Lines

The stripe of line led him confidently along the pine straw littered road. He imagined it to be the magic spot. One side was surely the biker’s domain, the other designated for walkers. Aaron was neither.

Soon after his blonde baby hair began to darken Aaron discovered the betweeness of his world. Inside, outside or the doorway. In the grass, on the pavement, or the dusty little strip between. Those were the places adventure awaited. Aaron loved adventures.

Trouble was, people were always shouting, “stay in the yard.” “Inside or outside, pick one!” And his most dreaded shout of all, “Bedtime means sleeptime mister!” Aaron disagreed.

Bedtime was a good time for chancing the possibilities of tomorrow and just thinking. He thought about how standing in a doorway held the magic of feeling the warm outside breezes at the same time as the cool interior. And how while he held the door open insects were always buzzing by, mostly to get inside, but sometimes not. He could recall how the day before he found the tiniest toad sitting right on the edge of yard and road. Aaron loved the toad.

The line stretching out in front of him was the perfect opportunity! It was a path sure, but he could not see the end. The bend just there in the road kept his mind wrapped up in the mystery. He was neither here nor there. And for once no one was halting his pleasure. His little mind ran through a myriad of imaginings, some exciting, some observational, some scary. In fact, what if there was a dragon eating a princess up there? Aaron felt a little tingle of fear.

As his fear grew, he thought he could even hear the gnashing of large teeth. A little sweat meandered down his back. And then he remembered, he lived in between. He turned around just then, stayed on his line so as not to be a biker or a walker; and ran, yes ran, to his laughing Mama, who was just behind him, also on the line, but in between. Aaron loved possibilities.

Not A Ferrari

In 1991 we bought a brand new Ford Taurus Station wagon. It was our first new car purchase. We had been married for ten years. Our family had grown to include three daughters and they had friends, so the station wagon seemed like a good choice. We could fit seven people in the car, all with seat belts. It was a very accommodating and comfortable car.

The winters in Western Michigan are very hard on cars. The salt used on icy roads bites into the finish leaving most cars speckled with rust before they are even paid for. It was not long before our new car fell victim to the damage. Our not so pretty new car never dampened the fun of loading kids into the car for an afternoon of sledding.

By the time we paid off our Taurus the rust had eaten through the bottom panels of the front driver and passenger doors. The engine turned over reliably even on the coldest mornings. The looks had no bearing on teaching two daughters how to drive. It was safe and got them where they were going. When we turned the car over to our oldest girls as “their” car, their eyes were blinded to the rust by the excitement of having their own car to drive.

Our 1991 Ford Taurus never won any races, was never coveted by middle aged men or women, it did not come in custom colors, ours was white, it was no Ferrari that is certain.

Just a few points of clarification: Ferrari minimum cost = $200,000; takes two years to make AFTER you order it; seats two; has fuel pump problems; wins races; is never used to teach someone to drive. Taurus minimum cost =$14,999 in 1991 and $27,110 now; can be driven off the lot on the day of purchase; seats up to seven; has longevity; is a family memory maker.

Where is this going? Pretty dull so far? Now I come to the point.

The other day my husband and I went to his check-up with our family doctor. As we were reviewing a fairly extensive list of medications and chronic health problems my fifty-five-year-old husband started looking pretty frustrated. He always goes back to how he eats right, exercises, was very athletic, had a non-sedentary career, has not smoked in more than 30 years, rarely drinks, and yet he has three of the top 5 leading causes of death for men over fifty-five. “Why?” lays on my husband’s tongue every minute of every day. The doctor finally answered his question.

Doctor: Some people are born Ferraris and some people are born Ford Tauruses. A Ferrari is fast, sleek, nothing wrong under the hood, blemish free, ideal. A Taurus, on the other hand, starts most days, needs yearly maintenance, has limits on speed and beauty, is prone to rust and no one wants to look under the hood. You, my friend, are not a Ferrari. Very few people are. Most people arrive at fifty-five with a few dings and scratches. They have quirks just like the car. Maybe you have to stick a screwdriver under the hood to get it to start, or the windows don’t go all the way down but, over all, it takes you down the road a few more miles.
So my sweet husband is not a Ferrari. So what? I like him just the way he is. Besides, there is only room in our garage for one Ferrari. Wink.

