Lynne finished the last of the dishes alone in the kitchen. She hadn’t bothered to put on the yellow rubber gloves under the sink, and found herself regretting it as the hot water and soap burned into the cracks in her overworked hands. So happy to finally have a moment to herself, forcing no reverent smiles and accepting no more pitiful hugs, engaged in something mindless, she dove in without taking the precaution. It wasn’t working as well as she’d hoped, however. Thoughts were still creeping in. Since the dishes hadn’t done the trick, she started tidying the whole kitchen, scrubbing the crusty brown ring around the base of the faucet with an old toothbrush, sweeping, condensing into plastic containers the leftover array of casseroles and gelatin salads with bits of carrot and fruit suspended inside. The broken skin on her hands stung as she worked, asking her to stop with each forceful scrub and scrape, begging for a healing balm and some rest. She ignored it and kept on. She painstakingly picked and peeled off a grubby piece of ancient scotch tape leftover from someone’s artwork on the fridge… found her little boy’s boot, caked with mud, under some empty paper bags at the bottom of the pantry and threw it away in disgust, crushing it into the overfilled trash can.
Her hands hung at her sides, weighted down by trash bags filled with sympathy cards and used paper plates and dried up bouquets of flowers, as she walked into the mud room. Out of habit and without looking, she stuck her feet into the shoes nearest the back door. They slid on easily, loose on her feet as she shuffled into the crisp night air. Then, realizing whose shoes she wore, she stopped halfway down the driveway, dropping the bags on the frozen ground, and looked at her feet. Derrick’s favorite running shoes seemed to look up at her. Her bare feet shook them loose and she pranced inside on the balls of her feet. It was irrational, she knew, to be angry, and she was angry at herself for feeling it, but there it was, gnawing at her insides. “I’m alone, Derek. What am I supposed to do now?” She asked the empty living room. It was silent. Her children were staying at a friend’s house for the night. Why do people take away all your distractions and try to stuff you with food when someone dies? she wondered irritably, flinging off her coat. Lynne flopped onto the couch and grabbed the remote control, filling the room with the noise of tinny laughter and closed her eyes. It stopped abruptly. Her eyes opened to darkness. “Perfect…” she muttered to herself, as she got up to find a flashlight. She fiddled with some breakers for a few minutes, in vain, cursing Derek again for leaving her. This was supposed to be his job. Defeated, she rooted into the boxes in the fading light of her battery-operated torch and found a box with some candlesticks and brought it inside.
Her brother had been kind to light the fire in the woodstove before he left. Gratitude found its way into her heart as she stoked the embers and added a piece of wood to the flames. She lit a candle and set it on the kitchen table. The light revealed his handwriting on the cardboard, with their names. Somehow, in the dark, she had managed to find this of all boxes in the whole garage. She traced her finger along the blocky capitol letters and sat down, bracing herself. Carefully, Lynne sifted through the remnants of their courtship, filled with letters and photographs, matchbooks from restaurants, poems written on napkins and paper lunch sacks.
They met when she was 16 years old and Lynne couldn’t imagine herself with anyone else since. Derek was her soul’s twin. He went away to college for two years before they were married, which nearly killed her. Lynne pulled out dozens of pictures they’d taken on visits to each other, some taken by Derek with one arm around her and the other extended to snap the shutter on the disposable camera. They looked so young, smiling and bursting with happiness just to be in each other’s company - it had been so rare. The end of every letter held the same promise that it wouldn’t be much longer before there would be no more goodbyes. His devotion had filled her to brimming. She recognized the candles from a picnic he’d made the summer before graduation… when he’d asked her to marry him. Officially. Unofficially, he had asked her a thousand times. They decided on a name for their eventual first daughter before they’d been together their first year. He was her only. Only. Only.
The days after his death, Lynne pretended he was away again, just like college. She could handle that, she reasoned somehow, because she had done it before. She had gone whole months without seeing his face and feeling his arms around her. Beyond that, she did not dare try to imagine enduring. The world began to cave in when she tried to picture living without him much longer than that. To stave off the black hole of thoughts that threatened to devour, she stayed safely busy, her worn hands a blur. To stave off the pain, she had allowed anger to numb her senses, and it was rapidly wearing off. Toward the bottom of the box, the darkness began its tug at her insides. She stayed perfectly still, listening to the wood crack as the fire consumed it in the next room.
“Can you hear me, Derek?” she asked the darkness. The walls danced in the delicate glow of the candle. “You said you’d never leave me…” she whispered. Under the ragged edges of envelopes torn-open, was a book Derek had given her the day he left for college long ago. Inside it, she found a faded scrap of notebook paper, marking a poem.
The neglected wounds on her hands burned with the brine of her tears, and she thanked him for this last promise, clutching the book to her broken heart.
