In The Dark

“Are you afraid of the dark?” he’d ask once they were both tucked up beneath the blue sleeping bag she’d been given for Christmas, a gift from her father, who had promised to take them camping.

“No,” she’d say softly, knowing that when he asked these questions that he was looking for a specific answer. Her little brother often quizzed her about the things she was afraid of, as though her being scared of it gave the thing life. She knew this, and she answered accordingly, but to this question her reply was the truth. She wasn’t afraid of the dark; it was the things that happened in the dark that frightened her most.

“Come on. Wake up.”

She could hear her mother’s voice, somewhere in the distance; she tried to turn to face the sound, but the words seemed to be tossed at her from different directions. Each syllable pelting her skin like tiny bits of wet sand. Then she felt the side of the mattress cave in, her body sinking with the weight of another person sitting next to her. She tried to open her eyes, but they seemed stuck somehow, as though someone had sewn them shut while she’d been sleeping. She thought of prying them open, but couldn’t work out how. Then there were hands on her shoulders shaking her, until finally, she was awake.

“Come on,” her mother said again, growing impatient. “Get up.”

She could see that her mother was fully dressed, so she did the same before waking her brother. Within minutes the three of them were walking down the gravel alley way behind their house, which led south before emptying into Chamber’s street which, if followed long enough, led downtown. No one asked where they were going.

She and her brother did not share a room, but for as long as she could remember he’d had a habit of finding his way to hers just shortly after they’d been told off to bed. He’d crawl in beside her, ask her a litany of questions, and then, hopefully, fall asleep, before it was too late for her to do the same. Sometimes, when one or the other of them needed it, she sang to him. She only knew a few songs by heart, and she’d sing them over and over again, but that didn’t seem to matter. In the dark, she could hear when his breathing changed and on most nights she stopped singing then; other times, when the sounds outside leaked through the crack beneath her door, she kept singing, until someone gave up.

Sylvester Park was located in the center of the little town where they lived. By the time they reached it the traffic lights had stopped changing; with no cars to direct, they blinked blindly, yellow, then red. On the far end, was a bench that faced the street. When her mother stopped, they watched her so they would know what to do. And when she finally sat, the two of them scrambled onto the bench next to her.

“He thinks he can fuck me over,” her mother said, not looking at her, but talking to her just the same.

She only nodded. She didn’t always understand what her mother meant when she spoke this way, but her voice always turned confidential and wicked, as though some valuable secret was being passed between them. Sometimes she’d look down at her daughter and wink. Other times, her mother would hold out her hand so they could clench pinkies.

“Partners?” she’d ask.

This word was magic to her.
Partners.
It’s what they were.
This thing that could never be severed.

“Yes” she’d say. “Partners.” And she meant it.

The apartment building across the street bared a painted advertisement for cigarettes on one of its brick facades, the same brand that her mother kept, always, slipped in one of the outside pockets of her purse. She’d taken one once, when her mother was asleep, and snuck outside, behind the shed, to the center of the tall grass that never got mowed, where she and her brother had used a cardboard box to flatten a wholly hidden hideaway. For a long time she’d just held the thing in her mouth, feeling the dry paper soften between her lips, too afraid to light a match, for fear of setting the world on fire. Even unlit, she could taste the tobacco on her tongue. Her mother had smoked her whole life, but somehow this taste reminded her of her father, it was grey and sweet smelling and she wanted that smell inside her.

Moments later, when she returned to the house, coughing and gasping for water, she found her mother waiting for her in the kitchen, leaning against the sink, her own cigarette burning between two fingers, a trail of silver smoke punctuating her words as she spoke. “I’ll tell you when you’re ready,” was all she said before walking away.

In the dark, she could hardly see the advertisement on the side of the building, but she knew it was there. The man her mother was seeing lived in that building. She didn’t know his name. She had a rule about learning their names and he’d not been around long enough yet, but they’d been there before and she knew why they were there now.

For a long time nothing happened, until finally a cab pulled up outside the building. She heard the door open and then slam shut. She couldn’t see the person get out, but from the way her mother’s body moved, that slow arching of her back, she knew it was him. Within seconds, her mother was up and walking across the park. She didn’t tell them to stay. Nor did she turn around to see if they were following. They weren’t. By this time, her brother had fallen asleep on the bench, his head in her lap.

Years ago, before her father had left, they’d lived in an apartment building with a metal fire escape trailing up the side. Both she and her brother were forbidden from playing on it, but sometimes in the early mornings, her mother would wake her with a hushed finger to her lips. Together, they’d tip toe on bare feet out the living room window and on to the metal grating that linked their tiny world to the metal beanstalk that climbed from the street to the sky. There they’d perch, just the two of them, wrapped in a blanket and a thousand whispers until the sun began to melt the tops of the buildings and the church down the street filled the air with bells.

Across the street, the light came on in his apartment. She couldn’t see them, but she could hear her mother’s footsteps across the floor. She knew the sounds they made at night. The way their feet seemed to shake the whole house as they paced around each other; the way her mother’s voice grew sharper, but less controlled. In the dark, with her brother sleeping next to her, she could hear the words being flung back and forth between them, and the sound of glass crashing to the floor with each landed punch. She knew these sounds, and the others. The sounds of voices without words, the grunts and moans that meant she’d have to learn his name.

Next to her, her brother wrestled with dreams of his own. She looked down at him and tried to think of the worst thing she could imagine happening to him and then prayed for God to protect him from it. In the trees, she could hear the rustling of things waking up. Above her, the sky began to change; each tiny star blinking softly off to sleep until the sky was completely black. Then grey. Then pink. Across the street, the light was off in the apartment. She searched the shadows for her mother. But she didn’t come.

