The Dead Come for Christmas
A Very Ghostly Christmas/October 2022
The Stray Branch/Spring/Summer 2023
Polly was a pale girl with red hair who often thought about death. Her brother and sister and parents had died when she was very young. Her brother’s body in his dark suit, the first she had ever seen, frightened and intrigued her. A few years later, Polly knelt beside her sister’s casket, reached for her cool, soft hand. Polly tried to picture what it would feel like for her own warm, familiar body to be stiff, cold. The solid fact of death followed her through her young life. She read the obituaries each week with an obsessive interest, constantly walked the cemetery, studying the names on the headstones.
At 30, after she’d married Liam and had her children, she began seeing the dead people on Christmas Eve. There were hundreds of them, different ages and styles of dress, walking a candlelit road outside her house. That first time, Polly stood at the window trembling, mouth agape. Of course, she was interested, but she was also terrified. She screamed for her son, Jarvis.
“What do you see?” she asked him, pointing out the window.
“Just darkness, Mommy.”
From that point forward, she claimed that Christmas Eve made her sad, and everyone expected that Polly take to her bed for the holiday.
***
The years passed, Polly found herself to be an old woman with all of her family and friends dead. She did not know why she continued to live, why day after day her heart beat in her chest, her skin emanated warmth, her blood trickled through stiff veins.
Her 95th Christmas Eve, Polly got out of bed, moved to the window, and saw the dead marching their solemn march. She stared at their faces, wanting desperately to recognize one of them. Liam? Jarvis? Beatrice? Mama? Papa? Her hand spread out on the cold window, hoping one of the spirit’s own hands would mirror hers on the other side.
Polly took her walker, hobbled outside in her robe and slippers, the icy air clawing up her legs. For the first time in 65 years she walked out among her dreaded dead. They swirled, danced, swept around her, but it was not scary. Astounded by the silence, the lack of sadness, the warmth, she wanted to stay with them, always.
“Mrs. Cantwell!” her nurse, Cynthia, appeared, interrupted Polly’s reverie, pulled her inside.
“What am I going to do with you?” she scolded. “Am I going to have to send you to the home?” Cynthia said, directing Polly inside to bed.
“You better be good, Mrs. C. No trouble,” she touched Polly’s cheek, shut off the light, closed and locked the door.
Polly, her blanket pulled up to her chin, listened to all the sounds, the ticking clock, the creaks and groans of the house. Her eyes moved to the end of the bed, where a collection of spirits assembled. A cloud-like finger reached out, beckoned her forward. Polly smiled, the joy of Christmas, at last, overwhelming her.
The Silence
The Last Girls Club, Wicked Tales, Sept 2022
Not Close
In every old photo, my sister, Therese, is drenched in shimmering light.
She is always happy, either tap dancing or popping out of a cartwheel or hugging Grandma.
In all images of me, I am looking down, or away, caught in a lack of expression, my lips frozen for time in a straight line.
“Celeste is the quiet one,” our parents said, offering an acknowledgement as a kind of
apology. I never knew why my personality had to be forgiven. I always thought of my silence as solitude, strength.
Even my teachers were uncomfortable with me.
Good grades. Too quiet, the comments often read.
Therese always did the things everyone liked, like talk and join the debate and swim teams. On weekends, we followed Therese’s activity schedule. I didn’t even know how to swim. I sat sweating on the bleachers at her meets, staring at the water, imagining dolphins popping their noses out of the water.
Therese and I were never close.
Miscarriage
“I-I need you to come,” she said, a desperate sob, hospital noises in the background, beeps
and loudspeakers.
I turned off my computer and went to my sister.
“There was no-no heartbeat,” she wailed into my shoulder minutes after my arrival. My
mind had to catch up:
1. My sister was pregnant and
2. My sister was pregnant with a not-alive baby.
She caught her breath and attempted to tell me what needed to be done, how this would play out, how she would leave the hospital with no baby inside her.
“Where’s Tim?” I asked. My sister’s husband tended to be always somewhere else. I often
joked that the last time I saw him was at the wedding, not far from the truth.
“He was negotiating a contract. It was too important. He couldn’t come.”
Anger came first, then shock. Shock that her husband would think a contract was more important than this and, selfishly, shocked she called me, not Mom, not her best friend, me.
My bright star sister clung to my shoulder, her tears soaking through my shirt, dampening my skin. Overcoming my shyness and discomfort, I reached for her head, moving one sweat-soaked strand from her forehead, tucking it behind her ear.
Closer
“I’m having coffee with Therese,” I told Noah, pulling a tee shirt over my head. My husband
was still in bed, his Saturday morning ritual.
