Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association
Jerry Labriola/Brian Jud, Fourth Annual Writing Contest
2006 Results

Eugene, The Rebellious Rodent

A Short Story by John Goodwin

“We’ve been persecuted for thousands of years, but believe me when I tell you things are going to change. We’re not going to take it anymore.” Eugene the rat spoke passionately from his nest in the corner of the Carter’s barn, his whiskers bristling with righteous indignation.

Jason Carter, the nine-year old who lived in the big house, listened politely. Jason discovered six months earlier that he was able to converse with Eugene when he encountered him scavenging for scraps under the kitchen porch. Eugene said he had learned to speak English by eating an entire Webster unabridged dictionary in one sitting.

“What’s got you so irritated?” Jason asked.

Eugene replied, “Did you notice I hadn’t been around this past week?” 

“Yeah, where have you been? I missed you.”

“I’ve been out-of-town attending a big Rats Against Tyranny (RAT) convention to protest our mistreatment and demand our civil rights. As soon as I jumped off the freight car in Baltimore I could smell the excitement in the air. And by the way, excitement was all that was in the air. That ‘I smell a rat’ slander is another vicious defamation, just like the negative spin attached to rats leaving a sinking ship. What’s wrong with leaving a sinking ship, I’d like to know. We rats see it as a sign of our intelligence. And all this talk among you humans about the evil of racism. What about what we rats call “ratism? 

Anyway, getting back to our convention, packs and packs of us from all over met in an abandoned warehouse by the docks. I’d been told that our convention organizers tried to hire the ballroom at the Baltimore Hilton but were rebuffed with the usual phony, ‘Sorry, rats, but we’re booked up for the next thousand years.’ Treatment like that really gets my tail in a knot.

Nevertheless, Jason my boy, the convention was really exciting. For the first time it brought together an alliance of rats of all persuasions. True diversity. There were packs of militant sewer rats, populist farm rats, rats of color, gay rats and even feminists rats protesting against having litters of more than eight. There was also a contingent of radical college rats that years ago had left their comfortable academic surroundings in dormitories and classrooms to live underground in the White House basement. Since then they have been performing acts of civil disobedience such as sneaking into the oval office at night and eating copies of pesticide legislation before it could be signed by the President.”

“What did all you rats do at the convention?” asked Jason.

Eugene began striding back and forth across the barn floor as he spoke.

“First we had a kick-off speech by a dynamic public squeaker from New York City who lives in an activist rat commune within the walls of a Greenwich Village coffee house. The first order of business, he insisted, was to define ourselves as Rodent-Americans instead of rats. He said this would have the effect of doing away with negative rat stereotypes as well increasing our power base by opening our membership to mice, squirrels, gophers and polecats and other rodents. For example, our image will be improved by the inclusion of industrious beavers and adorable hamsters that humans love as well as minks that give humans a guilt trip because they murder them for their skins.

In fact, did you know that there are more than 2,000 species of rodentia and we comprise more than half of all the mammals on the earth?”

“That means you can’t really say you guys are a minority,” Jason pointed out.

“Yeah, too bad.” murmured Eugene, “But we’re thinking about claiming we’re protected under the Americans with Disability Act because we have no thumbs.”

Eugene continued, “The next speaker on the agenda, a distinguished older rat, outlined the history of persecution we’ve suffered as far back as Noah, who didn’t want to take rats in his ark, but intended to abandon us to literally drown like rates in the great flood. But good old Noah had no objection to inviting horrible things like scorpions and tarantulas aboard. Ugh. Finally God had to step in and tell Noah that when He ordered him to take all creatures He meant all creatures. However, God pacified Noah by saying it was okay to make us ride in the back of the ark. That part didn’t get into the bible.

Then our speaker fired us up with a report of a guy called the Pied Piper who the citizens of a town called Hamlin hired to lead our peace loving ancestors from the city into a river to be drowned. Talk about your genocide. It’s a matter of record.

Next we heard the vile falsehood about how the bubonic plague was caused by rats, undoubtedly generated by cat propagandists. What a lot of crap. We rats are hated because we are accused of having carried bubonic fleas or something, while cats have been praised since ancient Egyptian times for constantly grooming themselves and being clean. Ha, did you ever get a whiff of a kitty litter box? PHEW!