“now all the fingers of this tree(darling)have
hands,and all the hands have people;and
more each particular person is(my love)
alive than every world can understand
and now you are and I am now and we’re
a mystery which will never happen again,
a miracle which has never happened before---
and shining this our now must come to then
our then shall be some darkness during which
fingers are without hands;and I have no
you:and all trees are(any more than each
leafless)its silent in forevering snow
---but never fear(my own,my beautiful
my blossoming)for also then’s until”
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
The Audition by Iris Rosewater
The sun burned wickedly into the fabric Evelyn’s black dress as she walked up the familiar steps of the concert hall. Heat burrowed into her shoulders and the back of her neck, releasing a trickle of sweat and sending it down her well-postured vertebrae. Her mother’s shoes clicked an embarrassing staccato along the corridor, which was much too cold to compensate for the oppressive heat outside. The damp spots beneath Evelyn’s arms had gone cold, and her teeth began to clatter. She held the leather handle of her case like the hand of a dear friend, and followed obediently the metronome of the shiny bronze shoes that led the way. The matching purse swung on her mother’s elbow as she signed forms, the smell of stale cinnamon polluting the air around her every time she opened her mouth to give Evelyn a direction. “Sit here.” “You better start warming up. You only have half an hour.” “Go to the ladies room and freshen up - you look like you’ve just been jogging!”
The bathroom was full of women in black dresses. They chatted around the mirrors. Some fiddled with their hair and make up. Evelyn tried not to see them as she entered the room, gazing instead at the intricate pattern of black and white tiles that swirled on the floor beneath her black flats and the puddles of water on the marble counter tops. She was still nervous, she was surprised to discover, sorting through the layers of emotions and shivering in front of a basin. Her hands had lost all blood flow and were white, webbed with purple from her chill. She went through her routine, turning the silver knobs of the faucet and letting the hot water spill over her wrists, inviting the blood back into her hands. It flowed gently over her delicate palms and agile fingers, slipping over their calloused tips. Twenty five more minutes, she thought to herself, splashing a handful of water on her pale face. Her insides danced with excitement.
The first time Evelyn touched a violin, she was four years old. She would always remember the way it felt - running her finger around the curled maple scroll, down its neck and glossy spruce belly. Learning to play came as naturally as running or laughing. She worked through Suzuki Book One in the first three weeks, and then her teacher referred her to one of the members of the Santa Fe symphony, who she loved dearly. Ms. Bell had red hair so curly Evelyn was strongly tempted to pull down a lock and watch it bounce at every lesson. She was patient and nurturing, fostering her tiny student‘s fledgling gift. Evelyn’s Mother, however, was not so patient. By eight years old, Mother had pulled her out of school and hired a private tutor so that more of Evelyn’s waking hours could be spent practicing. By ten, she was the youngest concert master in the Santa Fe Youth Philharmonic’s history. At age twelve, she began to notice things. Once the other members of the orchestra got over her astounding musical ability, they largely ignored her. And, she discovered, when a person is quiet, they are assumed to be deaf as well. She listened the girls talk about boys and dances and their friends at school, pointing at the faces smiling through the clear vinyl on the fronts of their notebooks. Evelyn’s notebook stared up at her, vacant. Her schedule had been tightened the older she got, rigidly enforced by Mother. Wake up, get dressed, eat, practice, study, eat, practice, study, eat, practice, go to sleep - not to mention orchestra rehearsals and performances… and, the compliant soul that she was, she got up and executed Mother’s will every day. The music was good, and she did love it, but she began to wonder if there wasn’t more to life than just music? Wasn’t music an expression of experience? Once, she tried to compose something of her own, but kept finding that she only mimicked someone else’s song… someone who had felt something real, be it joy or pain. At age fourteen, she had been concert master of the Santa Fe Youth Philharmonic for four years and Mother had decided it was time that she moved up in the music world. Today, she would audition for the Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra.
The fear began to creep in again as Evelyn walked in the green room to warm up. Her mother shot her an exasperated look and glanced at her watch as she opened her case. Expectations were everywhere. They were on the faces of the other violinists in the room, in Mother’s impatient foot, fidgeting away in its tacky shoe, in Ms. Bell’s proud smile. It was loud in the green room. Fellow musicians tuned and plucked, playing simultaneously in discordant swells, every neck marked red with devotion from the push of rosewood and ebony. Her violin seemed happy to see her as she unsheathed its sweet face, tenderly cleaning white rosin dust from its strings and belly before bringing it under her chin. It was easy to choose her solo. It was the first song she heard and asked what made such a sound… the music that made her heart full to bursting. Nonchalantly, the other violinists grew quiet as Evelyn drew the first long, gushing note of The Young Prince and the Young Princess. She forgot there were any witnesses after the first phrase and played the story as innocently as only an innocent could, weaving into every cadence her own longing for life. When she finished, the room kept still for several moments, before bursting with applause. “Rimsky Korsakov would have wept,” Mrs. Bell whispered at her side. Evelyn bowed deeply as the musicians stood cheering. Her heart cheered, too. There would be no audition. She had played the final performance of her young years, played as proof to her comrades that it was a choice… and her life would begin today.