Therese and I found we actually enjoyed one another’s company. We met for coffee and
lunch and glasses of wine. We laughed about annoying things our parents did. We complained about our jobs, talked about weight loss and exercise. I never had a girlfriend like this before. I never talked this much before. Noah couldn’t believe it.
“What happened to your morose individualism?” he kidded.
“She needed me, and, I guess I liked that,” I explained. My husband’s eyes smiled.
Drinking cappuccinos on Express-oh’s sunny patio, my sister shined, and now I shined too.
Her words brought darkness, but I didn’t mind. She broached the subject with me gently, her lowered voice hard to hear amongst the car horns and sirens of the street.
“So, how’s the fertility stuff going?” she asked.
This time, I let my guard down fully, showed how much I wanted this, this baby, allowed the torrent of disappointment and grief to rush out. Without prompting, I moved to her side of the table and collapsed into my sister’s arms, an intimacy I hadn’t even allowed Noah.
Grudge
I thought I had been invited to a surprise birthday party for my sister. When the cake came
out, accompanied by our off-key singing, the lights on top sputtered and spat. After each sparkler burned, a curious question mark of a candle still flamed. Therese closed her eyes and blew.
Tim shushed us all. “I’m about to cut into this monstrosity of a cake. If your slice is pink,
you’ll know the baby is a girl, and if it’s blue, well, you can figure that out.” The room burst into laughter and clapping. Our mother shrieked and ran to Therese’s limp arms. Noah’s hand gripped mine as I swallowed hard and held in the emotions that were coming like a train. Therese pushed our mother away and ran to me.
“Celeste, I didn’t know about this. We got that early genetic testing and just found out the
gender. I was going to tell you soon, not this way.” She glared at Tim. “This is not-“
She kept talking, but I bolted for the door, Noah close at my heals.
#
“Forgive me father, for I have sinned,” I began my confession to Fr. Jerry. He sat across
from me in jeans and a golf shirt, wearing his purple stole. My father’s brother baptized me, gave me my first communion, confirmed me, and officiated at my wedding. Now he listened to me spill my selfish guts.
“I just can’t get over it. I want to, but I can’t,” I told him. I hadn’t seen Therese for months. I
skipped her baby shower. My mother told me I had spoiled the day and I was destroying the family.
“You and Noah are getting ready to adopt. You will have your baby soon. I promise.”
He gave me my penance: three Hail Marys, join him for ice cream, and call Therese.
“You can fix this, honey. I know it.”
I said my Hail Marys and had ice cream with Fr. Jerry, but I didn’t call my sister.
The darkness inside me grew.
Rescue
Everyone is always celebrating, I thought.
Bonfire wood was piled in a mound on the beach. People were throwing sticks and branches
on the heap, plunging tiki torches in the sand.
I liked running in circles, running alone, moving into the trails, the darkness, away from the
laughter, the fading light of the beach.
I liked running deeper into silence.
I ran until the bright green presence of lake water asserted itself. I
stopped, as I always did, stood at the tip of the round lake. Catching my breath, I walked toward the water, staring down through its emerald surface. I looked for life, seeing only weeds, roots, petrified wood protruding from prehistoric layers. The wind rustled.
A glow in the water rose and grew, a baby’s face emerged from the water’s depths, its
button nose and rosebud lips poked through the surface. It gasped and cried out.
Was it drowning? Or just born?
As if being pulled by a hand somewhere below, the baby jerked from exposure, receding into the water. My hands reached out. My breath came out in short, sick gulps, my chest heaved up and down. I turned, hoping someone would be there to help.
No. No. No. No. No.
I ran back into the woods, back onto the trail, but of course, of course, I was alone in this, in all of this.
I stumbled back to the water. The rings from the baby’s appearance still reverberated.
Summoning my last bits of dizzy energy, I dove toward the spot of light, the baby, my baby.
The shock of the cold water, the depth of the silence, came as a comfort, a cool, bottomless relief.
On the Run
Twenty- two Twenty- eight/Sept 2022
He hated the ocean, the sand. He loved the woods, trees alight in autumnal splendor, the crisp air of his Pennsylvania town. Somehow, he was here, on this dark beach, following her, Maddie, the huge pain in his ass, out the movie theater door, onto this long stretch of sand. He had abandoned the concession he was forced to serve each night, leaving it sticky and unswept. He left the stage curtain open, revealing the naked screen, the projector light still on, gleaming into darkness. Thankfully, he’d stopped to lock the doors.
Having a cashier this summer was more trouble than it was worth. The woman could not do math. Every night, Maddie gave too much change and the drawer was short at closing time. She wasn’t stealing, Steve could not imagine her doing that. She was the most innocent, most pure person. Maddie. He felt a sickening in his stomach. He regretted yelling, but could not control his rage at her recurring stupidity. Not stupidity. Worse. Irresponsibility. When the amounts were small, 5 or 10 dollars, she’d just smile a little , but tonight it was 60 bucks and she bolted.