And here’s the irony of it all. One-third of your human population died in the bubonic plague while we rats thrived. Charles Darwin, who came around later, would have considered that a perfect example of the survival of a superior species. But I don’t mean to offend your inferior humanness, Jason, I was merely citing Darwin.” 

“No offense taken, Eugene. Please continue.”

“Okay. Our speaker went on to point out how rats are maligned for our many deeds of public service to humans. Such as disposing of the huge numbers of corpses left strewn about the countryside decomposing following your constant wars. We are valuable instruments of civic hygiene, reducing stench and pestilence. But do we ever get invited to the White House for a medal? Hell no!”

“Medals you want, exterminators you get,” said Jason, supportively.

“Exactly. But we’re not going to stand for it anymore. It isn’t right. It isn’t fair. We rats have a distinguished history in this nation. Are you aware that the first family of rats in America came over in the bilge of the Mayflower? And rats have always been loyal…what’s the word I’m groping for? It’s was on one of the ‘P’ pages of the dictionary I ate.”
Patriots? Jason suggested. 

“That’s it; loyal patriots. We rats were right there inside the walls of Independence Hall supporting the founding fathers when they convened.”

“But Eugene,” ask Jason, “What can you guys do about improving your unfortunate conditions? You don’t have the right to vote, even if there are billions of you. If you try things like marches or sit-ins the government will just nail you with rat poison or something.”

“‘Don’t worry about that; at our convention I came up with a great plan that was adopted unanimously.”

“Okay, what’s this great plan of yours?” With a mischievous grin Jason added, “I won’t rat on you.”

“Oh, very funny, Jason, you’re making light of still another way we rats are unfairly portrayed. We squeal, but we’re not ‘dirty squealers,’ if you know what I mean.”

“So are you going to tell me about your plan?” 

“Why not? I trust you, Jason, and besides, if you told anyone that a rat spoke to you they’d think you’re nuts. What we’re going to do is start a new human-free community on the moon.” 

“WHAT?”

“Yeah, we’re going to have a few Adam and Eve rats stow away on the next moon shot then slink off and start populating like crazy. Each couple can easily produce twenty babies a year.” At that rate we’ll soon own the place.”

“How about food and water?”

“No problemo. I did my homework. I slipped into your father’s den one night and saw a map that shows the moon has a lot of seas called mares. There’s one called the sea of showers, another the sea of moisture, and a lot more. 

“And what about food?”

“Are you kidding, Jason? Everyone knows the moon is made of green cheese.” 

The Breaks

A Short Story by Barbara Pfister Greenbaum

That early Saturday afternoon seemed to pass as most of them had, in rhythms as even as the folds of variegated cardboard with as much flavor. They had talked briefly of plans for a new garden pond, visits from the children and her weekly golf schedule. As usual, he'd missed completely the undertone of dissatisfaction that lay on her tongue like an errant hair, just as he'd missed her submerged excitement. If he had noticed either, he'd chosen to walk away, to leave them suspended between them like a lingering odor neither would confess to. 

Her dissatisfaction rose out of a thousand different extraneously collected events and nonevents some of which happened as long ago as memory allowed, folding into her, forging ever more brittle brass. It matched her hair, which had grown a more pensive shade of blonde. It matched the dough beneath her fingers, seasoned with cinnamon, and the scotch swirling about the ice in her glass. 

When they met, she thought him so deep emotionally that she would never fathom him at all. It was only after twenty years of watching him trace the square of his chin with his index finger, that she realized she'd been mistaken. What she'd thought was depth, was actually vacancy. Now, she imagined a bright neon sign blinking vacancy across his face as he fell into the gravitational pull of the television, sat in static orbit at its face, closed his eyes and predictably began to snore. 

If he wasn't on the couch, lately she would find him hiding in the garage, for she was sure it was hiding, this newfound fascination with automotive maintenance. Responding in kind, she would retreat into her bedroom to read books on herbs or she'd sit in the kitchen and knead bread. For this, she'd become an herbalist. 