The bathroom was full of women in black dresses. They chatted around the mirrors. Some fiddled with their hair and make up. Evelyn tried not to see them as she entered the room, gazing instead at the intricate pattern of black and white tiles that swirled on the floor beneath her black flats and the puddles of water on the marble counter tops. She was still nervous, she was surprised to discover, sorting through the layers of emotions and shivering in front of a basin. Her hands had lost all blood flow and were white, webbed with purple from her chill. She went through her routine, turning the silver knobs of the faucet and letting the hot water spill over her wrists, inviting the blood back into her hands. It flowed gently over her delicate palms and agile fingers, slipping over their calloused tips. Twenty five more minutes, she thought to herself, splashing a handful of water on her pale face. Her insides danced with excitement.
The first time Evelyn touched a violin, she was four years old. She would always remember the way it felt - running her finger around the curled maple scroll, down its neck and glossy spruce belly. Learning to play came as naturally as running or laughing. She worked through Suzuki Book One in the first three weeks, and then her teacher referred her to one of the members of the Santa Fe symphony, who she loved dearly. Ms. Bell had red hair so curly Evelyn was strongly tempted to pull down a lock and watch it bounce at every lesson. She was patient and nurturing, fostering her tiny student‘s fledgling gift. Evelyn’s Mother, however, was not so patient. By eight years old, Mother had pulled her out of school and hired a private tutor so that more of Evelyn’s waking hours could be spent practicing. By ten, she was the youngest concert master in the Santa Fe Youth Philharmonic’s history. At age twelve, she began to notice things. Once the other members of the orchestra got over her astounding musical ability, they largely ignored her. And, she discovered, when a person is quiet, they are assumed to be deaf as well. She listened the girls talk about boys and dances and their friends at school, pointing at the faces smiling through the clear vinyl on the fronts of their notebooks. Evelyn’s notebook stared up at her, vacant. Her schedule had been tightened the older she got, rigidly enforced by Mother. Wake up, get dressed, eat, practice, study, eat, practice, study, eat, practice, go to sleep - not to mention orchestra rehearsals and performances… and, the compliant soul that she was, she got up and executed Mother’s will every day. The music was good, and she did love it, but she began to wonder if there wasn’t more to life than just music? Wasn’t music an expression of experience? Once, she tried to compose something of her own, but kept finding that she only mimicked someone else’s song… someone who had felt something real, be it joy or pain. At age fourteen, she had been concert master of the Santa Fe Youth Philharmonic for four years and Mother had decided it was time that she moved up in the music world. Today, she would audition for the Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra.
The fear began to creep in again as Evelyn walked in the green room to warm up. Her mother shot her an exasperated look and glanced at her watch as she opened her case. Expectations were everywhere. They were on the faces of the other violinists in the room, in Mother’s impatient foot, fidgeting away in its tacky shoe, in Ms. Bell’s proud smile. It was loud in the green room. Fellow musicians tuned and plucked, playing simultaneously in discordant swells, every neck marked red with devotion from the push of rosewood and ebony. Her violin seemed happy to see her as she unsheathed its sweet face, tenderly cleaning white rosin dust from its strings and belly before bringing it under her chin. It was easy to choose her solo. It was the first song she heard and asked what made such a sound… the music that made her heart full to bursting. Nonchalantly, the other violinists grew quiet as Evelyn drew the first long, gushing note of The Young Prince and the Young Princess. She forgot there were any witnesses after the first phrase and played the story as innocently as only an innocent could, weaving into every cadence her own longing for life. When she finished, the room kept still for several moments, before bursting with applause. “Rimsky Korsakov would have wept,” Mrs. Bell whispered at her side. Evelyn bowed deeply as the musicians stood cheering. Her heart cheered, too. There would be no audition. She had played the final performance of her young years, played as proof to her comrades that it was a choice… and her life would begin today.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Conclusions by Iris Rosewater
Eva was a newcomer. She moved in just as the trees were losing their blossoms. Her manicured lawn was sprinkled with tiny white flowers which fell lightly from their branches as Susan walked up to the front door earlier that day for the first time, their symmetrical petals sauntering in the unseasonably hot breeze and swirling around her ankles. Several of them managed to find themselves nestled between the chocolate chip cookies on the plate she carried. Susan shifted her weight and looked around uncomfortably after knocking on the freshly painted red door. That was supposed to mean something, wasn’t it? Good luck, maybe? A white-painted wrought iron set of chairs and café table sat in front of the bay window, beneath the covered porch, looking like a picture she’d seen of France. Susan had never been to France. Something told her that her new neighbor probably had. And, when the red door opened, she was sure of it.
