1000 words each day

Fitting in

2010-05-27T03:26:00.000-07:00

After Kate pulled out of her driveway she unbuttoned her jeans so they wouldn’t keep digging into her belly as she made the drive across town. Standing up she could get away with these pants, unfortunately sitting down was another story. They were the only pair left that she could get into anymore, and they were getting tighter by the day. Everything felt tight, her clothes, her jewelry, even her skin. When she caught a glimpse of herself in the rearview mirror she could see that her face looked swollen and almost puffy. She wanted to turn the car around and go home, to strip off what she was wearing and climb back into her baggy sweatpants and tee shirt. But there was no choice, they were out of even the minimal basics like milk and bread; she needed to go to the market. She pulled into the parking lot of the brightly lit A&P and discreetly re-buttoned her pants before getting out of the car and walking quickly into the supermarket, grabbing a cart by the door.

Every time she reached for something or bent down to get an item off the shelf, she felt her jeans dig in or her shirt lift up revealing more of her stomach than she wanted. She looked around to make sure she was alone and tried to readjust her clothes, pull up her jeans over the roll of fat across her middle, untwist her blouse, tugging the material trying to stretch it over her bulging body. With each aisle she felt bigger and bigger. The uncomfortable feeling of not fitting into her clothes, not fitting into her own body, not to mention her life, intensified with each step.

Because it was her life that was really the thing that didn’t fit anymore and she knew it, the truth was unavoidable when she was forced to face it. She didn’t belong here, didn’t belong in this body or this supermarket. She wasn’t supposed to end up like this.

As she unloaded her cart onto the conveyor belt she had to fight back the tears. God no, don’t let me lose it here in front of all these people. A panic welled up in her like a rising tidal wave and it was all she could do to swipe her debit card and bag her stuff, rushing to get out of there before the torrent overcame her. She kept her head down and tightly gripped the handle of the cart as she briskly pushed it across the parking lot. One by one she practically tossed the grocery bags into the backseat, not caring what was in them. She barely reached the safety of the driver’s seat before the tears would wait no longer and came pouring down her cheeks. As she drove out of the A&P parking lot crying her eyes out, she again unbuttoned her jeans and this time unzipped them too, feeling the need for total relief from the confines of pants that no longer fit her any better than her pathetic day to day existence.

When she was safely at home in her baggy clothes again with the food put away, she sat at the kitchen table and tried to calm down. She tried to sink back into that numbness that she could always manage to find once she was alone and away from the rest of the world. Kate ran her hands across the battered old pine table, as if trying to ground herself with each stroke, fingering each familiar scratch and furrow that was worn smooth with years of use. She’d once thought growing older would be like that. All the rough spots, all the scrapes and hollows of experience or loss would fill in, growing softer and smoother as the years went on. But that’s not what happened. For every deep groove that was worn flat some new mark was made, gouged fresh, jagged and rough. Life didn’t get easier, it was even harder than she’d ever imagined.

She ran her hands over her own body now, feeling the rolls of fat undulate like rippling waves. Her chin, once slightly pointed and a little bony, was now round and full, bulging above her sagging neck. Where did it go? Where did her body go, her life, her future?

Kate knew it wasn’t too late, but it was later than it should be. Yes, she could change things, almost everything in fact, for the better. But it would never be as good as it once was, and more importantly, it wouldn’t ever be as good as it should have been if she hadn’t let herself go in the first place. That was what got to her the most, if only she’d taken care of herself all along and never gotten fat to begin with, she might have aged gracefully. She definitely would have, she was sure of it.

Instead she gave up. She got scared and intimidated by the simple things in life that everyone else managed to handle – college, marriage, motherhood, career. She failed at all of it and now it was becomming obvious she was drowning her shame with food, smothering herself into nothingness. No, it was worse, she didn't fail, she didn’t even try to succeed to begin with. Either way, the end result was the same. She had no education, no career, no marriage anymore, one dead child and another that was as foreign to her as if she were a creature from another planet.

Enough. She was going too far, thinking too much. Kate stood up and walked over to the counter where there was one grocery bag left unpacked. She carried it upstairs and headed to her bedroom. As she passed by Nola’s room she could see the sliver of light from beneath her closed door. “I’m home – there’s bread and cold cuts downstairs if you want to make yourself a sandwich.” She heard a barely audible “okay” and with relief continued on down the dark hall. She was glad Nola didn't want to talk. Not tonight. She climbed into her unmade bed and reached for the remote. Mindless sitcoms and a package of cookies. One more night wouldn’t make a difference.

Tomorrow she would do better. Tomorrow she would wake up early and make breakfast for her and Nola. Something healthy, something they could sit and eat together at the old pine table, scratches and all.

Nestling

2010-05-21T19:46:00.001-07:00

Nola sat on the bottom step of her front porch and felt the cold granite begin to send its creeping chill throughout her little body. Dried, brown autumn leaves scraped the sidewalk in front of her as they skipped along in the rising breeze. Twigs and branches were scattered across the lawn from last night’s storm and Nola decided to pick some of them up while she waited for her father. She gathered as many as she could and carried them down to the small grove of white pines at the edge of the woods behind her house.

Beneath the sheltering branches of the tall straight pines Nola had created her own version of a bird’s nest in the crunchy carpet of dried pine needles that blanketed the ground. She’d carefully scooped and swept the mounds of needles into the outline of a circle large enough for her to sit in, adding twigs and pinecones to build the sides up over a foot high. She liked to imagine she was an exotic bird living high in the tree tops. Nola took the sticks she’d collected from the front yard and added them to the growing rim of her nest. Then she restacked some of the twigs that were knocked down during the previous night’s storm. When Nola was finished she stretched her arms out wide and slowly moved them up and down, flapping gracefully as she ran around to the front of the house, imagining that she was gliding through the cloudy sky as she zigzagged her way back to the steps. Nola sat once again on the granite slab. Her father still had not come out.

While she continued to wait, Nola noticed there was now something on the sidewalk that wasn’t there before. It looked like a ball of dried grass but when she got closer and gingerly picked it up she could see it was a small, perfectly formed bird’s nest -- a real one! Nola shivered with a combination of cold and excitement as she examined the delicate treasure, cupped carefully in her hands to secure it against the wind that was starting to kick up. Even though it looked fragile, as Nola scrutinized it she could tell that it was stronger than it seemed. This was smaller than she’d imagined a bird’s nest to be, it was hard to imagine any bird she’d ever seen actually using it, let alone sharing it with a brood of babies. Nola wished Grandee was here today, she would know what kind of bird built the nest. Grandee always knew everything. But her grandmother wouldn’t be here for several days yet. Nola needed to find a place to keep the nest safe until then. She wanted to take it to her room, but she couldn’t go back into the house now.

Instead Nola went around to the back porch and carefully reached her hand through the white painted lattice work running along the bottom and placed the nest gently underneath the weathered floorboards, tucked in a clump of leaves near one of the support posts. This was her special hiding spot, the place she kept things that didn't belong in the house, things her mother would say were dirty like pretty rocks or bits of broken pottery and twisted rusty nails that she found near where the old barn once stood.

“Nola Grace, where are you?” Nola jumped a little. She’d strayed from her waiting spot and now hearing the terseness of her father’s voice she knew he was not happy. “I’m sorry Daddy, I’m coming.” Nola called out as she ran towards where her father’s car was parked in the driveway. But he was already coming around the side of the house looking for her and she almost ran right into him. He grabbed her arm and walked a little too fast for her to keep up, partially dragging her along as he muttered under his breath, “How many times do I have to tell you, huh? If I say wait for me on the front steps then you sit your butt down there and don’t move till I come out. Jesus Christ, you’re gonna make me late, gotta look all over the place for you. If you’d just do what you were told once, just once…” and his voice trailed off as they reached the car and he waited impatiently for her to climb in. Nola was trying to get in quickly while not getting her dirty feet on the seats at the same time, but sure enough when she looked beside her she could see little pieces of leaves and pine needles all over the back seat. Thankfully her father didn’t notice and had already closed her door to go around the front of the car and get in. Once they were on their way Nola quietly reached over and picked up all the little bits and pieces she could, shoving a crispy fistful into her coat pocket before they reached the end of their street.

When they arrived at her school the long circular drive was empty. Usually cars were lined up along the entire length and even into the street beyond while parents waited to take their turn, one by one dropping off children under the watchful eyes of the waiting teachers. But no one was here now, not a single car. That meant that she was late, very late. Her father got out and opened her door, then got right back into the car.

“Daddy, I think your supposed to walk me in tell them why I’m late,” Nola said as she stood by the open car door, leaning into the back seat a little so he could hear her.

“Can’t I just write you a note or something?”

“Um, I don’t know, I guess so.”

Nola’s father rolled down his window. “Shut your door and give me a minute.” He took his black notebook out from the flap pocket of his coat and began to scribble quickly. Then he tore the page out and handed it to Nola, “Here, they can call me if they don’t like it. Hey, don’t go around the front of the car,” he snapped as she started to walk away, “always go around the back of a car, Nola, never around the front. Someone’s liable to run you over if they aren’t looking.” His words seemed to hang in the air for a minute before the realization of what he’d said caught up to him. Like Ethan, Nola thought, the person that ran over Ethan hadn’t seen see him. And then for the first time that day their eyes met. Nola thought her father looked sad and she wanted to give him a kiss goodbye. But he quickly looked away and before Nola could move he rolled up the window and drove off.

Nola stood there alone in the parking lot. The wind wrapped tangled strands of hair across her face as she looked at the low brick building and wondered if anyone from inside could see her. But the single row of windows revealed nothing, only a dimmed reflection of surrounding trees and clouds, as if the building were really floating in the sky.

She closed her eyes tight and thought, maybe the school was empty? Maybe today was actually Saturday? That had happened once, her mother had gotten her up and fed her breakfast, drove her here only to find an empty parking lot, just like today. But she’d been on time that day, even a little early, and her mother quickly realized her error. They’d laughed and gone out for pancakes. But Nola knew there was no mistake today. Her father would never make that kind of blunder.

As she walked up the sidewalk to the red steel doors that led down the long hall to her kindergarten classroom, Nola slowly picked out all the pine needles from her pocket and rubbed them between her fingers before letting them fall, pulverizing each little piece as she walked along. She thought about her nests, both the real one and the pretend one, and hoped that they would withstand the whipping winds that now blew the faint crumbled powder from her hands before it could leave a trail on the dark macadam, easily whisking away any trace of her late arrival.

Loose threads

2010-03-29T08:56:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when you find a loose thread you can pull it and it snaps off clean. Other times you tug at it, hoping the thread will break, but instead it just keeps unraveling the stitches and the more you pull the more the edge of the fabric comes undone.

From the moment she overheard her father claim that Ethan’s death was due to her mother’s negligence and not just some random, unthinkable accident, everything started to change for Nola. She began to revisit each memory one by one, retell each family story in her head and tug at all the loose threads trying to catch any unraveled fragments of truth she might have missed before.

It started with something as mundane, as seemingly innocent as a ragged old teddy bear tucked away on a shelf. “Bear-Bear”, as he had been known since Nola could remember being alive, was a teddy bear she had since birth, originally a gift from Grandee. Only he barely resembled a child’s stuffed animal anymore, let alone something specifically bear-like. He was little more than a stitched together rag with the remnants of two eyes and a nose. Nearly all his fur was gone, as were his ears, he had a stub where one of his arms had been and like Frankenstein’s monster he was held together by a random pattern of zigzag stitches. Her mother, Kate, used to tell everyone he’d been loved to death like some Velveteen Rabbit. Embarrassed by his shoddy appearance she would repeatedly tell anyone who noticed him that Nola took him everywhere, that he was her favorite toy, that he’d been peed on, vomited on, left in parks on swings and in the yard during snow storms. “Poor Bear-Bear,” her mother would say with inflated sympathy.

Bear-Bear had a special place in Nola’s room to this day, on that high shelf, tucked enough behind her books that prying eyes wouldn’t notice and spare him ridicule, yet a bit of his face peeked out so that she could see him, she knew he was there, like a familiar guardian.

But now as Nola looked at the disheveled remains of her Teddy bear she saw him through different eyes. This was her very favorite toy, her most beloved. Despite what her mother said Nola knew she never left him behind anywhere, couldn’t remember a single time that Bear-Bear wasn’t accounted for. For some reason Nola had just let her mother continue to say those things and in silent compliance she went along with the stories.

Nola’s heart had been broken when Bear-Bear nearly met his demise, and even now she could still feel the pain, the agony as she remembered that horrible day. She had been brought home from nursery school by her grandmother and gone straight to the playroom after changing her clothes. When she opened the door Nola was nearly trampled as her dog Sheba came running out, clearly glad to be let lose from her confinement. Her mother, Kate, had put “that damn dog” in there and left her there all day long; a bored dog was a destructive one, especially a chewer like Sheba. There was shit and piss all over her doll blankets. Fluff and padding from various stuffed creatures, now ravaged, lay all over the floor with body parts of vinyl dolls and scraps of fur strewn from one end of the room to the other. The carnage was shocking, not a single toy was left intact, every object that Nola held dear was utterly destroyed. Nola tried to scream but no sound came out at first. And then she saw Bear-Bear, or what was left of him. He was decapitated and missing limbs, ripped apart like some horror movie victim. Finally her scream found its sound.

Her mother came running and yelled at the dog while trying to clean up the mess, telling Nola to stop crying, it would be alright, they would get her new toys. Only Nola didn’t want new toys, she wanted her own, she wanted her babies and her animal friends and most of all, more than anything else she wanted her Bear-Bear. She needed to rub his fur between her fingers and suck her thumb, she needed to feel him in the crook of her arm as she slept. He was her best friend and now he lay in rags and ruin.

Grandee came and tried to sew him back together, “good as new”, but of course he wasn’t. Still, Nola had been comforted some by her grandmother’s soothing voice as she sewed what bits and pieces she could find back together, creating a new version of Nola’s beloved. He still had the bit of fur on his arm where she liked to rub it, still lay in the crook of her elbow as she slept. Nola was devoted to him for several more years after that, but something had been lost, something had been taken from her forever, as damaged beyond repair as the bear had been. And now today it was as if the pain was fresh, as if the last bit of her innocence had been trashed along with her toys, ripped to shreds by the hungry mouth of her father’s accusation.

Nola always knew it was her mother that was responsible for locking a chewing dog in the playroom, in the room where Nola’s precious friends were, the room she played and sang and chatted happily to objects that listened to her in a way no one else did. Kate hadn’t given a second thought to what might happen. Instead she made up stories of favorite bears being loved to death rather than tell the truth…that nothing can be loved to death, only carelessly ignored with predictable results.

(rework in progress from this previous post)

An excerpt

2010-01-26T19:13:00.000-08:00

Nola enjoyed studying the local history of her town, but it always made her sad, too. Looking at the old sepia toned photographs at the library she could easily recognize some places, like the downtown storefronts or the municipal hall; even with the horses and buggies parked along Main Street instead of cars these buildings were little changed and still quite familiar. But other images were completely unidentifiable; they looked foreign as if they weren’t taken in this part of the country let alone her own hometown. Even when the town historian painstakingly tried to describe the locations using present day landmarks these sites had obviously changed so drastically that there was no longer any evidence of their existence beyond the delicate, worn photos. Nola didn’t like to think of things disappearing, of places or people being forgotten. She felt it her duty to listen intently and memorize all the images and stories she could.

After looking at the pictures the town historian explained to Nola and her class that Darlington was one of many suburbs around New York City that grew out of a once predominantly agricultural community. Beyond the downtown area it was hard to imagine the rest of town as it was, rolling fields of fertile farmland spread as far as the eye could see. There were still vague remnants of a few original farms, but thanks to the proximity of Darlington to the city and the advent of modern car travel the town was a popular upscale commuting suburb now. The many farms had dwindled down to only a handful of measly acres still under cultivation with a roadside stand here and there at best, the remaining land belonged to expensive homes built closer together and no longer capable of supplying any significant amount of food for its population. Most food came in trucks from far away, not from neighboring fields.

Throughout the still quaint present day neighborhoods there were scattered bits of woodland left as buffers between the larger homes, replete with mature trees and wild vines. What most residents failed to realize is that these patches of woods were actually once neatly cleared agricultural fields, what seemed like substantial oaks, hemlocks and sycamores were just overgrown within the course of less than a century, the forest gently reclaiming what the plow had abandoned only a couple generations ago. Sometimes distant echoes of the past were revealed when winter stripped the woods bare, perhaps the hidden outline of a fieldstone foundation or even some weathered old barn timbers collapsed and lying about, crumbling and rotting into the forest floor. It amazed Nola how quickly nature could change things, how fast it broke things down if given half the chance.

Nola’s own home was a quaint old farmhouse preserved from that bygone era, originally part of one of the oldest farms in Darlington, owned by members of the Darlington family themselves. There were several pictures of her house at the library but only one photograph showed the family who lived there, all lined up against the front porch standing stiffly and not smiling. The littlest boy in the picture, Ramsey Darlington, eventually became the town founder and pictures of him as an adult at various other spots around town were plentiful. He and his numerous siblings grew up to build many of the finer homes in the area and it was his ancestors that first settled in the region when it was practically wilderness.

As part of a working dairy farm the house Nola lived in was simple and sturdy, gracefully added on to and updated as the farm prospered. It once had acres and acres of land around it, of course, all cleared and nearly flat, good for planting and grazing. Today the land surrounding her house was barely half an acre. Much of the original parcel was sold off lot by lot during the housing boom of the fifties and the rest was eventually donated by the Darlington family to nearby Mahwah Mountain College for its expansion in the sixties.

But safely landlocked behind Nola’s home was a 10-acre tract of forest, once one of those flat, cleared fields where maybe cows had grazed or corn stalks grew, now densely wooded. Along the perimeter of the former field were the remarkably intact vestiges of a low, random stone wall, no doubt built by that long gone Darlington family. Today the wall still acted as a divider of sorts; along one length of it the woods were separated from the houses of the bordering street and on the other side it outlined the edge of the tree line before it fell away into the vast rolling lawns of the college. Across the third side, the farthest stretch of wall from Nola's yard, it created a property line for another old Darlington farmhouse, smaller than Nola's, but of the same period.

Nola liked to think about the farmer that once lived in her house, and especially of his wife and children. For some reason she pictured it being the children’s task to pick up the rocks turned up by the plough and place them upon the ever-growing wall, artfully fitting each one in at random, stone by stone. Nola could envision that maybe even after the wall was done they could still identify which individual stones they’d each placed there, perhaps proudly boasting about which one of them had laid the largest one, heavier than his or her brothers and sisters were able to lift. Nola always imagined there were lots of kids to do this wall building chore; all those old time farmers had big families. Grandee had told her it was necessary to have numerous children in those days because there was a lot of hard physical work to do, and sadly sometimes the children didn’t all survive so families needed to have as many as they could to ensure there’d be enough kids to work the farm and carry on. Grandee said times were different back then, harder for children and adult alike. It didn’t seem that different to Nola. Not really.

Still, it must have been a daunting task to lay a rock wall like that if you thought about it, but Nola guessed they didn’t give it much thought, that Darlington farmer and his family with all those many kids. They probably just took it in stride and did what needed to be done. That’s what it seemed like all people from the past did. Whenever her grandmother told her stories from her own childhood it sounded like people from the forgone generations just quietly accepted their lot in life better than people did today. At least that’s what Grandee always implied, anyway.

Nola loved her house and its history, and she loved her street and the surrounding neighborhood, but perhaps her favorite place lay in those verdant little woods behind her home. Safely contained within the confines of that old stone wall at the center of the woodland was a place called the Sycamore Cave by all the local children, as they’d called it since before Nola was born, though it wasn’t a cave by any means. It was actually a half downed tree, once an impressive sycamore, its trunk 20 feet in diameter and over 100 feet tall. But lightening had struck the giant, probably back when it stood alone in that cleared farm field, and the top half had been severed almost all the way through, but not quite. It snapped and fell in such a way that the upper portion stayed attached to the trunk, and, as if bending down from the waist, the top landed astride of it. The once lush, long limbed canopy was now upside down and created a fifty-foot cone of sorts, like a teepee of tangled limbs.

Through the years vines and brambles quickly grew over the outer branches so that the interior, starved of sunlight, was completely hidden from view and only a carpet of moist fallen leaves blanketed the ground within. Bare, dead limbs on the shaded interior of the “cave” seemed almost like a rickety framework, an unfinished cathedral created by some crazy architect and now abandoned. You could climb to the top, the once middle of the tree, if you were brave enough. Nola hadn’t attempted it since she was little, but then she never made it to the top. She was glad now she hadn’t. She decided not to try anymore, to leave it unclimbed.

Nola often wondered if Ethan had ever seen the tree, but her mother said she couldn’t remember. It was hard to believe that he hadn’t, Grandee said he loved to go for walks in the neighborhood with Granda. They’d be gone for hours and Granda would come back carrying Ethan, half asleep, they’d gone so far in their travels that it had worn him out. Nola always wished she could have known her grandfather even though everyone, even Grandee, said he was a mean man; a hard man is what she’d say. Nola’s own dad would shake his head and say his father was a tough old coot, “hard as nails and twice as sharp.” But all agreed he had a soft spot, a special place in his heart for his grandson Ethan. Nola knew her grandmother felt that way about her, that she held that kind of special place in Grandee’s heart. But it would have been nice to have a grandfather carry her home after an adventure.

Everywhere Nola went in her neighborhood, her little world, she wondered if Ethan had been there before her. As she got much older than he was when he died, she began to realize that his world had been rather small, he hadn’t had the chance to expand it the way she did. She was the lucky one, as her mother would often say, who got to do all the things he didn’t get a chance to. Sometimes when she’d whine about something she couldn’t have or wasn’t allowed to do her mother would give her a sad look and say, “You should feel lucky for all the things you do have, all the things you do get to do, your poor brother didn’t get his chance.” It always made Nola feel bad. Whenever she got to do something that she knew Ethan didn’t get the opportunity to experience she felt like she should try extra hard to enjoy it. That way maybe she could make up for what he missed. It was difficult, though, and she never felt like it was enough, never felt like she could enjoy things enough for the two of them.

When grown-ups mentioned Ethan to her mother or father, which they rarely did, but if they did, they would always say what a blessing Nola must be to them. Her parents smiled automatically and said the same thing every time, yes, thank God for Nola, they didn’t know what they would do without her. But Nola didn’t feel like a blessing. She wished she did, she wished she could be a comfort, a gentle reminder that Ethan had been here on earth.

Nola had already lived longer than her brother, she’d surpassed him, she was in a new territory beyond his knowing, his touch. Darlington had been Ethan’s home just like it was the home of the farmer’s children who lived in her house, yet those children would hardly recognize their home now, the woods in what was once their level, cleared field would seem as foreign to them as another planet. Would it be that way for Ethan, too, if he could come back to life? Someday the Sycamore Cave might finally fall down completely and rot into the earth, leaving no trace of the children who once climbed its lofty heights. The rock wall could crumble and the stones laid with care would disappear beneath the leafy mulch of the forest floor. That felt unforgivable to Nola. Time was something unsafe and not to be trusted.

The above is an expanded version of a post previously appearing on this blog as "The Sycamore Cave" . I wanted to create an excerpt to show people who ask about my work, to have something on hand that exemplifies the general tone of the novel without it being a dramatically crucial or pivotal scene -- just a basic sample, if you will.