Now, they were together primarily for meals. Today, as in all days past, he ground his teeth. When they first met, she took it as a clear sign of smoldering passion lying just beneath his otherwise calm surface. But as time wore on, the sound of tooth hitting tooth took on an intolerant din. She watched in dread as the fork lifted the shards of Romaine to his thin-lipped mouth, the hair raising on the back of her neck anticipating the meeting of cusp to bicuspid as he ground the edges of his salad down to an oblivious pulp beyond all reasonable mastication. She used to love that word. 

It had only been about a month before this particular Saturday that the thought had come to her. He could die. People did, after all, all the time, unexpectedly with decisiveness. She would be rich if that happened for he was well endowed in but this single aspect of life -insurance. She would have the house. The children were already gone. She could get a dog and she would be free? Blasphemous thoughts and yet … one had to prepare. And, perhaps, she could help. 

Would she be sad? Probably, but she could easily see herself getting over that. There would be all those arrangements to make. Divorce was not an option because she'd never idealized poverty. Her mother was poor and it was too daunting to be a woman of no means. She'd bought comfort with the youth she could no longer recall accurately. 

Her passion remained. It burned and longed and rubbed itself against tile sinks in the bathroom to cool, packaged within this relentless desire to be loved. She would stretch herself upon the cool surface of the tile floor to temporarily dampen the fire within. She thought often that he'd stolen her fire, having none of his own. Inevitably though, he was the fireman standing upon a ladder half way up the building when the roof caves in. He'd lost his eyebrows one too many times and now kept a safe distance from her forge. 

When she was ten, her father taught her how to shoot. She could still feel the butt of the 22 rifle slide into the notch of her shoulder, as she lay prone on the ground, finding the target in the site and squeezing the trigger. Squeeze, never pull. She'd learned the quirks of the sites early on and developed an aim that could hit the center of the target again and again. Pop, pop, pop. Deadly aim with flawless distance vision. But guns were always so loud and for a number of years, her eyesight had been failing. 

No, she thought, perhaps something from the kitchen. 

"Hyssop is a name of Greek origin. The infusion has an agreeable flavor and is used by herbalists in pulmonary diseases. It was once much employed as a carminative in flatulence and hysterical complaints but is now seldom employed." Seldom employed, she thought running the sage leaves between her fingers, the smell of it surrounding her and filling the small space of the room. Seldom employed, she thought, as she turned the pages of the Modern Herbal, which was actually modern by the standards of 1900.

"Would you like orange juice or cider," she asked, him at lunch. They were, after all, ever pleasant to one another. 

"Cider," he said, without looking up from his newspaper. The fork rested at the side of the plate. Good, she thought. There were moments of slight relief when she didn't need to dread the clash of teeth. Bella-dona. Nightshade. Wonderful metaphoric words she thought. She poached the salmon, grateful for great sources of protein and mustard sauce with dill. She survived another meal, his teeth reverberating in her mind like a hack saw on her skull. 

He'd been at work when she noticed the copy of the automotive basics resting on the hall table, the sticky notes marking the section on brake repair. She looked closely at the diagram for a moment before closing it up again, repulsed by the oily fingerprints on the publication. Too dirty she thought, imagining her hands spotted with dark oil. 

"Belladonna -see Nightshade, deadly. Synonyms: Devil's Cherries, Naughty Man's Cherries, Divale. Black Cherry. Dwale. Devil's Herb. The generic name of the plant, Atropa, is derived from the Greek Atropos, one of the Fates who held the shears to cut the thread of human life." She found herself liking the image of holding many strings. Women were good at multitasking. 

Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror above the table, she practiced in her most astonished voice, "Officer, I can't understand it. It said in the book this herb was completely safe and actually helped reduce the symptoms of seasonal allergies. He suffered from them so, you see. I don't know how this could have happened. No you see there were nettles and mugwort and mulberry and horsemint. There was no belladonna." The tears ran from her eyes with a purity that surprised her. Perhaps she would be sad, she thought. That was understandable, even it if wasn't yet regrettable. 