Out With The Old

I can’t even think about goals, organizing, cleaning, weight-loss or any other headline touted by January issues of magazines racked up near the grocery checkout lanes until I attack another nasty little problem.  Many people call it number two,  you will not find it in any headliner. Remember having to raise your hand in school with one finger or two fingers indicating to the teacher not only that you had to use the bathroom, but I guess to also let them in on how long you might be gone? If you don’t remember this, trust me it was a thing. I never, ever wanted to raise two fingers and so began my Poor Poop Performance issues.

PPP happens whenever stressors of one sort or another “dump” into my life. The equation is indirect – high stress=less number two. Many articles about the opposite problem, high stress leading to vomiting and diarrhea are available on the googler. However, the area of constipation in relation to stress has been quite neglected. Someone needs to start the dialogue and so I’m gonna give it a “go.”
My most recent bout with PPP began just before the holidays. Identify with this if you will…

When: Christmas, beginning December 12 and ending December 22.
Where: Various homes of relatives, a hospital, and a car.
What: Wildly different opinions, too much food, and a heart attack.
Who: Six grandparents, five children under the age of eleven, four dogs, three mothers, two fathers and no partridge in the pear tree.

A glowing, candle-lit Hallmark special we are not, but most years we are a pretty decent comedy with just enough tension to build the excitement. This year, however, was off the toilet chain. Several of the kids had snotty noses, which caused one grandmother to sit in the corner with her mouth covered in a hanky. One grandfather, a staunchly, non-college-educated-white-man, and one grandfather, a died-in-the-wool republican, managed to still disagree violently about this year’s election.(I really hate the label n-c-e-w-m, much like I hated soccer mom.) All the adult women who land on varying marks of the liberal measuring stick, also found ways to squabble. The father’s whisked in from work just in time to aggravate the non-sick children issuing edicts of bedtime and threats of no Santa. Amidst all of this family fun, the grandfather married to me decided this would be a good time to have a minor heart attack. He does not confirm any decision on his part, but the previous weeks he had been having some “twinges,” and refused to go get checked out.

Our ten days of Christmas resulted in this grandma missing a daily poop for an equal amount of time. I was fart walking all over the house and hospital. On the eleventh day of Christmas, we returned to our quiet home and I took double the maximum recommended dosage of generic laxative. The twelfth day of Christmas held no relief. This is a serious problem veiled in a funny telling. If you also suffer from PPP you will know that once it hits not much will help, not even the laxative, which I repeated times two. The only thing that will finally give success is to go to the store and get in line. Your stomach will then begin to grip and you will be asked to never use their facilities again. I write this not just as a personal essay but as comfort to those who are afflicted similarly. Sure there are studies, everyone has seen the commercials for IBS with constipation, but no one talks about it. The discussion forum needs to begin. Diarrhea sufferers do not endure in silence; they even have their own theme song…”when you’re sliding into first and your pants begin to burst, that’s diarrhea…” They have cute names, like poo-goo, mudd-butt and even the serious Montezuma’s revenge. We PPP’s have nothing. Until now. The floor is open, the gates have been lifted, take your place in line and just let it go. I did, you can too. Out with the old…Happy New Year!

Corona and Deli Chicken

Like fighting a fight that can’t be won by either side, so goes my day. The bold black lettering of the unopened email catches my eye. It stands alone in the gray-font-list of emails that trail down the screen, the ones that have been read and saved. Today is the day, fortified with a Bloody Mary I send my carefully polished nail in for the left click. Open.

I knew it was coming, I had been obsessively checking my husband’s emails for over a week now. After the relief of finding the expected missive un-read, I took the time to mix a drink, polish my nails and prepare. The last six months unreeled in slow motion, beginning with the day I first met him.

He stood facing me across the street, we were both waiting for the walking man sign to light up on the corner. The light changed to our favor and we stepped into the street; as we passed we smiled at each other as strangers will do. Later that day we laughed as we found our paths crossing once again in line at the grocery, he was buying Corona, I had a deli chicken. Flirting on the way to our cars I learned his name was Bobby. Reluctant we both got in our cars and drove off. Call it fate, or dumb luck either way our schedules seemed to collide every day for the next week. We discovered we both lived in close proximity and worked out of our homes. We went for a drink one bored afternoon.

Other pictures slid into my head, my face flushing with some of the crazy things we did.