She applied for the job the Tuesday after Memorial Day. Too much perfume, his initial thought. She said she’d come to this town every summer of her life, she loved the old theater. This summer she was living here with friends. Partying, Steve had smirked. Only a few years older, newly installed as manager, he put on his super adult face. “You know you’ll be handling money, right?” She nodded and, ugh, those big green eyes and that look on her face, like she was the happiest person in the world. She showed up ten minutes late and would always do so, every shift. Each night, she sat in the window sipping a diet coke and reading books of poetry, her smooth legs crossed, her flip flopped foot wagging.
Steve stepped over driftwood logs, his feet tangling in unseen seaweed, the bottoms of his khakis growing wet from the encroaching tide. He ignored the full moon, the spray of stars she would call miraculous. He clenched his fists, feeling his father’s class ring knobby on his left hand. He’d been tired earlier, stayed up late watching Twilight Zone reruns. Now he was wired, hot on Maddie’s trail. Her pixie head of blond hair bobbed, far ahead on the beach, the little daisy she kept clipped at her temple almost visible. What would he say to her when he reached her? You’re fired? I’m sorry? I love you?
Steve kept moving, kept following her as she flicked in and out of the moonlight. He called her name, “Maddie, Maddie,” his voice swallowed up by surf. He didn’t know where they were headed, but he would follow her anywhere, even if she never stopped, never turned around. How he hated this beach, this place.
The Copycat
The Fieldstone Review/July 2022
I did not choose black for my husband’s funeral but instead wore a vibrant striped dress. Seth exuded life and colour. He loved me in bright tones.
Afterwards, I sat in a wooden chair listening to the drone of mourners. A shadow fell and a woman wearing a black dress and pillbox hat with a veil stood in front of me. Before I could force a smile and engage in yet another awkward conversation, a familiar voice, sticky-sweet, emerged.
Linda.
I stood in defense.
“Allie, I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am. I lost my mother this week, too. I get it. I totally get it. I’m here for you, Allie. I’m here.” Her fake soothing voice brought acid to my mouth.
I put my hands on Linda’s shoulders, forcing her backwards, watching her stumble and regain her balance as I kept shoving, releasing the rage of a lifetime until she fell through the door.
***
I didn’t even like her in second grade. She sat behind me in class, craned her neck over my shoulder to see what I wrote on my paper. I turned to see she’d copied my name into the top line. My name. Astonished, I jerked my paper to the right. Her eyes followed the paper. She smiled with her innocent, wide-eyed go-to expression.
Like a bigger version of Tinker Bell, her face carried no blemish, her lips were pillowy and pink, all her other features accentuated by two brilliant green eyes, eyes that looked into my irritated brown ones with hope or need or something.
“Copycat!” I said.
She smiled again, this time displaying her white chicklet teeth. “Meow!” She put up pretend paws and stuck out a little pink tongue. We both cracked up laughing.
***
Eventually, no one could tell us apart. In middle school, we shared tubes of Maybelline #52 cherry pie-flavoured lipstick and swapped our skinny jeans and form- fitting t-shirts. We joined the soccer team and spent afternoons kicking the ball back and forth, often discussing our different school subjects. Academics were my main passion, and Linda seemed to have similar priorities. She copied my notes and study habits, something I considered a compliment. Since everyone loved sweet, beautiful Linda, our friendship increased my social status, a win-win.
Linda eventually ditched me. One day, without warning, she turned her copycat attention to Deandra Evans, the pigtailed head of the cheerleading squad. She even swept her hair into the same tight side ponies, tilted her head and snapped her Bubble Yum gum exactly like her new friend. I spied her across the hallway leaning on Deandra’s locker, chatting and laughing away.
***
I didn’t intend to go to the same university as Linda. I just hoped it was a big enough place so I could easily avoid her.
One breezy fall day, walking across the quadrangle, I felt the green eyes coming at me like headlights. I froze in my tracks.
“Allie!” Linda said, “I love your hair!”
“Thanks.” I touched my recently shorn locks, feeling an eerie, familiar combination of pride and dread.
The next time I crossed the quad I found her, sitting in a ray of sunshine, her hair cut the same as mine. The pixie cut perfectly framed her defined cheekbones and big eyes.
“You should go to my salon,” she said. “Give me your number and I’ll text you the info.”
Her hair did look really good, and I had not made any friends yet, so I gave her my number. Our friendship began again.
After winter break, Linda met a guy. Patrick. I ended my freshman year without Linda.
***
Later in my college years, just after I met Seth and things were going well, Linda
texted me.