Too late

2009-11-05T15:06:00.000-08:00

“Are you kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me? Her, you chose to cheat on me with her…the woman you swore up and down all these years you had no feelings for. I knew it! I just knew you were lying! Oh my god, I’m such a fool, I’m such a stupid fool. Look at you, standing there with your head hung like some guilty dog that shit on the rug. Jesus Christ, you come here to our home…what was once our home together and you tell me this now. How could you tell me this now?” Kate gripped the edge of the kitchen counter with both hands and spoke through gritted teeth, as if Graham didn’t deserve the intimacy of her open mouth forming the words.

He hadn’t realized it till she said it, but he did have his head hung…and he wasn’t trying to fight back or defend himself either. Graham didn’t even venture an attempt at making any of the points he had intended to make while he mentally rehearsed this conversation on the drive here. Points like, Kate left the marriage long before he cheated…that this never would have happened if she’d tried to be even half the wife he thought she would be back when they got married. Or other points like the fact that Kate always misunderstood him but Sara got it, she got him. Sara knew practically everything about him…understood the deeper meaning behind his cowboy fascinations, related to the way he was raised, and even saw the unspoken love he still carried deep in his heart for his dead son. Sara seemed to understand it all. Not that she accepted him as is, no, in fact she called him on every single thing that was ever his own damn fault…wouldn’t dream of backing down and sure wasn’t afraid of his anger.

Maybe that was it? Sara could take his anger, she was strong enough not to be consumed by it, not to let it destroy her. And somehow that defused it, somehow Sara’s indifference to his anger made it superfluous and it fizzled out before it could grow to destructive levels. Kate was always so easily crippled by his rage that it only fueled it. Why was that, why would her weakness add to his fury?

A sudden sting hit his face unexpectedly as his neck snapped back from the blunt force. Kate had slapped him, and hard. He’d been so lost in his thoughts that he had stopped listening, tuned out her self-righteous rant and was caught totally off guard.

“You son of a fucking bitch, you’re not even listening to me!” Kate’s voice grew shrill; she could break glass if it got any higher pitched.

“I’m sorry…I was just thinking…”

“What, about her? You bastard. You can’t even manage to keep your mind off that bitch long enough to confess to me that you screwed her!”

Graham drew in a measured breath, “No, I was thinking that I wish things were different, I wish I was different with you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, huh? I suppose you’re different with her, right? Of course, Sara brings out the best in you, she’s magic,” and with that Kate gulped, as if she’d used all the air in her lungs up before she could finish the sentence. But something else had been triggered. She sputtered and began to both laugh and sob at the same time in some knee-jerk reflex reaction that was clearly beyond her control. She sounded like some heaving lunatic.

“Get out,” she spat out between the staccato rhythms of her unnatural, gasping laughter, “Get the hell out of my house and don’t you ever come back here, I swear Graham, I’ll shoot you dead in your tracks with one of your own stupid cowboy pistols!”

Graham stood there frozen. He’d never seen Kate like this, never heard her speak this way or act like this. He started to say something, but thought better of it and only whispered, “I’m sorry Kate,” as he turned to go. He could still hear her unnatural sputtering and choking laughter as he walked down the front path towards his car in the street.

He sat there a moment before turning the key in the ignition. He thought about going back in. But it was late and he’d be hitting rush hour traffic as it was. Besides, what more could either of them say? It would only give Kate more opportunity to rip him to shreds, or worse yet, devolve into a screaming match neither of them needed. He turned the key and pulled away from the house heading out towards the highway for the long drive.

This was not how Graham had intended this whole thing to go, not even close. It was, however, pretty close to how Sara said it should go, damn her – why was she always right about everything? Sara had told him that he needed to take whatever Kate dished out, that they both deserved it. If Kate were stronger, if she were not battling the damn cancer then maybe things would be different. But she was dealing with cancer and the minute Graham took one look at her he knew that Sara had been right. This was the mother of his children, he couldn’t lay any blame, deserved or not, on her doorstep, not now. Cancer trumps a lousy marriage. Cancer pretty much trumps anything.

And despite her energetic rage Kate looked weakened, to see her like this was shocking. It killed him to think of all she had endured. She was so thin, so pale. There was something almost translucent about her face. Was this normal? Would she recover and regain her strength…her looks?

He couldn’t help but think back to the first time he saw her. Kate had been the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen…and best of all, she had no idea just how pretty she was. There wasn’t a stuck up bone in her body. He hated stuck up women, women who acted like they didn’t know the effect they were having on a guy but so obviously did. There wasn’t a single bit of artifice in Kate’s entire psyche. Yet Kate was almost always the best looking woman in any room she was in. How was it possible she wasn’t aware of that? Graham had never really wondered that before…he’d always just been pleased at her lack of conceit. But now that he thought about it, how could she not have known how beautiful she really was…still is, even now, even breast-less and bald. Though diminished, there was something still lovely there, still striking.

But he knew better than to go down that road. He’d spent enough time longing for a woman he now realized he’d never really known. To feel sorry for her was one thing, but to even think of opening that door would be catastrophic. Besides, he’d already burned that bridge way beyond any repair.

And then another thought struck him almost harder than Kate’s slap in the face. The realization made him squirm uncomfortably in his seat and grip the steering wheel tighter. Holy shit, was that why he’d done it? What if Sara and he weren’t two lost souls reuniting after all? All those years with Kate he never strayed…not after Ethan, not when she got fat, not ever. He’d wanted to leave but just couldn’t do it. That’s not what you did. You didn’t leave your wife after the death of your child. You didn’t leave your wife just because she was lazy or distant. But he’d wanted to…he didn’t realize just how much until that night with Sara. What if that was his way of finally shutting the door on Kate permanently, of escalating the punishment by severing all possible strings that bound them together? What if he cheated because he just didn't have the guts to walk out the door?

Shit, that’s too much psychobabble to wade thru, he thought, laughing to himself. There you go, Sara’s influence yet again, always making him think too much. Damn, either way, whatever this was, that woman got under his skin and into his head way too easy. Maybe that’s what love really was. What the hell did he know anyway?

Graham was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t see the other car swerving into his lane until it was too late.

Waking up

2009-07-26T08:18:00.000-07:00

I want Nola.

Those words rang in Kate’s head over and over again, like a chant echoing as she struggled to come to awareness. But it took her a moment to really listen to her own thoughts.

Nola. She wanted Nola. She didn’t want Nola to do anything for her, to get her something or be somewhere. She didn’t want to see Nola to make sure she was all right in that automatic way a mother checks on her children without thinking. She wanted to be with Nola. She wanted nothing more at this very moment than simply to be with Nola.

And then it struck Kate hard that this was the first time she felt that way in longer than she could remember. The pain of that realization was nearly as deep as any pain she was feeling from having her body cut apart. Morphine could not dull the stab of realization that she had gone so long without just wanting to be with her own daughter. At this moment it seemed so simple, such a sweet, natural feeling. There was something eternally recognizable about it, but more than that. There was also something specifically familiar about feeling it in a hospital bed, like this; some sort of déjà vu. But she couldn’t quite place it, couldn’t hold fast to the familiarity before it slipped through her wavering consciousness.

Kate struggled to open her eyes. The surgery was over, they’d removed something, but was it both her breasts, one…just the lumps? She tried to move her head but her neck throbbed and her shoulders seemed immobile. Something was in her left hand, a button, yes, to call the nurse. Kate pushed it but heard nothing. She clicked it several times. Then she remembered something about self-administered pain medicine. But it was too late…her mind was drifting back into that other world.

Over the next 24 hours or so Kate drifted in and out of consciousness and her pain waxed and waned. But like one long continuous dream each time she came the closest to being awake before pumping the morphine back into her veins it was Nola that sprang to her mind. Nola as a baby, Nola the last time she saw her, the door glass breaking, her hiding spot in the butler’s pantry, bedtime stories, morning breakfasts. The visions were not linear, not in order; it was like a flowing spiral of sporadic imagery all of Nola swirling throughout the years of her life.

By the next day the images had become fully fleshed out memories and they’d fallen into order. They began with the morning when Nola was born, six weeks too soon, taken by cesarean when Kate’s blood pressure had risen dangerously high. Graham was out of town and trying to get a plane back from Montana…or was it Wyoming? They’d whisked Nola away before Kate could even see her and then something had gone wrong, too much blood lost. She remembered nothing until she woke up a day later. Deirdre, dear old Grandee, was beside her holding Nola, singing softly to them both.

Kate’s first thought at that moment wasn’t about if her baby was okay. It wasn’t even about whether she herself would be alright. It had been that she wished Deirdre would just take Nola, just take her right then and keep her forever…what a horrible thing for a mother to feel upon seeing her child for the first time! What kind of mother was I? How could I have felt that way? But she couldn’t help it, she tried to push the feelings away, tried to conjure up the way she thought she should be feeling, the way she felt with Ethan, but it seemed as if the control of her every thought was completely beyond her.

Deirdre had seemed to understand, told her that sometimes mothers don’t always take to their babies right away, especially when the birth had been traumatic. Just nurse her, hold her, just go do all the things she had done with Ethan and the love would come. Grandee had promised.

But had it? Had she ever let herself love Nola the same as Ethan? Or had she only gone through the motions? With Ethan it had been easy, her heart had swelled the minute he began to grow inside her. Once Ethan was born and they put him in her arms Kate felt that overflowing of emotions, almost a physical gush of heat in her heart that overtook her. She couldn’t get enough of him. All she wanted was to be with him.

That was what she felt now, that was the vaguely similar feeling!

Here she was in a hospital, that place where mother meets child for the first time, where that magical connection finally takes physical form after being merely subjective for nine long months. Now, here in this hospital bed over ten years later she felt that longing, that same warmth for Nola that a new mother might feel, or something strangely parallel to it at least. That was the familiar sensation she couldn’t quite place! She felt love for Nola open up in her that she’d closed off, walled in. She wanted to be with Nola…just to be with her would be enough. How long had she divided herself from these feelings? Worse, oh God, so much worse…how long had she robbed Nola of them, cut her off?

Nola wasn’t a baby anymore. But it wasn’t too late. It couldn’t be too late. She was still here. Nola was still here. There was time. There had to be. Why would she be given these feelings, these thoughts if there was nothing to be done? Or was this what hell was...you realized all the mistakes you made, all your failures, when it was already too late? No. No, this couldn't be too late. Not yet.

It wasn’t until a nurse came in with a tray and tried to get her to sit up and take some clear liquids between gulping sobs that Kate realized two more things. No one from her family was there, and she definitely didn’t have her breasts. Both realizations where beyond excruciating. But unfortunately neither was surprising.

Knocked flat

2009-07-19T18:55:00.000-07:00

“Sarah will be coming to town next week, do you want to have her over or should we go out?”

Kate barely looked up at Graham from her book, “Isn’t there a third choice, like neither?”

“Fine, I’ll just take her out to dinner myself, you do what you want.” And with that Graham slammed the side door and headed out to the garage.

Sarah was Graham’s first wife, a poet and novelist in her own right. She was critically acclaimed, though truth be told, little read by any one other than the literary elite. Once, she and Graham had shared not only a life, but also a perspective on the art and craft of writing. Or at least Graham had tried to share her singular and high-minded perspective, for a while.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t match Sarah intellectually so much as it finally boiled down to the amount of energy he was willing to spend on writing his heart out only to have it go nowhere and be read by merely a select few. What was the point of that? To Graham, the audience was as much a part of the process as the solitary time spent writing. It was the end result, the storytelling that mattered. That’s really what it came down to; he was, in actuality, a storyteller, not a writer. Once he accepted, embraced that, his career began to click. His marriage to Sarah fizzled out soon after.

But they’d shared eight years together and the split was amicable, no children, no house, no book royalties, yet, for either of them to squabble over back then. Sarah’s success in the interim years was in a different vein from Grahams, but apparently she seemed to feel equally satisfied, sufficiently proud of what she had achieved, as far as Graham could tell anyway. There was no feeling of competition between them, no awkward pretense, at least about their work. Besides, Sarah was family as far as he was concerned. He just wished Kate could see it that way.

Whenever she came to New York Graham and Sarah would get together. Otherwise she lived in Ireland, where, she said, “the line between poetry and prose was as thin a veil as that what hung between life and death, love and hate.” Sarah was always saying mystical things like that. Or maybe they just sounded mystical with that faint, albeit off kilter, Irish brogue she spoke with. This was more than keenly amusing to Graham since in reality Sarah was a nice Jewish girl originally from Brighton Beach…complete with her own distinct accent as he fondly remembered. Yet he didn’t find her new lilt disingenuous. Sarah wasn’t so much an imposter as she was…adaptable, like a chameleon.

This visit Sarah was going to be speaking at some symposium at Rutgers University, their alma mater, so rather than meet in the city they agreed to dine in New Brunswick. There was a little tavern that both knew well, still in business these many decades later. It was small and cramped but the pub food was good and it tended to be quiet on a weeknight.

Kate and Sarah had a love/hate relationship throughout the years, right now it was on the flip side -- Kate thought Sara had become a pretentious snob. To some degree she was right, but there was a charming undercurrent of self-awareness beneath it all, hidden in all the outward affectation, if you just knew where to look for it. Sarah could laugh at herself, she knew when she wasn’t fooling anyone and could take a joke, especially from Graham, a fact that was probably not lost on Kate, he could tell. She was a bit confrontational, a bit in your face, but one always knew where they stood with Sarah.

And Sarah was genuinely serious about her work; that deserved some respect. She took pride in the critics’ opinions that she held in esteem and seemed to easily dismiss the rest as hacks. Graham would sometimes read her latest piece, if she sent it to him, and she clearly made no compromises, she still wrote from the heart as she had when they were young idealists. On some level Graham admired her willingness to still take risks. But he also dismissed that at this age as a frivolous choice with consequences beyond the written word. He was firmly entrenched in a different kind of reality, so flights of fancy really didn’t impress him all that much. To him, Sarah the author was different, strange, maybe a little flaky or even, conversely, militant. But Sarah his ex wife, his longtime friend, that was who mattered. It was loyalty not camaraderie that held them together.

When he walked in to the tavern he only briefly scanned the room, no doubt Sarah would be late. To his surprise she was waiting for him at the bar. No matter how much her appearance changed through the years there was something the same about her, distinctly Sarah-like. They greeted each other warmly, she offered first one than the other cheek for Graham to kiss. He laughed and said with a teasing tone, “Oh I forgot, we are European now, aren’t we?”

“Now, now, don’t start Graham cracker, don’t start,” but Sarah was smiling brightly, looking pleased but yet a little wary. “I’ve come out to this dive joint just to see you, so don’t start in on me.”

“How dare you call our old home away from home a dive joint, I’m crushed.”

“Yes, I see that. How are you Graham, you look well, are you well?”

“I’m fine, good, great, how are you Sarah, you look real good.”

“Good, just good?”

“Radiant, lovely, ravishing, bewitching, should I go on?”

“No, I’ll take ravishing and bewitching and leave the rest, best not to push my luck with you. How’s Kate, she’s not joining us?”

“She’s good, fine, no, she had some things to take care of and then there’s Nola…”

“Ah, my very next question, how is that lovely little pixie child of yours? Honestly Graham, in that photo with the Christmas card you sent she looked so delicate and positively fairy like. She really is an astonishing looking creature, Graham. You know that right? You tell her that all the time, right?”

“Nola is great, she’s doing well at school, they’ve skipped her two grades in fact.”

“Two? Wow, that’s a lot. Two grades? Well of course she must be a genius.”

“Yeah, she’s, uh, smart, you know. We’re happy with how she’s doing right now.”

“Right now? As opposed to…?”

“No, nothing, I just mean we’re happy with the grade skipping and how it’s working out.”

“I see.”

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just that…”

“What? Say it. You know you’re going to before the night is over, just say it now while we’re both still sober and being nice,” Graham forced a laugh and tried to make a joke, but he suspected what was coming next. There was one subject that had grown more and more divisive between them over the last two years, and that was the subject of his daughter. Sarah had developed a bit of an obsession when it came to Nola, in his opinion, ever since she was at the house a few Christmases ago and Graham had to discipline the child for her behavior. Sarah had sided with Kate that Graham was too harsh and it had turned into a huge fight, the day ruined. This was only the second time he saw Sarah since then, and now it looked like it was going down hill almost as fast as the last time.

“You know what I think, and I just can’t let it go. I always see such a huge difference between how you are about Nola compared to…”

Graham could feel his chest tighten. See, this was the thing about Sarah…once she saw where you were vulnerable, where she could push your buttons, she was like a dog with a bone. She worked at you and worked at you. He knew now what this visit was about, what was coming. It figures, he thought. I should have skipped the long drive and just let her do this over the phone.

“Ok, look, last time you were here you were all over this. It’s like a year later and you’re picking up this conversation right where you left off. What, was this some kind of ambush? Can’t we just be two friends having a drink and catching up, why do you have to go there? What is going on, why do you care so Goddamn much about all this?”

“Why do I…? Honestly Graham, you don’t think I have a right to care about you and your life, about your little family. I was there, I was there when he…I saw how ripped apart you were. I held your hand and was your shoulder while poor Kate was in a grief stricken haze. Geez, I mourned that kid as if he were…”

“Well he wasn’t,” Graham snapped, wounded that this is where the night was going but unable to stop it now. “He wasn’t and Nola isn’t either. This is my family. You didn’t want a family, you wanted poetry and Irish castles and I wanted cowboys and a nice cozy teaching position in the cheesy suburbs.”

“This isn’t about what you wanted, or what I wanted,” Sarah’s eyes grew narrow and harsh, “This isn’t even about you, you stupid son of a bitch. I see you and your whole family going down the tubes and I…”

“You see? You see? You don’t see nothin’. What do you see? You phone me once in a blue moon, write cards, maybe see my face a few times a year and then you’re gone. You don’t know me. You knew me.”

Sarah’s eyes flashed darkly, so dark there was no division between pupil and iris…so black they shined in the dim light of the tavern. “No Graham. I thought I knew you. But clearly I was mistaken.” She stood up suddenly, looking down on him, staring him in the eye as intensely as he’d ever been stared down before. “Fuck you,” she said quietly, like it was a realization rather than a curse. “Fuck you, Graham Collins, you stupid blind jerk.”

He met her gaze, trying not to be rattled by her confrontation, standing his ground with all the coldness he could muster, “Right back at you,” was all he could think to say. Not clever, but it was more his demeanor that sent the message he intended…that she couldn’t get to him. No one could.

With that, Sarah grabbed her purse and stormed out of the tavern. Graham thought for a moment about following her. But he didn’t seem to be able to move. He was numb. He realized at that moment that he didn’t care at all that his oldest friend, one of the people who had stood by him for half his life, had just stormed out of the bar and probably out of his life for the rest of his existence. Graham didn’t care because to go that deep, to that part of him where caring lived, was impossible. That part of him, that place in the center of his being that cared about friends and truth and facing things had died a long time ago, gone with Ethan.

Only he just realized it now, a decade later, sitting alone in a bar in New Brunswick. He realized it too late to change it, even if he wanted to. And he didn’t really want to any more anyway.

Graham left the tavern and slowly started down Eastern Ave the opposite way from where he’d parked until he realized what he was doing. Crap, it was like being on autopilot. Graham had mechanically headed towards where he and Sarah had lived all those years ago. He shook his head, laughing at himself. As he turned around to head the other way he walked smack into someone, knocking them to the ground. “Oh God, I’m so sorry, are you alright?” Graham exclaimed, quickly bending to offer a hand to help the woman up.

“Christ, if I’d known this is what I’d have to do to get an apology out of you I would have worn some protective padding.”

It was then Graham realized the woman he’d knocked flat was Sarah.

the doll cemetary

2009-07-12T12:38:00.000-07:00

On Sundays Grandee used to come, making the drive all the way out from the city. Each and every Sunday it was practically the same, she would arrive and have lunch with Nola and her parents and then right afterwards she would take Nola to the cemetery. Nola’s parents never went with them, not once. As soon as everyone had finished eating Kate would make herself busy clearing the table and doing the dishes while Graham muttered something about having a few things to take care of and headed off to his study. Grandee would sit at the table and announce loudly that she was heading off to the cemetery and taking Nola with her if anyone else was interested in coming. But no one ever was.

Grandee said over and over again that it was important someone from the family look after things at Ethan’s grave. She would often say to Nola, “Promise me that when I’m gone, when I’m there with your grandfather and our sweet Ethan, promise me Nola that you will come here and take care of us, will you do that for your old Grandee?” Nola always vowed she would, and Grandee would pronounce her a good girl.

The cemetery was barely half a mile from the house, on Ramsey Road, the same main road their little street was off of. It was a small graveyard, not much more than four acres. Once there had been a church next to it, and if you went into the woods at the back of the property beyond the last row of headstones you could see the old stone foundation, the granite slab steps leading to nothing more now than a patch of scrub oaks and young birch saplings surrounded by the stacked stones that once supported the church floor. “It must have been a small congregation,” Nola’s grandmother would often muse. “Not like the great cathedrals of Manhattan.”

During nice weather Nola and her grandmother would walk to the graveyard pulling an old Radio Flyer wagon full of gardening supplies and the flowers that Grandee always brought with her, week after week. On a few especially nice days when the weather was just right they’d even skip lunch with Kate and Graham and pack sandwiches instead, eating them picnic style on the grass beside Ethan’s grave while Grandee would talk to him like he could hear her. She’d tell him all about some cookies she’d baked that were his favorite, or about some boys she’d seen playing games in the park that were about his age and how she knows they would have been, “great friends.” Often Grandee would tell Ethan about Nola, about her accomplishments at school or how pretty she looked. She would try and get Nola to talk to him too, but Nola would find herself strangely tongue-tied there in front of her grandmother. Grandee would always say, “no matter, your sister’s just shy, but she loves you dearly, know that sweet Ethan.”

On holidays Grandee would bring special things to leave there, like a heart balloon for Valentine’s Day, flags for Fourth of July, a bunny statue for Easter, or a colorful paper turkey for Thanksgiving. On Christmas Grandee paid the cemetery staff to put a blanket of evergreens over Ethan’s grave. Even in the dead of winter she and Nola would make the trip to the cemetery, only they’d just go by car instead. If it was especially bitter or snowing out Grandee would make Nola stay in the car with the heat on. Nola would watch her grandmother through the foggy windshield as she dusted the snow off the headstone, bowing her head and quickly making the sign of the cross, that’s what she called it. Then Grandee would stand there a few moments, perfectly still, head bowed, eyes closed, lips moving. Nola asked her once what she was talking about to Ethan when she did that and Grandee answered snippily, “I’m not talking to your brother, child, I’m praying, which you’d know how to do if that mother of yours ever sent you to Sunday School.”

Nola’s parents didn’t believe in God. Her father said he went to confession and mass every week until he was seventeen. Then his father, Granda, Grandee’s husband, said it was up to him. He never set foot in a church again. When Ethan was born Grandee told Nola that she begged her parents to have him baptized but “sadly they’d have none of it.”

But when Ethan died, when he was in the hospital before they turned off the machines, Grandee said she brought in a priest to give the last rites; that’s what they do if you are going to die so you can get into heaven, she’d told Nola. Grandee said, “So now sweet Ethan is our angel, he’s with his heavenly father and the Holy Mother will take care of him until it’s our time to join him, God willing.” Nola had asked her once what would make God unwilling, but for some reason Grandee got mad and told her, “that’s a question you should ask your heathen father, that is.”

Even when Grandee was mad, though, Nola liked the way she talked. In fact sometimes she even sounded better when she was flustered or angry. Grandee had what her mother called an Irish brogue, an musical accent from when she was raised in Ireland. The lilt of her phrasing made everything sound magical and believable, you would accept anything she said as inscrutable truth. When Nola was with Grandee she almost could believe there was a God and that Ethan was with Him, looking down on them all.