Making love for the first time on a blanket under a pin oak tree, sticks stabbing first his back, then mine. That day we held hands crossing a foot bridge in our favorite park, we stopped in the middle and stood to stare into the water for a moment, just that and nothing more. One warm morning when I realized my love for him was the real thing and I told him so followed by his awkward, “I’m falling for you too.” Then finally after a month of tingling torture following a win by his favorite hockey team, he turned to me and said the words, “I love you!”

The magic ended, replaced by the heart-stopping memory of the day his wife found out about us. Her sister saw us. They made it their mission to find out about me. Bobby’s wife swore to him she would find me and ruin my life. I knew it would be just a matter of time, small towns and all. I began meeting my mailman at the street and snooping emails. I watched for stranger’s eyes to meet mine for a second too long. And I waited with dread for the moment my husband’s attitude changed.

And here I sit before the open e-mail, avoiding the body of the message, I looked for the trash can icon, moved my cursor over it, hovering for the tiniest fraction of time before once again tapping a left click. I will take my bitter medicine and be the one to tell him. My jangled way of being kind, letting go in my words. I will do one last thing for him, though he will never see it as a gift. My offering just a small measure of protection against the harsh reality of another betrayed spouse’s words. There will be no winners today, only people with fresh wounds. I make the call, “Hi, it’s me…No everything’s not ok…Can you come home?”

Almost Grown in Ohio

Lipstick on a collar,  a missing undershirt, that bar smell, yelling and a quiet moment when my dad said, “Honey, your mom will need you now, but I will miss you.”  The smell of leather, and gasoline filled my nose in the back of a late night taxi until we were delivered to  a shabby, green shag carpeted motor inn, somewhere in West Virginia.  There we waited, eating saltines and Vienna sausage.

“Fifty-thousand-pounds-of-juicy-flubber, incoming! Get out your elephant gun!” This chant, directed at me, was the parenthesis of my ninth summer. Character building blocks stacked up fast the summer my mother and I moved into my aunt’s house, already filled with her five children.

My cousins, three girls and two boys, surrounded me in age. The oldest of them a girl and boy on the verge of adulthood were pot-smoking, blank-eyed, who-gives-a-shit types.  Next in order of age, Cindy, Gene, Me and Linda. They were scrappy, lots of fun, except when the weren’t. Like a pack of dogs, children who grow up together bond and usually have their own hierarchy. Generally, there is a leader and the other kids take turns as the scapegoat for various kid mischief. However, add a strange pampered only dog kid to the herd and the newbie will become the constant easy mark. The new kid will either tuck tail and run, take it, stand and fight or find a protector. Normally the parents can be counted on for assistance,but that summer of 1971 the moms were engaged with feminist freedom and the dads were absent. The dog – shit! I mean kid pack got to run wild.

Linda, the youngest and previous frequent target found me busy with my daily chore, watering the jungle of plants blocking the only big window in the house, “Hey, fatty come upstairs and see what we found! It’s sooo cute.”

Like a starved hound, I followed her up the shallow attic stairs to the sleeping quarters shared by all the kids who did not spend their days stoned. Banging my shin on the end of one of four twin beds got a short laugh from my waiting cousins, Gene and Cindy.

Turning back to their excitement, Gene beckoned me, “We found a mouse and it went under the door, come look, he is just sittin’ on the beam.”

He opened the forbidden door wider and I looked in just as my shoulders registered the hand pushing me hard. The fiberglass insulation padded my fall, the door slammed and the slide lock scrapped, barely audible over the laughter just outside the door. Then silence. During my time of attic incarceration, I learned that I was an optimist, optimistic that they would open the door as quickly as they shut it. After an hour, optimistic that a Bewitched nose twitch would unlock the door. After two hours, optimistic that I would not die of heat and itching legs. Of course, I had no idea how much time went by. I can tell you watering the plants was a morning job and me and my bleeding legs were let out just before *Flippo’s Early Show, an early afternoon kids program.

It was Gene who opened the door and whispered, “Tell, and it will be twice as long tomorrow.” (Reading this paragraph over again, trying to make my lesson come at the end, like the pattern for the rest of this tale and I can’t do it. Except to say that I just now learned that I told time by events in the day rather than a clock and I still do that. Come over after supper is my favorite invitation.)