She started after lunch. The dough rolled under her fingers speckled with all the herbs she had chosen, and the raisins all browned by cinnamon. The butter was thawed and kneaded in. There was a time, she thought, when he touched her like this, pressing his hands into the small of her back gently, smoothly. It then occurred to her she could not remember the last time, specifically. 

A moment later, he walked into the kitchen from the hall with the usual lack of energy or interest and kissed her limply on the cheek. He smelled of newly cut grass and old cigarettes. He didn't appear to notice the bread but walked instead toward the garage. As he reached the door, though he turned and looked at her. 

"I loved you very much," he said. He said this almost as if he were speaking to himself and she just happened to be standing there. He looked at her but didn't really seem to see her. 

She was so taken back; she didn't know what to say. She smiled a slight smile and he closed the door behind him. This could have been romantic, she thought and her hands slowed as she kneaded the dough. For a moment, she could see the two of them entangled in each other's arms beneath the white sheets, the way they had sometimes been on Saturday afternoons before the children had come. She put the loaf aside to rise. 

About an hour later, he emerged from the dark garage, withdrew a piece of ham from the refrigerator and started to chew. Tooth to tooth gnashed the small slice of dead pig. He headed then into the living room, as she knew he would. He would fall asleep in front of the football game. He seemed strangely airy. He looked at her before disappearing into the living room. She kneaded the loaf again, harder. 

As the smell of the raisins filled the room, she washed the dishes and wiped down the table, envisioning the house without him. A deep sadness suddenly caught her like a breeze and just as quickly seemed to disappear. Would that souls could be healed with a mild poultice of oatmeal and wormwood, she thought, placing two tablespoons of butter on top of the bread and baking it for another ten minutes just to let it brown. She knew he would wake and be hungry. He could never resist raisin bread. Never. 

Carefully running the red lipstick over the upper part of her open mouth, she left the bread to coolon the table with a note. "Gone to Sue's -be back after dinner." She could not stay here. She didn't want to see it happen. She'd read about that, too. 

She jumped into her car, pushed the garage door opener and drove away. She would not be back until well after nine. That would be more than enough time. She crossed through the first stop sign at Houston Road, turned right onto Douglas without noticing anything peculiar except for the enormously red sun set spreading it's light luminously leaves. She through the reddening would cry, she thought. 

Somewhere, on the long curve down Bastion Hill, she stepped on the brakes twice and realized that they were no longer working. The white Range Rover gained speed and she suddenly had a vivid picture of the page in the auto repair magazine of how the lines were connected to the drums in your standard automobile breaking system. The brakes. The breaks. She'd often misspelled this word, exchanging one for another. It occurred to her simultaneously, she should be thinking of something more meaningful. She grabbed for the emergency brake and pulled up, but it did nothing. She had enough time to see the tree. The sugar Maple, leaves red as the sunset, stopped the car. 

The police forensic experts would later figure out the brakes weren't working because there were no tire marks leading up to the tree. Given the general effect of the impact, they calculated the car had to be doing over sixty-five miles per hour. They could not believe she would just simply drive into a tree. In their experience, even those individuals who started out with such intentions, almost always had a change of heart in the end. 

As the coroner pronounced her dead at the scene, her husband sat at their kitchen table with a knife, cutting the warm loaf of raisin bread she'd left for him. She of course wasn't there to hear the happy meeting of his teeth. She was always an excellent baker and her recent interest in herbs had only served to enhance that, he thought. Raisin bread had always been his favorite. How nice of her to remember.

Safely Home

A Poem by James Norton

I remember the first time 
I picked you up,
It was Cub Scouts I think.
You were standing there
Looking ever so worried
Until you saw me. . .
Your eyes lighting up in relief
As you ran to the car.
As the years went by
Boy Scouts and basketball practice 
Soon followed,
Along with church meetings,
Dances and weekends from college. . .
All moments to bring you safely home.
And then there were the small talks
About not much of anything really,
Just son and dad things. . .
Bonding, caring things.
Through the years I was always there,
To bring you safely home.
But I couldn’t do that today. . .
Today they gave me a flag
From your coffin,
Fired salutary salutes
And told me how proud I should be.
And then they left me alone. . .
Alone with my grief and memories
Of how I use to bring you safely home. . .
But I couldn’t do that today.