The Plan

Sitting on the font porch, I hatched a plan
made of bare feet and a glass jar
with three holes punched in the lid.
The night smelled of passing rain,
and my fingers ached to scratch an itch,
so with wet grass between my toes,
and the strength of blood red clods beneath me,
I stood.
Watching until…
one by one they came
filling the yard with constellations;
a thousand tiny, blinking suns.
Into that sea, I cast my net
and like an apple dipped in sugar,
I too sparkled;
my tongue wet with wanting more.

Later, in my room, I poked my feet
outside the covers and lay awake
in flashing neon. There
I thought of how you’d told me of the butterfly
that found her way into your room and stayed.
Grateful for the company,
of several days in pen and paper,
I remembered how your voice shook, just a little,
when you told me that she died and how,
with two hands, you buried her.
Alone.
Somewhere in the garden.
You promised you would show me.

Throwing back the blankets,
I crossed the room on cautious tip-toe,
leaving a trail of fleeting footprints
on the cool and clammy tiles.
At the window, I breathed in and held it.
Swallowing the scent of damp clothes drying,
and the taste of lemons on my fingertips.
Moments later, when sleep found me,
I could almost hear you breathing
somewhere just beyond the crickets,
my fingers still wrapped ‘round
the neck of the open, empty jar.

Baby Steps

Once, when I was a little girl, I got into trouble for "talking back to my mother." My brother was arguing with her husband about something that had been lost or misplaced -- both blaming the other for what had happened. My mother, who’d been keeping score with the occasional flick of her cigarette, said something like "Tom never misplaces things" or some other ridiculous blanket statement about him and the ideal quality of his character.

At ten years old, this wasn't the first time I'd caught her in a lie, but it was one of the first times I felt brave enough to call her on it. I said, "How would you know? You're never here." I had not been a part of the conversation, so when she pivoted her head towards me, I could see her teeth clench a bit, her jaw set forward, her chin parallel to her shoulder. Now, thinking back on it, I know she waited for me to look away and begin shifting my weight from foot to foot before finally telling me to get out of the house.

She didn't say "and never come back," but I assumed that was what she meant, so I put on my coat and gloves and boots and marched down to the end of the driveway.

I didn't know where to go next, so I stood there, watching the cars go past -- my toes on the line that marked where my house ended and the rest of the world began. I told myself that when the traffic cleared, I'd move. But it wasn't until it started to rain that I finally made my way across the street to the park, finding sanctuary beneath one of those shelters that smiling people use for weddings or cookouts or family reunions. Eventually, I climbed up onto the stonewall that surrounded the shelter, swinging my legs in the dead space that lived between me and the ground, and watched the rain as it filled the various dimples and imperfections in the pavement, forming puddles and thin, black streams that ran into each other.

I can remember very distinctly, as I watched the rain, thinking about how one day I'd tell someone about this moment: about the way the mirrored tree branches seemed to swell and undulate as each new raindrop penetrated their reflection - cast on the surface of the puddles, or about how, having just read the myth of Narcissus in school, I was too afraid to lean over the wall and look down at my own reflection in the water. I told myself that it was important to remember each moment because one day, I thought, I'll be a writer or a filmmaker or a painter and I'll want to tell the story of the day I left home forever and watched the rain falling in the park.

Of course, that wasn't the day I left home forever and I've yet to become any of those things, but I still remember each moment... just in case.

Unfinished Things

As the plane began its measured fall back towards the earth, she felt her stomach turn. Though she’d never taken it off, she noticed that the seatbelt sign was once again lit, but it did little to reassure her. And as she closed her eyes in order to avoid conversation with the flight attendant who was still peddling peanuts and soft-drinks down the cramped center aisle, she remembered the day she took the training wheels off of her bicycle, the day she found her mother’s journal, the day her father left forever.

On nights when their parents fought, she’d slip silently into her little brother’s bedroom where collectively they’d scramble to hide the trucks and toys that they’d learned were, in some ways, easier to throw than words or fists. She couldn’t remember a time when they spoke or cried about it. They simply did this thing that needed to be done and then together they’d crawl under the covers and wait. In the dark, she’d count the beats between the lightning and the thunder, measuring the distance between themselves and the storm, all the while trying to match her own breathing to his -in the hopes that in such rhythms sleep would be the first to find them.

But that night she’d heard her name.

All her life she’d been reminded of how she’d been named for a famous actress. People would ask her if she knew of the woman who she’d only ever seen in black and white -in a film whose title bared their portrait. In her early life such comparisons were delightful. She loved the way they repeated her name before asking the inevitable questions. She’d smile and shift from foot to foot, her cheeks warm with a gentle, blushing pride. But as she grew older, people forgot about the actress, as they do most things from their parents’ generation, and in doing so, they forgot about her and their shared name until she forgot too.

Her father’s voice, like the rest of him, was loud and menacing. When he said her name, she could almost hear the letters as they crashed to the floor. She didn’t wonder if she’d only heard it by mistake or if perhaps he was saying it only in passing conversation. She knew she was meant to hear it and that she was meant to follow it to where he was waiting.

In the seat in front of her a small child, who had thankfully slept for the entirety of the 6 hour flight, was now poking his head up over the top of the seatback – just long enough to catch her attention before quickly hiding himself again behind his makeshift parapet. In a moment he’d repeat this maneuver and she smiled softly as his giggles floated, like perfectly round soap bubbles blown past the seatback that separated them and just above her head before popping gently against the ceiling. Turning her attention out the window, she could see the blurred specks of the place where she’d grown up slowly coming into focus.

As she entered the room, she could see the evidence of their battle. A mixture of smoke and sweat and booze hung in the air, gathering like a funnel cloud around her father, who stood in the eye of it, his legs spread slightly apart, his fists balled into flesh and bone hammers. He seemed to her to be one part gunslinger and one part the mythical John Henry: a deadly mixture of power and unpredictability. Her mother, meanwhile, sat on the opposite side of the room, her legs and arms curled up beneath her. When she reached him, her father knelt down on one knee, placing his hands on both her shoulders. It was an awkward and unfamiliar gesture of reassurance made all the more ineffective by the fact that, even at half mast, he loomed over her – his breath hitting her forehead as he spoke.