A scuffed and worn dresser sat under two dingy attic windows. It was a common perch for us on the sweltering days when we hoped for a relieving breeze. This particular day Linda held the coveted spot. She had even pulled the screen out of the window and dangled her legs outside.  Gene entered the room, lunged towards Linda, pushed her lightly, enough to scare her as he had intended. What he did not count on, at least he said, was that she would fall out of the window and be fortunate enough to only break her arm**. They blamed me. I tried to stand up for myself but three against one… I was on dish duty for the rest of the summer and my privilege to go to the Ohio State Fair was revoked. I learned if you take a stand sometimes numbers need to be in your favor.

The days did finally start to turn cooler. The Ohio State Fair was in full swing and I sat home.  Each night as my cousins left for the fair, they taunted, “Lots of elephant guns at the fair good thing you ain’t going.”  “yeah, besides more cotton candy for us!” My oldest  pot-smoking- male- cousin, Ed,  caught them at it one night. “Hey you little fuckers, leave her alone, in case you are such dumb shits let me point out she’s not fat and she is getting some cute little tits.”  My dysfunctional hero. I learned sometimes a champion comes in unlikely circumstances.

School started, I entered my new class, lean and ready for most anything.

*Flippo’s Early Show: Those of you who grew up in central Ohio in the 60’s and 70’s will know who this is. If you didn’t, think MTV’s pop-up videos only with a clown as the bubble pop-ups and movies instead of videos.

**I was not exonerated from this event until we were all in our twenties at a family reunion. I don’t think my own mother even believed me until the truth came from my cousin Linda. Another lesson, sometimes you have to wait a long time for vindication!

Tokonoma

Tokonoma definition: (in a Japanese house) a recess or alcove, typically a few inches above floor level, for displaying flowers, pictures, and ornaments. Usually changed daily to stimulate the senses.

A small white envelope waited just for me in the top drawer of my grandaddy’s desk. My small six-year-old hands could barely reach the envelope, but Grandaddy always stood back and watched while I tried. He knew how to build excitement over the smallest things. I already knew the envelope would be filled with butterfly and moth wings, but just what variety and how many was the mystery. Grandaddy worked for a car dealership that also did mechanical work. Whenever cars came in for a tune-up, Grandaddy checked the front grills for the beautiful creature’s wings so that they might live on in his grandaughter’s collection of stuff.

So began my fascination with what came to be known as gifts of nature. Visit any of the homes I have lived in over the years and you will find, rocks tucked into a bookcase, feathers in glass jars, and flowers that dried naturally in autumn’s cold winds placed just so on a dresser. When I had children they thought it at once cool and then later gross. My eye for nature’s gifts grew keener over the years. A discarded snake skin barely visible in the rubble beneath a tree was one of my coolest finds. None of my children seemed to have inherited my genetic wonder gene. So it has been a solitary pursuit for many years, until a year ago.

I first noticed the thigh bone of a chicken bleached white in a little wooden bowl reserved for white sea shells. If not for its slender shape, it may have gone unnoticed by me for some time so close was the color to the shells. Questioning my husband as to the origins of the bone, his slightly disgusted face told me he wasn’t the culprit. A few days later I was walking the dogs with my grandson and he asked if I had found the ‘human’ bone he left for me. He insisted the bone was a finger bone, washed up on the beach, probably left over from a shipwreck. And so, the bone holds it’s place of honor in the wooden bowl filled with white sea shells.

Since finding the bone, my grandson, now eight, has presented me with a perfectly preserved cicada carcass, a mummified tree frog, a black rock shaped like a heart, and a brilliant lime green acorn he found in a pile of ordinary brown acorns. On his birthday, I gave him a small white envelope, it held wings of the grill. He got an old glass salt shaker from his mom and carefully placed the wings inside, so he could see them all the time. The wings sit carefully placed on his window sill in an otherwise disorganized chaos of legos and other boy detritus.

I read about a tokonoma many years ago and always thought the relationship between the things of beauty found in nature littering my home was similar. I did not have an alcove specially set aside for all my treasures, but I loved the idea. Since I have found my fellow collector we have cleared a small alcove on a shelf: The alcove framed by two old volumes of Kipling holds our finds now. We add and take away from our tokonoma as we feel like it. It is ever changing and always beautiful. Recently, he found a large shark’s tooth scarcely peeking from the sand. He has the eye. He gets that from me!