Whoops

A Poem by Jason Grabulis

She sipped at her white Zinfandel 
as she turned and swayed. 
In her mind she was dancing. 
I bet she thought she was good too. 
And why not? 
All was right in her world. 
Solutions to her problems were as simple 
as some pills and some wine.

It was nights like this
when she mixed the two
that I became most interested.
Pain killers and alcohol don't mix 
and should be quite damaging. 
Unfortunately she hadn't died yet.

Sometimes I'd encourage her to take more pills.
I'd even fill her another glass of wine.
I liked to tempt fate like that.

She tripped a little and tilted her glass.
Its contents poured across the hard wood floor.
"Whoops" she said as she kept turning and swaying.

Funny but, whoops was all I could think about 
whenever I recounted the years of our marriage.
Whoops was having a child with a woman who thought 
drinking during pregnancy would make a tougher baby. 
Whoops was finding our child with cigarette burns 
on his poor little leg.

But I suppose I’m the bad one
for wishing that she'd pass out 
and never wake up. 

The Sock Skater

A Children's Story by Suzanne Cordatos

I love to skate. I love to skate at the ice rink. I love to skate on the pond behind my house. But do you know where I love to skate the most? Inside my house! How can I do that? It's easy. I skate in my socks!

I started sock skating one day because my family has a big problem: no one in my family can ever find their socks. It's true! Every time my family wants to go ice skating, they take forever to find their socks! My mother, my father, my big brother, and my baby sister all have trouble finding the right socks. And I have to wait. And wait. And I do not like waiting one bit! 

Waiting for my family used to make me feel very angry. I used to whine, "Mommy! I want to go skating NOW" and let tears fill up my eyes. 

I used to hang onto my father's leg. "Come on, Dad! Let's go!" I would say as I pulled with all of my might. 

I used to tease my baby sister by stealing her snack while she waited for Mom to find her skating socks. 

Then, I would yell at my brother, "Just get your stinky socks and let's go!" Once, I even threw his ice skates at him! (I didn't get to go skating that time. I had to say "I'm sorry" and sit in time out instead.) 

That is why I invented sock skating. I had to! Now, I do not feel angry anymore. Instead, I put on my own socks fast and then-I start skating! Right there at home! No more waiting! 

But, sock skating can be dangerous. The very first time I ever tried it, I did a great big jump just like I saw ice skaters do on TV in the Olympics. I went up, up, up and then -down! Crash! My slippery socks made me land on my face instead of my feet! I got a big fat lip as purple as my skating dress. I don't try Olympic sock skating anymore. "No jumps," Mom says. 

Instead, I swirl and twirl in the laundry room while Mom looks for her socks. Mom likes not one but two pairs of skating socks that are clean and warm. "My feet always freeze," Mom says. 

Next, I slide and glide over to Dad. Dad is looking for the key to the lock Mom put on his sock drawer. Me and my big brother like to make sock puppets with Dad's huge gym socks. It is not my fault my monster puppet likes to scare my baby sister! "Even monsters should not make baby sister monsters cry," Mom says. 

In the kitchen, I skate great figure eights around and around my baby sister. She chews on her toes while she waits for Mom to find her little skating socks. My baby sister can't actually walk yet, so she can't actually skate yet, either. Her skating socks have silvery pipe cleaners sewn on the bottoms to look like ice skates. "They are adorable," Mom says. 

I speed skate fast and faster (until I almost crash) down the long hallway to my big brother's room. He looks for his skating socks in his super secret hiding place. I know where it is. It is in a box under his bed. My big brother wears the same stinky socks every time my family goes ice skating. He wears them because they are lucky. My big brother has not fallen down on the ice the last seventeen times! "That is how many times those socks should have gone into the laundry," Mom says. (But the luck might get washed off. That is why my big brother hides them.) 

Finally, my family all finds their skating socks. My mother, my father, my big brother and my baby sister pile into the car to go to the ice rink. I spin around one last time and bend low in a -"Beeeep! Beep!" The car horn interrupts my beautiful bow. "Let's go!" They all yell. "You take so long to get ready!"