“Your mother wants me to leave,” he said flatly. There were no pleasantries or gentle steps building up to the place where she would have to jump.

Not knowing what to say, she concentrated on the details of his mustache, which prevented her from seeing his mouth as he spoke. When she’d been younger, he’d allowed her to pick crumbs from it after dinner – a throwback to some ancient primate grooming ritual. She’d giggle and try to say the word: “mustache.” But somehow, it always sounded prickly and foreign as it left her mouth, much like the thing itself on those rare occasions when he’d kissed her goodnight. Once, she’d asked him why he had it, and in one of those half jokes that linger long after they’re meant to, he’d said it was because he was a big and fuzzy monster underneath. She’d believed him.

“She said you want me to leave too.” It was a question, though nothing about its tone or punctuation would have hinted as such.

Her breath quickened and her eyes moved from the black veil that shielded him, to her mother, whose own eyes were goring into her from across the room.

She knew the two answers before her. And she understood the consequences of each.

The truth was, she wanted him to leave. She hated the way he stomped across the floor when he walked, shaking the pictures on the wall and very rugs beneath her. She hated the way he slammed doors and cabinets, announcing his every movement to the house as though they were meant to be interested in everything he did. But most of all, she hated the way he turned her mother into something less than what she was: a weak and sniveling thing who often, on nights like tonight, would end up crawling into the bed next to her two children, not for comfort, but for protection.

“Is this true?” This time he asked, spitting the words into her face.

“Tell him,” she heard her mother plead, although no such words were spoken.

His grip on her shoulders tightened.

“No, daddy,” she said weakly and before the last word had even left her lips, he’d released her, turning his focus once again on her mother, who she could no longer see.

Someone over the intercom spoke of connecting gates, arrival times and picking up luggage. And though they were still far from reaching the ground, the whole plane seemed to rustle in anticipation: the woman next to her was fiddling with a pile of cosmetics from within her massive faux leather handbag; the teenage boy across the aisle was hurriedly closing up his laptop, while the ever flitting flight attendant encouraged people to follow rules that even he didn’t understand. All about her, people shuffled within the confines of their tight containers convincing themselves that they’d not completely atrophied as a consequence of their journey. For a moment, she found herself living within the frames of a music video from her childhood, reading the silent inner monologues of the strangers she was trapped with, which seemed suddenly to be written in shaky subtitles across their chests. She wondered quietly if they could read hers.

The next morning, she woke to find her mother sleeping on the couch. When she and her brother went out to play, they noticed that their father’s car was gone. For a moment, they tried to puzzle it out, but coming up empty, the detective work began. Sneaking back into the house, past the sleeping sentinel, they crept into her parents’ room. The bed was untouched. Their father’s closet door ajar. Its contents missing. She looked at her brother who was either too young or too afraid to understand. Gently, she shooed him back outside to the comforts of sky and grass and the waiting neighborhood children. But she remained, alone in what had been their room.

She’d told him that she wanted him to stay.
But he’d left anyway.

Directly across from her, a long chest of drawers leaned awkwardly against the wall, stooping on one side, resting heavily on a squat stack of books where its proper legs had long since gone missing. Atop the thing, on the low end, something caught her eye. A worn, spiral bound book. It wasn’t particularly old or worthy of notice, but something about its tattered corners and dull, faded cover made it look as though it was meant to be hidden away in a box on the top shelf of someone’s closet or tucked between the mattress and box spring of the bed in some rarely used spare bedroom. To her, it looked uncomfortable and embarrassed in the openness of the room, and like some lonely traveler recognizing a member of his own tribe, she was drawn to it. Flipping through its pages, she instantly recognized her mother’s handwriting. The staid rightward slant, the frantic cursive, made all the more anxious by the tremor of a shaking hand. Somewhere near the middle she found the last entry: a recounting of the events from the night before. Her eyes soaked in the words, many of which she’d never seen before. But as she quietly mouthed out each syllable, she could feel the rage and sorrow and disappointment laden in each whispered word and she understood what they meant. She searched the page for her father’s name, but the things her mother wrote weren’t about him. They were about her.

Despite the flight attendant’s earnest admonishments, most of the passengers were up and grappling for access to the overhead bins long before the plane’s wheels had finished screeching along the runway. The two brightly dressed women from the seats behind her, who had only just met, hugged falsely and promised to “keep in touch,” while a man several seats away, who had complained loudly about the lack of meal service throughout the trip, searched frantically for items that had managed to escape his carry-on bag and roll cunningly down the length of the plane. After hours in restraint, the air bristled with revolution. But she remained seated. It had been sixteen years since she’d last seen her father. She wasn’t quite ready to get up yet.

She placed the book back where she had found it. Within it there were days and weeks and even years of her mother’s life laid out before her like a map, holding the key to some secret treasure, but somehow the one entry had been enough. After awhile, she found her way to the garage and the bicycle she’d been given the Christmas before. It was pink and white with a wide, yellow banana seat and a woven plastic basket hooked to the handlebars, both of which were dotted with brilliant, multi-hued flowers. She’d cried the morning she got it and had refused to ride it for weeks after. Neither of her parents could understand. But she’d seen the way her brother’s bike had gotten dirty and scratched only hours after having removed the bow, and hers was simply too beautiful to let that happen. Eventually, of course, she’d relented, but much to her father’s dismay she’d remained unwilling to remove the white-walled training wheels that were designed to keep her from falling. Several times he’d scowled at her from beneath his mustache, threatening to take them off without her permission, calling her a coward and telling her to “dry up” the inevitable tears that punctuated such conversations.

She looked at her bike.
They were still firmly affixed to the back wheels.