Our current collection: A big and a small pinecone, a shark’s tooth, a beaver tooth, a smooth rock, a dried Japanese Lantern pod, a whelk, a starfish found dead after hurricane Matthew and a miniature pitcher of weeds.

Dear Brother

The following was my submission for the Yeah Write Fiction Super Challenge. The prompt was yearning/wear outrageous shoes. This piece did not make it to round two.  But I really like it. The following is the feedback that I received on it:

What the judges really liked about Dear Brother:

• J.R. and his troop sharing letters with those that had no one writing to them was an endearing touch. The way you incorporated the shoe prompt was different and clever.
• Good use of descriptive language. The letter was written in an authentic sounding voice.

Where the judges found room for improvement:

• The letter seemed at times to be more a way to inform the reader of J.R.’s situation than a genuine correspondence, especially at the beginning. The shoes were not an integral part of the story.
• This story feels too much like it’s a piece of a larger story that the reader doesn’t get the full benefit of. Not knowing or having a solid clue how the letter writer could be releated to the two named characters muddies things up for the reader.

Seems like what some liked others did not. I’d be interested in more objective feedback if anyone wants to share their thoughts!

Grandma asked, “honey, would you go to the root cellar and bring me a jar of the apple butter we put up last fall?”

I hated the root cellar but loved apple butter more. Heaving the cellar doors open, I stood before the dank maw. Gathering my courage for the first step, it would take me five steps down before I could reach the pull string that would illuminate the pit below. I made my quick jog over to the shelf lined with ancient newspapers and stacked with colorful jars. *Not looking left or right, fearful of meeting unwanted eyes, I snatched the jar neatly labeled in my grandmother’s hand. My eyes caught movement just as something grazed the top of my foot. A squeak of a scream escaped before I saw that it was a yellowed sheet of paper. Perhaps an abandoned recipe? I scooped it up and bee-lined it up the stairs, remembering to pull the string on the 5th step.

Happy to hand over the apple butter to my grandma and be back in her airy, bright kitchen my heartbeat returned to normal. Hard to imagine this warm, fine smelling room sits over the soggy cellar. I sat down at the table covered with a cherry patterned oil cloth. Unfurling the fragile paper, a letter appeared in place of the expected recipe. I am a fast reader for my age, a quick skim and I could barely get the words out to ask Grandma about the letter.

“Grandma, I found this in the cellar.” I thought reading it to her would be the best way to begin before hammering her with my questions.

Distracted, she barely glanced over her shoulder at me. She certainly did not see what I held in my hands…yet.

Dear brother,

I now take some small measure of joy to write a few lines home about where we ar and what we ar doing. Our men have retreated back over the river. Many ar dead or near about. The enemy devils have gave us a time. We have lost at Chancellorsville.

I will spare you the particulars of my trials. I miss home more than I considered when I set out on this two years ago, eager and confident to make handiwork of Johnny Reb. I thought to be home by 6 months. If a dawning idea had come upon me I would have lingered more over mother’s fine roast. Just one taste now would last me through til I get back home. I hope that I will one day return home to you and mother and father. I am sorrowful thinking otherwise. I know you ar near a man now and ar a great help to mother and father and our kin folks thereabouts. When I next see you I expect we will greet as strangers. I fear we will not know each other by site. Tho only two years have passed.

My hair has gone to gray I am told and I know it to be shaggy as no hair cuts are to be had. My feet have grown so much that my boots pinched fearsome. I had to cast them off last spring. Some bits of leather lying about inspired me to collect them. When I had enough, I made for myself a considerable good pair of moccasins. The adjunct said we were due a train with supplies, boots and the like. That was 9 months ago. I am not ashamed to say that I put a dead man’s boots to good use. His feet and legs was missing from his body when I found them. I have heard and seen of a man blown out of his shoes but never did I think I would find a perfectly fine pair of legs stuck in my size boots with no body to care if I took them. I hope dear brother you do not think me wearing a dead man’s boots too scandalous. These are the things we all do now and learn them tolerable in this godforsaken endeavor.

If you ar able, send word to Elizabeth that I am still living. Her photo and locket ar lost these many months. And if your face will not become too red tell her I long for the day we meet again under our old pecan.

Time for leisure is very short and putting pen to paper even shorter. I depend on you little brother to carry this news and my letter to those who may care. Do not let Elizabeth read it tho, she is too delicate and will worry overmuch.