At Christmas time once a year Grandee was allowed to take Nola to the local Catholic church for a special service. They had a life-size creche set up in front of the chapel and everyone would stop and look at the figures before going inside. Nola could imagine that the baby Jesus was Ethan, being watched over by Mary and Joseph. She told her grandmother that once and it made her cry. Nola never knew when something she said about Ethan was going to make someone cry or smile, it was very hard to predict.

When she was very little and still played with dolls Nola would pretend that different ones were Ethan and that she was his mommy. Then he would get very sick or fall off of something really high up, and he'd die. Nola would pretend to cry and be very sad, sometimes she did it so well that she shed real tears and everything. After that she would carefully put the dead doll in a box and place little toys and trinkets all around it and slide it reverently under her bed. She would never take it out after that because once you were dead that was it, you couldn’t play anymore, you were stuck in the ground and couldn’t come out ever again, forever and ever.

Once when her mother found several of the dolls all boxed up in their pretend coffins, Nola had to tell her why they were all there under the bed and not in her doll basket. She thought Kate might get mad or cry...or perhaps even smile, it was one of those times she couldn't tell what reaction she was going to get. But Kate didn't do any of that. Instead she just closed her eyes real tight, scrunched up tight like she didn't want to see anything around her, not the dolls, Nola, not anything. Then she left the room with out a word. Nola’s mother never looked under the bed again after that, and she never gave her any more dolls, either. But that was okay, there wasn't that much more room under the bed anyway.

a phone call

2009-07-05T14:45:00.001-07:00

“Graham, I…we need to talk.”

Kate held the phone in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. She paced her kitchen floor back and forth, feeling the smooth, warm wood against her bare feet. She was nervous about this conversation and how it would go. She’d barely spoken to Graham in the year since the separation, and now she needed him more than she ever had in her entire life. It figured.

When she found out he cheated on her everything happened quickly. In a white-hot haze she was made bold by the injustice and lashed out, struck back. She told him to leave, no fight, no dramatic scene, just get out. She even threatened to call the police if he weren’t gone by that evening. Her bravery was fueled by his acquiescence; he complied with her demands entirely. But she knew he would, knew he’d rather die than have anyone find out what went on behind closed doors. Valuing privacy was his Achilles heel.

After the shock wore off she realized his infidelity was the greatest gift of her life. She was not only glad he’d done it, she was relieved. It finally gave her permission to do what she should have done years ago, end the marriage. She'd repeatedly planned their demise year in and year out but never managed to gather up the guts to follow it through. Now he not only provided her with the motivation, but with impeccable justification…she couldn’t second-guess herself this time and no one would ever fault her. For once in his perfect life Graham Collins had been unequivocally wrong, and Kate could play that card to the hilt for all it was worth. It felt good to be in the right. Liberating. Satisfying.

During the first few monthgs he begged to come home, begged forgiveness, but she would hear none of it. He’d call and she would hang up, he’d leave notes and she’d rip them to shreds. He tried to speak to her through Nola but she silenced the girl. All those times she refused to talk to him other than to exchange the most basic information through Nola, “Tell your father this bill needs to be paid,” or “Tell Daddy there’s mail to be picked up,” nothing beyond that, nothing beyond the incidentals.

She’d even declined to let him in the house on more than one occasion. The place had been deteriorating as fast as their marriage towards the end, but now that he was gone the rapid decline was startling, even to her. She didn't want him to see, didn't want him to think she couldn't handle things without him. So Kate changed the locks and would simply refuse to answer the door when she saw his car. Who cared about a stupid mess anyway? She was done. She was free.

But now she had cancer and her bravery seemed to be as savagely stripped away as her body would soon be maimed.

Immediately after her diagnosis all Kate could think to do was numb the terror, not think beyond the minute in front of her. But anxious thoughts wouldn't leave her for long. She was alone. She was scared. Slowly she would pace her house like a caged animal, trapped, unable to find her escape. As she walked from room to room and looked at the filth her panic grew. The conditions were nothing short of disgusting. This was the home Graham had loved and bought for her, the home they’d shared together with Nola and where Ethan had lived his short, precious life with them. How could she have let it go this far? It only proved she needed help, this was too big a mess to clean up by herself. She knew what she had to do. It was time to dig out.

This house, her entire life was practically trashed, let go way beyond her ability to put it back into any semblance of order, especially now with all that was coming at her. She was going to be sick, ill beyond her imagination; she might even die. Graham was now her only hope, her best plan. Putting the marriage back together was the only thing that was, perhaps, within her control. So, she would allow him to come back. Allow, what a joke! Kate needed him to come back, to the house, to her, and most importantly to Nola. She needed to create order out of the swirling turmoil and if nothing else Graham could do that; he was very good at order.

But Graham’s voice on the other end of the phone was terse, “What do you want, I don’t have much time.”

Kate knew that was a lie, she still knew his rigid schedule by heart. “Graham, there’s no easy way to do this, so I’m just going to start, okay? But I want, I need, you’ve got to hear me out and just listen and not say anything. If you say the wrong thing I think I’ll break right now and I can’t…”

“Kate, would you just tell me what the hell this is about?”

“Okay, see, that’s what I mean, you aren’t being very…supportive.”

Graham let out a slow, annoyed breath, “I’m listening, just tell me.”

“I have breast cancer.”

Kate waited, wondering what his face looked like, wondering if it sunk in immediately or if this was going to take a while. She remembered the accident with Ethan, the episode with Nola and that awful boy, when his mother died, all the terrifying events that changed their lives together. Each of those times she’d been with him, right there with him, yet now she couldn’t remember his first reaction in any of those moments, she could only recall her own.

“How do you know? Did you have…?”

“All the tests, yes, it’s for certain, no doubt.”

“When did you find this out, how long…”

“Six weeks ago.”

“Six weeks, Christ Kate, why didn’t you tell me sooner!”

“Graham, remember I asked you to be supportive. This is about me, not you.”

“Still, that’s a long time…does Nola know?”

Kate knew now that she’d done this wrong, once again she hadn’t handled something the right way. Damn, he was her father, she should have told him before Nola! They should have told her together. She tapped her fingers nervously on the side of her wine glass, “Yes, she does, she lives here, it was hard to hide it from her,” she offered.

“I would live there too if you hadn’t asked me to leave.”

Clearly, this was not going to go smoothly, Kate thought. “Graham, you know damn well why you don’t live here anymore. And besides, that’s not the point. Look, I don’t have time to worry about your feelings, okay? Geez, Graham, seriously. I’m probably dying here, don’t you get that?”

“You’re not dying, Kate, I know it’s bad but it’s not necessarily a death sentence, Joe Donovan’s wife had…”

“I am not Karen Donovan. I am me and this is bad. Considering the way my life has gone thus far I’m not thinking the odds are in my favor. Okay, can we move on now?”

“What are you doing about this, I mean, what kind of treatment, who is your doctor?”

“Graham, I can tell you all of that, and I will. But right now I want to talk about Nola. She’s, she’s not handling this well at all, today she—“

“Can you blame her? Kate, I, I know you want to talk about Nola, and we will. I promise. But Kate, I need some time, some time to digest this, some time to get this straight in my head and figure things out.”

“Time? Graham, I don’t exactly have oodles of time on my hands right now. What do you mean you need time?” She could feel the shrillness of desperation creeping back into her voice, that voice that she just realized went away when Graham left.

“Kate, I just…let me call you back, okay?”

“Call me back, are you kidding me?”

“Kate, please, just, I’m hanging up now, I’ll call you back later, I promise.”

“Graham, don’t…” but she heard the click before she could finish. This wasn’t the response she expected. She stood looking at the phone receiver with disbelief, as if somehow the telephone itself was to blame. Kate wasn’t exactly sure how to feel. She understood not being able to process this all at once, but to essentially hang up on her after she told him she was probably dying of cancer was not even in the sphere of possibilities that she had considered!

Dying. Oh that word, it did still sound melodramatic even to her. Yet whenever she said she might be dying the ring of truth that phrase held resonated more and more with her as the days flew past.

When they’d told her it was Stage II she didn’t know exactly what that meant. She vaguely understood it had something to do with the size of the cancer itself, the tumor or lump or whatever it was you called that thing found growing in her like a ticking time bomb.

During those first days of doctor visits and a battery of endless tests she mentally agonized over what she thought were going to be her decisions, the treatment choices and options she expected to have. What a fool she was, a hopeful naïve little fool. Because once she fully understood her diagnosis the decisions were actually few and simple -- there were really none to make beyond hospital location and which doctor she thought was the nicest. Every single one of them, one by one, every doctor wanted to do the same thing. There was no difference in opinion, no glimmer of a reprieve. Bilateral mastectomy, both breasts are to go, simple as that.

As the truth sunk in she felt brutalized, under attack like the victim of an evil assailant about to hack her to pieces in some second rate horror movie. She couldn't face it. Maybe if she saw another doctor, went to another hospital? She wanted to find someone, anyone to give her another choice, something else beyond the violence of amputation.

But sooner than she could have ever imagined she gave up. It was surprising to her how easy it was after only six weeks to think of letting them go, her beautiful breasts, her lovely body, to be mutilated beyond recognition. But they weren’t hers anymore; these breasts belonged to cancer, to a villain that was trying to murder her with them like weapons of torture. Let cancer have them, they were toxic now anyway, damaged goods. Maybe her whole life was damaged goods, seeping poison that created the cancer in the first place. But she couldn’t go there. She needed to get things in order.

The doctor insisted the operation would be nothing; no more painful than a cesarean section is what she was told; tho not nearly as rewarding of course. It was the treatment after that scared her most. Being sick and alone was terrifying, unthinkable. Who would ever want a mutilated invalid? She would be alone for the rest of her life, however long that was to be. Alone except for Nola, of course.

Nola had been a trouper, at first. Taking care of so many things, not telling Graham a word about it. It wasn’t hard to keep it from him, eventually after the flurry of reconciliation attempts he’d stopped coming around or calling as much. It seemed he’d given up on both of them after only a few months. Strange how he’d suddenly just let go so easily, Kate had thought, surprised. Sure, he’d tried for a while to convince her to let him make it up to her, to take him back. Promised her everything and more. He even tried taking Nola out on Saturdays for the first few months like a typical weekend-Dad…but Kate threw it in his face, told him she knew it was just for show, just to prove something to her, to try and make himself look like the dutiful father she’d always hoped he’d be. After that he stopped calling, stopped everything.

Now she prayed with all her heart that those accusations were unfounded. She hoped with all her heart she’d been wrong, and that he really was capable of change, of loving Nola enough for the both of them, enough to make up for the years they were too wrapped up in themselves to put her first. Enough to make up for the fact that her mother now had cancer.

She always told Nola that her father loved her. She’d make excuses for his tyrannical behavior and say he just didn’t know how to show it, didn’t know how to express him self. Imagine that, a writer that can’t express him self, wasn’t that ironic. Who was she kidding? This was a man who wrote books with beautiful passages about quiet cowboys awkwardly professing true love, yet couldn’t manage to do so to his own wife or daughter. Jesus Christ, now he couldn’t even manage a telephone conversation with his dying wife.

Kate’s attention was snapped back to her surroundings; there was a knock at the back door.

It was Graham.

growing up

2009-06-27T09:51:00.000-07:00

(not a full 1000 words, but Nola needed to be here)

When Nola stepped out of the bathroom and walked thru the hallway towards her room she noticed Ethan’s bedroom door was open. Kate was sitting on the floor against his little bed, her shoulders bouncing up and down with silent heaving sobs. She was holding something in her hands…what was it? Was it Ethan’s stuffed dog, that little one he loved so much? Nola had often seen her mother asleep in Ethan’s bed clutching the tattered dog like a child, her tearstained face evidence of another long night of endless mourning.

But this time Kate wasn’t holding one of Ethan’s toys. Instead she was staring at Nola’s blood stained underpants. Nola approached slowly, not wanting to startle her…half not wanting to disturb her mother but needing to understand.

“Mom?” Nola said, barely audibly.

Kate didn’t turn her head towards Nola in the doorway but her shoulders stopped rising and falling momentarily. “Yes honey,” she said in a voice that sounded softer than usual.

“Mom, are you…what are you doing?”

“I’m just, thinking.”

“About what?”

“About growing up.”

“Oh,” and then she couldn’t resist, “Me or you?”

Kate laughed a little and said, “Both of us I guess.”

Nola laughed back. Then they were silent again and she wasn’t sure what to do next. Her mother seemed different to her and she didn’t know how to deal with it. She didn’t know if she liked it or if she didn’t. It just seemed strange. A part of her wanted things to go back to how they were, her mom in the distance and not so…so…present. But another part of her sensed, or at least hoped, that maybe somehow this would be better. Maybe things would actually get better.

Nola walked into the room and sat down next to Kate, leaning her back against the bed the same way. The two of them just sat there for a while, quiet and comfortable.

crinkled paper

2009-06-14T11:05:00.001-07:00

(Finally, a new excerpt!)

Kate sat on the edge the exam table, trying not to crinkle the paper as she adjusted her position. That sound of body on paper always bothered her, grated on her nerves, but even more so now. It reminded her of the sound of meat being slapped on brown paper at the butcher shop her father ran. That sound was etched in her memory as much as the raw smells, the vision of skinned carcasses hanging from the ceiling and the piles of fat tossed aside while her father sawed the fragmented body parts of animals into palatable sections for someone’s dinner table.

Now, here she sat, waiting to find out if she too would be butchered, if she too were to have the now unpalatable parts of her own body tossed aside, useless, “fit only for the grinder” as her father would say. She shuddered at her own analogy.

The room was cold and cramped, dimly lit. Dominating practically the entire space was an ultrasound machine on a metal stand. Between the exam table where she perched and the machine there was little room left. Everything was functional, cold and sterile, yet in surreal contrast to the rigid technology of the softly humming machine and the hard metal edges of the table there was a large, vibrant print nearly covering what little available wall space there was. Trying to forget the butcher’s knife, she decided to lose herself in the picture.

The depiction was of an Irish cottage and garden, or what she imagined an Irish cottage and garden would look like, all rambling vines and masses of flowers surrounding a whitewashed cottage with a thatched roof. She tried to let her mind drift, to think of what the original artist might have looked like, was this their home, was it a man or a woman? But inevitably all she could think about was Deirdre, dear old Grandee, and how much she wished she were here. Her mounting saddness grew quickly.

How she hated waiting alone like this; it only gave you more of a chance for the mind to wander. No matter how much you tried to keep your self occupied by the inane or the ordinary, deeper thoughts would always manage to prevail, intruding, forcing their way in and leaving you feeling as emotionally exposed as your body was in the ubiquitous ill-fitting hospital gown, like meat on a hook.

The more she tried to maintain her composure, the harder it got until finally the tears came. A feeling of panic and dread rose up in her and tightened every muscle in her chest, closed off her throat so that her sobs came out as choking gulps. She dug her fingernails into her palms, trying to hold back the flood of tears. Nothing had happened yet, no one had told her anything new, no further bad news. If she didn’t regain control of her self the doctor would walk in any minute and find her crying. That thought set her off further and now the tears flowed unrelenting.

She tried to tell herself it didn’t matter, certainly doctors had seen women with breast cancer cry, she wouldn’t be the first. But it did nothing calm her. She feared doctors thinking she was incapable and not telling her what she needed to know, dismissing her as some fragile-minded ninny. She reached into her purse and got out the vial of Valium, then thought better of it. She needed to get a hold of herself without it this time and be completely alert, to have her wits about her. She must understand what was going to be said. This was too important to deaden her senses for.

Mastectomy or lumpectomy. That was what would be decided here in this room. She’d had her exam, her scans, her X-rays. Now this radiologist would do the follow-up ultrasound and finally she would know if she were a candidate for saving her breast.

She’d met a woman named Karen, a teaching assistant at the college, who had a lumpectomy. Now five years later she was healthy and happy, hardly a trace of the scar left. She had willingly, even happily showed it off to Kate in the ladies room. Compared to how Kate’s mother had looked after her own mastectomy, it was as if nothing had happened to this woman, it was a mere footnote in her life story, just a bad memory left in the dust of her past. Kate so wanted to know that this would be a memory for her someday too, not like it was now, some dark phantom stalking her every waking moment. She wanted her cancer to fade out softly like that woman’s scar, a slight shadow the only point of recollection.

Just then the doctor walked in. Kate had managed to compose herself a little after all and being suddenly startled by the doctor’s abrupt entrance further helped shift her focus. “My name is Dr. Ester, Mrs. Collins, how are you today?”

“Fine, well, you know,” Kate managed a weak laugh.

“Yes, well, let’s see what we have here, okay? Can you lie down on the table for me and reach your right arm up over your head. Good, now, I’m going to open your gown…this gel might be a little cold…”

The radiologist took a long time, slowly and methodically running the wand over Kate’s entire breast, centimeter by centimeter, stopping and clicking the computer mouse with his other hand over and over. Sometimes he pushed down hard and Kate winced. This escaped the doctor’s notice completely. Kate’s arm also went numb but she was afraid to move for fear of somehow causing a mistake in the reading. She said nothing, just let the tingling sensation further divert her from feeling anything else.

Finally the doctor said, “I’ll be right back, Mrs. Collins, just a moment please,” and with that he casually draped a towel over Kate’s exposed breasts and quickly left the room.

Now what? Was she allowed to move? She decided she must and carefully moved her arm down from its overhead position, trying not to shift her body any more than necessary.

“Mrs. Collins?”

“Oh, uh, yes,” Kate hadn’t heard the door this time and nearly jumped off the table, the doctor returned more quickly than she thought he would. Standing next to him was an attractive young woman in a white coat. Perhaps a nurse, maybe a woman was supposed to be there during the exam like at the gynecologist? She wasn’t sure there was going to be enough room for all these people.

“Mrs. Collins this is Doctor Neville, I wanted to consult with her on your ultrasound, okay?”

“Okay, sure.” Kate remained laying on her side, her hips oddly twisted, her breast barely covered under the towel and still coated with the gel.

“Did Dr. Placido speak to you, Mrs. Collins?”

“I’m not sure, I mean, I’ve seen him but not since the MRI, why?”

“Well, I spoke to him after sending him the written MRI report and my recommendation was for him to discuss that report with you, are you saying he didn’t do that yet?”

“No, no one has discussed the MRI with me, why?”

“Mrs. Collins, I’m going to call Dr. Placido right now and leave you with Dr. Neville for a bit, okay, I really want to touch base with Dr. Placido before I speak further with you about this, okay?” The radiologist turned and started to whisper instructions to the other doctor as Kate’s mind raced and she felt herself lose the tenuous grip she had on her emotions.

“I want to know what is going on and I want to know right now!”

She heard an unrecognizable voice, strong and deep, nearly shouting. The sound echoed loudly, reverberating in the cramped little space, sucking all the air out of the room. It took her a moment to realize she had spoken the words herself. She was sitting up, breasts fully exposed, crinkled paper torn and sticking to her back. She didn’t care one bit. Not one bit.

meet Graham

2009-05-11T10:44:00.001-07:00

(Not long ago I was exploring the character of Graham, writing some notes, jotting down descriptions & ideas, when towards the end of my writing he surprisingly began to speak in the first person. I got a glimpse of his internal dialog and a better view of his personality. I’m not sure about him being a first person character in the finished product, but I’m leaving it in this extremely rough draft for now because I think it gives insight into what makes him tick and I can use it for reference at the very least. Since it’s been a while that I’ve put something up, I thought I’d share it.)

People either loved or hated Graham Collins’ work. The fans he had were passionate about his books, collected them, read them again and again. There were book groups and fan clubs devoted to his novels. His classes at the college were always full. Freshmen got on a waiting list and hoped they would be able to squeeze in before they graduated.

There were still a few people, even critics, who didn’t realize the “Wicked Creek” series of Western novels were written by a college professor from New Jersey, a man who’d never been west of the Delaware Water Gap until after the first novel was published. Sometimes when they found out they would be angry, feel cheated or stupid. Like sour grapes, critics would often lambaste him and say they could tell his writing was inauthentic, that he was a phony hack. But others, even actual working cowboys, loved him all the more for it. They could tell he was an admirer who painted them in a glorious light and saw his work as a tribute to an ideal that was fading fast in contemporary times. He’d be invited to speak at touristy dude ranches and working cattle ranches alike. His fans crossed a wide demographic and even his harshest critics had to give him credit for his scrupulous research and attention to proper detail. This from a man who didn’t mount a horse until he was 35 years old.

There were women who liked his work too, something else the critics both praised and scoffed at. They often said he was actually a glorified romance novelist wrapped up in a saddle blanket. Most critics with any sort of feminist leanings trashed his female characters as being barely more than a revamped version of the old damsel in distress dressed up in cowboy boots and too much lipstick. But when they made a TV movie out of his second novel in the series, Trouble in Wicked Creek, it did so well in the ratings it was up for an Emmy Award. The movie didn’t win, but he was forever linked with the words, “Emmy nominated”.

None of this ever seemed to faze him outwardly. He took it in stride, never felt pressure to perform, to out do his previous work. That’s probably what kept him successful. That and he’d found his niche. The college asked him to teach additional classes, this time not on writing or fiction, but on Western Expansion, Manifest Destiny and the Gold Rush. Graham easily rose to that challenge.

Fans and colleagues alike all held the same opinion of Graham Collins. He was one of the nicest most genuine guys you’d ever want to meet. A gentleman in the real sense of that word, a gentle man, not larger than life, not self aggrandizing, but mild, friendly and sincere.

That was perhaps the most cutting wound of all to his wife and daughter. They suffered his wrath relentlessly; his exacting standards unmet could produce an anger so hot it seemed ready to erupt into violence at any second. That it never actually did was little consolation. The power his words, his unremitting anger had to wound them was worse than any blow could ever be. He either terrorized or ignored his daughter, belittled his wife and generally created a silent, seething storm of rage that swirled around his family practically at all times.

How could that angry being be reconciled with the persona the world saw? He was not a smooth man, not suave or adept at acting a part, pretending to be something he was not. So how was it that both these characters lived in one person? To Graham these were not incongruent personalities, not a dichotomy at all. His family was worthy of one type of interaction and the general public was deemed worthy of another. It was not devious, not contrived. This was just how he saw things. He saw nothing hypocritical about being kind to the outside world and brutal to his family. The outside world held no sway in his life, no power to disappoint him or hurt him. And he need not share how he felt about his wife and daughter with anyone...you didn’t air your dirty laundry. The fact that his wife and daughter were a constant irritation at best and a colossal disappointment at least, was the cross he bore silently beyond the walls of his home.

If they would just tow the line, if they would just do what they were supposed to do and not screw up everything they touched then he wouldn’t have to get mad. It was their fault; they were the ones playing games. They’d act like they were being victimized when it was really him; he was the victim of their constant fuck ups. How hard was it to keep a house clean? How hard was it to pick up after yourself, to be polite and not intrusive? The outside world appreciated him; they admired him even. They didn’t think his simple requirements were so monumental or unreasonable. But his own wife, she couldn’t seem to meet even the most basic needs a husband might have. And she’d turned his daughter against him too. He saw how she looked at him when he disciplined Nola; she undermined him at every opportunity. And that just made Nola even more of a baby than she already was. Kate just babied that kid; let her get away with murder because she couldn’t be bothered. Kate can’t be bothered to do the simple stuff like keep the kid clean and teach her to behave. She couldn’t keep dogs from destroying the house or knives from ending up in toy boxes and she couldn’t keep track of a two and a half year old for one half hour…that’s all he was late, just 30 goddamn minutes. If she’d just watched him for 30 goddamn minutes…

Kate would never change. No matter how hard he tried to get thru to her she was unwilling to keep up her end of the bargain. Wasn’t that what marriage was? A bargain. A deal. You do this and I’ll do that. Graham had kept his end of the bargain. He’d provided for her and the kids and came home every Goddamn day. He wasn’t out gallivanting, wasn’t out with the boys. He was working at school or working at home. Even when he traveled, even then he never strayed. He was honorable and faithful and he’d made his bed so he lay in it without looking back.