For a long while, she thought about running away. She had no idea where she might go or even why exactly, now that her father had left, she still felt that she too needed to leave. Instead, she searched her father’s tools for the right size wrench to fit the bolts that held the small, round, plastic bits of security to the side of her bicycle -until at last she set about removing them. When she was finished, she walked her bike to the big hill at the end of Legion Way. She looked down the black straightaway, the pavement glistening in the summer heat. Climbing onto the bike, she gripped the asphalt on both sides with the bottoms of her sneakers and held herself at the edge of the precipice for a long moment before finally closing her eyes and letting go.

In comparison to the plane, she found the air in the terminal to be nearly as confining. People huddled together in joyfully globbed masses, hugging and crying and laughing, blissfully unaware of the scattered array of lost faces, like hers, that shifted uncomfortably between, separating one reunion from another. She adjusted the straps of her backpack nervously and continued walking, hoping he would see her before she saw him. The years that had past between them began to flash before her eyes. In that time, unless someone asked, she’d never mentioned him and even then she’d simply said, “I never knew my father,” a statement that, like the man itself, seemed to live somewhere between the truth and an outright lie. She wondered if in that time, he’d come to rely on similar mechanisms when faced with questions about his children. She wondered if there had been times when he’d found it easier to simply deny the boy who had grown up to look and be so much like him. Or if sometimes he found himself pulling a faded school photograph from his wallet that contained just a shadow of the girl who had, until now, refused to see him at all.

And then… there he was.

Facing him, she felt no different. No older, no taller, no smarter, no stronger. And yet, he looked nothing like she remembered. His once massive hands now fumbled nervously in front of him. His thick, dark hair had grayed and thinned. The years seemed to have made him smaller somehow, and as the distance between them shortened, she realized they were precisely the same height. This was not her father. And yet she knew him. She knew him the way a mother knows her own infant’s cry among a sea of others. This was hers. He belonged to her and she belonged to him. For the eternity of a few seconds, neither of them spoke. Then he smiled, and in that moment she realized his mustache was gone. Perhaps he’d shaved it years before, or maybe the morning he knew she was coming. Maybe this morning. But where it had been, now laid a mouth she had never seen before, and when it opened, it revealed a slight gap between his front teeth that matched her own. She smiled back.

We'll Be Sorry Forever

Afterwards, she turned her face to the wall and pretended not to hear him leave the bed. For a moment there was nothing, but when the shower clicked on, she had to swallow hard to keep the drinks he’d paid for down. She felt trapped by the sheets that had gathered around her feet, struggling wordlessly to free herself until finally, with a grunt, she kicked them to the floor. Then, she waited. She waited for him to call to her, to pull her to him, to grin and put his hands on her as he had that night, under the lights and in front of her friends who’d watched them leave together knowing that he wanted her; knowing that she was worth wanting. In the dark she waited. And as she did, she listened to the water as it splashed against his body and across the plastic curtain before falling, at last, to the bottom of the tub, where it seemed to scream just a little before tumbling down the drain.

When she was young, girls traveled in packs. The doorbell would ring and soon the house would be filled with giggles that seemed to float above the thick clouds of hairspray and perfume. They’d try on one another’s clothes and tease each other’s hair, painting cherry toenails and blotting pink kisses onto paper napkins. Sometimes, they’d play music, while others they’d brag and coo about their own exaggerated worldliness, but always her mother would be sat in the middle of it all, a nicotine stained Buddha, surrounded by eager adolescent followers – each one waiting with cupped hands as pearls of wisdom about make up and men seemed to fall, (in endless supply), from those thin red lips. Finally, primped and polished, they’d set out as one mass. And as they moved the world seemed to stop breathing.

She didn’t hear him turn the water off or the way he sighed as he dried his hair with her towel. Rather she was awakened by the clatter of loose change or keys dropping from his pockets and onto the tiled floor, as he fumbled for his pants. Again, she swallowed, but this time it was something more toxic that she had to fight to keep down. Quickly, she turned herself to face him, pulling her body into the shaft of light from the bathroom that slashed into the darkness and cut across her bed. She opened her legs slightly and closed her eyes, waiting for him to come to her. To say her name. To ask for her number. To say he wanted to see her again, even if they both knew it was a lie. But as he left there was nothing save the anxious beating of her own heart and the sound of his quickening footsteps, until finally both faded to nothing.

“Fuck you,” she whispered to no one in particular, biting her lip around the words.

She wasn’t angry, exactly, or even hurt. There were no tears. No longing for something she knew belonged to her. No aching for some vital bit of herself that she felt had been unfairly peeled away. Rather, there was just the faint scent of the steam and the soap and the someone who had once been there but was now gone, replaced only by the lingering wish that she hadn’t been quite so easy to wash away. In her emptiness, she pulled herself back into the darkened corner of the bed. And then, shielding her eyes with one hand, she slowly crept down its blackened perimeter, feeling along the wall with the other, until finally her feet touched the floor.

In school, she’d been given one of those tests that was supposed to predict a young person’s future. She’d answered honestly, and at the end, it said that what she should do most was become a phlebotomist or a dental hygienist. She wasn’t exactly sure what either of those people did, but she knew they helped people and that others looked upto them and although she’d laughed with her friends about their collective results, deep down she’d liked the sound of each profession as she whispered it after her name. She’d carried the paper home to show her mother, who stood in the kitchen staring blankly out the window as she’d shared her news like a good tiding from some lately cracked fortune cookie. But in response her mother had said nothing and when she was done, she simply flicked her cigarette butt into the sink.
Gradually, she made her way to the room at the end of the hall where a dim light pushed its way out across the floor.