I cannot say how long we will stay in this place. Get mother to send me some socks soon as she can. Write soon with news from home. We have made a letter circle of sorts. All the men pine for home. We share what letters we get with them that don’t get none.

Respects and truest affection,
your brother
J R Osborne

By the time I finished reading, Grandma was sitting with me, her face pale behind trembling hands.

“Grandma Elizabeth! What’s wrong? Who is J R Osborne?”

Straw Hat

I wrote a longer version of this story almost eight years ago for a family reunion. My daughter did the illustrations. We printed it using Shutterfly and read it to the children (well really everyone, we just targeted the children). It was our way of sharing some stories of our family with the next generation in a way that might not bore them to tears. Each person that encountered Olivia read their portion of the story. There was a chapter for my mom and my aunt now both omitted for the sake of those not familiar with our family. Their stories have been incorporated into this newer version, however. This story is the basis for some of the flavor of my blog, I Just Made That Up, or It Really Happened. I have never shared it on my blog. Now the time has come, we have added more children to our family and i would like to improve the original before I add more to it. I’d like to take advantage of my writing friends and my Yeah Write friends for editing, suggestions, what works, what doesn’t. To that end, I am submitting this to Moonshine, because there are no rules to length and genre right?  Thanks for reading!

Olivia spied the old straw hat hanging in her grandmother’s house. It was just what she needed to finish her playing-outside-costume on that sunny, hot day. Olivia’s neck was adorned with a flower chain fashioned from morning glories and her wrists sparkled with golden bracelets. She grabbed the hat and placed it on top of her silky brown hair and skipped out of the house. She couldn’t wait to see what adventures waited.

A thrill of excitement hit Olivia as she spotted Aunt Hannah in the garden. She twirled and whirled her way over to her Aunt wondering what magical thing she might have found in the garden. Her Aunt was always looking for bugs, toads, and lizards and usually had some scary thing to show her.
“Hey Aunt Hannah, what are you doing?” Olivia bounced up and asked.

“Well look at you, Miss Olivia! ” Aunt Hannah’s blue eyes sparkled with laughter as she let Olivia behold the June Bugs collected in the purple beach bucket.

Olivia squealed with delight and shrieked, “ewwwww, what are those?”

“June bugs, I’m picking them off my roses because they like to eat them. Hey, I know that Hat!” Aunt Hannah said wiping her brow.

Olivia turned a pirouette and said, “Don’t I look pretty?”

“You look very pretty. That old hat that you have on your head belongs to a memory I have. “Before you were born, your great-great-grandmother, Lucille, wore that hat in her garden. Later in the evening, resting on her porch, her straw hat fanned the cool night air around her face.”

Her Aunt took the battered hat from Olivia and fanned Olivia’s small face, “Feel the breeze, Olivia? If I close my eyes I can almost smell the cool Georgia night air.”
Olivia closed her eyes but she only smelled, well nothing really. “No, Aunt Hannah, I don’t smell anything.”

Her Aunt smiled at her and said, “that’s okay, it’s an old memory and I have only just given it to you.”

Olivia’s round brown eyes landed on the green-blue iridescent flash of a June bug, jamming the hat back on her head, she ran along.

Around the corner of the yard, Olivia ran, and bumped right into her to her Aunt Claire’s chair. “Olivia, you look just like a movie star!”

Olivia giggled because to her, Aunt Claire was so glamorous, “Aunt Claire, can I get tanned with you?”

Claire replied, “of course, put some sun lotion on so you don’t burn.”

Just then a quick breeze skittered the straw hat right off Olivia’s head, her Aunt’s sun-browned arm reached out and caught the hat.

“Hey, I know that hat, it belongs to a memory I have.” Olivia finished putting the lotion on her lanky arms and legs while her aunt told the story.

“When my mother, your grandmother, Ma Kay, was young she liked to walk down to her friend Beverly’s house to sunbathe on the roof of the porch. In those days they used baby oil on their skin to tan and lemons in their hair to lighten it. MaKay’s grandmother scolded the girls often, believing a young lady should have creamy white skin and natural hair. Many times MaKay would find her grandmother trying to tie this old straw hat onto her head before she went out to play.”

Before handing the hat back to Olivia, Aunt Claire held it up to her nose and breathed deeply, her eyes closed, her head tipped back in the sun. “Smell that Olivia? Baby-oil and lemons?”