Hey, Allie-kins, Do you want to go out? Ladies’ night at the Driftwood!
Of course I said no, but she pressed me.
Oh, c’mon! It’ll be fun! Like the old days. Just you and me!
I wasn’t sure what old days she meant, but I could not resist the pull of being in Linda’s orbit.
All I remember about the rest of that night was the boom-boom-boom of techno music, the bodies bumping into me, the sweat dripping off my brow as I maneuvered- the bar looking for her. With no answers to my texts, I worried she was in trouble, but I also knew that she’d probably found someone else. Under a cold clear moon, I walked alone up the hill to my dorm.
***
The summer of my engagement, Linda reappeared after another hiatus. “She wants to bake our wedding cake,” I told Seth.
“Sometimes people change,” he said, painting an old chair blue, matching his clear, kind eyes.
On the day of my wedding, I could barely see the cake because all I could see was Linda standing in front of it, contrasting with the chocolate layers, wearing an off- white, form-fitting gown. She looked like a stunning meringue, her hair and makeup expertly done. I could feel my own dress and hair grow sloppy, ridiculous as I shrunk beside her. The whispers of my guests crowded my ears and mind.
I swore that day would be the last time I allowed Linda into my life.
***
After Seth’s funeral, as she lay in the doorway, I fought the urge to kick, to spit.
I looked down on her, “How dare you? You are not getting to copy this—my grief! No way.”
Linda slinked back, scurried away.
I pictured her licking her wounds, circling the neighborhood, green eyes darting around, looking to rub softly against a new leg, purring ever so sweetly.
The Gorilla in the Room
Gastropoda/September 2022
When the gorilla arrived at the front door the last thing Edna expected was this desperate hollow feeling inside. She lived day to day with a steady hum of depression, but this hollowness was a pit dipping deep down to her soul. Maybe it was the forced feeling of this party she was cornered into hosting. Maybe it was the gorilla’s silence, its blank eyes and lack of expression, that triggered the emptiness…
With Affectionate Best Wishes
Inlandia: A Literary Journey/Summer 2023
Papers
After I received the news, I trudged upstairs to retrieve the yellow folder sitting on the shelf in my attic office. I held the folder in my two hands, recognized its solid weight. Labelled Correspondence with Leo Dolenski, the folder held approximately two hundred pieces of uniform loose-leaf covered line-by-line in cursive black ink, a no-frills penmanship as controlled and consistent as the man who wrote it. I flipped through the pages: Dear Maggie, Dear Maggie, Dear Maggie. So many letters, so many years.
The pages are not properly preserved. The ink from the earliest letter, written in 1997, is beginning to fade.
Leo would not have approved.
Sheryl and I Sing ‘The Rose’ at the Talent Show
Kind Writers Literary Magazine Contest Runner-Up/January 2023
For my oldest friend, Maureen
The eighth grade talent show had arrived, excitement shivering through each of our classes leading up to Friday go-time. There would be kids playing the piano and guitar, kids break dancing, kids reciting poems. My best friend since Kindergarten, Sheryl, wanted to surprise her mom with her favorite song, an old 1970s tune called “The Rose,” originally performed by someone called Better Midler. I never heard of the song or Bette Midler, but I agreed to collaborate, since Sheryl was too scared to sing by herself. The song began, ‘Some say love…it is a river…’ Not being the most popular girls, it probably wasn’t the best idea to sing about love. We should have chosen an act that had more social mobility, like writing and acting out a one act play or something. Each time we stood up at the podium to practice, the sounds of our classmates giggling, hushed by old Mrs. Crenshaw, the music teacher and director of the show, made my stomach flip a little.
***
The night of the show we prepared at my house, donning matching dresses we bought for the occasion at JC Penny, navy A-lines with matching white Keds sneakers. We watched a Youtube video that showed us how to apply our dark lipsticks, mascara, and black eyeliner. My mother made us each a cloth red rose to attach to our left shoulders, pinning them on herself.
‘You two look like the Andrews Sisters or something!’ she said. Part of being young is having no idea what adults are talking about half the time. She seemed really happy, though, so I just said, ‘Thanks, Mom.’
At the school gym, Sheryl and I went to the bathroom to deal with my already intensifying sweating problem. Even though I laid the antiperspirant on thick, large wet circles emerged from under my arms, gaining headway with each passing moment. Known in our class as Sweat Stain Salinger, I’d grown a tough resistance to ridicule. Still, Sheryl and I had no choice but to take strong anti-sweat measures before things got worse, blow drying the pits of my dress with the bathroom’s hand drier while I hid half-dressed in a stall. A faint smell of deodorant and body odor wafted in the air as Sheryl reached over the door to hand me paper towels to wedge under my arms. Damage control completed, we headed out to line up for the show.