The interior of Eva’s house was unbelievable. There was no possible way that this woman moved in only days before. It was impeccable. And so was Eva. She answered the door in a pair of grey trousers and a pink silk blouse. It hung delicately around her small frame, the v-neck plunging low enough for Susan to count a few visible ribs splaying out from her chest bone like butterfly wings. The pink hue was rosy against the pallor of her skin. Eva had the kind of face that must have stunned men. High cheekbones, icy blue eyes, a thin pointed nose and petal-pink lips. All of the striking features were softened by the onset of middle age. Shallow lines marked the edges of her eyes, the ghosts of old laughter and sentiment. Her face was pulled into a bright smile even before she saw who had come to visit. Immediately, Susan regretted waiting on the doorstep. She kicked herself for not writing a little note and leaving the plate on the welcome mat, instead. It would have been easier. Who knew what her children were probably up to next door and what destruction awaited there upon her return. Jimmy was asleep, she was sure, having been up vomiting all last night. Susan also regretted not having yet taken a shower. It was a miracle that she’d gotten the stupid cookies made, having been interrupted ten times by the girls quarrelling and the baby eating the puppy kibble. Her smile wilted when she realized that she’d also forgotten to comb her hair.
Like the lady that she was, Eva politely invited Susan to come inside, gushing about how wonderful the cookies looked and carrying them to the kitchen. Susan lingered in the entry way, tucking a loose curl around her ear before setting a tentative foot in the house. It was like something out of a Home and Garden magazine. Not a single pair of shoes sat by the door. The wood floors shined, un-scuffed. She looked down at her ancient Reeboks which she’d transformed into slip-ons after stuffing her feet inside hundreds of times without bothering to untie the laces. Should she take them off, revealing her sweaty feet? Eva returned, still gushing. The gushing was a little much, Susan thought. They were just cookies, after all. She kept on her dingy sneakers and followed her new neighbor into the sitting room. The walls were vertically striped an airy blue and chocolate brown. A couple of ficus house plants sat companionably next to the leather sofas and a furry area rug. Everywhere she looked were artifacts of world travel. Photographs, souvenirs, maps… mostly of glamorous places. Paris, London, Rome… Susan hadn’t been any further than Disneyland.
Eva asked lots of questions… how long had they been in the neighborhood? How old were her children? Did she work? What a stupid question - she had four children! Eva laughed at her silliness, placing a tiny hand against her butterfly sternum. She acted overly-enthralled by Susan’s humble world, punctuating her answers with an occasional “Hmmmm.” “How about that?” “Really?” “Wonderful.” Susan found herself begging her facial muscles to hide the irritation that began its own kind of gushing. “What do you do?” she asked, turning the subject from her own less glamorous lifestyle. “Oh, I retired early. I really just mull around these days. I used to be a business woman. Boring stuff… you don’t want to hear about it!” She laughed again, playfully dismissing the subject. Susan laughed along, less playfully. The way Eva moved bothered her. How she fiddled with the hair at the nape of her neck. The way she uncurled her lips from her white, even teeth when she smiled. Her legs crossing and uncrossing, toes bouncing circles in the air. The gushing over Susan’s admittedly mundane life. She was too much, perched gracefully on her sofa, the leather beneath her devoid of any ice cream drippings or kool-aid stains, pretending to care. It was insulting, really. Eva sat in her beautiful home, surrounded by momentos of her thrilling history, living comfortably in retirement and looking like a goddess while Susan (who could only be a year or two younger) sported a marsupial pouch of skin thanks to four pregnancies, rarely showered before noon or uninterrupted, refereed siblings and scrubbed crayon off of her dingy walls. Sue stood finally, making an excuse about the baby waking from her nap soon and acting regretful that she had to leave so abruptly. She bustled to the door, off of the cool skin of the sofa and the plush carpet, stepping lightly on the waxed pine.
“Please be sure to bring the children next time!” Eva called after, following her to the porch. Susan imagined her children playing with the little English phone booth and Eiffel tower and half-smiled. “Sure…” she answered, as the door opened and a wave of heat rushed in. (“Yeah, right.”)
That night, Susan picked through her irritable feelings. It was impossible to say what particular thing Susan detested about Eva. Probably the whole package, she decided finally, rolling over in her oven of a bed. That day had hit a record high. It was the hottest in eighty-seven years. Susan blamed the heat some, of course. It made her lay in bed agitated after a long uncomfortable day, pajama top pasted to her flushed skin, locks of frizzy hair dripping with sweat. Sue imagined Eva lying in her cool sheets under the gentle breeze of her air-conditioning vent… waking slowly in the morning, stretching her rested limbs and smiling through the last moments of her dream. Susan’s bedroom window opened to the teasing hum of Eva’s air conditioning unit. Off and on it grinded its motor through the long, sticky night, startling Susan out of her light sleep. Around three a.m. she found herself fantasizing about passive-aggressive revenge: shining strobe floodlights into Eva’s bedroom window, blaring the Mexican radio station at random intervals throughout the night… and she imagined with satisfaction as she fell into the strangeness of dreams, her perfect neighbor suffering from one imperfect night’s sleep.
