Category: Archive

Elizabeth Grace

 

Sarah traces the curves of Emma’s cradle and rests her fingertips on the soft flannel sheet fitted neatly against its hand-turned slats. She pulls the tiny mattress out, presses her face against it, and inhales deeply. She feels David’s hand on her shoulder and looks up at him, hugging the bedding tightly to her chest. Her husband kneels behind her and lays his head on hers, his arms circling her small frame, and rocks her gently as her silent tears fall onto the pale pink fabric and spread into darker pink circles.

They meet every day after work in the little room at the end of the hall, the two of them who loved her most. Sarah usually gets there first and though in the beginning he tried to coax her out into the living room, David has come to find an uneasy comfort in their shared evening ritual.

Emma’s first photograph, the ultrasound printout of her at twenty-two weeks gestation, sits framed on the little table next to the rocking chair that had belonged to Sarah’s grandmother. David picks it up and studies the cloudy image, looking for clues.

***

Emma had seemed like a dream to him until she was born, red and wailing, head thrown back in protest. But at that very moment, with him draped in a pale yellow paper gown, his wife on the bed, happy and exhausted, and his newborn daughter thrust unwillingly into the world, David Boyle got the first glimpse of how fragile his seemingly safe world really was.

From childhood on, David had always felt confident and in control. His understanding of life was simple: If you do the right things, everything goes as it should. For twenty-eight years, his experiences supported that belief, but early one spring morning, all that David had come to trust slipped away quietly as he and his wife slept, unaware, just two doors down.

In their first days without Emma, David and Sarah were kept occupied by the frenzied rush of well-wishers who tried to ease their pain with casseroles and awkward words. When David drove his parents to the airport, Sarah was alone for the first time in almost a week and the solitude stung like a prickly rash. She opened the door to Emma’s room and stood frozen at its threshold, unable to step onto the cheery rug decorated with white bunnies, seated for a tea party. She slid her back down the doorframe and sat, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees, until David returned.

That evening, the couple made their way into their daughter’s room for the first time since they’d left it, days earlier, trailing after the paramedics, numb with disbelief. Sarah noticed the velvety blanket draped over the arm of the rocking chair and reached toward it cautiously as if it were a strange dog she feared might bite. They walked together through the room touching Emma’s things, strangely foreign to them now, until finally they sat, defeated, in the nook of the bay window.

Sarah looked at her husband, her eyes searching for reassurance he couldn’t provide, and began to weep. Her cries came softly at first, but then grew until they were great angry gasps, burning at her throat. David watched his wife and wished he had something to offer. Frightened by his own impotence, he closed his eyes and tried to shut out the new reality of his life.

As the days turned into weeks, both David and Sarah grew to look forward to their time in the room, lit by summer’s early evening light. It was only there they felt no pressure to march bravely through the stages of grief, all neatly outlined in the brochures and pages printed from internet articles given to them by friends and family members in their efforts to help. Outside the nursery’s comfortable confines, an unspoken urgency to reach acceptance surrounded them, but in Emma’s room, no one offered sympathetic smiles or amateur psychological advice. There, unlike anywhere else, David and Sarah were free to sit with each other and their memories of their daughter, free to dwell on thoughts of her tiny smile and dimpled thighs, and free to admit, if only to themselves, that a part of them would forever remain broken.

Emma had lived in their home for three months and sixteen days. Add to that the months of loving anticipation, and the year that was Emma’s was one of enormous transformation. Her abrupt departure did little to halt the dreams her parents held for her. They would never buy birthday cakes or party dresses, would never stand proudly at her graduation or sit together, hand in hand, watching as she spoke her wedding vows, but for David and Sarah, who loved her most, thoughts of those events came in waves that brought both comfort and pain.  

***

David places Emma’s ultrasound picture back on the table and scoots around to face his wife, who is still clutching tightly to the mattress. He takes it from her gently and places it back into the cradle. “It’s gone,” she says, shaking her head. “I can’t smell her anymore.”

“A few days ago,” David says, taking Sarah’s hand, “I couldn’t remember her face. Remember how she looked when she’d finish nursing? That sleepy, satisfied smile?”

David stops and swallows hard, tears welling up in his eyes. Sarah nods and squeezes her husband’s hand, urging him to continue. “I can’t remember that look. I’ve been trying and trying, but I can’t remember that look.”