Once we made it to the wooden podium and looked into the blurry abyss of classmates, teachers, and parents on the gym bleachers, I glanced at Sheryl’s normally comforting face but found a kind of lifeless expression highlighted by her fogged up glasses. Someone shouted, ‘Sweat Stain!’ much to the amusement of the crowd. I took a deep breath, the music started on cue and we began to sing, ‘Some say love…’ I wish I could say I saw friendly faces of friends, but I didn’t. Everything looked swirly. Our mouths were busy opening and closing, pushing out lyrics, when Sheryl’s right hand wandered from hanging by the side of her body to the podium, then to the paper before us. Inexplicably, she started tearing at it, tugging and ripping with her right hand as she held it straight with her left. At first the tearing seemed unimportant, until she began eating into the lyrics themselves, when we were only halfway through our song. Small tear by small tear, the words disappeared before our eyes, and though we had practiced a hundred times, our fledgling security began sliding away with the slowly eroding lyrics.
The giggles began in my shoulders, which shook, at first gently and then with more gusto, sending my entire torso into waves of convulsions, the laughter rising up in my chest, up my throat to my mouth, swallowing the song and erupting. In an awful chain reaction, Sheryl started to giggling too, the wet and shredded page pressed under her hand. I don’t know who ran first, but in a second, we bolted from the stage while a torrent of hilarity burst from the audience, drowning out poor Mr. Evans’ plodding away on the piano. We entered the bathroom panting, my sweat stains dripped down to my waist. Our laughter switched instantaneously to tears. Anger steamed out of my ears.
‘That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever done! Why did I agree to this?’ I said, kicking the wall.
‘It was totally my fault,’ Sheryl said. ‘I’m the one who ripped the paper.’
We inched our backs down the bathroom wall and bawled into the rough paper towels yanked in despair from the dispenser. We could already hear some kid playing Pachelbel’s Canon. The bathroom door opened and I sprung from my crouch, readying myself for a quick exit.
‘C’mon,’ I said. But there stood old Mrs. Crenshaw.
‘You girls were FABULOUS,’ she overstated, standing uncomfortably in her already tight pencil skirt, ‘That is my favorite song. Ever,’ she pulled old, used tissues out of a pocket and handed them to us.
‘We totally blew it,’ Sheryl said, still crying.
‘You know I once saw Sammy Davis Junior -Sammy. Davis. Junior. - in Atlantic City mess up a song and have to start over. Sammy Davis Junior.’
I glanced at Sheryl to verify that she too had no idea who Mrs. Crenshaw was talking about, but offered a small smile.
“I printed out new lyrics. I think you girls should get back out there.”
Unsure, but feeling the freedom of people who have nothing to lose, we straightened our slouched bodies, cleaned up our smudged eyes, and headed out, holding hands as we sang ‘The Rose’ to completion, Sheryl and I high-fived and bowed. The crowd went wild. We didn’t know if they were supporting or heckling us, but we really didn’t care.
Regrets, Reversals
Cafe Lit, July 2022
Cora immediately recognized her new neighbor, Shirley, standing on the porch, huffing and puffing, wearing a green caftan and holding a pug.
“Are you going to this Ladies Pot Luck thingy?” she asked without any other greeting. Cora half smiled, which Shirley seemed to think meant yes. She turned, her green garb flowing with her large body. “See you later then!”
Cora, straining to hold her grocery bags, responded with only speechlessness and dread…
The Coven
Duck Duck Mongoose, July 2022
Far From Home
The twinkling lights spread out in darkness below. Cora permitted a wave of premature homesickness as she looked over the plane’s wing, down at the city in the early morning hour. All those strangers, she thought, tucked in bed or maybe getting up early to make tea, acting out the routines of a mundane Tuesday in Glasgow…
What Ever Happened to Harriet Grieves?
Terror House Press Magazine/July 2022
Now that ten year old Harriet Grieves had the VCR, she no longer had to stay up late to watch her favorite Bette Davis films, she could tape them and watch them over and over. Bette. Those eyes. That voice. Never, never, had Harriet seen anything like Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)…
My Father the Principal
Books ‘N Pieces/July 2022
Third Place Winner, short story contest
Pep Rally
Warr-i-ors! Warr-i-ors!
Back when I started there, in seventh grade, my mother and I attended the St Michael’s football games together. Standing in as Dad’s wholesome family unit, we perched on a bleacher, our smiles chiseled and stuck. Principal Dad came out on the podium in his purple and white jersey and the crowd went wild. His cheeks matched his fire-red hair as he pontificated about the glory and history of our school. He raised his fist in the air at the end and asked us all to stand to sing the school anthem. People were crying. I’m serious. Tears of pride, joy, nostalgia, maybe all three. He had that effect on people. He got the crowd chanting Warr-i-ors! Warr-i-ors! Over and over again. But somewhere in there the crowd switched and started chanting Mc-Ardle. Mc-Ardle! Dad beamed from his place before us, his mouth closed in a tightening of pride, his eyes full of water. We were with him, totally, and he could have no greater joy.