She leaned against the door, letting it take her weight. And for an instant she thought she might not go in. Desperately, she tried to will herself back towards her own room and the bed and the sheets where she could quietly drown in the storm that threatened her. But then, she heard a little voice singing on the other side. Gently, she pressed open the door and found her daughter sitting cross-legged on the small bed, making wispy shadow puppets on the wall. She didn’t comment on how late it was or how many hours passed “bedtime” they’d both stayed up. Instead, she marveled at how much like her father the little girl looked, and silently wondered if such attributes were a blessing or a curse, before slowly climbing into the bed next to her. The goodnights were quick and quiet and after a moment, darkness began to blur the corners of the room, but both were wide awake:

"Is the man still here?” The inevitable question came.

She paused.

"No” she said finally, hearing the word as it left her, filled with breath and apology.
"Was he nice?” the little voice asked.

"Yes” she responded slowly. But somehow, it wasn’t enough. “He liked mommy a lot” she offered. And then… in the silence… this time very softly, “He liked mommy a lot.”

There was no reply.

A Quiet Voice

He took the small, black notebook out of his pocket, and held it flat in the palm of his hand. Closing his eyes, he could almost feel its soft cover mold itself around the tips of his fingers, as though the shape and curve of his hand alone contained the secret password needed to open it. He lifted his tattered hat and let the breeze run its fingers through his unruly curls before placing it back on his head. Nearby, he could hear the reeds knock together nervously, like boys and girls at a school dance.

Blinking in the daylight, he noted that the wind had turned open the cover. A crooked smile pushed its way to the edges of his mouth, and he could almost hear her voice, “it’s fate, love” she’d have said with a giggle. His eyes wandered to the empty space next to him, half expecting to see her sprawled there ~ her head resting on his leg, her hair splayed across the length of his thigh and spilling onto the earth beneath them. It was in these moments especially that he found himself secretly wondering about the people who might stumble upon his notebook, tucked away in some hidden attic box, in the days and weeks following his own death. These private imaginings were never melancholy or morose; rather they filled him with a sense of completion somehow ~ as though in the passing of these things the people who loved him most might finally know him.

He flipped through the pages of the notebook, the flutter of fleeting images creating an animated story of who he was, until finally he landed on a blank page. He waited for the paper to whisper to him, as it always did, quietly revealing what it wanted. Meanwhile, in the expanse just beyond the little clump of grass where he sat, he heard the trees rustle like muted wind chimes, but there was something in the sound at that moment that made him look up: something a little too measured about the way the branches touched one another. Something a little too much like the sound of footsteps rather than that of clapping. In the distance, he could see the clouds bend in to kiss the land. Just then, something in the reeds moved.

He held very still.

“I hope you’ve warned her about you,” his mother had said leaning towards him, her shadow spanning the length of the room. All his life he’d struggled with people: the way their shrill voices cut into the warm flesh of an afternoon. The way their feet trampled over the secret messages left on abandoned scraps of paper; and the way their arms flailed about when they spoke, as though deep down they knew, as he did, that their words alone were not worth listening to. Like the forgotten silhouette of the younger brother in a boy’s first Cub Scout photograph, he’d learned to stand just beyond the focus of the lens, lost in the peripheral detail, both dreading and longing to be seen. He sighed quietly; He’d tried to warn her, but somehow, she already knew.

A few speckled rain drops announced themselves on the brim of his hat, but he refused to look up to see if there was a waiting deluge. Rather, his eyes remained focused on the sea of reeds and tall grass that greeted him like a lingering army. Each elegant blade swayed gently in the breeze, and yet, every so often, he could see little pockets of their brushed helmets jump suddenly, jolted not by the wind but by the passing of something hidden in their ranks. An animal, he thought in quiet bemusement, startled by his presence at first, but now screwing up its courage to come forward and take a look.

He remembered the first time she’d shown him her own notebook, full of scribbles and notes and bits of cheese. He’d noticed the way her hands shook a little as she asked him to forgive her for the lined paper ~ her constant training wheels. She’d blushed and tried to look away, but in the end found herself needing to see his face as he glimpsed this part of her for the first time. “There’s a story in us,” she’d said afterwards with eyes that were both hopeful and more than a little sad. She was right.

Just ahead of him the reeds began to part, and the shadows trapped by the densely clumped grass quietly leaked into the daylight. For a moment, nothing happened. He cocked his head a little, waiting. Then ~ gradually ~ a small hand extended from within the green gray darkness, its palm facing the sky. Pale and fragile, he could almost imagine its owner closing her eyes as the open air met her skin for perhaps the first time. Slowly, each delicate finger began to curl inward, as though guarding the secret treasure of a found pebble or a coin discovered heads-side up, until finally only the index finger remained straight ~ pointing at him. He watched in silence until at last it too began to curl gently, and repeatedly, beckoning him to come. For a long moment he did nothing.

Then he picked up his pen, and began to draw.

Jenny Green

If I'd been Jenny Green
we'd have pedaled to the place
where the trees smell different
and the wet streets sound strange
against our tires. We'd ride until
the rain drove us back and
our mothers called us home.

And maybe, your field would've been ours
and after sandwiches in paper bags
we'd search the skies for faces
and you'd teach me the names of birds.
Later, you'd pick the parsley from my hair
and we'd each make a wish before
blowing brown lashes into the breeze.

If I'd been Jenny Green
I'd have climbed your garden wall,
slipped past the eager goalie
and run up the stairs to your room
where I'd hear bells.
Afterwards, you'd take my hand
and we'd jump ~ out your open window.

And maybe, my island would become ours
and we'd mark the passing of midnights
with the pleasure of promises fulfilled.
Until, at last, all that remained would be us
conjoined and complete in flesh, stone and wood.
No less whole than the circle 'round your finger.
No less beautiful than if I'd been Jenny Green.

The Artist and The Storyteller

All his life, he’d tried to convince himself that he was naturally attracted to brunettes. He’d felt this somehow made him more interesting, if only to himself. And yet now, sitting several tables away, in a quiet corner of a bookstore café, he’d managed to clock a blonde.