Eva laid in her four-poster bed, fighting the nausea that came as an unpleasant side affect of the medicine that was supposed to buy her time. She contemplated the value of it - extra time to live - hugging her bony knees to her frame to keep warm. The air conditioner was still on, blast it, and bile rose in her throat every time she made the slightest motion to get up and turn it off. So she stayed very still, her teeth clattering, adding up her life. She found herself thinking of her new neighbor’s visit that day. Susan had such beautiful children. They laughed and chased each other around the front yard. How wonderful it must be to make a person, she thought. To see yourself in your own child’s face, in their expressions and mannerisms, while discovering with them their own uniqueness and identity. She had put off family. Men were a nuisance and she distrusted their shallow attraction to her. She’d been too busy, anyway. Work had been her family, her love, her reason for getting up every morning. She’d filled all her holidays with travel, seeing the world solo. Having been forced into early retirement after the diagnosis, she found fewer and fewer reasons to get up lately. Everything that needed doing was hired out by her old personal assistant. Even the house plants had an employee to take care of them. It would feel nice to be needed by someone. Now, her body was too unpredictable to rely upon for much. How lucky, she thought, that this morning she felt good enough to make herself look decent. Susan was so kind to bring that plate of cookies. So thoughtful. Alone and shivering, the sharp edges of consciousness were smoothed by the thought of someone so gracious living right next door.
The interior of Eva’s house was unbelievable. There was no possible way that this woman moved in only days before. It was impeccable. And so was Eva. She answered the door in a pair of grey trousers and a pink silk blouse. It hung delicately around her small frame, the v-neck plunging low enough for Susan to count a few visible ribs splaying out from her chest bone like butterfly wings. The pink hue was rosy against the pallor of her skin. Eva had the kind of face that must have stunned men. High cheekbones, icy blue eyes, a thin pointed nose and petal-pink lips. All of the striking features were softened by the onset of middle age. Shallow lines marked the edges of her eyes, the ghosts of old laughter and sentiment. Her face was pulled into a bright smile even before she saw who had come to visit. Immediately, Susan regretted waiting on the doorstep. She kicked herself for not writing a little note and leaving the plate on the welcome mat, instead. It would have been easier. Who knew what her children were probably up to next door and what destruction awaited there upon her return. Jimmy was asleep, she was sure, having been up vomiting all last night. Susan also regretted not having yet taken a shower. It was a miracle that she’d gotten the stupid cookies made, having been interrupted ten times by the girls quarrelling and the baby eating the puppy kibble. Her smile wilted when she realized that she’d also forgotten to comb her hair.
Like the lady that she was, Eva politely invited Susan to come inside, gushing about how wonderful the cookies looked and carrying them to the kitchen. Susan lingered in the entry way, tucking a loose curl around her ear before setting a tentative foot in the house. It was like something out of a Home and Garden magazine. Not a single pair of shoes sat by the door. The wood floors shined, un-scuffed. She looked down at her ancient Reeboks which she’d transformed into slip-ons after stuffing her feet inside hundreds of times without bothering to untie the laces. Should she take them off, revealing her sweaty feet? Eva returned, still gushing. The gushing was a little much, Susan thought. They were just cookies, after all. She kept on her dingy sneakers and followed her new neighbor into the sitting room. The walls were vertically striped an airy blue and chocolate brown. A couple of ficus house plants sat companionably next to the leather sofas and a furry area rug. Everywhere she looked were artifacts of world travel. Photographs, souvenirs, maps… mostly of glamorous places. Paris, London, Rome… Susan hadn’t been any further than Disneyland.
Eva asked lots of questions… how long had they been in the neighborhood? How old were her children? Did she work? What a stupid question - she had four children! Eva laughed at her silliness, placing a tiny hand against her butterfly sternum. She acted overly-enthralled by Susan’s humble world, punctuating her answers with an occasional “Hmmmm.” “How about that?” “Really?” “Wonderful.” Susan found herself begging her facial muscles to hide the irritation that began its own kind of gushing. “What do you do?” she asked, turning the subject from her own less glamorous lifestyle. “Oh, I retired early. I really just mull around these days. I used to be a business woman. Boring stuff… you don’t want to hear about it!” She laughed again, playfully dismissing the subject. Susan laughed along, less playfully. The way Eva moved bothered her. How she fiddled with the hair at the nape of her neck. The way she uncurled her lips from her white, even teeth when she smiled. Her legs crossing and uncrossing, toes bouncing circles in the air. The gushing over Susan’s admittedly mundane life. She was too much, perched gracefully on her sofa, the leather beneath her devoid of any ice cream drippings or kool-aid stains, pretending to care. It was insulting, really. Eva sat in her beautiful home, surrounded by momentos of her thrilling history, living comfortably in retirement and looking like a goddess while Susan (who could only be a year or two younger) sported a marsupial pouch of skin thanks to four pregnancies, rarely showered before noon or uninterrupted, refereed siblings and scrubbed crayon off of her dingy walls. Sue stood finally, making an excuse about the baby waking from her nap soon and acting regretful that she had to leave so abruptly. She bustled to the door, off of the cool skin of the sofa and the plush carpet, stepping lightly on the waxed pine.