Warr-i-ors! Warr-i-ors!
Two Birds
Borrowed Solace/June 2022
Morning
I reach for my cane leaning against the nightstand, heave myself out of bed, hobble over to the bathroom. There, I do my business, put in my dentures, struggle out of my pajamas and into my pants and shirt, begin my journey to the kitchen. I walk slowly, very slowly, the hallway yawning before me.
Once arrived, I get out the pill bottles and start counting. Next, I pour Jack’s juice and cereal, toast and butter my English muffin, and then, at last, pour the coffee and sit down.
Jack rolls his walker into the room.
“Morning, how you feeling?” I ask my husband.
“Eh,” he pulls out his chair and gets settled. I roll my eyes. Typical. This man has never said he had a good night’s sleep in our entire sixty-five year marriage. With his memory problems, it’s worse. Even if he did sleep well, he wouldn’t remember. He flips on the TV on and pours his milk on his cereal. He doesn’t ask me how I feel.
The TV blares with bad news.
Helping
Jack wants to feel useful, he wants to help me. Pushing his walker towards the dishwasher, he stops and stares, totally puzzled. He has never emptied the dishwasher in his life.
“How do you do it?”
I explain the concept of taking things out and putting like things together in designated places and leave him on his own to deal with it. After the deafening crash, I crane my neck around to see Jack’s face frozen in surprise as he stands with a tangle of silverware at his feet. I pull myself out of my seat, holding on to the table, going to help.
“I can finish, Trudy, you go sit,” Jack says, observing me struggling. There is shame in his smile.
Not Listening
Jack smashes a fist down on the kitchen table, shaking the dinner plates.
“I’m in pain and no one cares, no one listens,” he says, “ I need to go to the doctor, the hospital, something.”
“Do you want to go to the nursing home?” I snap, which keeps him quiet.
My Turn
One particular night in a sea of hundreds uneventful ones, I get up from bed to use the bathroom, forget my walker, and trip over the footstool beside the chair. As I go flying and land with a thud and a gasp, I feel the fear rise up in me. This is it. I’ve done it now.
“Oh, Trudy, let me get you up. Turn on your side, yes, now scooch over this way, that’s it,” Jack’s face hovers above mine, he speaks softly as he pulls me, ungracefully, up.
My breathing is funny. Jack squints as he observes me.
“I just need to lay down,” I say. He guides me to the bed, but I cannot take a deep breath. Jack is again examining me. For once, he remembers something.
“911,” he says, “That’s the number and I’m calling it.”
Home
After staying at the hospital a week for a punctured lung, I’m so grateful to be home. Jack slaps together a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, balancing the plate with one hand as he guides his walker with the other. He fumbles with the remote, replaces the news with the golf.
We eat in the silence, the old round clock ticking on the wall behind us. Jack moves his hand on my arm, feeling down the boney length of it. He grasps my hand, we both hold on.
Cleaning Out
Grande Dame Literary Journal/May 2022
Honora and I adored our much-older sister, Mary, our somewhat-surrogate mother. She taught us how to pray and disco dance, wrote us detailed, loving letters from college, sketched us pictures of her professors. We held her on a pedestal, envying and celebrating every one of her accomplishments.
“Mary! Mary! Mary!” we nagged, pulling on her sweater sleeve as she, fresh home from college, talked to our mother. “Mary! Mary! Mary!” Her attention was our endless desire. We cried every time she left home and went crazy with excitement every time she returned.
Mary died in July. It is now November, almost her 61st birthday - the first one she won’t celebrate here on Earth. Her husband, Marc, asked Honora and I to clean out her closet. “I can’t even open it,” he said sadly.
As children, the youngest of seven, Honora and I were professional snoops of the five “big kids.” They were so much older and such a mystery. We had to get our information wherever we could, mostly through their artifacts. Mary’s room was of particular interest, her door at the end of the hall, a destination. Our small fingers traced the talcum powder on the surface of her dresser, our noses inhaled the faint scent of Love’s Baby Soft perfume. Her braided rug scratched beneath our feet. The closet door creaked open at our command, revealing a space bursting with a teenager’s life.
