresponding date. And then a fifth column: Date of Elimination. Each patient had been Eliminated one dayafter the money had been received. Thefinal name on the page was his own. Josephraised his camera. He snapped onepicture before the film ran out. He ranfrom the room, not bothering to close the book; not rolling back carpets orfluffing up cushions. He didn’t evenbother to close the door behind him.

* **

At mandatory bedtime,Joseph sneaked to his darkroom. Hedeveloped his film nervously, clumsily fumbling with the roll. Slowdown, Joseph. Relax. He pretended his was at work. Did what his boss told him to do: He forcedhis mind from the process, let his body take over: film, canister, water,developer, water, fixer. Hands shaking,he held the negatives to dim lights.

He held his breath.

He squinted at the last picture.

It was good.

He printed two sets of the pictures and hid one in the cinderblocksof the basement.

In the dark, Joseph walked to the doctor’s building. He walked up four flights of stairs. Thedoor, he noticed, was still open. He pickedup the red telephone hanging upon the wall.

“You work quickly, Joseph.” Thedoctor said into the telephone. “Bringthe money to my office tomorrow at nine. I’ll rearrange your schedule.”

* * *

“I’ll wait here,” Joseph told the nurse the next day.

“He won’t come out here.”

Joseph smiled. “I’m betting hewill.”

The doctor emerged from the back rooms. He wore a frown on his face. “Thisis highly irregular Joseph.” He extendedhis hand.

Joseph gave him the envelope. “Youmight want to count it.”

The doctor opened it. Paled.

“I have another set of those hidden away.”

The doctor glared at him. “Icould make you disappear right now.” Heflashed a syringe held in his left hand.

“Three people—three entirely unrelated people—know about these picturesand where to find them. I disappear;those prints go to the Governor. Yousee, Doctor. Pictures are powerful, too.”

“Get out of here,” the doctor snarled.

“I want your reassurances.”

“You’re completely healthy. Youwon’t be Eliminated.”

Joseph smiled and turned aside. He refused the conveyor and instead took the sidewalk on foot.

From the belt of the conveyor, a passerby glanced at him. “You’re limping.”

Joseph glanced at his foot. Itwas swollen and, now that he thought about it, it hurt. He remembered the door he’d kicked in.

“You really should see a doctor,” the passerby said over his shoulder.

“I’m good.” Joseph smiled. He continued walking along the sidewalk, feeling more alive--and awake--than he'd felt in years.

For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Kat challenged me with "Use these words in your story: doctor, roll of film, stairwell, telephone" and I challenged The Lime with "What if Socrates didn't drink the hemlock?"

Ordered Lives

2012-01-13T20:23:00.000-08:00

Well it’s midterm week in our neck of the woods. Every day after I pick them up from school, mydaughters begin studying for the next day. One daughter goes to the basement and reads aloud until well after twoin the morning. The other one typesfrantically on her computer, trying to outline two quarters of work in aneffort to remember all she has learned. They’re stressed and grumpy beyond belief.

Squints decides this is the week he’ll cook: pad tai andJapanese fried chicken and wonton noodles stuffed and deep fried.

My husband’s been in London for a week. He calls when he can, tries to diffuse thestress long distance; reassures the girls that they’ll do fine; everything willbe fine; tells Squints he’s sorry he missed his dinner again.

The house is, naturally, a disaster. In every room of the house are scattered papersand notebooks and highlighters and pens: psych notes; calc notes; trig notes;biology and history and government and English. Soy sauce stains my kitchen curtains. The whole house smells of cooking oil.

The house feels out of control. I need to get things reigned back in.

I head to the dining room and wind the clock.

There’s something reassuring about the sound of a clockhanging on a wall, quietly marking time as its family goes about its life, arranginga day among ticks and tocks. A woundclock and a swinging pendulum help me to get organized again.

And so on this, the last day of exams, we sweep through thehouse, gathering up the detritus of our week; capping pens; shelving books;putting our lives back in order; reordering our house as the clock reorders ourdays into hours and minutes and seconds.

We order a pizza. Putin a movie. We toast the end of midterms;celebrating a successful week and an orderly home; the clock a subtle and persistentbackground accompaniment.

And sometime in the next fifteen minutes—at least if it’s ontime—my husband’s plane will land.

And our lives will be back into our familiar patterns ofticks and tocks and hours neatly divided.

Masked Men

2012-01-13T06:39:00.000-08:00

Let us take off our masks, you and I.

Let us dance with abandon. Let us laugh too loudly. Let us cry if we need to.

Let us speak from the heart. Let us say what we mean. Let us learn to listen.

Let us not worry about the judgments of others, who may point and stare, and, God forbid, laugh.

Let us stand boldly before the world, newly hatched chicks blinking into the brilliant sunshine.

Let us act like children

Let us allow ourselves to be seen.

Let us throw down our masks, you and I.

You go first.