 

Grandma Honey – 1939

A Children's Story by Connie Albrizio

Marie-Rose St. Pierre known to me her namesake, and to all who loved her as Grandma Honey pulled into our yard on the exact minute she had promised she would. Trotting behind was a Shetland pony tethered to her one-horse buggy.

First thing she said when Papa greeted her with a kiss and a hug was, “You destroyed my curtain stretch on purpose. I don’t need an electric iron and I don’t want one. You take it back for a refund. I hate those new fangled gadgets you throw at me. Wipe that grin off your face, Peter, and let me go!”

The more she squirmed, the tighter Papa hugged her

“Let me go!”

Papa smacked a kiss on her forehead and dropped his arms.

“What galls me most is there’s only seventeen years difference between you and me. I won’t have you bossing me around, or changing my habits like I’m your great-grandmother who’s slipping into feeblemindedness. Time was, we were playmates.”

Papa laughed, kissed her again, but she shrugged away. I could tell she still had a mad on. Mamma gave me the eye to keep quiet, and I did.

After dinner, and before I blew out nine candles on my cake, I heard Papa ask his mother, "When are you going to get a tractor?"

"Don't need one."

"You're getting too old to walk behind the plow."

"Time to go," she said and pushed away from the table.

 

A week later I bridled my birthday present Dolly and, with Mamma's permission, led her down the hardly-ever-traveled dirt road to my grandmother's. She wasn't in the house or barn. I stood in the yard, cupped hands to mouth and hollered "Grandma! Grandma Honey! Where are you?"

"What's wrong?" she called from the roof.

"Papa tells me to get on and go, but Dolly moves every time I try to jump on her from the corral fence. She won't hold still." I held the ladder as my grandmother made her way to the ground. 

"Getting up and down that ladder gets me right in the back of the knees.” She bent forward from the waist and massaged the backs of her legs, then straightened and asked, “Is there something more?” She cupped my face between her hands and kissed me on both cheeks.

“Why did you run off when Papa talked about a tractor?" 

Her back stiffened. "Horses are reliable and a great means of freedom. That's why I gave you one."

"Nobody in the city has a horse anymore..."

"I don't live in the city," she said sharply. "And, I'm not interested in a stinky noisy fad."

"Are you old?"

Her speckled gray eyes, ringed with double rows of long dark lashes popped wide.

"Are you?"

"The only time I think about it is first thing in the morning when I look in the mirror to comb my hair - a one to three minute shock at best - then I'm as young as the chores require."

 

I went to Grandma Honey's daily after that until I learned to ride well enough to please her.

 

One Sunday after Church Services and dinner, Papa took me out to the barn, turned garage, and said, "Transmission's adjusted, we won't need the clutch anymore. That should be easier for you. Get in."

I slipped onto the passenger side of his 1929 Chevy pickup. He rolled forward, hit the brake, shifted and rolled backwards. This was done a dozen times before I heard, "It's your turn."

He fastened a thick wooden block onto the gas, another onto the brake pedal before I slid across to sit behind the steering wheel.

Perched on the very edge and stretching tall, I saw over the dash by pushing one or the other pedal to the floor, good thing there was no clutch to push anymore because no stretching or straining would have helped me do two together. With my head stuck out the window for better vision, I clutched the wheel with both hands and jerked across the field, stopping on command, wrenching forward, or screeching to a halt and bumping backwards.

When Papa thought I was ready, we chugged to Grandma's farm.

A long blast of the horn brought her running to the porch hands to both ears. “What’s this?”

"We're here to plow your field."

"I'm doing that tomorrow, myself, like I always do."

"Nope. We're doing it now, with the truck."

"You get that stinking, noisy thing off my land, Peter! I don't need your help and I don't want that on my land."

"Sorry, Mother, but I'm doing it anyway," Papa said and chugged across the bumpy field. We were half way down when Grandma Honey galloped past and pulled to a stop directly in front of us. Papa jammed to a halt, jumped out, dragged the plow to the pickup and hitched it behind. "Get ready," he called to me as though everything was alright. Grandma's horse reared, his front legs flailed high, then his hooves hit the ground and they were gone.