Hangers jutting out, boney shoulders emulating their owner, Mary’s clothes invited and inspired, revealed what comes next. Green and white plaid school uniforms, summer ones in pastels. The seventies’ groovy rainbow colors, form-fitting shapes. Peasant style and midriff tops, gingham dresses, tiered gowns in bone, rose. Her hems dragged around us, trailing our stocking feet, picking up dust. We posed and practiced with her field hockey stick, laced and unlaced her well-worn basketball sneakers, held her bell bottoms up against our frames, the waist matching up to our chests. Slipping our feet inside her high-heeled sandals and platform shoes, we strutted around her room, giggling.
There was always a reason to return, open the door again, see what was moved, what was different. We noted every change, addition, or subtraction. Each one told us there were things still to know about our sister, about life, the world.
Now, adults, we open her closet door, stale air offering familiar smells. Her bathrobe, the cloak of illness, is humped on a hook at the closet’s edge. Peering deeper, we recognize the other side of the story. There is the bruise of color, the pulsation of greens and pinks and purples and reds, bursts of yellow. Then there are patterns-stripes and florals- and textures - velvet and lace. Her oldest clothes, representing the eighties and nineties - much more conservative, preppy - they are the before-cancer clothes, baggy, square, padded. The frilly, feminine clothes -her 18- years -of- stage- four- cancer clothes- they represent the final version of the living Mary, some combination of all she was before and all she wanted to be. In the deepest recesses reside the steadfast soldiers, the milestone clothes: communion and wedding dresses, academic robes in blue and red. Tossed to the side are the shoes, many pairs not worn, shoes her broken, nail-less feet could not tolerate.
As it goes with this process, grief, we cry, but we laugh too. We try everything on. For some reason, everything fits me. We pour bubbly, Mary’s favorite. Her adult sons and Marc observe us from the other side of the room, looking at their phones, making small talk. When the time comes to haul out, our nephews fill the car for the thrift store. What’s left: an empty closet and some large reusable grocery bags stuffed with treasures to keep and disperse. We get a broom and sweep the last dust bunnies out. Then, we stare into the closet again, this time processing the emptiness. Perhaps we were expecting a different feeling, a task complete, but no.
No amount of experience could prepare us for this, this final job. Honora and I, two women in our fifties, forever little sisters, sorting through what once was gold, but is now cloth, leather, plastic, straw, wool. She is gone. We can only take what we can, learn what is left to learn, shed our tears of sadness and joy, move on.
Halloween 1977
Parliament Literary Journal/May 2022
The Sirens Call E-Zine/Halloween 2023
There is the house in the center of everything, tall and grey, poking up into the dimming sky. The silhouettes of women appear in its windows. They are sliding around, upstairs and down. They dance together, hold each others’ hands, twirl in circles beneath a crystal chandelier. Some say they’re sweet old ladies who mean no harm. Some say they’re leaders who have given much to the town. Some say they are neither of those things.
Things to Do at the Pinewood
Stone Canoe/May 2022
You could, of course, drink beer, maybe a toasted almond, a sex on the beach.
You could feel cool being known by the bartenders or the bouncers. You could see
friends from your classes or other dorms. Fist bump. High five. Maybe even a peck on
the cheek.
You could bum a Marlboro Light and inhale, strain your formerly pristine lungs.
You could pick “Maggie May” by Rod Stewart on the jukebox. You could stand with your roommates in a circle. You could scream the words to “New York New York,” arm-in-arm with your fellow barmates, strangers. You could think these were the best nights of your life and almost believe it.
You could be ignored by guys and feel bad. You could be the annoying sidekick to your beautiful roommate. You could tell yourself you don’t care. You could hope a guy will buy you a drink. You could kiss some guy from your English class who never spoke to you before.
You could kiss an old guy, because old guys hang out at the Pinewood.
You could be ditched by the so-called friend who begged you to come out even though you had an exam the next day. You could have a long involved conversation with another girl on the bathroom line and say, Promise we’ll be friends for life? Promise? Promise? You could force a stranger to make that promise. You could regard your blurry face in the dirty mirror above the sink and try to fix your smudged eyeliner. You could tuck your hair behind your ear and miss your ear and laugh.
You could find yourself alone in the crowd.
You could allow your mind to wander, above the noise, the music, think about better places. You could promise yourself to never come back to the Pinewood again. You could keep that promise.
Dust to Dust
Secret Attic/#28
“I was backing out of our driveway and Amanda Manchester came barreling down the street in that stupid giant pickup truck,” June told Ryan as she rolled a meaty mix into tight little balls, “And you know what? She had one of those Catholic things-like that dirt on her head? She gave me the finger and yelled out her window, ‘Watch your ass!’ Can you believe that?”
“Jeez,” Ryan said, “And I thought I was an ass this morning.” June stopped rolling her meatballs and gave him that look she gave, neither hot nor cold, with just one side of her pink lips turned up.