Weep

2012-01-10T17:43:00.000-08:00

She sits alone in the Reading Center, feigning interest in athick paperback book. She shoves up herglasses. Scratches at her knee. Listens to the girls around her.

The pretty girls, the girls with the flouncy dresses, the girlswho hand her empty envelopes to get around the rule: Party invitations distributed on school premises must be extended toall classmates.

The teacher rings her silver bell. “Time to clean up, Third Grade.” The centers disperse. It’s recess time.

She places herself at the end of the line.

* **

They seek her on the playground.

“Hey, Fatty.” Pretty Julia with yellow ribbons in her hair.

“Fatty, Fatty two by four.” Amelia with the purple dress.

“Ugly.” Heidi. Red sparkles on her shoes.

And even Kim, with her bright green eyes, Kim, who used tosit at her kitchen table and drink cocoa, legs swinging back and forth. “Four eyes.”

She is shoved to the ground. The unyielding blacktop skins her knees and the palms of her hands. She rests there. She watches the sparkly shoes walk away.

* **

The next morning, her knees are raw and ugly. They’re red and purple. They ooze anger, yellow and green.

She closes her eyes and pulls up the blue tightsto conceal her wounds.

She limps into the classroom. Her teacher puts down her silver bell. “What’s wrong, Maggie?”

“Nothing.”

“I think there is. Kim,please accompany Maggie to the nurse’s office.”

The girls walk down the hall in silence. Kim leaves her at the door.

The nurse sends Maggie behind a screen; directs her toremove her tights and sit in the little orange chair.

“Oh, my, look at that. They’re infected.” The nurse dabsat Maggie’s knees with a cotton ball. “Youreally shouldn’t’ve covered those up.” Shesprays something on the wounds and smiles her perky smile. “All better now.”

Maggie pastes on a smile and walks away. But she is not all better.

Some wounds are invisible.

Some wounds just won’t weep.

This piece was written for the Trifecta Writing Challenge. This week's word was weep, as in 3: to exude (a fluid) slowly : ooze <a tree weeping sap>.

Memory Misplaced

2012-01-09T16:04:00.000-08:00

Louis reaches across his wife’s chest, brings the seatbeltacross her hips and buckles it. He patsher knee. “There you are, Catherine.”

She frowns and pulls at the belt. “I don’t like this thing. This…” He can see her mouth grasping at the elusive word, gumming it, chewing it, even. But then the word slips from her mind andsits there on the tip of her tongue, invisible, just a peppermint aftertaste now. The mere memory of a memory forgotten.

Louis starts the car and pulls from the curb.

“Be careful, Dad.” Susan. Always the worrywart. For forty-three years, he and Catherine have takencare of one another. Surely he canmanage to get her to the beach and back. “You remember how to get there?”

He bristles: Of course he knows the way. His mind is still intact. But Catherine. Memories drip from her mind like dew slippingto the tip of a bent blade of grass. They hover there, shiver for amoment. And then: Plop! Memories fall to theground and are consumed by the earth.

What must it feel like, he wonders, to have memories tripaway, drip by drip, an unconscious hemorrhage, slow and stealthy and so subtle youdon’t even know those memories were once a part of the inventory of your brain?

He parks the car. Helps her to a large red rock overlooking the Atlantic. It’s sunny there. Children romp and play and jump from stone tostone, laughing while their worried mothers look on, torn between helping theirchildren and letting them find their own path.

“Here, Catherine.” Hehelps her sit upon the rock. Here, shecan sit and watch the ocean and he hopes, oh God, how he hopes, that thesighting of a seal or a boat or even just the waves angry upon the shoreline willbring her back to him even if only for an instant.

Occasionally there is that moment of clarity, sudden and bright;understanding and knowing, like the omniscient expression on a newborn’s facethat makes you wonder which of you is the wiser. Catherine is in there. He knows she is. But how to reach her?

For hours, Catherine sits and stares at the ocean withoutmoving. He narrates her life: the yearof her birth, the college where they’d met, their marriage, their children andgrandchildren and all of the forgotten people and events so inconvenientlydropped from her mind. A dispassionate theatergoer, she attends. Polite yet distant. Clapping and smiling at all the right parts.

But this time, Louisknows, this time she’ll remember something, if only a wisp of a recollectionthat she can grasp and pull and from that weave back together the story of herlife.

Suddenly she turns to him. Smiles at him brightly. “I’msorry,” she says. “I seem to have lostmy way.”

Louis lies back against the rock, pressing his whole beinginto it. Perhaps if he stays here longenough, he can soak in the memories of the earth.

Because the earth holds memories the mind can no longercontain, pulling forgotten words and images to its hot molten core until oneday, in a great and violent burst, it will release those recollections again. And the memories will fan out and shower theground like pearled drops of dew.

And Catherine will be there to gather them up like flowers.

Arrange them back into some sort of life.

This was written in response to a Story Dam prompt. We had 600 words to write about something that was missing.