But Olivia still did not smell anything. Aunt Claire smiled and said, “That’s okay, it’s an old memory and I have only just given it to you.” Hearing her mother’s laughter, Olivia ran off to find her.

“Olivia, you are just the girl I was looking for,” her mother said.

Olivia began climbing up on the picnic table and jumping off over and over again, “Mother do you like my playing outside costume?”

Her mother smiled at her warmly and with a soft, sweet voice said, “I do love your costume, it’s the perfect thing to wear while planting seeds, would you help me with these?”

Olivia climbed onto the picnic table bench, rolled up her sleeves, pushed back her old straw hat, bracelets flashed in the sunlight, eager to begin helping her mom push the seeds into the dirt filled pots.

Reaching for a watering can Olivia’s hat brushed her mother’s arm and her mother said, “Hey, I know that hat, it belongs to a story I remember. A long time before you were born, when I was a girl just about your age, I helped my great-grandmother, Lucille, plant tomato seeds in little pots in the house. It was early spring, which meant it was still cold out. But my great-grandmother wanted to have tomatoes big enough to plant outside when the weather turned warm again, so we started our little plants from seed there at the kitchen counter. After we planted them I would go over to her house every day to water them and see if they had sprouted yet. It seemed like forever until they sprouted but when they did, they grew so fast and before I knew it the time had come to plant them outside. My great-grandmother showed me how to plant them in the cool damp earth, how to fertilize them with crystal blue miracle gro, and how to pick off the “suckers” so that the tomatoes would grow strong and tall.”

Mother’s long beautiful fingers lightly touched the brim of the hat on Olivia’s head, she closed her eyes and said, “Smell that Olivia? It smells just like sweet damp earth, and the fresh green smell of tomato leaves.”

But Olivia couldn’t smell it, she shook her head, no.

Mother just smiled and said, “That’s okay, it’s an old memory and I have only just given it to you.” Now Olivia, ran off to find her grandmother, MaKay.

Spying MaKay under a plum tree, she snuck up on her and yelled, “BOO!” The basket of plums she had collected scattered to the ground.

“Olivia you scared me!”

MaKay reached out to tickle her while they bent to gather up the plums. Olivia’s hat fell on the ground and MaKay picked it up, flipped it over and began to put plums inside the hat.

“Hey, what are you doing? That’s part of my playing outside costume!”

MaKay replied, “Of course it is. Hey, this hat belongs to a memory I have. I once used this very hat to put plums in at my grandmother, Lucille’s house. She always let me pick plums from her trees when it was time to make plum jelly. We filled up so many pans and buckets of plums that sometimes we had to use this old hat to hold more. After we washed all the plums for my grandmother, she would bring them in. The kitchen and soon the whole house would be filled with the sweet candy smell of simmering plum jelly.”

About to take the hat back from MaKay, Olivia said, “MaKay, I bet if you hold this hat and close our eyes you will smell something.”

Playing along, almost afraid of what smell Olivia had in mind, MaKay leaned in, closed her eyes and smelled. “Olivia, I smell plums do you?”

Olivia did smell plums but only because MaKay had just poured some out, so she said, “I don’t think I smell old plums from your grandmother’s yard.”

MaKay smiled and said, “That’s okay, it’s an old memory and I have only just given it to you.” About that time, Olivia noticed the porch swing was moving so she ambled over to investigate.

Olivia was feeling a little sad that she could not smell any old memories in her now enchanted straw hat. Sadness banished quickly when she realized her sister and cousin were hiding under the swing. As she got closer she realized they weren’t hiding at all, just trying to catch a little green lizard. When Olivia’s sister, Mia saw her, her mouth dropped open glimpsing the beauty of Olivia’s playing-outside-costume. Her cousin Autry’s boyish grin had nothing to do with Olivia’s finery and everything to do with the lizard pursuit. Unable to ignore the temptation to catch a lizard in their bright green lizard-catching-net, both girls forgot about the costume. The three set off on their imaginary safari looking for the elusive lizard. They crawled through sweet smelling jasmine, lifted up scratchy dry dune grass, and combed the freshly cut green lawn. They never did find that lizard again. Instead, they ended up in a heap leaning against the side of the house giggling. Olivia slipped some of the shiny bracelets onto her sister’s arm. Autry plucked one of the flowers from Olivia’s chain and inhaled deeply before trying to eat it. Boys are weird thought Olivia.