“Please be sure to bring the children next time!” Eva called after, following her to the porch. Susan imagined her children playing with the little English phone booth and Eiffel tower and half-smiled. “Sure…” she answered, as the door opened and a wave of heat rushed in. (“Yeah, right.”)
That night, Susan picked through her irritable feelings. It was impossible to say what particular thing Susan detested about Eva. Probably the whole package, she decided finally, rolling over in her oven of a bed. That day had hit a record high. It was the hottest in eighty-seven years. Susan blamed the heat some, of course. It made her lay in bed agitated after a long uncomfortable day, pajama top pasted to her flushed skin, locks of frizzy hair dripping with sweat. Sue imagined Eva lying in her cool sheets under the gentle breeze of her air-conditioning vent… waking slowly in the morning, stretching her rested limbs and smiling through the last moments of her dream. Susan’s bedroom window opened to the teasing hum of Eva’s air conditioning unit. Off and on it grinded its motor through the long, sticky night, startling Susan out of her light sleep. Around three a.m. she found herself fantasizing about passive-aggressive revenge: shining strobe floodlights into Eva’s bedroom window, blaring the Mexican radio station at random intervals throughout the night… and she imagined with satisfaction as she fell into the strangeness of dreams, her perfect neighbor suffering from one imperfect night’s sleep.
Eva laid in her four-poster bed, fighting the nausea that came as an unpleasant side affect of the medicine that was supposed to buy her time. She contemplated the value of it - extra time to live - hugging her bony knees to her frame to keep warm. The air conditioner was still on, blast it, and bile rose in her throat every time she made the slightest motion to get up and turn it off. So she stayed very still, her teeth clattering, adding up her life. She found herself thinking of her new neighbor’s visit that day. Susan had such beautiful children. They laughed and chased each other around the front yard. How wonderful it must be to make a person, she thought. To see yourself in your own child’s face, in their expressions and mannerisms, while discovering with them their own uniqueness and identity. She had put off family. Men were a nuisance and she distrusted their shallow attraction to her. She’d been too busy, anyway. Work had been her family, her love, her reason for getting up every morning. She’d filled all her holidays with travel, seeing the world solo. Having been forced into early retirement after the diagnosis, she found fewer and fewer reasons to get up lately. Everything that needed doing was hired out by her old personal assistant. Even the house plants had an employee to take care of them. It would feel nice to be needed by someone. Now, her body was too unpredictable to rely upon for much. How lucky, she thought, that this morning she felt good enough to make herself look decent. Susan was so kind to bring that plate of cookies. So thoughtful. Alone and shivering, the sharp edges of consciousness were smoothed by the thought of someone so gracious living right next door.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Ladybug Summer by R.F.
My eleventh summer was one of my best. Fifth grade at a new school was behind me, along with much misery. My best friend had moved from a nearby town to only five minutes away, and my dad had bought us passes to the local Country Club pool. Life was good!
The fenced in pool was surrounded by a golf course, and several green bushes lined the fence. Bugs of all sorts managed to find their way into the pool, usually discovered long dead. My friend and I mourned their passing, as we tried to love all of God's creatures. But one particular day as I surfaced from from an underwater tea party, I noticed a ladybug floating on the water. I scooped it up and put it on the warm concrete by the pool ledge, only to notice another ladybug swimming unhappily along. And another; and another.
“Look at all the ladybugs!” my friend shouted from across the pool. There were hundreds of the red and black creatures, floating on the water's surface, doomed unless my friend and I came to their rescue. We began hurriedly scooping them and depositing them on the dry ground, yelling excitedly at each other when one looked good or flew away.
“Where did they come from,” I wondered to myself. Perhaps a recent hatch on the nearby bushes? The amount made me think that someone had deliberately dumped them into the pool, but who could be so cruel? As I looked around, I realized that no one at the pool that day could be. Nearly everyone there had joined my friend and my crusade to save the ladybugs. Fathers and their water-winged children scooped and deposited; teenagers in colorful bikinis put down their bottles of tanning oil and leaned carefully over the pool's edge; grandparents in their permanently-pruned skins pointed out the bugs to whoever was nearest. The entire pool community, mostly unknown to one another before, had joined together that day to rescue the tiny, helpless ladybug victims. I had to pause to soak in the scene, my heart swelling with gratitude and pride.
After all the ladybugs were rescued or laid to rest, my friend and I sat on our beach towels, basking in the warmth of the sun, and also the feeling that we were heroes. Perhaps no one's life had been permanently changed, but for that brief hour several strangers had come together and done something good for the world.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Salt 6/1/1996
in the wintertime i forget.
the snow and icy chill bock all emotions:
pain, joy, everything.
you can see me if you look carefully.
i'm the one with the stone face
and a perpetual twitching frown.
i tried to inhabit your icy lake
but i forgot how to read your
"DANGER!" signs,
and i slipped under
through a crack in the ice.
all through the re-birth you'll watch me
hopelessly flail my arms
and kick my aching feet.
so when summer burns your white skin
mine will be wet and pruned.
my exhausted body will shut down
and i will drown in your waters.
leave me there
with the sand and the salt.
yes, your freshwater lake is no more.
i've cried the dead sea.