It had been impossible not to notice her, not so much because there was anything about her that particularly demanded attention, but given that the bookstore had only just opened, she was one of just a handful of people sharing the space – each lost in his/her private corner, secure in the perceived anonymity provided by a stack of books and a cup of expensive coffee (or in her case lemonade). This was the only time of day in which he could stomach places like this. Soon this very room would be full of shouty people, laughing and talking about things in a manner that was meant to suggest that they were deeply intellectual, intensely witty and full of something so obviously worth noticing. The early mornings were different, however. The few people who found their way there when the place first opened came for the books, the calm whir of cracking spines and machinery, and the solitude of a single cup on the table. When the noise came, he’d have to leave of course, but for now, he rather liked the thought of this girl across the room who had, in his mind, come there for the same reasons he had.

His hands found the book at the top of his stack; the one whose review he’d read in the paper months ago, but had forgotten until yesterday when going through a heap of old newspapers, (determined to pitch most of them) he’d stumbled upon its title once again along with the drawing, that he’d scribbled in the margins, of a little boy holding a sign which read “protected by sellotape”. He’d kept the paper. But somehow, now he was having trouble concentrating on the object of his recollection. Instead his eyes peered over the top of the book, finding their way to the girl who seemed just lonely enough to need his company.

She wasn’t particularly beautiful or defined by features that traditionally inspired fascination or capriciousness, but nonetheless, he found himself studying her face: the thin lower lip which she was prone to bite when overwhelmed by some quiet confidence, the eyebrows – a little too far apart, perhaps, the sprinkling of dim freckles that peppered her fair skin, and, of course, the blonde hair he’d tried hard not to notice, which was pulled back into a haphazard ponytail, but that kept falling against her cheek – only to be brushed back behind her ear (again and again) by two quick fingers . Taken separately, her features were strikingly ordinary, but together they seemed to make perfect sense to him. She too had a stack of books which she’d placed on the table, spines towards her, as though to shield the titles from gawking onlookers for fear of revealing too much of herself; but for the moment her attentions were divided between the open newspaper, which was splayed partially across the table, and the small notebook in which she scribbled notions he felt almost desperate to peer at from behind her shoulder. Perhaps this was her appeal, he thought to himself absently while turning another unread page of the book in his hand, the tugging allure of closely held secrets scribbled in a notebook – such things were difficult to resist, after all. Then he found himself caught between two contrasting sentiments: grateful for the downward gaze that had kept her from noticing his stare, while also silently wishing she’d look up for just a moment so he could see the color of her eyes. He knew it wasn’t the notebook.

Just then a large woman and a young man fumbled their way towards her table. They must have called her name, but he’d failed to notice them until she did, looking up and smiling in a way that was in equal measure full of a sincere gladness to see them and a similarly genuine irritation at having been spotted – despite expertly donned camouflage. The three chatted politely for a few moments, but she did not offer them a seat, and soon they were on their way towards other silences that needed breaking. When they were gone, she looked around the room, as though noticing for the first time, (as he was), that it had grown quite crowded. She began to pack up her things. She slipped the books, along with her notebook and pen, into the large green canvas bag that had been resting beneath the table, took a final sip of her lemonade, sighed in recognition of something inevitable and then made for the door.

He panicked.

He knew that no matter how long she sat there, he’d not have the courage to speak to her, and yet, he wasn’t quite ready to let her go either. He looked around the room, catching a glimpse of himself in the distorted reflection offered by a darkened glass refrigerator case. Behind him, he could just see the exit door open and then, (although no such device was present), he heard bells – the jingling of metals designed to alert the world of her leaving. Without thinking anymore on the subject, he rose from his seat and followed her.

Once under in the daylight and surrounded by air that wasn’t muddled by books and people, he realized how absurd this all was. He’d seen a girl. And now he was following her. Clearly, he’d lost his mind. But there was no turning back. He’d come to a precipice and jumped; the only thing left was to fall.

He could tell almost instantly that she had spent most of her life walking. She walked with purpose – not in a hurry – but with the stride of someone who’d used her feet to find her way through the world. He knew there would be no car waiting around the corner, and he smiled silently to himself. She’d flung the canvas bag over her left shoulder, letting her right hand swing in time with the opposite leg. She carried herself in a way that was different from the girl sitting in the bookshop. She seemed almost to be forcing herself to look straight ahead, unwilling to allow a passing thought to disconnect her – however briefly – from the world around her. He imagined her struggling not to look at her feet as she walked, and he wondered what had happened to her to make her feel she needed to be that brave.

At the end of several blocks she turned to cross the street and he saw that she was heading towards a nearby park. After a quick scan of the traffic, she sprinted across the lanes, and as she did so, she reached up and pulled the band from her hair, letting the ponytail spill open... a blonde hurricane falling against her back through tiny fingers of wind and movement. He stood on the corner watching her move a little further away from him, and for the second time he thought he might lose her to the world. When the cars allowed him, he too crossed, and hurried towards the sound of children playing and dogs barking. As his eyes adjusted to the dappled sunlight, he scanned a length of green for her, only to discover she’d stopped at the second clump of trees.

As he got a little closer, his walk slowed, and he found her retrieving a small blanket from her bag and laying it out with practiced precision. He noticed that she’d already taken off her shoes and seemed content to let her toes play in the cool grass for a bit before sitting in the shade. Once again, she removed the stack of books and the notebook – setting them to the side – readying herself for this next chapter of her day. As he neared her, he began to worry about what he would do next. Would he stand there gawking like a fool? Would he simply walk past her, only to turn around and walk past again, repeating the process until either she noticed and called for help or he simply could no longer bear his own idiocy? He found his answer on a nearby bench that afforded him an opportunity to, if nothing more, sit. Suddenly he wished he’d thought to steal one of the books from the bookstore so at least he could pretend to be reading again. Instead he feigned interest in one of his shoes and pretended to do something that resembled tying it even though, admittedly, it had no laces.