Mia wanted the hat too, so she took it off her sister’s head and placed it on her own. At that moment, a slow smile turned the corners of Olivia’s mouth up. Reaching over to straighten the hat on Mia’s head, Olivia asked the little ones, “Can you smell the jasmine and green grass on that hat?”

Both Mia and Autry sniffed the hat, “we don’t smell nothing but straw.”

Olivia just smiled and said, “That’s okay, it’s just a memory and I have only just given it to you.”

The Rescue

I nod my head in agreement and silently we slip past the gate. The insistent darkness ensures our cover but makes our progress slow.  Rustling to our left, we keep going. There is no turning back now. Weeks of planning brought us this close.  Urgency and fear pump through my system.

Finding the stairs was no easy task, the slight change in the dark landscape our only clue. Once on the stairs, we are able to let our guard down for a moment. We are the only ones that know the stairs exist. Our safe spot, should things start to go to hell.

Safe now to flip on the torch, wanting one last review of the blueprints. Up the steps, a quick left, into the hall and fifty feet to room 313. Garbed in work clothes, like outside contractors, we are invisible to the passing doctors,nurses and the ever-present secret guards. We reach the door without incident.

Inside, a sparse bulb over the sink washes everything in blue.  Her familiar shape beneath the drab sheet moves only in the rhythm of slow and steady breath. I was selected to be the one to carry her as I had strength on my side. Our work clothes now lay in a discarded heap. Smoothing the new nurse uniform into place, I slip to the side of the bed.The plain but soft sheet becomes a compact cocoon around her. So thorough is her sleep, she does not even stir cradled now in my strong enough arms.

Our steps echo in the sterile hall joined by a third set of steps as a distracted doctor passes by.

A door opening just behind us, “Damn, Sevan! Either he is early or we are off our schedule.

Velan daring a look back, “It’s a guard,” he whispers.

Thirty- feet from the safety of the stairs, the guard shouts, “Ho!”

The secret guards, not so secret in their white head to toe uniforms, watch everything, popping up everywhere. They are chosen for training as children. If they pass the exams, a life of spying is their reward. Each one equipped with lasers, snappers that record live pictures of events, and implanted chips. The chips set off shrieking alarms anytime a guard is assaulted or vaporized.

Velan shouts to me, “Go! Go! Go!” as he spins back around, lasers in both hands. The acrid smell of ozone assaults me. A second later the steady shrill alarm confirms that the guard vaporized. We haven’t much time now. In an instant, two more guards block our way. Running toward them, dropping to the floor, feet first I slide right by them. My burden still sleeping. Hugging the wall now to stay clear, I hear the click of Velan’s lasers. Twenty feet now, Velan on my heels. Bricks begin sliding out of the walls on each side. They create a maze designed to slow our escape. Banging into a previously not there wall stops my progress, blood fills my throat, my nose is broken. Velan runs by leading the way, by some empyrean luck we reach the portal. Velan strikes the wall and the portal opens.

“Pray do let the portal close before we have any followers.” Velan pants.

All three of us through, we turn and watch the portal close, one final look to make sure no one pursued into the stairwell. The tips of white boots, our last glimpse before we are alone in the safety of the stairs.

The provisions we brought with us would have to last several days, time enough for the grounds search to be complete. Our time spent in the safety zone would also allow the drugs to get out of her system. Then we could make our treacherous journey back home.  Several hours into our wait, she begins to stir. Paper thin eyelids tremble as her eyes begin to move; flickering open now and then before lazily staying open. I lean in, her eyes blank. Valen rubs her arm silently.  Focus returns with each flex of her pupils both eyes trained on my face. Measured seconds pass, haltingly she moves her eyes to Valen.

She croaks a whisper, “Valen? Sevan?”  

Velan nods, “Yes it’s us, Mattar, did you think your sons would let them keep you?”

I smile at our dear Mattar, “rest now.”

photo credit – stairs to nowhere forest of dean

Hurricane

Mid the churning mist, the evil eye,
Nestled in the seeming soft whorl,
Sets his sights on fragile earth,
Sweeping all in his gaze,
We ready and brace,
Water, milk, bread,
Hurricane
Matthew
Time