~Rachel Nicely
the snow and icy chill bock all emotions:
pain, joy, everything.
you can see me if you look carefully.
i'm the one with the stone face
and a perpetual twitching frown.
i tried to inhabit your icy lake
but i forgot how to read your
"DANGER!" signs,
and i slipped under
through a crack in the ice.
all through the re-birth you'll watch me
hopelessly flail my arms
and kick my aching feet.
so when summer burns your white skin
mine will be wet and pruned.
my exhausted body will shut down
and i will drown in your waters.
leave me there
with the sand and the salt.
yes, your freshwater lake is no more.
i've cried the dead sea.
~Rachel Nicely
Farewell Nonage 1/10/1995
The last look came
and went
No long goodbyes
No tears or aching hearts
I travel on
Leaving behind things too quickly forgotten
Looking ahead to only a few
bright lights
Why aren't they as bright as they were
When I longed to touch them?
I look back
And watch shadowy hands wave
goodbye,
Then fade away forever.
and went
No long goodbyes
No tears or aching hearts
I travel on
Leaving behind things too quickly forgotten
Looking ahead to only a few
bright lights
Why aren't they as bright as they were
When I longed to touch them?
I look back
And watch shadowy hands wave
goodbye,
Then fade away forever.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
The Appointment by Iris Rosewater
Amy was not running late to her appointment. She found herself, however, in an anxious flurry - fumbling with the hangers in her closet, looking wildly all over the apartment for her left boot, only to find it after ten minutes sitting innocently in the middle of the living room floor. She tried to look at her face without seeing herself as she applied make-up, drawing shakily around the rims of her honey-brown eyes with charcoal eyeliner, rubbing the mascara-smudge with a wet Q-tip. She met her reflection in the mirror and hesitated. A mixture of excitement and fear arranged her features unnaturally. She stopped and sat on the edge of the bath tub, forcing long, deep breaths through her short, shallow ones.
As she waited for Gabe at the doctor’s office, Amy distracted herself by looking around the waiting room. The walls were a soft orange sherbet color, with a floral wallpaper border. A table water fountain bubbled musically in the corner next to some oversized house plants with broad leaves that sprawled out and weaved between the legs of the seats beside them. The phone rang softly behind the secretary’s desk, and she answered each time using the same generic greeting, her voice rising and falling with the same melodic inflection. Otherwise, it was very quiet. Amy was glad to have made her appointment during a workday morning. The waiting room was sparsely filled. The patients sat with a comfortable number of empty chairs on either side, some thumbing through outdated Parents magazines or reading books they’d brought with them. Several women had large round bellies, all of whom seemed to smooth their hands over the protrusions absently. Amy looked away, as memories of her last visit to this office flooded into her mind.
When Amy found out she was pregnant, she was ecstatic. Gabe bought her pickles and chocolate to celebrate. They bought piles of books about pregnancy, marveling over the photos of zygotes and embryos, pouring over what to expect from week to week. They said goodnight to the baby when they went to sleep and Gabe kissed Amy’s belly good morning before he got up for work. They couldn’t wait to bring home a fuzzy black and white glimpse into her womb. When the day came for her very first ultrasound, they held hands as the technician dimmed the lights. She watched the monitor intently, searching with untrained eyes for a feature she could recognize… a hand, a curved spine, a silhouette… the flutter of a heart… but, it was over very quickly. She saw only for a few moments a small curled figure - still and white. The technician said something Amy didn’t hear and excused herself. And then the doctor returned alone. “It looks like this is a miscarriage. I’m so sorry.”
It rained that night, and Amy laid awake in her bed long after Gabe fell asleep. Her thoughts overtook any chance of rest. She wondered what she had done wrong… if maybe she shouldn’t have jogged in the mornings, or taken the cold medicine before she knew… as if it mattered now. Those questions quickly gave way to bigger ones and she stared at the shadow of her window on the wall, water splattering and smearing down the pane, evaluating her life. They were good people, weren’t they? She had felt so strongly that this was the right thing… maybe she had been wrong, and she was somehow unworthy of motherhood. Through the long night, sorrow gave way to anger and she felt cheated. Why would she be given a life only to have it snatched away? How stupid and silly of her to have believed this was real when it was only a cruel joke. She touched her belly, which entombed her deceased child and wept to the sound of the rain chiming against the dark glass.
It was seven harrowing days before the bleeding began, and it came so heavily and painfully that she felt faint. She realized distantly, crumpled and groaning in bed, that this must be what it feels like to give birth, and then almost laughed through the misery of it, because she also realized that she was.