A few yards away she sat on her blanket reading a book from her stack. With her hair down now, he wondered about her age. For a moment he thought she was older than he was, but in the same instance, he mused that perhaps they’d been born on the same day. Just then, she looked up from her book, her green eyes catching his. Before he could think to look away, she looked back down at her book and he could see her teeth reach for her bottom lip. His heart began to race. He knew he’d have to get up and leave. There was no other choice really. He’d taken this path to its end.

But then she looked up again.
And this time… she smiled.

Her smile, like the rest of her, seemed to reveal things he felt certain the rest of the world had overlooked. Her lips barely curled and in fact, she remained focused on that thin lower lip that appeared to bear the brunt of all she felt and yearned for. But the rest of her face gave away what she tried not to let her mouth betray. Like him, she seemed aware that she’d let her gaze linger a little too long, and looked back down at the book she was now only pretending to read, and for a moment he felt certain he heard a tiny giggle being carried to him on the wind. He knew he was smiling back.

Before standing, he reached down and pulled a clump of dandelions from the earth. He thought of all the times in his life he’d been caught looking at some girl across the room. He thought of all the pats on the back he’d received from well meaning, but equally awkward, friends whose advice usually consisted only of commands like “go get her” or “ooh, she likes you, mate” or other such phrases designed solely to send a young man off to his own death. He thought of all the lonely conversations he’d had in the dark, chastising himself for not being brave or brash or full of the boyish confidence he’d read about in books, only to then congratulate himself for being smart enough to recognize that she’d not have been interested in him anyway. He looked across the field to the girl whose eyes now rested on the open window between them and decided he wanted tonight’s conversation to be different.

He stared for a moment at the cluster of small white blooms in his hand. There was no one nearby to pat him on the back or offer a few foolish words of encouragement… but he heard them anyway.

He closed his eyes… and blew.

A Companion Picture

When her rounds were finished, Nelda pushed the half-full cart into her room and quietly shut the door behind her.

“Good night, Nurse Nelda,” one of the day nurses called to her, but without response, save a tittering of laughter from the other whitely clad professionals who were huddled around the nurses’ station in preparation for the shift change.

Emma looked up from the tray of meds she was supposed to administer that night.

“Oh. You’re new, right?” the jokester asked.

Emma nodded.

“Ah… well, you see, Nelda thinks she’s a nurse. She wanders around the wings with her granny-cart, visiting the other patients. She calls it ‘doing her rounds.’ She’s harmless enough, though. We all call her Nurse Nelda; the old bird gets a kick out of it.” The others giggled in approval of this description.

“I see,” Emma said quietly and went back to putting different colored pills into little plastic cups.

“Hey, remember that time when Sandra left an old nurse’s cap on Nelda’s nightstand?” one of the orderlies asked to no one in particular. Inevitably, they all cackled and congratulated themselves on their wit and cunning. Then as one herd, they scurried out the front door and into the waiting world.

That night, Emma wandered the halls of Shady Oaks Retirement Home, administering medications, reading patient charts and reminding herself that the night shift paid time and a half. When she got to Nurse Nelda’s door, she looked down at her cart; there were no meds for Nelda. Still, Emma lingered for a few minutes before finally putting her hand on the door and gently pushing it open. In the darkness, she could just see the woman’s sleeping figure beneath the blankets – a dark, rounded mound, hidden in the shadows. The scent of lavender hung in the air. After a moment, and just as quietly, Emma shut the door and went on her way.

The next morning, as Emma sat at the nurses’ station watching the day shift swarm in, Nelda’s door opened. The cart came first, followed by its owner, dressed in a pale flowered dress and white bedroom slippers. “Good morning, Nurse Nelda,” cooed Derrick, a honey voiced CNA whose ebony skin matched his bright, black eyes, “and where are you are going so early in the morning?”

Nelda barely looked up, but a smile crossed her lips, “Silly boy” she said, “I’m not going anywhere; I’m only just getting back.” And with that, she shuffled down the hall.

Emma studied the scene for a moment. “Wasn’t her cart nearly full yesterday?” she asked finally.

“Was it?” asked Derrick, with a shrug, having already moved on to more pressing matters.

“I’m almost sure it was,” Emma said. “What does she put in there anyway?”

“Oh, just empty cans and bottles… you know, recycling. One of the orderlies empties it for her at night, I think.”


In the weeks that followed, Emma learned a few tricks that made the long night at Shady Oaks barely sufferable. She learned, for example, that the night staff often took turns sleeping on the old cots that were kept in the storage room nestled just off the kitchen. She learned that Mrs. Hinkler, in room 212, pushed the call button once an hour, on the hour, marking off the passing of every sixty minutes with the religious fervor of ancient church bells. And she learned that if she readied her tray of meds prior to leaving in the morning, she could begin her rounds directly after reporting for duty the next night, thus avoid the day shift entirely.

Slowly, the nights turned into a series of rituals that, if followed precisely, became a map leading to daylight and the world where places like Shady Oaks didn’t exist. Each night, Emma followed her map and made her rounds down the same empty, faded halls trying not to think of the people behind each door, the last time they’d had a visitor, (besides, of course, the obligatory groups of school children who sang carols and complained about the smell), or how many years remained before she’d have to take her place among them. Each night, her feet padded silently across the black and white tiled floor. And each night, before returning to the nurses’ station for the final time, she stopped to check on Nurse Nelda, who was always silently sleeping, exactly as she had been the night before.


Then one night as Emma made her way towards the island of computers and phones that lay in the center of Shady Oaks, (where the nurses gathered and occasional visitors stopped to make inquiries about patients), she heard music softly wafting into the corridor from within Nurse Nelda’s room. Emma halted her cart of medication and closed her eyes in order to breathe in the sound: Nina Simone. Quiet panic washed over her as she stood silently on one side of the door, pulled by the two opposite of poles of both wanting and not wanting to interrupt what has happening on the other side.