“You’re not off the hook yet,” she said. Ryan raised an eyebrow, poured a glass of white wine for his wife, leaving it beside her on the counter.
“Then she started texting me.”
“How’d she get your number?”
“Duh. From the neighborhood list,” June rolled her eyes, a habit after one of Ryan’s idiotic questions. He put his beer bottle on the table and picked up Lucy, holding her against his chest. She grabbed his shaggy blonde hair and said, “Daddy!”
“She texted me this crazy sh-stuff about how she cares about safety, how people like me-like us I guess-don’t care about the safety of the children of the neighborhood.” June slammed the oven door shut and blew her bangs out of her flushed face.
“What a bitch,” Ryan said,” How’d it end up?”
“First I wrote a nasty text, then deleted it and blocked her number.”
“That’s mature,” Ryan said absently.
June’s eyes narrowed as she gripped the granite island.
“I could really use some support from you right now,” she said. Ryan put Lucy down, approached June, opened his arms. She stepped closer to accept his hug, but her body remained rigid, like a plank. “I just want to get along with people. That’s all,” June said, pulling away, retreating to her place behind the counter.
After dinner, they bathed Lucy, washed between her toes, pulled her hair into soapy spikes atop her head, read and prayed with her, and watched her fall asleep. June showered, wiggled into her nightgown and into bed, swiftly rejecting Ryan’s attempt to initiate makeup sex by feigning sleep. Soon Ryan snored away in peaceful bliss, but June’s eyes remained open. Amanda Manchester- that black smudge wedged in the wrinkle of her crowded brow, that nasty voice raised in that maternal reprimand. June lay awake chewing on the cud of contempt, covered in the darkness of her bedroom, thinking, steadying her breath.
By the time the morning light filtered through her bedroom window she’d had an epiphany: cookies. June decided she’d make cookies. Good mothers and neighbors made cookies, she thought. She baked, cooled, and packed them for delivery, then pushed Lucy in her stroller along the neighborhood sidewalk, each step bringing her closer to Amanda Manchester’s. On the way, they ran into Leslie Lopey walking her three year old son. June filled Leslie in on the Manchester incident, pumping the narrative with juicy exaggeration.
“What do you know about her?” June asked Leslie.
“Uh. Not much? She has a dog?” Leslie said, “Hey it’s my birthday Friday and-“
“Kids?” June interrupted.
“Dunno? Maybe grown up ones? I gotta go,” Leslie said, wheeling her son away.
“Nice talking to you, Leslie,” June lied.
Amanda Manchester lived in a pristine white colonial with a square lawn, red geraniums, and a closed garage door. June knocked lightly at the front door and waited while Lucy squirmed in her stroller.
“Want out!!” she demanded. June sighed, unsnapped the straps and freed Lucy to toddle across the lawn while June waited. Finally, she abandoned the cookies and note on the step, realizing soon after Lucy was nowhere in sight.
“Lucy!” she whispered urgently. “What’re you looking at?” June said, finding her daughter squatting beside a cellar window. “Don’t you ever, ever, run away from me again!”
“Hand!” Lucy said.
June lowered herself beside her daughter, squinting to study the handprint on glass engaging Lucy’s interest. The print moved, causing both June and Lucy to scream and jump, yet their eyes remained fixed. HELP-June read the word printed across the palm of the living hand. The hand slapped at the glass; a muffled, unintelligible voice murmured on the other side. June sprung from her crouch, dragging Lucy back to the stroller. As she walked briskly home, legs like pistons, she met Amanda Manchester’s big rig. June stopped in her tracks, breathless.
“I just want you to know I’m sorry about yesterday. I said terrible things. I had a bad day with my teenager,” Amanda called through her passenger side window, then parked the car, unbuckled her seatbelt, and got out, moving decisively toward June and Lucy. June felt her protective instincts kick in, wanted to bolt, but Amanda did not attack, she embraced. For the second time in less than 24 hours June found her stiff body engulfed by strong arms. This time, she softened.
“I just dropped cookies at your place. I think we saw your daughter. Downstairs?”
“Oh. You know how teenagers are. She’s sulking down there.”
A pause ensued in which June looked down at her own daughter sleeping in her stroller.
“I know,” June said, “totally.”
“You’re sweet,” Amanda said. “I’ll be sure to give my girl one of those cookies.”
June said goodbye and began to stroll home. She turned to call back to Amanda, “What’s your daughter’s name?” but Amanda had driven off already, the pickup’s red brake lights, like two red eyes, grew smaller in the distance.
June continued her short journey, kicking herself for judging others so harshly. She hadn’t been fair to Amanda. You just never know what’s going on in someone else’s life, she thought. She really just wanted to get along with people, that’s all.