Kate once had looked at him like he knew everything. She’d thought he was smart and funny, distinguished and rugged at the same time. She smiled, God, how she smiled at him all the time. Everything he said to her was witty and charming, she made him feel like the most virile guy in any room.

Now, now she could barely look him in the eye, barely even spoke to him let alone smile. She just looked away with that fake resigned expression, like she was some beleaguered wife that had to bare the brunt of his harsh treatment. Fuck that. Fuck that and fuck her. She was the one that changed, not him. She was the one that didn’t keep her end of the bargain.

clouds

2009-05-02T19:18:00.000-07:00

Kate kept going from room to room; trying to find a place to settle down and rest, to just stop thinking, escape from the terrible new knowledge. Cancer…the new word could not be formed by her own lips, it would hurt to speak it aloud. But even in staying silent there was no escape, one couldn’t leave cancer someplace and shut the door. There would never be escape or peace or numbness again; those days were over. She was trapped, inextricably tangled in this mutation that had taken over her breast, a stranglehold that was going to last forever.

It made her think how much of her life had been about escaping. She’d almost even managed to escape the anguish of her child's death…sometimes she could forget Ethan was really dead by dwelling only on the memories of him, mentally flipping through them like folders in a secret file cabinet, pulling out certain ones when needed.

But that was different now, too. Now she couldn’t even find Ethan, couldn’t find that sweet spot that she went to in her mind’s eye, that place of happy days and precious visions. Cancer seemed to change whatever she was trying to focus on. Somehow it magnified everything, brought more and more to the surface. It was as if every single bad thing that ever happened was suddenly feeding off the cancerous tumors and growing too, growing beyond the boundaries of her ability to stifle it. Nothing worked to keep the dark feelings at bay. There seemed no speck of happiness left to cling to, nothing, not one thing she could conjure up to look forward to or place her hopes upon. “What was the point?” was a phrase that kept coming back into her head over and over.

Of course Nola was the point. Nola needed to be the point here. For crying out loud, what kind of mother was she that her first, second and third thoughts weren’t for her daughter? She knew that’s how she was supposed to feel, what she was supposed to do. But it wasn’t how she felt and she couldn’t do it. There was something broken; a disconnect. Had it always been damaged, or did the cancer eat that away too?

Nola barely acknowledged her existence these days, and who could blame her? She’d hadn’t been there for this child, really. Memories haunted her…were they ever close? It was stunning the thoughts that kept rolling in her mind without stopping. No, wait, yes, they were, maybe, when she was little, younger. Or at least Kate had been going through the motions, was it good enough, did she love her enough?

“Good God, what have I done?” Her own voice echoed through the empty house.

The sudden clarity with which she saw things now was blinding, it was almost as painful as the knowledge that her life was probably over, that she might die soon. It was as if every thing became crystalline, pure thoughts just flew through her brain without cessation or censor, without bidding either. Nothing was within her control anymore. Not one thing. This was all beyond comprehension.

Wandering around and around the house she kept talking to herself just to hear a human sound, to know she was real, this was all happening. The awareness, realizations just kept coming in waves, mistakes she made, ways she could have been better, memories of times she should have been happy. “Why wasn’t I happy more, why didn’t I notice all the things that were there to be happy about?”

Now, now when she saw those very same things that should have made her happy before instead they made her mourn all the more, grieve for the life she had thrown away so far. She had wasted so much time…if only she’d known there was to be so little of it. If only she had known.

“Would I have had Nola?”

If she’d known that she might die would she have had another child after Ethan? She knew the answer. No. But yet she couldn’t bring herself to begrudge the life of her daughter, as disconnected as she felt she couldn’t let herself stay in that thought.

Instead she kept moving, kept doing, kept trying to find a place to land, a place to let go. Eventually she found herself in the bathroom opening the medicine cabinet. Plenty of painkillers. Just to sleep. Just two, maybe three.

The next morning as the sun shown brutally thru the lace curtains Kate wished she had remembered to draw the blinds, wished she could continue to sleep, go back into the depths where she had drifted…far past dreams and awareness of any kind. Sleep was now probably only going to be available to her artificially, she knew that, had suffered from insomnia enough to know that there was no way she could ever just lie down and sleep with the awful knowledge of cancer now looming over her, as if a monster from a childhood nightmare had come to life, no longer just lurking in the forgotten dust under the bed. But sleep was also her only refuge. The night before was a complete blank, she barely remembered falling into bed. There were no thoughts, no more flurry of memories and realizations. Just the empty relief of complete nothingness. She should call the doctor and get a regular prescription for sleeping pills. Surely they give that to people like her? Who has cancer and can sleep on their own?

But no doctors today. She knew there were phone calls, arrangements she needed to make, appointments to schedule, facts to learn, decisions to be made. The thought of it all was completely overwhelming. It was impossible.

“Where do I start?”

The sound of her voice alone in the house was no longer comforting. It was unfamiliar, as if it were someone else’s. It was. It belonged to someone with cancer. She didn’t know that person. She didn’t want to.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow she would face things. For today she wanted nothing more than to sleep again, just a little longer. Thankfully she had plenty painkillers left to last till she got something of her own. Graham was always getting prescriptions for his back and not taking them, he was too tough, said they clouded his mind. That’s exactly what she wanted, to cloud her mind. There were plenty to choose from. For today, she could just use what she had and sleep. She would bury her mind in a thousand clouds until there was nothing but softness to smother all thoughts of cancer.

a friend for Nola

2009-04-29T08:10:00.000-07:00

Nola waited by the old lockers after school, an excited little flutter in her stomach. She had a friend, a real friend. There was someone who thought she was funny, interesting, who liked to hang out with her. Melanie Woodman was her friend. Nola and Melanie…Melanie and Nola. Have you seen Nola? Oh, she’s with her friend Melanie. Nola practically hugged herself as she stood waiting for Melanie to meet her as planned.

That night at the slumber party had been very enlightening. Nola had missed so much of the big picture before that evening that she couldn’t help wonder what else she overlooked, what other social constructs she missed? She would have to be more observant, this was new territory.

Melanie Woodman had seemed to be just like all the other girls, part of the blur, the out of reach social unit that was the eighth grade class. But Nola failed to see that Melanie was almost as much an outsider as she herself was. The only difference between them was that Melanie was rich, and therefore she was useful to the other girls so they acted nicer to her. She had concert tickets, cool clothes, a limo that picked her up from school and would take her anywhere she wanted to go, parents that traveled and didn’t care if she had parties. It seemed maybe the other kids didn’t even like Melanie anymore than they did Nola; they just liked what she provided.

At the beginning of Melanie's party Nola hung back, she stayed around the edges of the room, moving just enough so that no one noticed she didn’t have anyone to talk to. She wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, just trying to make it through the evening without looking like a reject. But eavesdrop she did.

She kept a constant eye on Melanie, thinking at first that since she was the host, the one that invited her, if there was going to be trouble or if a trick was going to be played that she would be the one orchestrating it. Nola wanted to keep track of Melanie to make sure she wasn’t ambushed. She also kept a keen eye on Gwen Van Matre.

Gwen Van Matre had invited Nola to her own birthday party at the beginning of the school year, when Nola was still hopeful that skipping ahead put her in a class with kids that wouldn’t pick on her, where she’d be able to fit in better. The party was to consist of a horseback ride and picnic by a lake in a nearby state park. There were fifteen girls, so since the Van Matres only owned six horses themselves, some were rented from a nearby stable.

Nola had been crazy for horses since she could walk, she’d taken riding lessons at Lynchwood Stables when she was younger and Grandee could still bring her. She was a decent rider for her age. But when all the girls were mounting up at the start of the trail it turned out it had been specially arranged for Nola to ride a saggy old pony, the only pony, in fact, that was there that day, brought just for her since she was “so young”. A toddler could have ridden the animal, and in fact Nola was tall and lanky for her age, she matched most of the eighth grade girls inch for inch in height.

But perhaps what was worst of all is that the creature had been decorated as if for a little girl’s birthday party, bedecked with streaming ribbons and barrettes in it’s mane and tail, a colorful rainbow blanket peeked out from beneath a sparkling pink and white saddle. It was a sight to behold and the minute all the other kids saw it the laughter had been nearly deafening.

Nola had two choices, ride that pony or not go. She was sort of frozen, not sure what to do. But in the moment, unsure, she chose to ride the pony, to try and suck it up. As if the humiliation weren’t already enough, though, someone had also given strict instructions to the stable owners that a guide needed to be provided with the pony as well. Even though Nola assured the young woman that it wasn’t necessary, she was unmoved, only following orders. So to add insult to injury this young woman, a teenager barely taller than Nola herself, insisted on holding the reigns and walking the pony the whole way. It was going to be humiliating.

She looked ridiculous on the little pony, like a giant on a toy horse. The other girls towered over her as one by one they headed down the woodland trail on their graceful mounts. The poor old Shetland was so slow, so tired, that halfway there she just stopped and would go no further. Try as the guide might, the poor beast would not be budged. Again Nola had a choice, either walk the rest of the way to catch up with the others, already miles ahead, or go home. This time Nola chose to go home. She walked rather than call her mother for a ride, trying not to cry the whole way.

The next day at school some of the girls made fun of her. They teased her for how ridiculous she looked riding the pretty little pony and they busted her chops for being such a baby that she couldn’t be a sport about the whole thing, that she went crying home to her mommy. It wasn’t true; she knew it was no innocent error. It was a purposeful joke meant to put her in her place, to let her know that she would never fit in. And she certainly didn’t cry to her mother. Her mother would not have understood. She would have thought it was an honest mistake; that the Van Matres had only tried to get a horse appropriate for her age. Kate would have thought they were being accommodating. Nola’s mom never seemed to get these things. The social nuances of middle school were lost on her. Nola couldn’t prove it wasn’t a miscommunication, of course, but she sure doubted it.

Apparently societal scorn at this advanced age could be subtle. It was different than the overt treatment Nola had gotten from her peers before. Their acts had been obvious, quick. This new echelon needed careful navigation; schemes were potentially more elaborate. After Gwen’s party Nola had waited for another incident, another situation. But there had been none, none until Melanie Woodman’s party.

Understandably Nola was worried the slumber party at Melanie Woodman’s house was another set-up. She was right, it was, but not by Melanie. Poor Melanie had been an unwitting pawn in another of Gwen Van Matre’s attempts to humiliate Nola. This time though, it backfired.

the accident

2009-04-27T13:46:00.001-07:00

(I wrote this earlier on the day I received my own phone call)

“Today is the day.”

She’d tried not to think about it, to stay busy. She had a pile of magazines to flip through, painted her toe nails, but strangely it was cleaning that she was drawn to. She sorted out the pantry, sorted out the laundry, for some reason sorting things engrossed her now, it was mind numbing, just what she needed. The thought of that was actually kind of funny. Of all the things to bring her relief from the waves of anxiety, that cleaning would do it was practically hilarious, so not typical of her. Graham might even think it was funny if he were there, might even crack a smile or make a joke. Maybe she should have told him after all. But of course, that would open doors she preferred to keep closed. At least for now.

Still, whenever Kate had a lull in those mundane household activities, that sentence popped right back in her head again. “Today is the day.” Today she would find out what the lumps in her breast were, the results from the biopsy would be available some time today. There’d be a call. A stranger, someone she didn’t know would be on the phone and would give her some sort of news.

She already knew what they weren’t. They weren’t simple cysts, they weren’t simple anything. They were definitely something. The mammogram and ultrasound had disproved they’re being nothing. But the type of something they could be was so variable as to make one’s head spin. The biopsy results would answer some, perhaps even all her questions. Or it could end up merely creating more questions. But in some way today would either be a beginning or an ending, it would change her entire life or it would go on as before, all would be decided for her in practically an instant. That huge difference would be determined for her by a voice at the other end of the phone.

The waiting was the hardest part. It was agony. Time for the mind to go to every dark corner; to explore every black hole. But perhaps the worst part was no one stopped her from going there. No one said she was over reacting, that it was nothing, she was being silly, letting her imagination run wild. That’s what she usually heard when she worried. In fact, people often seemed annoyed at her when she was anxious, like her worry was a source of irritation, a bother. She was, after all, a ninny as her mother tagged her, someone who over reacted. That label she new well, she wore so often that it almost felt comfortable. She half wished someone would call her that now.

But this time no one got annoyed with her for crying, no one told her to get a hold of herself. No one said she was over reacting. And that was what scared her the most. Because there’d only been one other time in her entire life when that had happened, when no one told her she was being a ninny, and the results then had been worse than unthinkable.

That night, that awful night when she and Graham had realized as the sirens screamed that Ethan wasn’t in the house, that he’d slipped out into the darkness, her first instinct was to run towards the sound. As she flung open the door she immediately thought any second Graham would tell her to stop being such an idiot, not to go running out into the night aimlessly. But he didn’t. He was right beside her. In fact he quickly passed her, outrunning her easily, his long legs covered more ground faster than she could. Did he look back to see if she was keeping up? She couldn’t remember now.

As she watched him race ahead and reach the main road at end of their peaceful little street the flashing lights of police cars and ambulances cast weird light patterns, a dancing red and orange glow against his rapid moving form. A police officer tried to stop him but Graham threw him aside like he was a rag doll and disappeared amongst the closely crowded emergency vehicles. As Kate herself finally got closer, another officer grabbed her but she wasn’t so strong as Graham. The man held her with all his might and after struggling for a moment she collapsed in his arms, unable to catch her breath, her chest pounding in a surreal rhythm with the flashing lights.

She barely remembered getting to the hospital, that same police officer drove her, or was it another one? Graham had been driven too but they weren’t taken in the same car together. Why was that? In all these years that small nuance hadn’t occurred to her until just now.

It wasn’t because he rode in the ambulance with Ethan; she knew that. Kate had thought that at first and was heartbroken, angry even. A child as young as Ethan should have his mother near him if he’s hurt…it’s the mother that comforts, that soothes, why would they let Graham go instead of her? But later she found out a police officer had brought Graham too, he’d not been allowed in the ambulance. That was even worse. Ethan had been alone, with strangers. Just like he’d been alone in the dark on the street, just like he’d been alone by the front door waiting for his father to come home.

Only later did Kate grow to understand that Ethan was already gone when they’d reached the accident scene, that it was merely a formality, a valiant production to make sure every last possible effort was made before pronouncing him dead. The wait for news then seemed insufferable but now Kate wondered how long it had really been…an hour perhaps, surely not much more.

Graham had looked so pale, so grim, so vulnerable as they sat waiting. She’d never seen him like that and never would again. Kate had been afraid to look at him too long, let alone to speak to him; afraid just the sound of her voice or the feel of her gaze would push him over the edge. She kept thinking of his mother’s story about how the loss of her siblings, that final loss of the baby Nolan, had been what did Deirdre’s father in, it had caused his death in her opinion. Had he been a strong man before that, Kate wondered, or was he weak like her?

Eventually the burning question in Kate’s throat could be contained no more and she had to break the silence, had to chance shattering Graham’s fragile, contained grip. But the question came out of her mouth wrong; it wasn’t what she really wanted to know.

“Did you see him, did you get to see him?”

His answer was terse, choked, short, “Yes.” And with that he stood up and walked away a few feet, waving his hand as if to say, “no more”.

What Kate really wanted to know was, “Did Ethan see you, did he know you were there?” For some reason her brain wouldn’t let her ask that, her lips couldn’t form those specific words. Later she found out the definitive answer, the impossibility of her hope that her son had known at least one of his parents was there with him.

The phone rang and Kate snapped back to the present. She stared at it a moment and let it ring one more time, then slowly reached for the receiver.

Today is the day.

if only

2009-04-26T08:42:00.000-07:00

It had always been hard to think about that day in any detail, even years and years later. Not because she forgot, that could never happen. It was because the details made it excruciating, made it just that much more unbearable. They revealed how preventable, how avoidable it all was. That was the part that could stay hidden in silence, in the vagaries faded by time. To even think about the details lead to the inevitable “if only” and that sick feeling of wanting to reverse time, to take it all back and erase it.

Kate could clearly remember what Ethan was like right before it happened, those last hours of what would end up being his final day on earth. He was excited to go trick or treating, jazzed up about his Batman costume, impatient to go. He didn’t know something bad was going to happen, of course, but that wasn’t the part that really got to Kate. What haunted her most was the thought that at some point he did get scared, did feel he was in danger. She hoped that wasn’t the case, that he got to stay happy and bright, his innocence protected right up until the very last second. He might have just been going happily along when that car hit him, completely unaware. But he also might have been scared, realized he was lost, crying for her, wondering why she hadn’t come for him, wondering where his Mommy was.

She could talk for hours on end about Ethan. It filled her with happiness, kept him alive, kept him from fading away into nothingness. But she rarely retold the last bit of the story of that day, not about how it all had transpired, what lead up to it.

Graham never talked about it either, of course, but then he never talked about Ethan in any way so it was less noticeable. In all these years Kate had always blamed herself completely and only barely let herself form the thought that it was his fault too. On some level she’d known, believed it in some internal way. But she didn’t let the idea take full shape; she kept it in the shadows, away from the light. Even when they spent all that time waiting at the hospital, she never once went there. He had looked so grim. Was it because she didn’t have the heart; did she feel sorry for him?

Eventually the idea took hold, came out of the shadows into the glaring light of consciousness. But she still wouldn’t say it out loud. Kate would never give him the chance to defend himself or try to twist it around to being solely her fault. Because everything that ever happened was her fault. So of course he would never say he was sorry, he never would say that he had made a mistake. Graham had never apologized for anything in all the years she knew him. He felt justified, right in every single thing he did. He was so sure about everything, so absolutely sure of himself at all times that it would never occur to him to say he was sorry. He didn’t think he’d ever made a single error.

Kate couldn’t imagine what that felt like. Her whole life she second-guessed nearly everything she did, everything she thought. But not this, not anymore. This was the one time she was sure she was right. She knew in every fiber of her being Graham was to blame as much as she was. And she knew he knew it too, because he would have had at her, at some point during all these years he would have ripped her to shreds if he could have, if he thought even remotely that it was her responsibility alone. But he never had, and that’s how she knew. That was as close as you would get to seeing a guilty conscious in him.

When Nola began asking questions about that day it made Kate feel nervous and uncomfortable. She told Nola it was too painful for her to think about, and it was. She’d been so open and free with Ethan’s life story; Nola had always been such a willing listener to every tale. Eventually she relented, told about the accident, the hospital, the funeral, wine made her brave. But this part of the story was different. Now Kate wished she had told her, destroyed her father forever in her eyes. Nola already thought he was mean, cruel. This would finish the job, annihilate him and show him up for the uncaring monster he really was. Maybe then Nola would stop blaming her alone for so much of her childhood sorrow.

She could tell Nola how Graham hadn’t called out that day, hadn’t simply said, “I’m home.” If he had, Kate would have told him Ethan was waiting by the front door for him, had been waiting not so patiently because Graham was late, as usual. Ethan was whining and fidgeting and Kate had needed a break, she’d left him there in the foyer to wait and watch for Daddy to get home through the glass door while she went upstairs and started cleaning up. If Graham had only called out she would have told him where Ethan was and then when he didn’t find the boy there waiting where Kate had left him they would have realized he must have slipped out of the house, somehow opened the door and gone out into the evening in a dark colored costume, barely three years old, never crossing a street by himself yet. They would have searched for him sooner, found him before…

But Graham didn’t call out to her when he got home because he was angry. That was nothing new, he was always angry, always in a rage about something she had done or hadn’t done. He wouldn’t speak to her; she was beneath him because of her stupidity, her endless fuck-ups and mistakes. She never lived up to his expectations and he seethed at her for it. It was his hate, his anger and her willingness to silently endure it that had killed their son.

Graham thought she was already out with Ethan, that she’d given up waiting and took him out trick or treating herself. She saw his car in the driveway from the upstairs window and then when she peeked over the railing and looked by the front door Ethan was gone, she’d thought Graham came home and took him without saying a word, typical of him. They didn’t realize that neither one of them had him, didn’t realize that Ethan had gotten out on his own, until it was too late. Until they heard the fiercely close sirens screaming and each came to the front window too look, finally seeing each other and realizing, immediately, silently, their mistake. Fearing the worst, running down the short little street, following that roaring sound, as it grew louder, bringing them closer to the unthinkable.

Melanie's house

2009-04-21T05:39:00.001-07:00

Melanie Woodman’s house was probably the largest one in Darlington. Her family was thought by most to be the richest in town, but it was very new money; obscene compared to the well established Darlingtons, Ramseys, and Coopers, the upper middleclass decedents of the original founding families. Their old money had come from the town, from business they built and farms they once ran, and then been put right back into Darlington Township when they donated endowments to schools or parks, offering land for the college. Their families had been in the northern New Jersey area since before the 1700’s. Unlike the Woodmans, who by those standards were relative newcomers.

Melanie’s family bought what was locally known as “The Manor” from the Avanti family, also late arrivals to the area, less than a decade ago. But originally the house had belonged, like so many of the grander ones, to members of the Darlington family. In fact it had been the final jewel in the family crown, when their wealth was at its peak. All that farming money and the prosperity from local businesses, had been sunk into the costly house, built before the great crash, in the early 20’s. Architecturally it was a hodgepodge, part late Craftsman, with Japanese elements, and part English Tudor. The house was singular, both for it’s style, surrounding property, and immense size.

Melanie Woodman’s father worked on Wall Street, though Nola didn’t know what he did there and suspected Melanie didn’t either. When she walked up the long bricked drive lined with various species of dwarf Japanese maples and eerily shaped lava rocks tucked amongst a carpet of woodchips and pachysandra, she felt small, like she didn’t belong in this landscape, this world. But when Nola rang the doorbell it was Mrs. Woodman herself that answered, and the greeting she received was welcoming, in fact, almost too much so.

“Oh!” Mrs. Woodman squealed with delight, “You must be Nola Collins, oh Honey, you look just like the picture of your Daddy on his book jackets, come in, come in.” Nola was ushered into a large foyer with a slate floor and coffered ceiling, dark wood beams stained to look like ebony framed the space like a cathedral and looked harsh against the soft ochre walls. There was a fountain with water bubbling up out of polished river stones and Oriental vases in niches on the walls. In the center of the foyer was a red and black lacquered table topped by a potted orchid paired with a jade-toned Buddha statue, serenely gazing at all who entered. The space had the feel of a Japanese restaurant, Nola half expected Mrs. Woodman to be wearing a brightly colored Kimono. Instead there was one hanging on the wall going up the massive, angular staircase.

Mrs. Woodman noticed Nola taking in the décor. “Do you like Japanese art, Nola?” Before Nola could think of an answer Melanie’s mother continued, “I know you are really smart, Melanie tells me you are some kind of whiz kid. You probably know more about all this than even my husband does. Mr. Woodman’s hobby is collecting, you see. He was presented with a real Samurai sword once when he was on business in Japan and he was just so taken with it he got interested and started this collection. We bought the house because it just seemed to be screaming Japan, don’t you think?”