Sarah leans into her husband and rests her forehead against his. They stay like that for several minutes, neither of them speaking, and then Sarah sits back. “How do we do this?” she asks him. “How do we let her go?”

“I don’t want to let her go,” David answers, his face crumbling. “What kind of father forgets what his daughter looks like?”

Sarah runs her hands down David’s wet cheeks and then rests her palms on her thighs. “I’m scared,” she says.

“Me, too.”

***

Sarah rubs the sleep from her eyes and draws her robe tightly around her. She heads to the kitchen, where David is turning potatoes and peppers in a skillet. When he sees her, he lays the spatula down, grabs another mug from the cupboard, and slides it toward her. She pours herself a cup of coffee and tops his off, leaning in for a kiss before returning the pot to its spot on the counter.

“What’s this?” Sarah asks, picking up a large envelope and pulling up the open flap. She empties a fistful of brochures onto the table and selects a pale blue one.

“It’s the stuff the social worker gave us at the hospital,” David answers. “I thought maybe it was time.”

Sarah reads the title. When a Child Dies…The Compassionate Friends Can Help. “Oh, David,” she says, setting the paper back down with the others.

“They meet at The Cornerstone Church on Tuesdays,” David offers, keeping his eyes focused on his cooking. “I checked.”

A rush of heat passes through Sarah’s cheeks and she pulls out a chair to sit, her stomach suddenly uneasy. She flips through the pile of brochures, all with similar titles.

“Talking to a bunch of strangers isn’t going to bring Emma back,” she says, and then adds, “and it won’t help you remember her smile.”

David looks up from the potatoes, clearly stung by his wife’s remark. “I’m sorry, David. I shouldn’t have said that.” Sarah gets up and moves to him, raising her arms to circle his neck. “And I didn’t mean it.”

“I know you didn’t.” David puts his arms around Sarah’s waist and pulls her close. He nods toward the table. “Just think about it, okay?”

***

David opens the heavy wooden door and they go in. A few dozen people mill about the room, some standing in small groups. Folding chairs are arranged in a large circle, and Sarah is relieved to see that no one is crying. In the car a few minutes earlier, Sarah confessed she didn’t think she could stand being in the midst of a mass of suffering people, but as she scans the room, she is comforted and surprised by the normalcy of the group. If it weren’t for the paper sign taped to the door, she might have thought she and David had entered the wrong room.  

Sarah watches as a middle-aged woman opens boxes of donuts and fans napkins on a card table. When she notices Sarah, the woman smiles and walks toward the couple, her hand outstretched. David accepts the woman’s handshake while Sarah stands stiffly beside him, fists wound together in a concrete grasp.

“Welcome,” she says. “I’m Joyce.” Looking at David, she asks, “Are you the man who called last week?”

“Yes,” David answers. “I’m David Boyle and this is my wife, Sarah.”

“I’m glad you decided to join us,” Joyce tells them. “I hope you feel at home here.” She looks at Sarah and touches her arm. “You lost your infant daughter?”

Sarah’s throat tightens and for a moment she fears she won’t be able to speak. “Yes,” she says quietly, looking at the older woman. “Emma.”

Joyce tilts her head, her face soft with understanding. “I’m so sorry,” she says. “How long has it been?”

David puts his arm around Sarah’s shoulder and squeezes her gently. “Almost six months,” he tells Joyce. “And we just…” He stops, unsure of what to say.

Joyce nods. “You just want to find out,” she says, looking first at David and then at Sarah. “You want to find out how you go on without Emma.”

Joyce’s eyes meet Sarah’s, and she smiles gently at the younger woman. “You’ll never be the same,” she says, placing her hand on Sarah’s. “But you can build a happy life again, I promise.”

Sarah looks up at David, her face mirroring his uncertainty, but she allows Joyce to take her hand and guide them deeper into the room, where they are welcomed into the circle.

Dylan Wyatt

 

For years, governments around the world tried unsuccessfully to find a solution to the rising population rates that threatened to be our demise. As valuable resources ran out at an alarming rate, as the environment burned away into a worldwide wasteland, as the activities of criminals flourished, humanity and its world seemed to have reached its final days. Religious zealots pleaded for a return to God and his forgiveness as the apparent Judgement Day approached. The rich and powerful hid away in their impenetrable bunkers with their loved ones and any they saw fit to survive. With the world on its last legs, the unimaginable happened.