“Do come in, dear” she heard Nurse Nelda call to her. For a moment, Emma chewed her lower lip and considered simply tip toeing away, pretending that she’d not been caught peeking through the keyhole. Instead, she inhaled a bit of courage and gently pushed the door open, only to find Nelda perched at the edge of her bed, going through what looked to be an old photo album.

Having never seen the room lit before, Emma was immediately struck by its peculiar beauty. The bed, secured in a spot identical to that of all the other beds at Shady Oaks was, in Nelda’s room, flanked by two large bookcases – each brimming with row upon row of old books and delicately framed photographs. In between, sat Nelda, a solid woman with thick hands and laughing eyes, her white hair swooped atop her head like a mound of vanilla ice-cream.

“You’re up awfully late, aren’t you?” Emma finally managed to muster as she made her way fully into the room.

“Oh posh,” Nelda replied with a giggle. “I’m always up this late.”

“Hmmmm” Emma offered softly, but with a raised eyebrow. “Forgive me, but I check on you each night, Nelda, and you always look pretty sound asleep to me.”

Nelda looked up from her photo album. “Well, we do tend to see what we want to see, don’t we dear?” she replied thoughtfully and then held the album out to Emma, patting the mattress next to her in invitation.

Emma sat on the bed, scanning the walls which were likely painted stark white, as all the walls in Shady Oaks were, but which, in Nelda’s room, were completely lined with postcards, maps and magazine clippings of ancient stone farmhouses, rocky island coastlines and hundreds of individually cut out leaves and flowers. Her eyes eventually landed on the oft ridiculed granny-cart, which sat huddled in the corner and, which Nelda used on her so called “rounds” – a few empty bottles were sticking out the top.

“Your cart’s nearly full,” Emma observed aloud, not knowing exactly what to say.

“Ah, yes” Nelda said with a sigh. “I’d have taken them tonight, but I prefer not to go when it’s raining…” her voice trailed off.

“I see,” Emma said, not really seeing at all.

“Not that I mind the rain, of course,” Nelda continued a moment later, “but I can’t risk a cold at my age, now can I?”

Emma looked at Nelda’s face; it was difficult to pinpoint exactly what age she was. An intricate lacework of lines and dimples seemed to whisper hints of a century of grins and grimaces, but something in the eyes and mouth seemed likewise determined to subtract years in equal measure. To be sure, there was nothing about Nelda that would have indicated anything other than complete lucidity. “I suppose not,” she replied politely and then asked, “where do you take them, Nelda?”

“Why down to the bottle bank – in Witney,” Nelda said as though the answer was obvious.

“But that’s nearly 10 miles away,” Emma retorted in precisely the same tone.

Just then Nelda pointed at the photo album in Emma’s hand, a look of restrained delight flashed in her eyes, daring Emma to gently lift the faded cover. When she finally did, its ancient spine cracked and moaned in weak protest, but eventually gave way. Inside, a plethora of aged sepia photographs clung desperately to its once black pages, which had grayed and become more brittle with each passing year. As Emma turned the pages, a story began to unfold of a girl who had come to a new country as a teenager and who saw the world on her own terms. In one photo, a young Nelda sat in the cockpit of a plane, a leather pilot’s helmet draped over dark, rebellious curls. In another, a slightly older girl poses next to a gaggle of smartly dressed university boys in lettered sweaters – one of whom is clearly a very young John F. Kennedy. In the last photo, breaking a bottle of champagne against the bow of a large ship, Nelda winks for the camera, the words “Never Nelda” scrolled just above her on the ship’s hull.

“I had no idea” Emma said tenderly, but Nelda said nothing that would quiet the questions that were running through her head.

“Everything deserves the chance to be something else” she offered finally.

Emma looked around the room, taking note of the assorted bouquets of wild flowers that sat atop the bookshelves, window sills and various table tops. Each arrangement living happily in all manner of makeshift vases: old milk bottles, a small jar still labeled as homemade preserves, an old soup tin and even a spare bedpan. She had to agree.


The next night, there was no music coming from Nelda’s room.

The following morning, however, as Emma stood at the station, gathering her things, waiting for the charge nurse to say that she could go, Nelda emerged from her private sanctuary– empty cart in hand.

“Well, if it isn’t Nurse Nelda” one of the daytime crones yapped with banal amusement.

Nelda looked up, “Good Morning, dear” she said to Emma with a wink, and then darted down the hall to her waiting patients.

“Oh, I see we’ve made a friend,” the same, (or another), crone said mockingly, as though having discovered the key to some long unopened door… but Emma didn’t hear them. She was busy watching Nelda make her way down the hall, her muddied slippers leaving a trail of brown footprints along the freshly waxed floor.

In Thick Ink

Bounding from the school bus, I’d rush home where
my mother waited, wrapped in a spiral of thin smoke.
She’d tap the sofa next to her and I’d lie there,
my head in her lap, as she counted the mass
of freckles on my nose while whispering in my ear
that she’d spent the day missing me. I believed her.

Later, when afternoons meant lonely rides home
on packed city busses, with house keys on cheap chains,
I'd pedal back up 7th Avenue and wait in the park
until the sky grew gray and I could peer in the window
of my old bedroom; Alone in the dark, I’d close my eyes
and wish only for the fall of my own footsteps on the stairs.

In time, I longed for a home made of possessive pronouns,
so I sorted my pennies into tidy piles until the day
my fingers trembled as I signed my name in thick ink.
That night, I unpacked photographs of the people and places
from whom I’d become a fugitive, and hung them on the wall,
desperate to silence the odor of fresh paint.

Now, years later, with boxes once again stacked around me,
future snapshots appear fuzzy and indistinct - blurred
like lately taken Polaroids, still struggling to develop.
And yet, through the mist I see home: A place where
your voice hangs in the air, like dust caught in light,
settling on my skin long after you’ve left the room.