Nola thought the house might be screaming something else, but she chose not to answer. Instead she just nodded. Grown-ups like Mrs. Woodman rarely expected an actual answer, they just liked to ramble.

“Nola, could I get you something to drink, would you like a Pepsi?”

“No thank you.”

“Well, before I send you off to where the rest of the kids are, just tell me,” and her voice dropped to a whisper, “what is your father working on right now? Mr. Woodman might be a fan of Oriental object d’art, but my love has always been cowboys and Indians. I adored all those old westerns when I was a kid, couldn’t get enough of them…you know, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, oh, and John Wayne movies…oh my.” Her voice again rose to it’s former bubbly heights, “Girls my age loved the Beatles or Elvis but give me The Duke from those old movies and I would just swoon,” Melanie’s mother giggled in a way Nola thought impossible past the age of sixteen. Just then Melanie herself came into the foyer.

“Hi Nola, come on, we’re in the game room. Mom, can you tell Sandy to bring down more sodas?” And with that Nola was taken by the arm and led down a hall, then further down a large flight of stairs and into an expansive basement room. There were no windows, but the room was light and bright, canned spotlights dotted the vast low ceiling and sconces lined the pale yellow walls. The room looked like a cross between an old fashioned arcade and a casino. There were pinball machines, a jukebox, slot machines and even a roulette wheel. At one end of the long room was a billiard table and at the other, a ping-pong table. Nola was dumb struck; she’d never seen anything quite like this. She felt immediately out of place, and more than a little apprehensive. She had no idea how to play most of these games. She didn’t want to look like a fool. As she glanced around she also noticed something else that made her nervous. There were boys here! She held her sleeping bag a little tighter and wondered if she’d misunderstood, had it not been an invite for a slumber party? Was it to be coed? Melanie’s mother didn’t strike Nola as the type to sanction that.

As if reading her mind, Melanie said, “The boys are here until 9:00, after that they have to go home. You can put your sleeping bag over there, with everyone else’s,” and she pointed to a pile of more than a dozen sleeping bags dumped into a heap in a small alcove at one end of the room. When Nola dropped her bag in the appointed spot, she noticed there was a door to the outside; it had glass panels that were painted black and was ornately carved, with an old iron doorknob and gargoyle knocker. Melanie said, “That used to go to the outside, but the bulkhead doors were bricked over when they built the solarium. Now we just call it ‘the stairs to nowhere’ -- see?” and she opened the wooden door to reveal concrete steps that went right up to a brick ceiling. Suddenly there was a burst of laughter from the other side of the room and Melanie excused herself, leaving Nola alone to survey the other guests. She wished she could just stay in this corner, tucked away, and watch for the rest of the night.

nothing done

2009-04-18T14:58:00.000-07:00

It was morning, light streamed around the edge of the window shades in pale streaks across the dark room. Kate looked at the clock, 9:30. Good, they’d both be gone now. Just in case she lay there, listening for any sounds indicating otherwise, but all seemed quiet. She climbed out of bed and grabbed the big, thick blue robe that lay on top of the pile of dirty clothes closest to the nightstand, wrapping herself up against the morning chill. She tiptoed out of the room and listened at the top of the stairs again. Still silent.

Downstairs in the kitchen while she waited for the water to boil she scooped coffee into the press and added sugar to the bottom of her large mug, three heaping spoonfuls. It was a lot, but she would be good for the rest of the morning; that was the plan, she would not eat until noon, this will be breakfast. No need to deprive myself of caffeine in the process, she thought. A good cup of coffee will do wonders for me. It will make things easier. Maybe the energy will get me going today.

While she waited for the coffee to steep she looked out the window over the sink. It’s a shame this was the window that had the best view of the woods, at least on the first floor. The upstairs windows were like being in the treetops, either thick and green, too dense for sunlight, or bare and stark revealing the harsh brilliant sky, depending on the season. But down here you could see the narrow straight trunks and the woodland floor dotted with patches of ferns. You could also see some of the old rock wall the farmers had laid long ago, lichen covered stones marked out some sort of boundary that no longer mattered to anyone.

Graham had joked once when they first moved in that maybe the pretty view would entice her to do the dishes more often. She hated it when he joked like that, because it wasn’t a joke, it was a subtle reminder of some way she failed to meet his expectations. He didn’t ever tease her about something sweet, something pleasant, only her bad housekeeping or forgetfulness, her carelessness. He’d laugh at her when he wasn’t angry. Sometimes she almost preferred his anger; at least it was honest.

When she looked down from the window into the sink she noticed for the first time in ages it was empty. Either he had loaded the dishwasher or he’d made Nola do it. Kate never did it anymore; she didn’t even make a pretense towards acting like she would.

Kate had always hated doing housework; she hated it with a passion. She felt demeaned by it and overwhelmed at the mere thought of being responsible for even the most basic amount of upkeep. Cleaning the bathroom every week felt daunting, vacuuming was monumental, dusting seemed pointless and doing the dishes was a new low in drudgery. Of course, one couldn’t say that, one couldn’t admit to having no intention of keeping their house clean. Everyone else in the world just accepted that this was part of life, this was just one of those things you had to do like brushing your teeth or paying taxes. But secretly Kate had never quite accepted the inevitability of having to clean a house. She considered it a large defect in her character.

When she worked they had paid for a cleaning woman to come in. Kate had paid, out of her salary. That was heaven, a relief beyond description. No one expected her to clean, to scrub, to wash anything beyond her own dishes. She managed that, it seemed small in comparison when isolated like that, the only cleaning required of her. A few pots, pans and plates seemed minor in the scheme of life.

But once she quit her job she was expected to start cleaning again the way she was supposed to when Nola was little. Only back then Graham’s mother had helped out a lot, especially when Nola was a baby. Kate’s postpartum depression had lingered longer than usual; to be expected after all she went through. She was still ill from the eclampsia and had lost weight, being that sickly Kate was obviously overwhelmed by motherhood alone and little was expected of her. Adding to it all, Nola was colicky and Graham was busy with one of his books. It didn’t seem so odd to have her mother in law “help”. Deirdre had been so happy to do it, she gladly did all the housework, most of the cooking, while Kate just slept and nursed the baby. When it was time for her to take over she could never live up to Deirdre’s ability, she realized her best bet was to try and get a job, she wasn’t cut out to be a stay at home mother. By the time Nola was old enough Kate was well and went back to work part time. Problem solved.

Now since she’d been out of work the house was a total disaster. Graham was refusing to do all but the bare essentials and they were both making Nola do more than her fair share. Kate knew this, she could see it, but she felt powerless to change.

Every day she woke up and thought that this day would somehow be different. This would be the day she made herself get up off her ass and clean or cook or do something productive. Every day she sat down with her morning coffee in the armchair by the window with the vague intent to plan her day, what she would do, when she would do it. But she never actually left the chair. Before she knew it the whole day had been spent eating and watching TV, daydreaming, planning and procrastinating and then suddenly she’d see Nola come down the street carrying her books. Kate would dash upstairs before she made it to the front door. She couldn’t face Nola, still in her bathrobe, nothing done, nothing changed since the girl left seven hours ago. If she could have crawled under the floorboards and disappeared she would have. Shame at that moment was sharp and sudden, choking; it felt like a noose around her neck.

Yet the next day she would begin again, and again it would end the same. The truth was deep down she didn’t care anymore if days went by, weeks, years even. On her own Kate really didn’t care if all she did for the rest of her life was read, watch TV and eat her way to even further enormity. It was only when she saw herself through someone else’s eyes that it made her feel badly. Then she was forced to see what she really was, a pathetic, lazy person, incapable of mastering even basic life skills. In the presence of others she saw how insignificant her life had become. Even enveloped in her increasing size she felt small, miniscule. No matter how big she got she would always be nothing.

There was something wrong with her that she couldn’t even muster up enough desire to run a vacuum. What kind of person was this overwhelmed by ordinary housework, by ordinary life? Someone extraordinarily screwed up. Damaged. The thought occurred to her, in moments of clarity, that she needed help. But the thought of asking for help, of admitting she was this far gone, only filled her with more shame.

So the answer seemed to be just staying inside, avoiding people. If you didn’t go out and no one came in you could hide and just live in peace, alone, in quiet, simple, undemanding peace. There would be no one to make assessments, no one to judge. You couldn’t fail if you didn’t do anything. It was easy. At least until Nola or Graham came home.

Then the cocoon was broken and pretending didn’t work anymore. It was difficult to maintain a normal demeanor around Graham and Nola; it seemed phony under the circumstances, and exhausting besides. So when they were home Kate stayed in her room if at all possible. She would get in bed and if they came up to see her she would say she was sick, a migraine, some other malady. Graham never came up. Nola did, but she never stayed long.

Otherwise, if she were downstairs with them and one of them cleaned in her presence, if one of them started doing dishes or if she came into a room while they were dusting or about to vacuum, it was like a smack in the face, it was like being yelled at or degraded. They knew she should be doing that, and she knew that’s what they were thinking. She could feel the resentment emanating off of them like heat. Graham’s silence was brutal; Nola’s pitiful.

She was better off alone, better off in bed, like an invalid, someone for whom simple tasks were completely beyond. Simple things like cleaning a house and…taking care of a child. She hadn’t even managed the simple task of keeping her child alive. Not unscathed, not perfect, just alive. Everyone else seemed to do it, or if they didn’t it was due to plagues or horrific circumstances beyond their control. But Ethan’s death wasn’t beyond her control. It was preventable. Yet she didn’t prevent it, did she? It would have been preventable for a different mother, a normal mother. A normal mother would have a live child and clean floors.

And then she’d remember that she did now have a live child who still needed clean floors and a normal, functioning mother. And if it were possible, Kate would then feel even worse.

Ethan deserves better

2009-04-16T08:07:00.000-07:00

On the weekends when Kate came home after showing a house, she would shed her work items, peeling things off one by one…keys in the dish on the foyer table, purse hung on the hall rack, suit jacket on the newel post, paper jammed briefcase in the closet, shoes with panty hose stuffed in them placed on the bottom step of the staircase, off to the side. Graham’s rules were everything had to be kept neat, nothing lying around. The shoes and jacket were a compromise, if they were on the stairs to go up and you were still downstairs then that was okay, acceptable.

Next Kate would go into the kitchen and head straight for the wine, kept in the lower cabinet to the right of the sink. She’d use an old fashioned glass, not a wine goblet, and fill it to near the top, leaving just enough room for an ice cube. Then she would go into the living room, close the drapes and sit in the dark with her feet up on the couch, still in her remaining work clothes. After about half an hour, her wine finished, she’d be asleep, curled up in a near fetal position and snoring softly.

Nola watched this process, or some parts of it, often. If she had something to talk to her mother about, Kate would invariably tell her to wait, to give her some time to decompress as she called it, like she was coming up to the surface and didn’t want to rush the process lest she get the bends. The stories of the day would wait. Monday morning permissions slips would wait. Help fixing a toy would wait. Even bedtime, hours later, would wait.

Most of the time, but not always, well after 8:00 in the evening Kate would rouse herself off the sofa and come in to the kitchen, ostensibly to start dinner. She’d mumble something about, “why’d you let me sleep so long?” as she automatically opened the fridge or went to the stove. Inevitably she would discover that dinner had already been taken care of, some semblance of sandwiches or take out, the remains of which were evidence that finally made Kate realize the meal was over without her. At this she would say, “Well then, fine,” and with an annoyed huff she would go back to the cabinet where the wine was kept, pour another glass and take it with her upstairs to the spare room. She stayed there till morning.

On occasion, Kate stayed on the couch, never even attempting to fake making dinner. At some point during the night she would wake up and go upstairs, because Nola never found her there in the morning.

Nola's father would come and go throughout this, depending on his schedule at school or what book he was working on. Sometimes he would be locked in his study writing while Kate slept on the couch, sometimes he’d come home and shower, get ready and go back to school for workshops or evening classes, or to do research in the library. He told Nola to make sandwiches for them both if he was working at home, or sometimes he’d tell her to order food and he’d grab a slice of pizza or carton of Chinese food to take back to the college with him. Nola always ate alone on the weekends now.

Graham wasn’t quiet as he went about the house, he would slam things as usual, thump around, pound up and down the stairs. Kate never stirred. Nola always wondered if her mom was pretending, like playing dead.

On the days when Kate was there when Nola got home from school, it was a little different. She would announce brightly, enthusiastically that she felt like a little wine, as if it were a novelty. She would also announce that she wasn’t going to use the good glasses, why bother, it was just her after all. For the rest of the afternoon Kate would sit in the kitchen drinking her wine, only replenishing her glass when she thought no one was looking. Nola noticed the glass was refilled if she left and came back, so she knew her mother must be furtively pouring while she was gone.

If Nola were busy, playing outside or in her room, Kate would look at the calendar and “figure things out” or sort thru the mail, do her nails, putter around, eventually get dinner started. Nola would happen into the kitchen now and then and that’s the kind of stuff she would see her mother doing. She never talked on the phone anymore, unless it was business.

But most of the time, on afternoons as Kate drank her wine in the kitchen, always in the kitchen, most of the time she talked. She would tell Nola all about how things were going for her at work, she’d tell stories about the people in her office, or the people to whom she showed houses or the people who were selling them, and especially she’d tell Nola all about the houses themselves. She liked to talk about architecture, history, even town planning and zoning. Kate loved to talk about her work. She loved to talk about the people she met and the houses she saw.

Eventually, though, it always happened that some story, some person or house, would remind her of Ethan. All stories lead to Ethan. When Nola was little she used to like her mother’s Ethan stories. She liked them because they made her mother happy to tell them. She liked them because her mother would let her stay up late to hear them. She also liked them because her mother only told the nice ones.

But now, especially when Kate was drinking wine for a while, now the stories were not always the happy ones. Now sometimes Kate talked about sad things, about the accident, the hospital and about the funeral. And each time she would tell Nola these stories she acted like it was for the first time, forgetting that just yesterday, or the day before, or many times before that, she had told the same story. Kate forgot things from one day to the next.

Nola was fascinated by all of it at first. She had only heard bits and pieces, only been able to surmise or guess at things that had happened based on the little she’d heard. So when her mother began filling in the gory details Nola ate them up greedily, hungry to understand all facets of the Ethan story, all the mysterious parts she had been left out of. She egged her mother on, let her repeat herself, hoping to gain a better picture of what had happened, how things had been.

But after a few months the repetitive stories made Nola uncomfortable. They made her sad, but it was more than that. Nola couldn’t help feel that Kate was using Ethan somehow; she was using his death for some sort of explanation, an excuse. Because of Ethan things weren’t the way they were supposed to be. Because of Ethan life had gone in a certain mistaken direction. Because of Ethan everything was wrong. Nola felt defensive for her dead brother. It wasn’t his fault, he couldn’t help being dead. Nola liked it better when her mother was happy about the memories or sad about the loss, she didn’t like it when Kate used Ethan to rationalize. Ethan was more than that. He deserved better than that.

the invitation

2009-04-14T08:55:00.000-07:00

Nola watched from the swings as the other girls sat on the steps outside the cafeteria. It seemed like every girl in her class sat there, she was practically the only one that didn’t. Well, there was Gracie Cooper, but she was an odd child, not quite right. Kate had said once something about her being “mainstreamed” and that being a mistake. And then there were the Sylvester twins, Lisa and Jenny. They were always together and didn’t seem to care about being with anyone else. Nola tried not to care, too. She tried very hard to pretend she didn’t care. But she did.

So when Melanie Woodman suddenly appeared in front of her, out of nowhere, blocking the strong afternoon sun as she stood before her, Nola was startled. She almost fell off the swing. Melanie didn’t seem to notice.

“I’m having a sleep over next weekend and I’m inviting every girl from class. Here,” she said, shoving an invitation at Nola, who almost dropped it when she awkwardly reached for it. “You don’t have to come,” Melanie said matter of fact, and then turned to walk away. However she stopped a few feet beyond Nola, turned back around, and added in what sounded like a genuine attempt at being nice, “But I guess it’d be cool if you did,” and with that she walked back over to the steps full of chattering girls.

Nola watched, a little wary. She expected to see Melanie say something to the crowd and then hear a twitter of giggles, to see some of them make a face or in some way reveal their true feelings about Nola having even been spoken to let alone receiving an invitation to Melanie’s home, that it was all some sort of joke or trick. But no such reaction followed. They seemed to continue their conversations; their behavior was unchanged. Nola looked at the invitation and started to open it, half expecting it to be empty or have some sort of hoax hidden inside instead of a real invite. Then she realized that if that were the case she would be playing right into their hands, becoming their afternoon entertainment. And if it wasn’t a prank, well, it might look lame if she were so suspicious. She decided to wait until she got home.

The rest of the day went as usual. No one spoke to her; no one paid any attention to her at all. Nola was invisible to her classmates, and why not? She didn’t belong there; she wasn’t like the rest of them. They were almost three years older than her but it might as well have been three hundred years. They probably thought she was either a baby or a freak. She wasn’t interested in the same things they were, didn't get their fads, their inside jokes went over her head.

She didn't belong with kids her own age, either, and they certainly didn’t like her, that was clear. They thought she was stuck up, too smart for her own good. “Genius Freak,” that’s what they called her, being smart was some sort of insult requiring an epithet, shameful and weird.

After school when she got home she went to her room as quickly as possible, rooted around in her backpack and dug out the invite. Carefully she opened the small pink envelope, inside was a regular invitation, complete with glitter and little bits of confetti tucked in. The card looked in order, the right date, time, she knew the address was correct because it was only a few miles away and she passed it on her way to school every day. Everything looked legitimate. The RSVP date was the day after tomorrow. She needed to think about this, make sure she considered the possibilities.

In the end she decided to go.

She would ride her bike there instead of having her mom drive her. That way if anything happened she could leave in a hurry, on her own steam. Nola figured she could hide the bike in a little patch of woods about a block or so before Melanie’s house and walk the rest of the distance, that way no one could do anything to the bike and prevent her from leaving if she needed to. She thought it all through, planned for every contingency. She would be cautious and on guard. Based on her experience with kids her own age she knew you had to be. But maybe these girls were different.

When Nola had first been told she'd be skipped ahead two grade levels, she was both nervous and relieved. All the kids from her old grade had thought she was a huge pain in the ass, so she had no friends, everyone hated her. Nola raised her hand too much, she knew all the answers and read everything quicker than anyone else in the class. Of course, Nola didn’t realize she was different at first. During the early days of school, back in kindergarten and first grade, she thought everyone was just like her. By the time she understood, it was too late. She’d already established her reputation as a know it all. Being a know it all was a sin worse than having red hair, or wearing glasses or even being fat. It was worse than all three combined.

So far, with the exception of one girl, Gwen Van Matre, her new eighth grade classmates pretty much ignored her as long as she left them alone and stayed quiet. There was that incident at Gwen's birthday party in the beginning of the year, but Nola could have misunderstood, it could have been an innocent mistake.

But back in her old grade with the kids that knew her all along, it had been different, there was no misunderstanding. Their cruelty seemed to have no bounds. They would roll their eyes whenever she walked by, mock her if she spoke at all. It became a popular schoolyard pastime to do exaggerated imitations of "Know-It-All-Nola"...to see who could string together the largest made-up words and mange to say them in as pretentious and pompous a tone as possible.

The first few times Nola was made fun of she went home crying to her mother. Kate had told her that the kids were just teasing, to try and laugh it off and not pay any attention. Nola had tried, but that only seemed to egg them on to go to further extremes, to do wilder and more inflated imitations, and worse. It was only the beginning. She was a convenient target for merciless ridicule. Alone, culled from the herd she was weak, vulnerable, a perfect scapegoat. Her backpack would mysteriously disappear; she would trip on unseen feet as she walked down the hall or in the cafeteria, sending her food flying and causing the cafeteria staff to hate her too. Even a couple of the teachers had joined in the derisive laughter a few times, in spite of themselves. Towards the end of the last school year it had gotten physical, violent. Nola came home bruised and scraped from being pushed around, punched. That’s when the school system intervened.

Nola was hopeful now that she was with the eighth graders, hopeful but still cautious, once burned twice shy, like Grandee used to say. Still, these older girls seemed less physically rowdy, they were more aloof and Nola took that for maturity, for seriousness, perhaps even for the chance to be safe. She thought that if she simply remembered to keep it dialed back a notch, didn’t put herself out there, she might at least just slide through, slip by disregarded and unnoticed.

She couldn’t have been more wrong.

doors

2009-04-11T12:56:00.000-07:00

“You’re so worried about healing this big rift between me and Dad, so worried about how we’ll get along after you’re gone,” Nola said the word 'gone' sarcastically, over dramatizing it for effect, “you just don’t get it.”

“What, what don’t I get, should I not care about you, about how he’ll be to you if I’m dead?”

“No, that’s not it, you should, I guess, but it’s not the only thing…”

“Nola, I know it’s not the only thing, I would like to take care of everything, so many…but I don’t know how much time I’ll have. I have to take care of what I can, do the important stuff first…”

“But you are the important stuff, you are the one…you are the one who might be leaving and we, our…this sucks, the way we are, our relationship sucks as much as mine and Dad’s does, more.”

“How can you say that? Look, I know I’ve made mistakes. I...I’d do a lot of things differently…”

“Tell me that, Damn it, tell me stuff like that! I need to know what you regret, I need to know that you know how badly you fucked up with me, that you wish…that you wish you could have loved me.”

“Nola! I’ve always loved you.”

“Yeah, maybe, but not as much as him, never as much as him and you blame me for that.”

“Nola, that’s not true, it may have seemed like …”

“It’s not my fault.” And with that Nola began to shake, to physically vibrate. She seemed wild eyed, like a caged animal pent up finally set free, yet disoriented, not knowing which way to go.

Kate took a step closer, tried to pacify her, to speak calmly, soothing, the way she would to a wounded child, “What’s not your fault, honey, tell me?”

“I got to live just because he died. You would never have had me if he hadn’t died. How do you think that feels, to know that I’m the replacement kid? You blame me for not working out the way you hoped but it’s not my fault because no one could replace Ethan…no one could replace any one but even if they could no one could replace Ethan because you would never have let them. Even if I’d been perfect you never let anyone in to that…space, that space that was his. You let me look, you let me see what that kind of motherly love looked like, you told me stories of how much you adored him, how everyone loved Ethan. You let me see what being loved like that might look like, but you never gave it to me, never let me touch it or feel it for myself.”

Nola was pacing now, tears streaming down her face, black eyeliner and mascara streaking down her cheeks, her body wracked with sobs, her breath exaggerated and gulping. “Don’t you think, don’t you know that was worse torture than any way Daddy could have treated me? You sold me a bill of goods about motherhood, painted me this glorious picture and then denied me the chance to have any of it.”

“But do you know what’s worse? I don’t even know if it actually exists at all in real life. I mean, did you really love Ethan like that? Or was that all just another delusion, just the way you dreamed it should be, so you convinced yourself that’s the way it was. But the truth is, the truth is you just told me all that stuff to make yourself feel better, to make you feel like a better person, a better mother. That way you could forgive yourself for not loving me…that way it could be my fault for not being like him or Ethan’s fault for ripping out your heart when he died but you never blamed yourself.”

Nola began to scream, her fists held tightly at her sides, her whole body rigid, “But it was your fault, Mom, yours and yours alone and I will never forgive you! Do you hear me, never! So take that to your grave with Ethan. I hope the two of you will be very happy together rotting in the mud!”