In the year 2030, the more radical countries at the time started a plot, codenamed Reaper, to secretly purge the planet of the people deemed unnecessary with a series of planned massacres that would be blamed on anyone other than those actually responsible. Five years of widespread bloodshed occurred before the public finally started putting the pieces together thanks to the testimony of the Romanian Prime Minister’s wife and children whose conscience could no longer allow such awful actions to be committed; the Romanian government was the first to be rebelled against by its people. The Prime Minister became the first in a long line of government officials put to death for the crimes. Things may not have gotten so out of control after that had the West intervened as it normally would have, but, at the time, it had its own problems.

In the year 2022, Britain decided to take back all of Ireland in an attempt to recreate the once glorious United Kingdom of ages long past. In retaliation, the Queen and royal family were assassinated within the confines of their homes within the first month of bloodshed. While Britain’s superior numbers and weapons would eventually prevail, the newly established government in charge of the entirety of the British Isles was run by a charismatic and power-hungry dictator of now legendary status, Benjamin Kaine. As the riots and civil wars started popping up across continental Europe, Kaine’s government declared the issues in the East a concern for themselves and any fools that wanted to help such Godless heathens.

In the year 2035, as those responsible for so much death in recent years became known to the public, large masses of concerned citizens formed into militias like the Continental Army of the American Revolution or the Bolsheviks’ Red Guards. Most revolts were led by local leaders and public figures with the most battle experience. The vast majority of the militias possessed little to no knowledge of war tactics or strategy and no experience in a real war. The largest collection of soldiers was in Russia, responsible for the most fatalities from the massacres and whose government many felt had been the main contributor to the Reaper plot. The small, unprepared countries of Eastern Europe, like Estonia and Belgravia, were the first to fall. Russia lasted longer than most thought it would, but by the following winter, Berlin and all the major cities lit up the sky in flames. The wars raged for several more years, spreading into Asia and South America where people were already unhappy.

They say that history repeats itself, in which case this seemed to be a carbon copy of the French Revolution but on a much larger scale. Lacking the proper leadership and organization of the revolutions in America and Russia, the militias and armies, once their purpose was complete and achieved, led to a world full of anarchy, crime, and disease. In some ways, it was worse than what Reaper had intended to eradicate.

In the year 2044, with most of the world’s organized governments lost or replaced with something worse, the United States, restored to its status of world power after the fall of China’s communist government resulted in the end of its crippling debt, elected to send peaceful organizations bent on providing aide in the hopes of returning the world to normality. The standing militias and freedom fighters, not looking for a return to normal, sent all of the unarmed volunteers back, minus their heads, with a message to stay away. Upset and concerned, the U.S. refused Britain’s advice to leave them to their own devices and declared war on the anarchistic armies.

In the year 2047, after almost three long years of fighting the untrained but forever resilient militias that refused to concede, the U.S. held a meeting in the safe house bunker of the White House. After eight hours of deliberation, the President gave the command to initiate Thermonuclear warfare. The bombs starting falling from the sky on November 8, 2045. Nuclear fallout rained down with the ashes of bloodied soldiers and innocent families for months. That day is now celebrated throughout the world as Rebirth Day by those that threw the final blows and as Judgement Day for those that watched the sky turn a sickly shade of deathly white.

In the year 2054, seven long years of suffering ended with the announcement that the lands devastated by nuclear radiation were once again inhabitable thanks to advancements in technology that allowed people to live there in specially built buildings, radiation-resistant body suits, and with certain precautions put into place, including extensive background checks, mandatory curfews, and restrictions on food and other imported items.

In the year 2060, worldwide peace finally seemed to be restored as the renamed United States of the World finished its decade long expansion into the lost lands of Latin America, Canada, and the established colonial territories in Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa. Other countries, now large entities operating under the political movement of Future-Imperialism, received lands they believed they deserved, mainly the other members of the Mighty Four: the Holy United Kingdom, the Free Realm of France, and the Castilian-Arabian Empire of Spain. While other countries still exist, still ruled by those that never lost control, they are relegated in power and size to the Old World. And then, there are the places no one is allowed to talk about or ever go to, lands still reigned by the savages, barbarians, and heathens that refuse to accept the new society.

It is now the year 2090, only a decade remains in this century unlike any history ever thought possible, and for the first time in possibly forever, we are all happy and safe. There is no longer war, only mutually beneficial compromise. There is no longer disease, for science has finally found the cure to that once constant plaque to society. There is no longer poverty, as all are given opportunities to strive in a prosperous society. There is no longer an issue on race, on sexuality, on rights, on injustice. They even tell us we are just as free as we once were, that freedom is inherited the day you are born.