 

Later at the house, his mother's front and back doors were locked. Papa knocked but she wouldn't answer.

 

"Apologize," Mamma said when he told her how angry he had made his mother. He tried for nine days, I know he did because I was with him. Grandma Honey wouldn't even come to her door. Another three weeks passed. I couldn't stand it anymore. With permission, I chugged to my grandmother's farm, parked inside a grove of maples near the barn, then went to Grandma Honey who was humming sweetly while planting in the field we plowed for her. 

She hugged me ‘til I thought she'd never let got. Invited me to help. I did.

When she called it quits and we returned to the house she stopped dead in her tracks and screamed, "What's that thing doing here?" 

"You taught me how to ride. I'll teach you to drive."

Her hands flew to her face and she crumbled to the ground, her body heaving in spasms. I lunged to her side, scared to death she was having some kind of grownup fit. Instead of being hurt and crying, she was laughing until tears running down her face soaked the collar of her work shirt. 

"Let's get a cold drink," she said after getting hold of herself. We sat on the white whicker back porch swing for a long time. I loved looking at her wonderful acreage dotted with peach, apple, pear, sour cherry, and black walnut trees. Blueberry, blackberry, raspberry bushes ringed the newly planted half-acre garden. We munched oatmeal/raisin cookies and gulped cold milk.

"Please be friends with Papa again." 

She slipped an arm around my shoulders, kissed the top of my head and said, “I’ll think on it, Honey darling. Give me a little more time. I can’t have people taking over my life, not even your father.”

Days passed and still no Grandma. “What are we going to do, Mamma? I miss her so much.”

“So do I, Honey. But, she has never warmed up to me. I don’t know why and I don’t know what to do about the coldness she feels to your father now. He’s only trying to help. He’s a good son, you know that, Honey.”

“I know Mamma. I really think it’s up to us. Let’s do something nice for her.”

That afternoon I sat on Grandma Honey’s porch-swing out of the way so the grown ladies could talk. I was sick-of-heart when the visit lasted two minutes. “We’ll pick you up for Sunday Service,” Mamma said as she left the house. Grandma nodded and waved to me from her porch.

 

After Church on Sunday, Mamma turned to Grandma and me who were seated in the back. ”Would you teach me to bake bread and to prepare those fabulous meals Peter brags about so much?”

Grandma didn’t answer and shook her head to Mamma’s dinner invite. She couldn’t get her eyes off the back of Papa’s head. He must have felt her eyes bore into him because he looked at her in the rearview mirror and asked, “How do you like this new ’39 Ford?”

Those words whipped her scowl to a tightened mouth, flared nostrils, and the meanest “humpf” I ever heard from her. Before he squealed to a stop, she yanked the door open, jumped off the running board, and raced to her house.

“Mother!” Papa yelled. “You don’t understand. . .”

“What’s to understand? You sold my plow,” she yelled back to him. “I don’t need the money and I don’t want changes.” She stomped up the porch steps and let the screen slam behind her as she stormed into the kitchen.

Late that same afternoon I drove Mamma to Grandma Honey’s. 

“Sorry we didn’t know you had company,” Mamma said as we entered the kitchen.

“I don’t.”

“We heard you talking to someone.”

“I’ve been talking out loud to myself since Peter passed.”

“Oh!” Mamma said softly. “We brought a platter of cookies – your grandmother’s recipe – the one you tucked into the cookbook you gave me years back when we told you and Dad about our wedding plans. You told me then they were young Peter’s favorites. I’ve been afraid of failing, so I haven’t baked them until today.” She placed the platter and approached Grandma Honey who was sitting in her rocking chair with feet planted on the floor, not moving.

“Are you all right?”

“Those look wonderful. May I have one?”

“Please tell me the truth, are they as good as they’re supposed to be?”

Savoring every tiny bit, Grandma Honey looked up. “My dear, they are even better.”

“Must be my new gas oven,” Mamma answered with a sigh of relief. “Do you really think so? You’re not saying that to humor me, are you?”

Grandma took two more just to show how very good they were and she motioned for me to take a couple, which I was most happy to do.

“Mom. May I call you Mom?”

“It’s a lot better than beginning a sentence without addressing me.”