Kate stared at Nola like a dazed deer caught in headlights. Her mind swaying, trying to take in what she was hearing, what she was seeing. She tried to think of what to say next, but her thoughts were jumbled, words seemed garbled in her throat like she had tried to swallow marbles and couldn’t get them down, she was silently choking on the impact of all her daughter had said.

Nola stood, finally still, and glared at Kate, glowered at her with an intensity that seemed to give off heat. For one second they stayed locked in each other’s eyes, one enraged, one choking, both staring, frozen. Then Nola shook her head slightly in disgust and spit on the floor in front of Kate’s feet. She turned around and thundered out of the room. When Nola reached the front door she grabbed her bag from the hook off the hall rack so violently that she tore one end of the brackets holding it right out of the wall. As the screw was stripped from the wall it made an awful scraping sound and bits of plaster crumbled. The rack swung down on one end, sending everything hanging on it flying to the floor with a thud. The empty hall rack teetered on the wall for a moment as Nola stared at it. Then she walked out the door, slamming it with all her might, harder than her father had slammed it hundreds of times, harder than all the slammed doors of a lifetime. The frosted glass window smashed, the rack fell off the wall the rest of the way, and books went flying off the shelves in the parlor.

Kate stood in the kitchen doorway taking in the carnage. She just stood there looking for a long time, holding on to the edge of her mother’s Hoosier cabinet for balance. Eventually she felt her throat loosen, her mind slowly stopped reeling. She closed her eyes and the shattering of the door glass replayed in slow motion in her mind. Each falling shard seemed to loosen the grip that held her stuck in that stunned silence, like all the pieces of her she’d been trying to hold together finally just fell apart. There was nothing left but a few jagged fragments clinging to an empty frame. She opened her eyes.

She knew something had to be done. She knew this had to be fixed; it couldn’t be left like this. And for the first time she realized it was up to her…she would have to repair this all by herself. She just didn’t know where to begin.

in the dark

2009-04-09T07:05:00.000-07:00

(grist for the mill)

Kate sat in the small, dark, ultrasound room and tried not to cry. She tried to think of anything that would distract her from the mounting panic she felt. She took the fleshy part of her hand, that plump bit at the base, between the index finger and thumb, and dug her fingernails in as hard as she could. Maybe the pain would distract her from thinking, keep her from the rising realization that filled her with terror.

The technician had been so matter of fact. No, it wasn’t a cyst. Definitely wasn’t that. She’d need a biopsy. That word, ominous and unbelievable. This couldn’t be happening.

But then again, why not, why couldn’t it be happening? She’d heard once, couldn’t remember where, but she’d heard something about a person lamenting, “why me, why oh why me?” The answer, coming from whom, perhaps it was supposed to be God -- Kate could not remember that either now...but the answer was clear and cold; “Why not you?”

But Kate had thought there was a different answer for her. Frankly, she'd thought she was exempt from this sort of thing. She was shocked, stunned, even stupefied at the possibility of it being true, that she might actually have breast cancer. She’d filled her quota for tragedy. She lost a child, wasn’t that enough, didn’t that excuse her from any more agony, wasn’t that enough of a price to pay for one lifetime?

She’d known people who seemed to have nothing but bad luck. One horrible thing after another seemed to befall them. Illness, poverty, loss, the worst of the worst. These people were perpetually bitter and morose, understandably so. But Kate always secretly imagined that somehow they were different, a certain type, a genetic species unto themselves. Maybe she even thought that they must be, in a cosmic karmic kind of way, at least partially to blame for their endless misfortunes.

The thought occurred to her now, sitting in the dark ultrasound room waiting for the technician to come back, that maybe their bitterness, forming as a result of the first things that went wrong in their sad lives, developed into a kind of growth, a festering attitude that drew more and more sorrow towards it, feeding off it in some kind of parasitic way. Had she done that, had she unwittingly caused this growth now in her breast? She’d done her fair share of wallowing, drowned herself in seas of bitterness. Was she in actuality just like one of those people? Was this her fault too?

The door opened suddenly and the light was turned on. “I’m sorry, I could have turned the light on before I left,” the chipper technician said, “I always do that, I always leave people in the dark,” she laughed. Kate couldn’t help herself; “I guess there’s a lot of that going on around here.” The technician stared at her, blankly. “Never mind,” Kate said quickly, “Bad joke.”

The technician had confirmed her findings with the radiologist; Kate would need to schedule a biopsy. She was told she could get referrals at the desk as she left. The last thing the ultrasound technician said was, “Good luck.”

Kate could tell that the woman didn’t hold out much hope, she was being nice but she knew something more than Kate did at this moment, probably a lot more than Kate did. No doubt working in a place like this you got to know what looked hopeful and what didn't. Kate was convinced she could see in the woman’s eyes a look of concealed pity.

There were things, pieces of information that she would have to find out in bits and pieces, a slow steady diet of facts and statistics, medical jargon and redirect. A process was beginning now, this minute, that would take a long time. Maybe there was hope, but it didn’t seem to look good, and this woman knew it, Kate could tell.

As Kate stepped out into the long hall and headed towards the cubical where her clothes and purse were, she saw at the other end a man holding a small boy, a toddler. All Kate could make out from that distance was that the boy had blond hair, like Ethan. But as she was walking towards him, as she got closer and closer, more details revealed themselves. With each step she saw a little more…the striped pattern of his little red shirt, the overalls he wore with the strap hanging off one shoulder, his fingers in his mouth, the sweep of his bangs to one side, the toy in his other hand, it was a little train…was it a Thomas train? With every step all the little details that made him someone specific, an individual child, were getting more and more fleshed out until she reached her cubical doorway and took what would be her closest look, the final degree of proximity revealing as much detail as she would ever have of this boy. She stopped and took it in. She could see his eyes now; they were dark. He held her gaze for a minute and then buried his head in his father’s, well, the man’s shoulder, shy, not wanting to interact with this stranger. Kate understood. She remembered how little boys could be at that age.

Back in her appointed cubical she had to force herself to focus and put her clothes on, make sure she gathered all her belongings and try to act normal, try to walk out of the radiology lab with dignity and make it to her car. Dignity seemed all she had left now. She just needed to make it to her car. When she stepped out of the cubical, dressed, she turned to look for the boy and the man holding him. They were gone.

Once inside her car she looked around to make sure she was alone, no one in the cars on either side of her. She thought she would cry right off the bat but she sat in stunned silence. Disbelief seemed to have numbed her momentarily.

She started thinking about that little boy. Was his mother there for a mammogram? Was she okay? Would his life go on, happy, blissfully safe for at least another day?

Maybe it was a good sign, this innocent little child, like Ethan telling her it was okay Mommy, it will all work out in the end. Or maybe it was a bitter reminder of how cruel, how short, how sinister life could be. She couldn’t decide which it was. Not today. Not here, not now.

And then she thought of Nola, and the tears came.

bones to pick

2009-04-07T06:04:00.000-07:00

Nola tried to will herself back to sleep but it was no use, she had to pee. She dreaded asking to use the bathroom and tried to put off getting up as long as possible, but it only made her have to go worse. Maybe he was almost done getting ready? But as she lay in bed Nola could still hear her father intermittently walking back and forth from bathroom to bedroom, the old floorboards creaking under the thick rug with each muffled footstep. She knew she’d never make it.

“Daddy, I’m sorry, but can I please use the bathroom? I have to go really bad.”

“You’ll have to wait,” came the curt reply.

Nola sat on the end of her bed, trying to watch for when her father was done with the bathroom without looking like she was being pesky. She didn’t know if he would tell her it was ok at some point, or if he meant that she had to wait until he was completely done getting ready, but there was no way she would ask which way he meant it.

She began to wiggle and tried to take her mind off going. As she waited she counted the flowers on her bedspread. Then she counted the stripes on her rug. Next she counted the polka dots on her curtains. She was running out of things to count and rocking back and forth.

“Go ahead, just hurry it up.”

“Thanks Daddy, I’m sorry.”

Nola pulled down her panties and hiked up her nightgown, barely making it to sit down on the seat before she started to pee. She leaned forward and pushed, trying to hurry it up. When she was finished she didn’t wash her hands; she could do that in the kitchen.

Once downstairs Nola could still hear that same intermittent walking back and forth until finally the master bedroom door closed. The next sound would be her father’s footsteps on the stairs; he was coming.

As her father entered the kitchen Nola said, “Good morning.” There was no reply. Sometimes that meant something, sometimes it didn’t. Nola sat very still at the table, moving only just enough to quietly continue eating her cereal. She tried to be careful and not eat too loudly, not to slurp her juice or scrape the spoon against the cereal bowl. He hated that noise in particular.

On the counter by the stove she watched her mother line up three coffee cups while her father stood waiting. Kate filled each cup halfway so there’d be room for plenty of milk. This was her father’s only breakfast; he never ate in the morning, except for Sundays when he got a bagel downtown. He poured milk into the first two cups and drank one of them standing over the sink. Then he took the second cup and headed out the side door and through the breezeway into the garage. The third cup sat there alone and black on the counter, waiting for his return. Nola could see the steam rise in a misty cloud over the mug. Her father liked his coffee hot, it really had to be boiling so the milk wouldn’t turn it too cold.

Nola knew that her father was meticulously cleaning the windshield of his car with Windex and paper towels, just like he did every single day. Rain or shine he always started out with a clean window to look through on his short drive to work. Nola thought it was funny that he cleaned the windshield even if it was raining or snowing. When she asked him why he did it, since it would just get dirty again, he said that it still made a difference, he said, “dirt adds up.”

When her father came in from the garage he had his usual wad of dirty paper towels in one hand and the empty coffee cup in the other. He didn’t have a garbage pail in the garage; he didn’t want any trash near his car. He never left his cups lying around, either. Nola wasn’t allowed to drink anywhere in the house except the kitchen because he didn’t want any cups or glasses left lying around. Things lying around would get him really mad.

After the garage Graham went into his study to polish his boots. With the thin walls and the open door Nola could hear him almost as clearly as if he were in the room with her. She knew by the sounds what he was doing every step of the way.

When Nola was a smaller child and liked to follow her father around she would watch Graham shine his shoes nearly every morning. She was fascinated by the process, loved the sharp metrical sounds of the brush and antiseptic, oily smell of the polished leather. Later, as she got a little older, she would peek at him from the butler’s pantry instead, hoping he wouldn’t notice her watching. But now she just listened from the kitchen to the familiar sounds.

First, he got out his shoeshine kit from the bottom desk drawer. She could hear the bag unzip, hear the can of polish being opened and then the unmistakable noise of her father spitting onto the surface of the thick paste to thin it out. Then there was a muffled sort of quiet, so he must be spreading the dark polish onto his cowboy boots with a soft brush, working it in all the nooks and crannies, every inch covered, no spot missed. The silence was broken by the rhythm of a stiff bristle brush as it brushed back and forth, evenly stroking across all sides of the well-worn boots. A few more moments of silent buffing with a cloth and he’d be done.

Once her father came back into the kitchen he took the last cup of coffee and added the milk. While he stood drinking it over the sink again, Nola’s mother finally put the milk away.

With his back turned to anyone that might be in the room, Nola’s father stared out the window drinking the last of his morning coffee. The routine was almost over now. Nothing had been slammed, no indication he was mad for any reason. If he didn’t say anything, if he didn’t have any bones to pick with her or her mother, then that meant everything was okay.

That’s what her father always said if he wanted to tell her she had done something wrong, or if she hadn’t done something she was supposed to do. “Listen,” he’d start off, “ I have a bone to pick with you.” Sometimes he would say he had “a few bones to pick”, or even “a lot of bones,” when she’d messed up a bunch of stuff. He’d even have a bone to pick with both Nola and her mom sometimes, “I have a bone to pick with both of you.” That’s what he said if he was willing to set them straight about something.

But sometimes he wasn't willing to talk to them; he wouldn’t talk to them at all, not even to say hello or goodbye. Sometimes it didn’t mean anything but other times it was a warning sign, it meant he was really mad and they would have to guess, to try and figure out what they did wrong.

The way you'd know he was mad was he'd slam things. You weren’t sure if or when it was coming, so it was always kind of a surprise. He’d walk into the room with the same countenance he did every day, take that heavy pottery mug of coffee laden with milk calmly in his hand and when he’d drunk it all down he might suddenly slam it on the worn wooden counter, loud enough to startle but not hard enough to break it. He never broke it; though whenever that happened Nola thought this would be the time, this would be the time he went too far and broke the cup.

Other times he’d drink the coffee and place the cup down gentle as usual, only to slam the side door with all his might as he left to go to the garage, slam it so hard it shook the whole house. Or maybe he’d slam it shut when he came back in. He might kick the metal garbage can after throwing out the dirty paper towels, ostensibly because the lid stuck, though kicking didn’t do anything but dent it; there were dozens of small little divots around the perimeter of the can from Graham’s frustrated boot tips.

Sometimes nothing would happen until Graham left the house and he’d slam the front door so hard the grapevine wreath would go flying off or books would fall from the shelf in the next room. You just never knew. You never knew if everything was ok until he’d finally left for the day and nothing had been slammed. You never knew it was alright unless no bones had needed to be picked.

Nola had a dream once when she was very little that she took a huge pile of bones, scraps from Grandee’s roast chicken, and placed them on a platter in front of her father at the dinner table. She did it to please him, in the dream she thought it would make him happy.

the ninny & the weasel

2009-04-04T07:47:00.000-07:00

“Is this signature alright, yes or no?” The man behind the counter at the DMV asked Kate as she looked at the form to verify her own signature.

“Yes, it’s fine,” she said politely.

“M’am, is this signature alright, yes or no?”

Kate thought she hadn’t answered loudly enough, so this time she said very clearly, in a stronger voice, “Yes, it is fine.”

Now the man behind the counter let out an exasperated sigh and spoke very slowly, annunciating every word in an exaggerated manner as if she were mentally challenged, “M’am, is this signature alright,” and through gritted, impatient teeth he finished, “...yes or no?”

Kate now realized he had heard her the first two times, it was her response that was at fault. Was he only allowed to accept a specific ‘yes or no’ answer, or was he just being a prick? Normally Kate would have just given him what he wanted. She would have felt stupid for not having picked up on the requirement and given the proper answer in the first place. But today, today she was not in the mood to give anyone what they wanted, least of all this weasely little ass behind the DMV counter. Nola had kept her up all night and she was bone tired, she was too tired to give anyone what they wanted anymore.

“Yes, it is fine!” Kate said loudly, slowly, matching his exasperation word for word, spitting out the words through her own clenched teeth.

He finally looked up at her. She was staring at him as if he were the most evil man on earth, as if he was the epitome of evil and she had been hunting him her whole life waiting for this very moment to jump over the counter and drive a stake through his inhuman heart.

Without looking away and maintaining a totally blank expression he said, “Twelve dollars please.” This time his tone was flat, not angry, but not pleasant either. Kate placed her cash down on the counter and he slid her driver’s license towards her, just close enough for her to reach. She snatched it up, glared at him one more second, and then turned and walked away as defiantly as she could, triumphant, knowing that people were staring at her, secretly cheering her on for standing up to the weasel behind the DMV counter the way they all wished they had the nerve to do.

It wasn’t until she got all the way out to her car that she realized she didn’t have her purse.

Oh good God, I left it on the counter! Oh shit! What am I going to do? I can’t go back. I won’t. She looked at the car door, luck would have it the car was unlocked. She opened the door and climbed in, relieved she could find some cover, some semblance of privacy to hide in. At least she could have a moment to think.

She wouldn’t go back in, no way. She would call Graham from a payphone and tell him she lost her purse, that she didn’t know where. But he would suggest it was at Motor Vehicle, he would tell her to go there and check first before he came all the way down there. Or did he even know that’s where she went? Had she remembered to tell him where she was going? Maybe she could say she had come to town to go to one of the stores instead. The shoe store, yes, she could say she went there.

This was ridiculous, she should go back to the DMV and get her damn purse, she’d done nothing wrong, nothing to be embarrassed about. But that man had been so mean and she had stood up to him, sort of. She had certainly let him know that she didn’t take kindly to his treatment of her, she had made that clear at least. But now all her courage, all her brave defiance had evaporated at the foolishness and pathetic idiocy of forgetting her purse. How could she have been so stupid? If she had a brain she’d be dangerous.

That’s what her mother always said to her, “if you had a brain you’d be dangerous.” Graham had laughed hysterically the first time her mom had said it in front of him, back when he and Kate were dating. He thought it was very funny, said he’d have to remember that. And he did. Kate had laughed too then, trying not to appear overly sensitive, like she was a good sport and could take a joke. But it had cut her to the quick that her mom would use that familiar phrase in front of her new boyfriend. If only she’d known then that it would pale in comparison to what Graham was capable of saying. Graham and her mom had a lot in common. They both could make her feel inept with one look; one sharp verbal jab could flatten her and cut her to the core.

Kate felt stupid, like she couldn’t even manage to do the simplest stuff right. Her mother would chastise her, point out her mistakes with a laugh, but not because it was funny. In fact, she knew she was the bane of her mother’s existence. Always with her head in the clouds and her feet going the wrong way, Kate forgot things all the time, mere minutes after instructions were given she would have no recollection of what was expected, probably because she wasn’t paying attention in the first place. No doubt because of that she made mistakes, sometimes big ones. She probably would actually forget her own head if it weren’t attached.

Her mother would have a few choice things to say about this episode. She’d say, “what’s wrong with you, how could you forget your purse, it was right there on the counter in front of your own eyes?” And she’d think Kate was utterly ridiculous for not wanting to go back and get it, she’d call her a ninny – yet another of her mother’s favorite ways to castigate her. Kate hated that word, “ninny.” It sounded exactly like what it was, a weak, silly, lame little person with no sense whatsoever. “Why are you being such a ninny, go back and get your own damn purse.”

Kate new from an early age she just didn’t have the courage, the fortitude her mother did. Her mother was the strongest woman she knew, she seemed made of iron. When her father died Kate’s mother had raised her and her three brothers, worked two jobs and kept the house spotless. Kate’s brothers had all gone to college, each one had achieved success and credited their mother for pushing and for making them tow the line. Somehow Kate was different, what seemed like basic tasks of life overwhelmed her. Even as a child she always knew she was her mother’s greatest disappointment. When her mother didn’t speak to her, ignored her, she knew it was because poor Agnes couldn’t bear to be reminded of this colossal failure, Kate’s mere presence would be like rubbing salt into the wound.

There was no escape from Agnes and her critisizm, even from beyond the grave she manged to shake Kate’s confidence. Whenever Kate felt stupid, every time she made a mistake, she thought of what her mother would think, could practically hear her harsh, raspy voice in her head. It was an automatic response. Now she sat in the cold car and wished she had the nerve to go back and get her purse, wished she could be more like normal people. But she wasn’t and never would be. She was weak, her mother was right. Graham was right. Even Nola, the way she looked at Kate sometimes with those knowing blue eyes, even her own infant daughter already knew she was useless.

Kate looked up just in time to see that man, the weasel from the DMV, walking towards her car, her purse in his hand. She got out and walked around the front of her car to meet him. “You forgot this,” he said, barely looking at her. “Yes, I just realized…” but before she could finish the sentence he’d already turned and was walking away, back to his weasely counter, his weasely job.

Even he knows I’m a ninny. It is obvious even to him.

Disclaimer: Weasels are noble creatures, some of my most treasured friends are weasels -- the dreaded DMV Weasel is a species unto itself and no relation to the other, talented and remarkable weasels of the world :)

Sycamore Cave

2009-04-02T08:04:00.001-07:00

Nola had studied the local history of her town in her library class, fascinated especially by the old photographs. Some things looked familiar to her, like the downtown storefronts, even with the horses and buggies parked along Main Street instead of cars. But other pictures were unidentifiable; they looked completely foreign as if they weren’t taken in her town at all.

She listened intently to the town historian as she explained that Darlington was one of many suburbs around New York City that grew out of a once predominantly agricultural community. There were still vague remnants of a few old farms, though they were dwindled down to only a handful of measly acres now. Bits and pieces of the woodland areas scattered throughout the currently upscale and quaint neighborhoods were actually once farmer’s fields, overgrown through the course of a mere half century or so with large oaks, hemlocks, maples and sycamores, the forest reclaiming what the plow had abandoned just a few generations ago. It amazed Nola how quickly nature could change things, how fast it erased all human traces if given half the chance.

Nola’s own home was a quaint old farmhouse preserved from another era, once part of one of the largest farms in Darlington, owned by members of the Darlington family themselves. She saw lots of pictures of the house at the library, but only a few of the people who lived there, other than Ramsey Darlington, the town founder, his pictures were plentiful. Her house had once had acres and acres of land around it, all cleared and nearly flat. Today the land surrounding her house was barely a quarter acre. Much of the original parcel had been sold off lot by lot during the housing boom of the fifties and the rest was eventually donated by the Darlington family to nearby Mahwah Mountain College for expansion in the sixties.

Landlocked behind Nola’s home was a 10-acre tract of woods, likely once one of those flat, cleared fields where maybe cows grazed or corn grew. Along the perimeter of the former field was the remarkably intact vestiges of a low, stone wall, no doubt built by that long gone Darlington farmer who once lived in Nola’s house. Today the wall acted as a divider of sorts; along one length of it the woods were divided from the houses of the bordering street, and on the other side it outlined the edge of the rolling college lawns. Across the third side, the farthest stretch of wall from Nola's yard, it created a property line for another old Darlington farmhouse, smaller than Nola's, but of the same era.

Nola liked to think about the farmer that lived in her house, and his wife and children. She pictured them picking up rocks turned up by the plough and placing them upon the ever-growing wall, stone by stone. Nola could imagine that maybe the children might be able to identify which individual stones they’d each placed there, maybe even proudly boasting about which one of them had laid the largest one, heavier than his or her brothers and sisters were able to lift. Nola always imagined there were lots of kids; all those old time farmers had big families. Grandee had told her it was necessary to have lots of children because there was a lot of work to do, and sadly sometimes the children didn’t all live so they needed to have as many as they could to ensure there’d be enough to carry on the farm. Times were different back then, harder for children and adult alike.

It must have been a daunting task to lay a rock wall like that if you thought about it, but Nola guessed they didn’t give it much thought, that farmer and his family with all his many kids. They probably just took it in stride and did what needed to be done. That’s what it seemed like all people from the past did. Whenever her grandmother told her stories from her own childhood it seemed like people in the generations past accepted their lot in life better than people did today. At least that’s what she always said.

Nola loved her house, and she loved her street and the surrounding neighborhood, but perhaps her favorite place lay in those woods behind her home. Safely contained within the confines of that old stone wall at the center of the woodland, was a place called the Sycamore Cave by the local children, as they’d called it since before Nola was born, though it wasn’t a cave by any means. It was actually a half downed tree, what once was an impressive sycamore, it’s trunk 20 feet in diameter, over 100 feet tall. But lightening had struck the giant, probably back when it stood alone in that cleared farmer’s field, and the top half had been severed almost all the way through, but not quite. It snapped and fell in such a way that the upper portion stayed attached to the trunk, and, as if bending down from the waist, the top landed astride of it. The once lush, long limbed canopy was now upside down and created a fifty-foot cone of sorts, like a teepee of tangled limbs.

Through the years vines and brambles quickly grew over the outer branches so that the interior, starved of sunlight, was completely hidden from view and only a carpet of dry leaves blanketed the ground within. Bare, dead limbs on the shaded interior of the “cave” seemed almost like a rickety framework, an unfinished cathedral created by some crazy architect, now abandoned. You could climb to the top, the once middle of the tree, if you were brave enough. Nola hadn’t attempted it since she was little, but then she never made it to the top. She was glad now she hadn’t. She decided not to try anymore, to leave it unclimbed.