If that is so, why do I feel like a caged lion, waiting for the chance to break free?

Elizabeth Grace

 

Jamaica Wilson listens for the door to close and then rises from her bed. She promised her daughter she’d stay put, but this business of dying obediently is starting to wear on her nerves, so on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays when Melly leaves for her shift at the hospital, Jamaica wanders through the house and sometimes, when she’s feeling especially defiant, into the field behind it.

Life indoors, with its safe, smooth flooring, leaves Jamaica heavy with want. She turns toward the windows like a blossom leans to the sun, instinctive in her need for nourishment. The acres of wildflowers beckon, their colorful petals as thousands of fingers crooked to lure her out past the concrete bird bath and sagging clothes line. On days when her energy matches her desire, she answers their call.

The house is sticky-hot, its windows sealed from generations of Wilsons painting over the worn sashes, and Jamaica grabs the edge of the counter to steady herself. She pushes a kitchen chair across the room and uses it to prop open the storm door. The screens were replaced long ago with panes of Plexiglas, the lower one now scratched opaque on both sides by a series of house pets anxious to get out and then equally urgent in their need to return. Jamaica shares the longing to run free and then come back to the comfort of her hearth, but on this day she wonders if her legs could carry her far enough so when she looked back, she would see nothing manmade. She pictures the reedy pond where she’d swam as a child—her clothes heaped on the shore as she waded into the chest-deep water in her underwear—and fights the urge to make her way out to it now.

Jamaica opens the fridge, pours a glass of sweet tea, and carries it to the doorway chair. She lowers herself onto the frayed wicker seat, its bristly edges poking through the thin cotton of her dress, and presses the cool glass against her flushed cheeks, grateful for both the beverage and the summer breeze.

Looking back into the kitchen, Jamaica chides herself for her domestic uselessness. Breakfast dishes sit unwashed in the sink and the ironing board where Melly had pressed her uniform before running out the door this morning, late and fretful, stands open. A basket of freshly laundered clothes sits on the table, awaiting attention.

Determined to carry her weight, although as her daughter reminds her whenever she expresses discontent, she has more than done over the years, Jamaica stands, walks carefully across the kitchen, plugs the iron into the outlet, and shakes the can of starch. She pulls a pair of pants from the basket and holds them by their cuffs, carefully matching the seams before laying them smoothly across the board. She slides the iron up over the length of a pant leg and a crisp crease forms along its front edge.

Jamaica had loved to iron as a young wife; she’d enjoyed most of her household chores, taking great pride in sending her husband and children into the world well-loved and properly tended. Even now, with only Melly left at home, Jamaica finds pleasure in helping where she can, though her daughter prefers she rest, reading and sewing about the only activities still approved.

The heat from the iron, combined with the oppressive August temperature, bring Jamaica’s thoughts back the pond. She lets her mind wander over decades of sweltering summers, when she’d splashed with her children and then returned to the water with her husband once prayers were said and stories read, the two of them glistening in the moonlight before huddling together under a shared towel.  

The tip of the iron strikes something, drawing Jamaica’s attention back to her work. She sets the iron face down on the pad, reaches into the pocket of her daughter’s khakis, and retrieves a keychain with a single key. She holds the key out for examination and then wraps her gnarled fingers around it and brings her fist to her chest, a smile turning at the corners of her mouth.

Jamaica had grudgingly surrendered her license last winter, after running her Saturn over a parking block in the Piggly Wiggly lot. Melly had insisted and while Jamaica argued that it was the ice and not inattentiveness that had caused the mishap, she’d finally given in and handed over her key, agreeing to leave the car in the garage and travel into town only in the passenger seat of Melly’s Subaru.

Her daughter had hoped to find a buyer for the car, but Jamaica convinced her to hold off and now, standing in the steamy kitchen clutching an ignition key, Jamaica feels a quick rush of anticipation. She knows she can’t drive down the public road, but she sees no harm in taking the car across the field and parking it beside the pond.

Jamaica shuffles to the linen closet, takes a neatly folded towel, and tucks it under her arm. She walks out to the garage, pushes the button to raise the door, settles in behind the wheel, and starts the engine. She backs out of the stall easily, as she had done with a long string of cars beginning with her father’s Chrysler wagon almost sixty years before, and pulls around the house to the back yard.