For weeks, the public was a brutal place to be. Everywhere she went, she was surrounded by what was denied her. Pregnant women seemed to congregate at the grocery store, leaning back uncomfortably, looking flushed and exasperated in the summer heat. Babies chewed on their chubby little hands, babbling and cooing with gorgeous round eyes at their mothers, who seemed always to ignore them. The jealousy was consuming. In her mind, Amy judged them for taking what they had for granted. And what they had was everything… and what she had was nothing… until Christmas came.
On Christmas morning, Amy felt a bit “off” again. The celebratory brunch made her stomach churn just smelling it as she walked through her parent’s front door. Nibbling her toast (and breathing through her mouth discreetly) she ticked off the days since her last period. She was terrible about keeping track, but it had been irregular since that Summer, so she had stopped paying much attention. The numbers added up like a punch in the stomach and she politely excused herself from the table, grabbing her purse and keys on a hunt for an open drug store.
As Gabe arrived at the office and they kissed hello, their tension met and multiplied. They were much more guarded this time, unwilling to believe that it was real, afraid to dangle their hopes at the altitude from which they had previously fallen.
With sweaty hands clasped, they watched with unbridled emotion, the tiny black and white strobe of their baby’s heart.
As she waited for Gabe at the doctor’s office, Amy distracted herself by looking around the waiting room. The walls were a soft orange sherbet color, with a floral wallpaper border. A table water fountain bubbled musically in the corner next to some oversized house plants with broad leaves that sprawled out and weaved between the legs of the seats beside them. The phone rang softly behind the secretary’s desk, and she answered each time using the same generic greeting, her voice rising and falling with the same melodic inflection. Otherwise, it was very quiet. Amy was glad to have made her appointment during a workday morning. The waiting room was sparsely filled. The patients sat with a comfortable number of empty chairs on either side, some thumbing through outdated Parents magazines or reading books they’d brought with them. Several women had large round bellies, all of whom seemed to smooth their hands over the protrusions absently. Amy looked away, as memories of her last visit to this office flooded into her mind.
When Amy found out she was pregnant, she was ecstatic. Gabe bought her pickles and chocolate to celebrate. They bought piles of books about pregnancy, marveling over the photos of zygotes and embryos, pouring over what to expect from week to week. They said goodnight to the baby when they went to sleep and Gabe kissed Amy’s belly good morning before he got up for work. They couldn’t wait to bring home a fuzzy black and white glimpse into her womb. When the day came for her very first ultrasound, they held hands as the technician dimmed the lights. She watched the monitor intently, searching with untrained eyes for a feature she could recognize… a hand, a curved spine, a silhouette… the flutter of a heart… but, it was over very quickly. She saw only for a few moments a small curled figure - still and white. The technician said something Amy didn’t hear and excused herself. And then the doctor returned alone. “It looks like this is a miscarriage. I’m so sorry.”
It rained that night, and Amy laid awake in her bed long after Gabe fell asleep. Her thoughts overtook any chance of rest. She wondered what she had done wrong… if maybe she shouldn’t have jogged in the mornings, or taken the cold medicine before she knew… as if it mattered now. Those questions quickly gave way to bigger ones and she stared at the shadow of her window on the wall, water splattering and smearing down the pane, evaluating her life. They were good people, weren’t they? She had felt so strongly that this was the right thing… maybe she had been wrong, and she was somehow unworthy of motherhood. Through the long night, sorrow gave way to anger and she felt cheated. Why would she be given a life only to have it snatched away? How stupid and silly of her to have believed this was real when it was only a cruel joke. She touched her belly, which entombed her deceased child and wept to the sound of the rain chiming against the dark glass.
It was seven harrowing days before the bleeding began, and it came so heavily and painfully that she felt faint. She realized distantly, crumpled and groaning in bed, that this must be what it feels like to give birth, and then almost laughed through the misery of it, because she also realized that she was.
For weeks, the public was a brutal place to be. Everywhere she went, she was surrounded by what was denied her. Pregnant women seemed to congregate at the grocery store, leaning back uncomfortably, looking flushed and exasperated in the summer heat. Babies chewed on their chubby little hands, babbling and cooing with gorgeous round eyes at their mothers, who seemed always to ignore them. The jealousy was consuming. In her mind, Amy judged them for taking what they had for granted. And what they had was everything… and what she had was nothing… until Christmas came.
On Christmas morning, Amy felt a bit “off” again. The celebratory brunch made her stomach churn just smelling it as she walked through her parent’s front door. Nibbling her toast (and breathing through her mouth discreetly) she ticked off the days since her last period. She was terrible about keeping track, but it had been irregular since that Summer, so she had stopped paying much attention. The numbers added up like a punch in the stomach and she politely excused herself from the table, grabbing her purse and keys on a hunt for an open drug store.
As Gabe arrived at the office and they kissed hello, their tension met and multiplied. They were much more guarded this time, unwilling to believe that it was real, afraid to dangle their hopes at the altitude from which they had previously fallen.
With sweaty hands clasped, they watched with unbridled emotion, the tiny black and white strobe of their baby’s heart.
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