Nola often wondered if Ethan had ever seen the tree, but her mother said she couldn’t remember. It was hard to believe that he hadn’t, Grandee said he loved to go for walks in the neighborhood with Granda. They’d be gone for hours and Granda would come back carrying Ethan, half asleep, they’d gone so far in their travels that it had worn him out. Nola always wished she could have known her grandfather. Everyone, even Grandee, said he was a mean man; a hard man is what she’d say. Nola’s own dad would shake his head and say his father was a tough old coot, “hard as nails and twice as sharp.” But everyone agreed he had a soft spot, a special place in his heart for his grandson. Nola knew her grandmother felt that way about her, that she held that kind of special place in Grandee’s heart. But it would have been nice to have a grandfather carry her home after an adventure.

Everywhere Nola went in her neighborhood, her little world, she wondered if Ethan had been there before her. As she got older than he had been when he died, she began to realize that his world had been rather small, he hadn’t had the chance to expand it the way she did. She was the lucky one, her mother would often say, who got to do all the things he didn’t get a chance to. Sometimes when she’d whine about something she couldn’t have or wasn’t allowed to do her mother would give her a sad look and say, “You should feel lucky for all the things you do have, all the things you do get to do, your poor brother didn’t get his chance.” It always made Nola feel bad. Whenever she got to do something that she knew Ethan didn’t get the opportunity to experience she felt like she should try extra hard to enjoy it. That way maybe she could make up for what he missed. It was difficult, though, and she never felt like it was enough, never felt like she could enjoy things enough for the two of them.

When grown-ups mentioned Ethan to her mother or father, which they rarely did, but if they did, they would always say what a blessing Nola must be to them. Her parents smiled and said yes, thank God for Nola, they didn’t know what they would do without her. But Nola didn’t feel like a blessing. She wished she did, she wished she could be a comfort, a gentle reminder that Ethan had been here on earth.

She’d already lived longer than her brother, she’d surpassed him, she was in a new territory beyond his knowing, his touch. Darlington had been Ethan’s home just like it was the home of the farmer’s children who lived in her house, yet those children would hardly recognize their home now, the woods in what was once their level, cleared field would seem as foreign to them as another planet. Would it be that way for Ethan, too? Someday the Sycamore Cave might finally fall down completely and rot into the earth, leaving no trace of the children who once climbed its lofty heights. The rock wall could crumble and the stones laid with care would disappear beneath the leafy mulch of the forest floor. That felt unforgivable to Nola. Time was cruel, unyielding. It felt unsafe.

namesake

2009-03-31T15:54:00.001-07:00

“In those days you didn’t call for a doctor unless you had money, which we didn’t. You took care of things your self; there were all kinds of home remedies about. When my sisters both got sick at the same time we didn’t think too much of it at first, we didn’t know anything about the Spanish flu, didn’t know anything at all. Besides, they were strong, beautiful girls; handsome we used to call them. They were so strong as to be able to do nearly the same work as any hired man, my father used to brag. Course there weren’t many men to be hired back then, what with the war.”

“Anyway, my sisters got worse so quickly there was barely time to realize it, we didn’t even have time to get the priest. They’d gotten sick on a Sunday after church and by the next morning you could hear the death rattle in their heaving chests and there was a strange foam coming out of their mouths. By the evening they were both dead, within an hour of each other. My parents were in shock; I don’t think they could believe it had happened. I remember thinking they were very strong because they didn’t cry, but now I wonder if they were just so stunned they couldn’t.”

“People were laid out at home back then, and since there were two of them they lay side by side, barely fitting on the dining table that was moved into the parlor. I remember they had coins on there eyes too, but now I can’t recall what that was for. I think it was because sometimes the dead’s eyes wouldn’t stay closed. Yes, I’m pretty sure that was it. I was very young at the time, you have to realize, so a lot of things didn’t seem clear to me.”

“Both Mary and Katherine had their Sunday dresses on and so did I. My father had picked a small bouquet of flowers and placed each of the girls’ hand around it, so they were both joined together with those posies. I remember thinking that they looked so pretty and clean and I wondered aloud how that happened because when I saw them last in their sick beds they looked awful, Mary’s red hair was wild and tangled and Katherine’s dark eyes looked big as saucers, like she had no pupils at all, they were just black empty holes against ghostly white skin. But my aunt told me that she and my mother had stayed up the night before bathing them and getting them fixed up and dressed. Then she started crying and said, ‘It should be the other way around, our children should be dressing us for the grave.’ She had five children herself. By the end of the winter she was dead too, and so as my uncle. I don’t know what happened to my cousins. We couldn’t take them in, we were barely scraping by.”

"It was just a few days after my sisters died that my baby brother, Nolan got sick. You know that’s where your name came from, don’t you? Yes, of course you do, I’ve told you that before. Nolan was named after my father’s mother, Nolan was her maiden name and the name of the village we lived in, Nolan Hill. I remember my father used to sing a little song he must have made up, something about ‘Rollin, Nolan Hill, God bless us yes He will.’ I wish I could remember the words. He had a lovely voice. "

"My mother seemed to go numb when baby Nolan took sick, but my father got crazed, he got desperate. He began cursing God and yelling at my mother to do something, not to just sit there weeping like an idiot. He wanted her to nurse Nolan as she had Mary and Katherine, but I just don’t think it was in her, I think she knew it would do no good. She was already in mourning for the boy. But my father wouldn’t believe it, he tried anyway. When the poor baby’s fever spiked and his breathing started to become hard I watched as my father did what looked to me then with my young eyes like torture the boy. He wrapped him in thick woolen blankets and held him tightly, the baby’s fever made him strong for a bit and he struggled against my father’s sturdy arms but eventually he resigned himself to it, I guess. You see, the thought in those days was that you needed to sweat a fever out to break it, so they’d cover you in blankets and put hot water bottles ‘round you even."

"All night my father held the boy in his arms, just sat there at the kitchen table and rocked little Nolan back and forth, singing until his voice was just a hoarse whisper. No one sent me to bed; I sat there with him and my mother. I fell asleep with my little head on the table. In the morning when I woke it was obvious the boy had died sometime during the night, he was limp in my father’s arms, wrapped in all those damp, sweaty blankets.”

"I think that drove my father over the edge; I think that’s what killed him. He went shortly after Nolan. It was just my mother and me then. We had to leave the farm in the spring because there weren’t enough men, what with the war and all, to help work the farm. We had to move to the city where we could both find some work. My mother always said we’d get enough money together and go back, go back to Nolan Hill. But we never did. I’ve never been back and now that your grandfather lies here in this plot with your own baby brother, I’ll rest here someday too, instead of with my parents or brother and sisters back in Ireland. That’s what you do, Nola, you marry and go where your husband takes you, you make a life out of what you can and hope God doesn’t give you too much to bear. That’s all you can do."

sharp things

2009-03-29T10:56:00.000-07:00

From the minute he was told about the accident Graham had been stoic. She’d thought he was strong, at first. He never openly mourned, at least not in front of her. No tears, no desperation, not one crack in his staid demeanor. Of course he was grim and he was quiet, speechless even. Graham moved as if on automatic pilot, zombie like. But he never broke down, not once. Kate never would have gotten through the whole process, the hospital, the funeral, if it weren’t for Graham’s solid level of control. She also hated him for it. She could never forgive him for letting her mourn alone.

It seemed like as soon as Ethan was in the ground Graham went back to a routine, back to living some semblance of his former life. He didn’t do it with as much animation – none in fact. But he put one foot in front of the other. He got dressed, he ate, he even slept. Kate could do none of that. She was in a drugged out haze from the tranquilizers and even if she hadn’t been she could not have functioned as before. Food would never be the same. Sleep would never be the same. Breathing would never be the same. Ethan was gone and nothing could be the same ever again without it feeling like a betrayal, a denial.

She watched Graham sometimes, when he wasn’t aware, looking for a crack in his hard exterior. She had done that, watched him secretly, since they first met. Back then she had loved the way his movements seemed so exact, so assured, never any extraneous motion, even when he had no idea anyone was looking. Every action he took had a purpose. Whether he was walking down the street, making a sandwich or washing his car it was all fluid, no hesitation.

Whenever they were far apart, fighting, arguments that went on for days, when they had barely spoken in weeks, she didn’t want to watch him. She didn’t want to admire his perfect execution of everyday activities. But sometimes she caught herself doing it in spite of herself, despite him.

After Ethan died she found herself watching him all the time, but now it was with rage, a silent wrath that she could feel bubbling in her chest the minute she saw him. Yet to give voice to it, to speak of it would be to offer him a chance to refute it, to defend himself from it. She wouldn’t do it. She would never give him that. She would rather watch him and hate him, blame him for his ability to go on.

There was one day, months after Ethan was buried, that she remembered thinking he might break after all, might lose it as she had done so many times. She’d started into the kitchen and noticed Graham was there, she hadn’t heard him come home from work. Kate hung back, staying in the doorway partially obscured by the Hoosier cabinet immediately on the right as you entered. Unless he turned around and took a few steps into the center of the room past the old pine farm table he wouldn’t know she was there. And even if he had, she just would pretend she was coming around the corner at that very moment.

Graham had all the ingredients for making a sandwich laid out on the counter in front of him, the mayonnaise, the bread, lettuce, tomato, and a package of cold cuts. She hadn’t been cooking and the gifts of food had stopped weeks ago. Graham hadn’t complained aloud, but she knew he was losing his patience; his silence always spoke volumes to her.

She watched as he took the serrated knife and thinly sliced the tomato, placing the sharply pointed knife at the back of the counter when he was done. Then he spread mayo on one slice of bread with a butter knife, placed the lettuce on it and then placed the butter knife in the sink; he was done with it. Next he went to open the package of ham…or was it bologna? Graham reached into the blue crock Kate kept on the counter that held the most often used objects, spatulas, tongs, wooden spoons, and kitchen shears. He took the scissors and cut open the package of cold cuts and then laid them on the counter.

Almost immediately, out of habit, he realized what he’d done and picked them back up – no sharp objects left within reach of Ethan, both of them were always so careful of that. It was easy to forget, to get distracted and leave a stray knife or fork too close to the edge of the counter where little hands could reach up for it. Once when he was barely two, Kate found a steak knife in the toy box, he must have taken it from the kitchen and managed not to impale himself with it, thankfully. After that they’d taught themselves to be vigilant, watchful, as all parents did as their toddlers explored more and more of their surroundings.

Graham picked up the scissors again out of that time ingrained habit and began to put them back into the crock, but stopped. He held them halfway, frozen in midair. Kate couldn’t see his face but she could tell by the angle of his head that he was staring at them. Slowly he put them back down on the counter. Then he slid them closer and closer towards the edge, slowly, till they were right at the very rim before falling on the floor. He reached for the serrated knife and placed it next to the scissors, also right at the counter’s edge, its blade hovering in space, only the heavier handle kept it from falling over the edge, kept it rooted to the counter’s surface. One by one he took all the sharp objects from the crock, the meat fork, the large bread knife, the sharp cheese grater, and lined them all up side-by-side at the edge of the counter.

Once done, Graham put his hands down at his sides and stepped back as if to survey his handiwork. Suddenly he turned away and walked quickly across the room, opened the back door and went outside, leaving his sandwich half made and all those implements of harm lined up at the edge of the counter, like weapons ready for impending battle.

Ethan wasn’t there. The scissors couldn’t hurt him; sharp things were no longer dangerous. There was no point in being careful anymore. It was just the two of them now.

Kate turned and went back upstairs. She went to Ethan’s room, where she slept now, and took a few more Valium. When she came back down in the morning everything was back in the crock, tidy and neat, as if nothing had happened. Everything was safely back in place again just the way it was.

perfect

2009-03-26T08:32:00.001-07:00

“I miss my mother,” Nola whispered, concentrating hard on the pitiful way it sounded, trying to let that feeling of primal, childlike longing well up from deep within her, willing the tears come. She wanted a flood, an unrelenting flood of sorrow to engulf her, hot, salty tears streaming down her face. “It’s not fair” she softly moaned, rocking, chanting the words ‘I miss my mother’ over and over again, like a mantra, goading herself, trying to provoke a state of anguish beyond her ability to control. She wanted to set that anguish in unstoppable motion so she could float away in the raging sea of it. She needed to get lost, to find release; she wanted to cry, to mourn, and to yearn for her mother. It might be her last chance.

But try as she might all she could feel was the anger and frustration she always felt towards her mom. The feelings of betrayal, of being ripped off, of not getting what she deserved. The only emotion she could muster for her dying mother was utter disdain.

On some level Nola wanted to give her mother a break, wanted to let it all go, especially now as her mother seemed to let go of life itself. But she was overcome by the need to hold onto to all that anger as punishment, to forgive Kate would be to let her off the hook. She needed to hurt her over and over the way she’d been hurt by her whole lousy life, to make her finally see how horrible she’d been.

Nola’s silent chant spontaneously changed now from “I miss my mother” to “How dare she.” How dare she lapse into this state of legitimate unconsciousness, how dare she find release, how dare she be so ultimately unreachable. So un-punishable. How dare she disappear yet again.

The realization that she could no longer love her own mother hit her and she felt all the air sucked out of her lungs. How could that happen? Am I really that pissed off at my comatose mother for being stupid, careless. Yes, that was it. Kate was, above all else, careless. And now it was Nola who couldn’t care less.

Am I a monster? Wouldn’t anyone think that, wouldn’t anyone find me despicable for feeling this way? What had she done that was so awful, really? Certainly her crimes couldn’t be considered as bad as her father, could they? He was mean, cruel, purposefully wretched. All her mother did was…was…not much. Not much of anything. She stood by, watched it all. She didn’t see it. But she could have. That was the difference, the fundamental difference. Knowing that her mother’s blindness was a conscious choice is what changed everything.

Her father didn’t know he was the way he was. He wasn’t innocent, but he wasn’t responsible in the same way. He was a product of his own nightmare childhood. In his deepest, darkest hour he faced his demons and took some responsibility, at least some. He definitely felt remorse. Not like Kate, Kate knew, she had moments of clarity and regret but instead of facing them she turned around and denied it all, made the conscious choice to close her eyes again and again.

Her mother made promises and offered pipedreams, over and over she offered hope and then let that fragile hope shatter. She made excuses. She made claims. She twisted reality out of shape until it lost its elasticity altogether; lost the ability to contain the concrete form of Truth and instead liquefied into a puddle of vague platitudes and broken promises.

How had this happened? Just a few short years ago Nola would have said they were close, would have said her mother was her best friend, it was two of them against the world, against her father for sure. But now Nola could clearly see it was only because that’s the way Kate always said it was, it was merely a depiction, an attempt at revising history. She said they were close, that they were more than mother and daughter. She said he was the enemy. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the truth either. Somewhere in between; somewhere in the gray; so damn much gray.

And what of Ethan? Would he have been here with Nola, understanding how she felt, commiserating with a similar experience? She imagined the sweet little face of a boy who loved his mommy as all children did. Would he see Nola as the betrayer of his perfect life, or the savior come to free him from a mother’s neglect. Was Ethan even all her mother had said, or was he just a little boy, a regular little boy adored by his mother. Or worse, what if Kate’s ability to love wasn’t dead and buried with him, but nonexistent in the first place, what if Ethan suffered for his mother’s emptiness too?

But thinking of Ethan brought Nola comfort, because no matter what Ethan would always be perfect since his story was over before it started. He never made it into the messy guts, the flawed chaos that is life. His beauty would stay eternal by its brevity; the perfect flower only remains possible within the bud. And whether she did when he was alive, his mother loved him but better after death, the point is she did love; if not a child in the flesh than one in memory.

And maybe Kate’s maternal failings were simply because Nola’s presence in her life was a constant reminder Ethan was missing from it, the crime she committed wasn’t being imperfect, it wasn’t being less than Ethan, it was being. Or maybe it was reminding Kate that she was only able to love a dead child and not a real one. Kate was defective, not Nola.

Perfection isn’t sustainable. Perfection is only possible at beginnings and endings, birth and death. Nola wanted the middle. Perfection was a state to be transcended, moved through and gotten beyond. It was a stage in the process, a phase of the journey, or perhaps the end of the road, but it was not in the middle, in the heart, the center.

Just then a nurse came in to check her mother and Nola realized she’d stopped her rocking, stopped trying to evoke emotions that she no longer carried within her. Empty and tired she stared at her mother’s near lifeless body lying in the bed. The machines breathed for her, steady and precise, no chance of a missed breath, no chance of a mistaken heartbeat. Her mother didn’t even have the responsibility of breathing now. Nothing was required of her anymore, not even living. She had retreated into her own, tightly closed bud, safe from facing her own imperfection. At that thought Nola found peace. Not forgiveness, but peace. The middle ground.

mistakes & miracles

2009-03-24T08:57:00.001-07:00

“I have brought you something, but you must promise me that when you are not playing with it you will keep it in your room, alright?”

Nola promised she would.

Grandee took a rectangle of thick lavender wool from the brown bag and laid it across her lap. “I knit this when I was pregnant with your father. But I was new at knitting and realized soon after I started it that it was going to turn out smaller than I’d thought. I’d misjudged the gauge of the yarn, you see, but thought I might as well continue with it since I needed the practice, to say the least.” And then she added in a conspiratorial whisper, “Truth be told I thought I was going to have a girl and she might could use this as a wee doll blanket. I never had my girl, until you that is,” she said squeezing Nola’s hand. “So, now this is yours. I think it’s perfect for Bear-Bear while he recovers, don’t you?” And with that she wrapped him up in the blanket. She held the swaddled Teddy bear like a baby and rocked him in one arm while stroking Nola’s hair with the other hand. Nola looked at Grandee rocking her wounded bear wrapped tightly in that thick blanket and remembered, “Just like baby Nolan!”

Grandee had been staring off into space, lost in the motion of rocking and stroking Nola’s hair for a moment, but at the sound of her brother’s name she stopped and looked intently at Nola, “what was that?”

“Like baby Nolan. You said they wrapped him up tightly in a warm thick blanket and your father rocked him all night. But baby Nolan died anyway.”

Grandee’s expression changed to a pained grimace, she grabbed Nola and pulled her onto her lap, hugging her tightly with the bear still clasped to her chest surrounding both of them in her strong arms, “Nola, is that what you’re thinking about, my poor brother, may he rest in peace?” and Grandee made the sign of the cross as she always did when she spoke of Nolan or Ethan. “Sweetness, Bear-Bear isn’t dead, and he will never die. As long as there is a scrap of fabric left to him, even a few measly torn bits, this bear will live forever.”

“Like a miracle, Grandee? Is it a miracle Bear-Bear was saved?”

Her grandmother looked at her and smiled, “Maybe, yes, yes I suppose he is a miracle bear. Why, he survived the terrible jowls of certain death,” she proclaimed with dramatic flourish, making Nola giggle. “Ah, there, now that’s the true miracle…a smile like that on a day like this.” And Grandee snuggled Nola’s cheek against her own, still clutching the swaddled bear and the child both.

“Nola, do you know what today is? It’s been years now you know. Ten years since your own poor brother died. Today is the anniversary of the accident, I think perhaps that’s why your mother isn’t herself, she wasn’t thinking. She didn’t mean for anything bad to happen.”

“Grandee?”

“Yes Love.”

“Do you mean she didn’t mean anything bad to happen to Bear-Bear or…?”

“Both, she didn’t mean for anything bad to happen to either of them.”

“But it still did.”

“I know, I know.”

destroyed

2009-03-22T18:54:00.000-07:00

Truth is like a loose thread, sometimes you pull it and it breaks off clean, never to unravel again. Other times you pull at it, hoping the thread will break but instead it unravels the whole edge, the more you pull the more the fabric comes undone until it’s nothing but a stringy, tangled mess and cutting the thread can’t save it anymore.

Everything was different now; nothing looked the same. When a veil is lifted everything that had been fuzzy and dim before becomes clear and crisp; the details sharp and in focus. Nola wanted to go through it all, each memory, each story, with newfound knowledge she wanted to revisit every significant aspect of her life and look at it from this new perspective, to see how it had really been, to catch the fragments of truth she had missed. Something as mundane, as seemingly innocent as a tattered teddy bear brought a clarity Nola hadn’t even known was missing.

“Bear-Bear”, as he had been known since Nola could remember being alive, was a teddy bear she had since birth, originally a gift from Grandee. Only he barely resembled a child’s stuffed animal anymore, let alone something specifically bear-like. He was little more than a stitched together rag with the remnants of two eyes and a nose. Nearly all his fur was gone, as were his ears, he had a stub where one of his arms had been and like Frankenstein’s monster he had a random pattern of zigzag stitches holding him together. Kate used to joke he’d been loved to death. She would tell how Nola took him everywhere, that he was her favorite toy, that he’d been peed on, vomited on, left in parks on swings and in the yard during snow storms. Poor Bear-Bear, she would say, but he was still loved, despite his bedraggled appearance.

It was true, Bear-Bear held a special place in Nola’s heart, he had a special place in her room to this day, on a shelf, tucked enough behind her books that prying eyes wouldn’t notice and he was spared ridicule, yet a bit of his face peeked out enough that she could see him, she knew he was there. Bear-Bear was still her guardian, her faithful companion.

But now Nola looked at the disheveled remains of her Teddy bear with different eyes. This was her favorite toy, her beloved little bear. How did it get in this condition? How did it get left behind in the park, left outside in the rain and the snow, why was the dog put in the room where her toys were that day so that she could chew whatever struck her canine fancy? Nola wouldn’t have let that happen to Marcy’s doll, she watched over her for Marcy because she knew that if something happened to that dolly Marcy’s little heart would be broken. That’s what you did for a little kid, you watched over them and made sure they were safe and you took care of what was important to them because that was part of it, protecting their heart from being broken was part of it.

Nola’s heart had been broken that day. She could feel the pain, the agony of that horrible day discovering the chewed remains of Bear-Bear when she came home from school and went to the playroom. She opened the door and Sheba came running out, glad to be let lose from her confinement. Kate had kept “that damn dog” out there all day, and a bored dog was a destructive one. There was shit and piss all over her doll blankets, fluff and padding from various stuffed creatures, now savaged, lay all over the floor with body parts of vinyl dolls and scraps of fur. The carnage was shocking, Nola tried to scream but no sound came out. And then she saw Bear-Bear, or what was left of him. He was decapitated and missing limbs, ripped apart like some horror movie victim. She barely remembered what happened after that, just bits and pieces of her mother being hysterical at the dog, of her trying to clean up the mess while telling Nola it would be alright, they would get her new toys. Only Nola didn’t want new toys, she wanted her own, she wanted her babies and her animal friends and most of all, more than anything else she wanted her Bear-Bear. She needed to rub his fur between her fingers and suck her thumb, she needed to feel him in the crook of her arm as she slept. He was her best friend and now he lay in rags and ruin.

Grandee came and tried to sew him back together, “good as new”, but of course he wasn’t. Still, Nola had been comforted some by her grandmother’s soothing voice as she sewed what bits and pieces she could find back together, creating a new version of Nola’s beloved. He still had the bit of fur on his arm where she liked to rub it, still lay in the crook of her elbow as she slept. Nola was devoted to him for many more years after that, but something had been lost, something had been taken from her forever. As damaged beyond repair as the bear had been.