Congratulating herself on her resourcefulness, Jamaica drives through the field and just as she had planned, parks alongside the cool water. As she wades in, holding the hem of her dress above her knees, Jamaica looks back toward the house, pleased that she’s far enough away to see nothing manmade.

Beyond the water’s edge and past the wildflower fields that have been the playgrounds of Jamaica Wilson’s life, stands the home her grandfather built, stout and sturdy. And in the kitchen of that very house, a cottony ironing pad sparks, its hungry flame fed by the gentle summer breeze coming through the still-open storm door, while its mistress stands cool and happy, knee deep in the reedy pond.

Elizabeth Grace

 

Maria hears the train’s whistle and knows it means her father will be home soon. She yanks her heavy jacket from the hook and shoves her arms in as she goes outside. She pulls her hat over her ears and closes the door quietly so Mama won’t hear and make her come back in.

She misses her father and can’t wait for him to scoop her up and spin her around, like he does every evening after work. She runs to the end of the long driveway to meet him and steps up onto the frozen mound left by the city’s plow to get a better look down the street.

The cold air stings her eyes, so she closes them. She thinks it’s strange that she can smell her father’s cologne, warm and spicy in the crisp January night. He can’t be home yet, she thinks, because the whistle has just blown and she always has time to sing at least three songs to herself before she spots him walking along the edge of the road, his briefcase swinging in perfect pace with his steps.

Maria feels suddenly odd, her hands and feet heavy and numb with cold. She pulls the lapels of her coat and crosses them over her neck, but the wool is scratchy so she folds them back. A frosty rush of air against her skin makes her draw in a sharp breath.

She tries to open her eyes, but can’t. Panic rises in her chest and hot tears well under her eyelids. She wills them to melt her frozen lashes, but they stay locked inside, she’s certain, by a thick ridge of stubborn ice that’s formed an impenetrable seam.

Sirens break through the stillness and Maria fights harder to see. Bitter air stings her lungs with each breath and she wishes she’d waited inside as her mother had instructed. Her coat suddenly feels too small so she tries to unfasten the buttons, but her ungloved fingers are stiff and unwilling. She tugs frantically at the fabric, her lungs unable to expand under its unyielding constraint.

The smell of her father’s cologne grows stronger and she feels the warmth of his hands against her face. He brushes the ice from her eyes and she opens them easily. He smiles down at her and then picks her up in a smooth motion, twirling once before carrying her up the driveway. The house is bathed in a soft amber glow, its windows calling a promise of warmth and comfort. Maria is anxious to go inside, sensing that a great deal of time has passed since she left. Her father whispers against her ear, the heat from his breath moist in the wool of her hat. “It’s okay, sweetheart. I’m taking you home.”

The tension releases from Maria’s body and her breathing slows to a comfortable rhythm. She feels safe again and the numbness is replaced by a gentle heat, rising from her feet up throughout her body. She wraps her arms around her father’s neck and buries her face into the soft cashmere of his coat, his familiar scent making her suddenly sleepy.

Maria lingers for a moment in the magical place between wakefulness and sleep, but before she can drift off, a light from the newly opened doorway jolts her alert. It’s too bright, she thinks, and she pushes against her father to try to get down.

“It’s alright, darlin’ girl,” he says. “I’ll keep you safe and sound.”

“I don’t want to,” Maria says, twisting her body to get away. “I don’t want to go!”

Maria’s father sets her down and leans to kiss her forehead. “Good girl,” he says, his eyes brimming with tears. “You scoot along now and I’ll come back when you’re ready.”

Maria runs back down the driveway, away from her father and away from her too-bright house. She stops and turns to look back for just a moment and then disappears into the darkness of the night.

She runs toward the sound of the sirens. Runs until the lights, flashing red, hover above her. She looks up at them, streaks of light across the dark sky, and draws in a long, deep breath.

“That’s it,” she hears a man say. “‘Atta girl.”

A firefighter, his brow glistening despite the frigid temperature, kneels next to Maria. He smiles. “We lost you there for a minute, ma’am, but you’re gonna be just fine. Your husband is right over there. Worried sick, but he’ll feel a whole lot better now. We’ll have you at the hospital in no time at all, so you just lie back and relax.”

Maria holds tightly to her husband’s hand as the gurney is lifted into the ambulance. As the doors close, a warm, spicy scent drifts in from outside, and Maria closes her eyes and smiles.