And now today it was as if the pain was fresh, as if the last bit of her innocence had been trashed along with her toys, ripped to shreds by the hungry mouth of realization. It was her mother, not “that damn dog” that had really been to blame all those years ago. She had carelessly put the dog in the playroom, not another room where she might damage Kate’s or Graham’s belongings, but in the room where Nola’s precious friends were, in the room she played and sang and chatted happily to objects that listened to her in a way no one else did. Kate hadn’t given a second thought to what might happen.

Instead she told you how much she loved you without looking at you. She said motherhood was sacred and children were precious but then she locked chewing dogs in rooms with toys and told stories of favorite bears being loved to death instead of the truth…that nothing can be loved to death, only carelessly ignored with predictable results. It had all been predictable and yet she didn’t see it. She never saw anything she didn’t want to. Kate didn’t see any of it.

the hiding place

2009-03-20T18:56:00.000-07:00

Before the solid door with a lock was installed, Nola used to spy on her father sometimes. She’d hide in her special spot in the butler's pantry, under the counter behind the gingham curtain, and listen to the sounds from his study trying to guess what he was doing. The clicking sounds of his fingers on the keyboard meant he was writing, the sound of pages turning meant he was reading. If she heard the sound of papers being shuffled and a pen scratching that meant he was grading papers.

Sometimes, if she was feeing brave, she would poke her head out from behind her curtained hiding spot and peek thru the broken slat on the bottom panel of the folding door to see if her guessing was correct. That folding door was replaced when Nola was about 5 or 6, but before that it was all that stood between Graham and the outside world beyond his inner sanctum. That’s what he called the study; he called it his 'inner sanctum". Once when Nola was visiting with her mother at a neighbor’s house she asked where their inner sanctum was, she had thought it was the actual name of that kind of room, she believed it to be a space everyone had in their home just like kitchens or bedrooms.

Now the thought of spying on him, of entering that inner sanctum and looking at his things, terrified her. The last time she had she was finally caught, and the punishment had been severe.

Nola had been home from school, sick with the tail end of a cold, and feeling better as well as bored and restless. Her mother had needed to run to the store and decided to leave her alone rather than take her out in the cold weather. She said she would only be gone a few minutes but it seemed a lot longer to Nola. She was playing in the butler’s pantry when she heard her father come in. She could tell it was him by the way he jingled the keys in his pocket. Nola knew he hated it when she played in there so she decided to hide until her mother got back. Besides, she had thought, he probably was just going to get something and go back to school; he never stayed long if he cae home during the day, only popped in for this or that.

Nola quickly scooted into her favorite hiding space under the counter just in time to feel the rush of air as her father walked thru to get to his study. He closed the flimsy slatted bi-fold doors and she could hear him walking around, drawers opening, papers being shuffled, maybe the mail being looked at and placed on the desk. Then there was the sound of the springs creaking on the old diner booth, her father must be sitting there, probably closing his eyes for a rest, she’d seen him do it before. After a few moments of relative quiet, though, she began to hear strange sounds. She couldn’t identify them; she had never heard noises like this before. The sounds were so strange that curiosity got the better of her. The springs were squeaking nonstop now and it sounded like he was bouncing on the seat. That didn’t seem like something he would do. Nola had to see for herself so she cautiously poked her head out of the curtain and crawled closer to the door, carefully peeking through the missing slat at the bottom.

It took her a minute to realize that what he was doing was rubbing his penis, very fast, very vigorously, so much so that he was, in fact, bouncing a little on the seat. As she focused and what she saw became clear to her, Nola felt kind of sick and a little scared. There was something very wrong with it! She had seen his penis before, once or twice as he came out of the bathroom his robe had been open a little and she’d seen it hanging down between his legs, flopping a little against his wrinkled, sagging testicles as he walked. She remembered it was small and darker than his regular skin, sort of pink like his lips or tongue. But now as he was squeezing it so roughly it looked dark purplish and kinda wet; it was a different shape, too, longer and bent kind of funny. As he rubbed and squeezed it there was a moist, slippery sound, it reminded her of when her mother shook the egg noodles in the colander to get all the water out, a slurpy sort of noise.

Her father seemed to be in pain, like he was straining for breath, like he was choked and couldn’t get the sounds out. Nola panicked for a moment, maybe he needed help, maybe she should go in, say something, ask if he was ok? But he was sitting up, his eyes were open, it seemed like he could get help if he needed to. Something told Nola that she shouldn’t go in. She was too afraid to move.

For a few seconds Nola watched, frozen, staring at his hand moving up and down over that strange, dark, glistening penis. But then something else caught her eye. She realized that her father was looking at something, he wasn’t watching his own penis, and he wasn’t staring off into space. He was looking at something, focused squarely on it, staring hard. Nola couldn’t see what it was from her vantage point, but she could tell he was looking at a particular spot, almost like he was watching TV but there wasn’t a TV in his study.

Suddenly her father let out a deep groan and she almost jumped. Quickly her gaze turned back to him. He now had a bunch of paper towels in his hand and he was covering over his penis with them. He seemed to be pushing down hard on it and Nola panicked a little again, maybe it was bleeding now, maybe he was trying to make it stop like her mother did when she cut herself badly, applying pressure to the wound? But an instant or two later she could see he was only wiping it, he was drying off his penis. It looked sort of floppy again and it didn’t have that same angry dark color anymore. Whatever it was it had gone away. Maybe that was why he was rubbing it so hard, maybe there was something wrong with it and that was how you made it better.

He stood up and pulled up his pants, walking out of Nola’s view to what she assumed was the garbage pail, to throw out the paper towels. Or maybe not, maybe he didn’t throw them out in the study anymore than he threw out the ones he cleaned his windshield with in the garage – he hated garbage around his things, so maybe…

Just as the thought came into her consciousness that he might throw the paper towels away in the kitchen and therefore be about to leave the room, the door opened and Nola’s father would have practically tripped over her if she hadn’t just a split second before scurried back into her hiding spot behind the gingham curtain under the shelf. She could hardly breath and her heart was pounding so hard she was sure it was loud enough for him to hear. She clasped one hand over her mouth and hugged her knees extra tightly to her body with the other arm, praying like crazy that she wouldn’t be discovered. Her blood was rushing in her ears and she couldn’t hear anything for a moment, then she jumped when the metal garbage pail lid closed with a clang in the kitchen. She’d been right, he did go into the kitchen to throw away those paper towels. Thank God she’d thought of it when she did, one more second and she would have been caught…unimaginable what would have happened.

Nola could hear noises in the kitchen, her father running water at the sink, the towel being removed from the squeaky rack, then replaced with another squeak. The fridge door opened and closed, the snap and fizzy sound of a cap being twisted off a bottle of soda. Or maybe it was beer? Then the basement door opened and she could hear Grahams footsteps as he went down the half flight, opened the side door and headed thru the breezeway, most certainly to the garage.

She was safe. Or so she thought.

binge

2009-03-19T16:33:00.001-07:00

Kate roamed around the kitchen opening cabinet doors, rifling through drawers, looking for something to eat. She was physically restless but mentally numb, on autopilot. It was almost as if she could look down and see herself walking in circles, see what was coming, but yet was unable to stop it. Or unwilling.

She opened and closed the fridge countless times in her trek around the room, but there was nothing in there she wanted. Of course this was by design, her design. A futile attempt to prevent the inevitable. Along with a door full of condiments the only things in the refrigerator were fresh fruit, raw vegetables, a tofu lasagna, and some bean soup. There was soymilk and orange juice to drink. In the snack drawer of the cabinet next to the fridge were rice cakes and whole grain crackers, popping corn, a small container of raisins and some plain corn tortillas. She could bake the tortillas; maybe sprinkle them with some spices? No, too much work and not enough satisfaction. It wasn’t what she was looking for, longing for.

She opened the cabinet on the other side of the stove once more and this time climbed up on a chair to check out what was on the very top shelf. Whole-wheat flour, baking powder, cornstarch, a box of bran muffin mix, nothing that didn’t require effort or thought, nothing that would meet her urge.

But wait, there it was, a lone can of chocolate frosting, probably left over from Nola’s last birthday when she made those cupcakes. She shouldn’t eat that, it would make her sick, it was pure sugar and God knows what else.

Kate climbed down off the chair empty handed and started to pushe it back to the table where it belonged, but stopped. She left it where it was and made another pass around the kitchen, half-heartedly looking for something to change her mind.

Frosting wins, she knew it would the minute she saw it.

Frosting wasn’t the sort of thing you wanted someone to catch you eating. That would be embarrassing, pathetic even. Instead, frosting was the sort of thing you ate alone, in a bedroom, with the door locked. Or maybe it was like fast food you ate in your car, parked on a side road with no houses, stopping your feeding frenzy every time a car went by so no one could see.

But to take her frosting for a drive would be too silly. The bedroom was fine.

She grabbed a glass of milk and tucked the can of frosting under her shirt, just in case someone came home as she was going up the stairs.

Safely locked in her room she sat on the edge of the bed and opened the can. Eating it with her finger seemed somehow less intentional than if she’d used a spoon. She crooked her finger and dipped it into the smooth gooey confection and scooped out a great glob, licking her finger clean and plunging it back in to the sticky chocolate, repeating the process mindlessly over and over until the can was almost empty. She knew she would feel sick, shaky, nauseas, her teeth aching from the sweetness, but she could not stop. She didn’t want to stop.

When the can was empty she wanted something savory, needed something salty to counterbalance the sickeningly sweet chocolate. The tortillas? No, too much work. Maybe the popcorn?

She found herself in the kitchen again. This time she decided to make toast with lots of margarine – margarine was a treat she rarely allowed herself and when she did it was in measured teaspoons, one, maybe two at the most. Now she placed eight slices of bread into the toaster oven and waited by the window, in case someone came home. If they did she would quickly toss the bread outside and say it was old, stale, fit only for the birds.

Toast done she began to slather margarine on each piece, placing it back into the hot oven to melt it better. She thought for a minute, then grabbed a plastic shopping bag out from under the sink and placed all the toast, neatly stacked, inside so she could carry it back upstairs without anyone seeing if they came home right at that inopportune moment.

Once back in her room again, once the door was locked, again, she sat on the edge of the bed and ate the toast, margarine dripping, the hearty, nutty taste of wheat made her feel warm and satisfied. She took big bites, eating each slice in no more than three bites, letting the fat slathered bread fill her mouth up, not thinking about anything but feeling the sensation of chewing and swallowing, the taste of the rich salty margarine, and smelling the faint charcoal aroma of the slightly burnt edges, just the way she liked it.

When she was finished she knew she wasn’t done. Now she wanted something sweet again. She went back downstairs and decided to make cinnamon popcorn. She dug out the hot air popper from the lower cabinet next to the fridge and measured out the corn kernels. Then while the popper was heating up she grabbed a stick of margarine and placed it in the skillet and put it on the back stove burner to gently melt. She got out the cinnamon, found the sugar, and begain making a mixture of generous proportions in a cereal bowl, adding more and more cinnamon to the pile of white granuals until the color looked like the right shade, the way she remembered it should look. When the corn had popped and the margarine was melted she drowned the popcorn with it, almost making it too soggy. She took the cinnamon sugar and sprinkled it liberally over the damp popcorn, tossing it around, watching as it turned that beautiful, shiny caramel color whenever it hit a margarine wet spot.

Once again she climbed the stairs – no need to be so covert this trip, no one knew what she’d already eaten and the popcorn looked harmless, you couldn't tell how much margarine was really on it unless you tasted it. It looked pretty normal. Like a normal person’s snack.

Later, Kate would lie on the bathroom floor, cool tile against her face, wishing she could vomit the very depths of her interior out from within her. But she could never bring herself to stick her finger down her throat, never bring herself to get rid of the enormous mountain of crap she stuffed into her body. She just lay there wishing it would happen without her having to help it along. Without her having to do a thing, she wished she would throw it all up so she could feel better. She wished she were empty again.

everything in its place

2009-03-18T17:11:00.000-07:00

He slammed the door when he got back in from the garage. Nola knew she was in trouble.

“Goddammit, Nola, how many times have I told you not to leave your stuff lying around the yard? Huh, how many times, huh?”

“I’m sorry Daddy.”

“You’re sorry? Jesus Christ,” he spit out these last words through gritted teeth.

“What stuff, Daddy, what did I leave lying around?”

“You know Goddamn well what you left lying around. You know Goddamn well.”

“I don’t, I really don’t.” Nola could hear herself whining and tried not to cry.

“You figure it out,” and with that he slammed the drawer where he’d been searching for a knife. He’d found it and began to spread butter on his bread. “You know Goddamn well,” he added one more time for good measure. “If you know what’s good for you you’ll get out there and put that stuff away.”

“But Daddy, it’s raining, can’t…”

“Do what you want!” And with that he threw the used knife into the sink where it clattered loudly against the plates waiting to be rinsed. “Make sure you do the dishes before you leave this room.” Graham stormed through the butler’s pantry and into his study.

Nola looked out the window over the sink. She couldn’t see anything lying around. She went to the back door and looked. Nothing. She listened to see if she could hear her father in the study. Yes, he was in there. She walked into the foyer and looked out first the front window and then the side one. Still nothing. She would have to go outside.

Nola headed back into the kitchen and over to the sink. She rinsed the plates and silverware piece by piece, making sure to leave no traces of food, and put everything into the dishwasher. Then she went to the foyer closet and put on her slicker and boots and headed outside.

She scrutinized the front yard, trying to jog her memory as she stood in the drizzle feeling the panic rise up in her. What if she couldn’t figure it out? Once she was sure she’d sufficiently checked the front yard she headed around the side away from her father’s study scanning the grass as she walked very slowly. By the time she reached the back yard she saw it, sitting there in front of the shed.

She’d left the watering can there instead of putting back. That must be it. But what if it weren’t? What if he hadn’t even noticed that and it was something else she’d left out? Nola would have to keep looking, just in case. She walked over to the old shed and unlatched the door, placed the watering can inside on the shelf, made double sure to re-latch the door, and stood there in the rain, scanning the back yard for clues.

By the time she came back inside it was almost dark. There were no lights on in the house, except the one in her father’s study. That meant he hadn’t recently come out. She took off her slicker and hung it carefully on the hook over the radiator and placed her wet boots on the shoe tray in front of it. She decided to head upstairs and stay in her room until her mom got home.

As she went up the first steps the study door opened and her father’s voice stopped her, “Did you do what you were supposed to do?”

“Yes Daddy, I mean, I think so, yes. It was the watering can, right? That’s what I left laying around, right?”

“Jesus Christ, do I have to tell you everything? Yes, it was the watering can, ok, are you happy? I don’t want you going in that shed unless you put stuff away, got it?”

“I’m sorry Daddy, I forgot it because…”

“Did you hear me? I don’t want you going in there anymore unless you put what you take out back where it belongs, got it?”

“Yes, I’ve got it.”

“Did you load the dishwasher?”

“Yes, I did it before I went outside.”

“I better not find any crap on the dishes when it’s done.”

“You won’t.”

“I better not. Go up stairs to your room till your mother gets home. I don’t want any noise going on around here.”

“Ok Daddy.”

Nola went up the stairs to her room and closed the door. At least that was over with. She pulled out her schoolbooks from her backpack and spread them over the floor. Then she took a bed pillow and placed it against the wall, leaned back and closed her eyes. "This sucks, this sucks, this sucks, this sucks." She chanted the words over and over as the tears flowed down her cheeks and poured down her neck. After a few minutes she began to take deep breaths trying to steady her nerves, trying not to think about how trapped she felt, how inescapable this life was. She tried to numb herself and breath, just breathe in and out, one breath after the other without thinking about anything, anything at all.

After a short time she calmed down. She slowly opened her door and listened. All clear. She went to the bathroom and splashed water on her face. Carefully she wiped down the vanity and the faucet with the hand towel, replacing it with care on the towel rack. She walked quickly back to her room and quietly closed the door, safe once again. This was the one place he never came in to, this was her sanctuary. He didn’t care what condition her room was in as long as she kept the door closed. He didn’t care about anything in there as long as the door was closed. Nola never forgot to close her door. She protected her room from him and in turn it protected her back.

bedtime

2009-03-17T17:15:00.000-07:00

“Mommy, tell me another Ethan story, please?”

“Not now, Nola, we’ve been talking long enough, it’s time for you to go to sleep. You know, it’s already way past your bedtime.” but as firm as Kate tried to sound her resolve weakened quickly. She would like nothing more than to crawl back into bed beside her daughter and get lost in another story about her son.

“Please, Mommy, just one more, just one more story and then I’ll go right to sleep, I promise.” Kate noticed Nola’s delicate little hands, fingers crossed hopefully for luck.

“Alright, just one though, and then no more trouble, got it?”

“Got it,” said Nola triumphantly sitting back up, happy to be staying up even later. “Can you tell the beginning one, the one where Ethan was born?” Kate slid back into the bed beside her daughter and pulled the covers up around both of them again. “Ok, I like that one too.” She tried to smile at Nola, who look so pleased, so happy for this intimacy. Kate was instantly glad she relented because this was just what she needed. She needed to keep talking.

Nearly everyone else tried to shush her whenever she talked about Ethan. Nola was the only one who wanted to listen. At the first mention of her son’s name other people would murmur a shushing sound interspersed with vague platitudes while sadly shaking their heads. Strangely, few ever actually looked her in the eye; loss was somehow shameful. If they did meet her gaze, it was usually just to offer the old standby “I’m sorry” with a sympathetic expression plastered on their face. Sorry, yes, well of course they were sorry, who he hell wouldn’t be? What happened was…but she didn’t see why that meant had to stop talking about Ethan now that he was dead. That would be like forgetting him and she couldn’t if she tried. She didn’t want to walk around pretending he never existed, never to utter his name above a solemn whisper like it was against some rule to say it too loud. Kate didn’t feel like whispering, she felt like shouting, like screaming. Even after all this time.

Kate couldn’t ever stop thinking about Ethan. Everyone said it would ease up, that she would be able to let go enough so that life could go on. It didn’t happen. She knew in her heart it must not be normal to want to bring him into every conversation she had, from chatting with the cashier at the supermarket to discussing politics over cocktails at some faculty function she was dragged to…it seemed every subject lead to Ethan. For years now she had to remember to be aware of it so she could stop herself from going on and on about him. It obviously made people uncomfortable, it made for awkward silences and odd sideways looks. She knew people thought something was wrong with her and she hated that, hated them thinking she wasn’t handling this the right way.

But thinking about Ethan was like breathing, it just happened automatically. Or maybe it was more like a compulsion, a need. It felt primal like that, like a desire that had to be quelled or it would overwhelm her, it would get to the point where she couldn’t take it anymore.

Today was like that, the squelched need to talk about Ethan had been building and building, it started with that desperate longing that never really went away and kept getting bigger and bigger like swallowing one heavy stone after another until her gut was full beyond capacity, weighing her down to the floor. It was too heavy to carry the load for one more minute. She needed the release of talking about him. She never talked about the accident, or the hospital, certainly never about the funeral. She preferred to talk about the beginning. Just talking about simple, happy little memories, like those sweet early days when he was a baby, seemed to make her feel a little lighter while the story lasted. Thankfully her daughter was always a willing audience; she never tired of hearing Ethan stories, always hungry for all the details about him Kate could remember. It had become a frequent nightly ritual, a special time for both of them. Yes, Nola was her precious comfort. Thank God for Nola.

“When Ethan was born,” Kate began the story in an odd singsong voice, the same way she’d told it many times before, “he was the most beautiful baby in the nursery, all the nurses kept telling me that. Every shift when the new nurse would come on duty she’d stop by my room and say, ‘I’ve seen that beautiful baby boy of yours, Mrs. Collins’ and then she’d lean into the room a little further and whisper, careful so none of the other mothers would hear ‘…and he really is the most gorgeous baby ever, he's just so perfect.’ Can you imagine how many babies they must see, Nola? Thousands, I bet, really, many thousands. Yet they could tell there was something extraordinary about your brother. Most babies are kind of funny looking when they are born, all shriveled up and their skin is a weird reddish purplish color, their heads come out all smushed and misshapen. But not Ethan, he was the epitome of what a flawless, healthy baby should look like in every way, all pink, round, chubby and angelic, like a little cherub. Some of the nurses even suggested we get him into modeling, he was just that stunning.”

“Tell the part about when you brought him home, the part about all the people staring.”

“Well, when we brought him home from the hospital it was summertime so a lot of the neighbors were out, that’s when we lived in the city so people were outside more in the summer than you see around here. Anyway, your father could only find a parking spot four blocks away. Our old Pontiac had no air-conditioning, so rather than sit in the hot car while he circled around and around looking for a closer spot I decided it would be better to go ahead and park the car right there and walk. I carried Ethan in my arms. Daddy wanted to because I was still a little weak but I insisted. I just couldn’t put him down. Oh my, I held him all the time, just staring at him. I held him so much that sometimes when I’d finally put him down I’d realize my arms hurt. They say it spoils them, but I didn’t…”

“Mommy,” Nola interrupted, “what about that walk, the walk from the car to the apartment past all the neighbors?”

“Yes, right, sorry. So, as I walked down the street everyone wanted to peek at the little bundle I held in my arms. He was dressed all in beautiful shades of blue, he had a blue bonnet, babies still wore bonnets then, even boys. He had on a little cotton homecoming outfit and the cutest little blue booties that my great aunt knit him. But the blanket, well, that was something really special. The blanket wrapped around him was the most beautiful shade of silvery satin. I made it myself, bought the fabric when I was pregnant and stitched it to the softest white cotton so the inside would feel nice and fluffy against his skin. Then while I was in the hospital I added the trim and the blue silk tassels in all four corners…”

“And it looked like the blanket of a prince, like a blanket for royalty, right, Mommy?” Nola recited the words she’d heard from Kate dozens of times.

“Yes, that’s right, it was fit for a little prince. My little prince.” Kate smiled to herself, barely noticing that Nola lay down flat now and snuggled up against her.

“Anyway, every single person I passed glanced at the silver satin bundle in my arms, but when they caught an actual glimpse of the baby wrapped up inside they stopped whatever they were doing and each and every one of them just ranted and raved about your brother’s beauty. They’d say things like, ‘he’s amazing, he’s perfect, what a gorgeous baby, how lovely, how beautiful.’ Over and over every single person stopped us to tell us what a beautiful baby Ethan was. It was almost like a parade, you know?” Kate laughed, but when Nola made no reply she turned to look at her daughter for the first time since climbing back into her bed. She realized that Nola had finally drifted off to sleep. She was alone again now, empty arms folded across her chest, hugging herself. For a minute she could almost feel the weight of her infant son in those same arms, the solid feel of his chubby body, waving limbs wrapped tightly in the swaddling blanket. The emptiness was too much. She took a lock of Nola’s fine, brown hair between her fingers and stroked it a moment, then pulled, at first gently, then harder. Nola mumbled and woke up from her light sleep. Kate continued as if nothing had happened.

“…and people stopped to tell me how beautiful Ethan was wherever we went, all the time. At the store, the doctors, or even just out for a walk in the park pushing him in the baby carriage.” Kate kept an eye on Nola now and each time her daughter seemed about to drift off to sleep again she covertly moved or poked her a bit to keep her awake. “You know, as much as I was flattered, and I really was, it was also a little unnerving. He just garnered attention wherever he went. I understood though, how could you not notice him? He had such beautiful blond hair, a perfect chubby little face with round and rosy cheeks. And his eyes…”

But now Nola was finally fast asleep and Kate’s gentle poking and prodding couldn’t rouse her. Eventually she stopped trying, climbed out of the warm bed and walked out of the room, turning off the light switch by the door on her way, without looking back.