“I didn’t know what to call you,” Mamma said, lowering her eyes and pinking from neck collar to hairline.

“I’m proud to have you as a daughter and calling me Mom makes me happier than you can imagine.”

Mamma squatted low next to Grandma Honey’s rocker and threw her arms around her. “Mom,” she repeated lovingly, “would you help me with the baby quilt? I’m a city girl as you know who is used to getting all I need from a store. I’ve never done anything like that before and I very much want to learn.”

“I have beautiful fabric just waiting to be used. I’ll teach you how to use my Minnesota Model “B” treadle. . .”

Mamma lifted and hesitated before saying, “Peter bought me a Singer electric. . . Grandma Honey’s eyebrows pinched together, then she smiled and winked at me. Whew! That was close.

What if She Forgets

An Essay by Teresa M. Norris

Every time now, when I go to visit my mom in the nursing home, I hold my breath when I first see her. It isn’t that I’m afraid of what I’ll actually see, although there is some of that. Her appearance at times is a far cry from the plump smiling woman I knew as my mother. No, my fears are more deeply rooted. More personal. More selfish.

Since I visit her every three or four weeks, the time that has passed is an issue. Things can change. But what it is, what I’m really afraid of, is that she won’t remember me. With her dementia, her memory has taken on the image of Swiss cheese. Too many holes. Too many gaps. Too many losses. 

She stopped asking about my grown children months ago, but I persist in telling her their news. Her questions can move me to tears. Repetitive at best, incoherent at the worst. A knot in my stomach, I persevere through each visit, clinging to whatever is left of my mother.

I’m always half expecting a “Who are you?” from her lips. Thankfully, that has not happened -- yet. So today, when that moment comes, and she responds to my hello with a “Hi, dear,” I take it gratefully.

But I’m not stupid. I know that as brave as I was to leave off the “Mom” on my greeting, her response was rather generic as well. So another moment passes, and it’s as if I’m playing “chicken” with myself. How close to that cliff do I want to go? At what point do I bail and say, “How are you, Mother?” before she comes out with, “So who are you?”

But on this day I’m winning a battle. There’s a nurse’s aide in the room. My mother turns to her. She adds my name as she says, “This is my daughter.” And now my heart beats again. I smile, for I’ve been given a gift one more time. I am thankful, silently praising God.

This day, this time, my mother remembers me. I can tuck away one more time the nightmare that she has forgotten me. I can believe that she’s not getting worse. I can hope that she will beat the dementia that is robbing her of her memories.

Let her forget when she had her hair done, as she tells me later she has. Let her forget how long she’s been at the nursing home. It’s been over a year, but seems even longer. God, let her forget countless bits of her personal history, but let her remember me. 

This time she does -- and I am grateful.

Later, I receive a bonus. She is actually having some fun, teasing a little. My dad is sitting by her bedside holding her hand when he launches into a dramatic recital of how and why he visits her every day.

“I don’t want her to forget who I am,” he says. “When I come, she seems happy to see me. She remembers me. So I keep coming. Right, dear?” he adds, looking up at her.

She stares back with no expression behind her dark eyes.

“Who am I?” he asks her, and I find myself holding my breath again. “Do you know who I am?” I cringe inside wondering if he’s set himself up for some hurt.

“You’re a pain in the ass,” my mother tells him.

Then she grins. We all burst out laughing.

Our visit takes on the familiar ritual. There’s not much going on in the main dining room today, so we stay in her room or visit the parlor for a change of scenery. My dad finds ice cream cups in the community freezer, so we indulge in the treat of eating soft vanilla ice cream from short wooden spoons.

Conversation is minimal, but the afternoon passes pleasantly enough. My dad and I awkwardly step into the hall as a nurse gets my mom ready for the night. Again we sit around her bed. The leaving part is soon upon us.

My dad gets up and goes to check on her nightly medication. He worries about this because sometimes, if he tries to leave before the meds are given, she won’t let him go. She’ll beg to go home and this breaks his heart. The medication seems to soothe things over, and he can slip out quietly.

This evening they are understaffed. The usual nurse isn’t there. So Dad goes out to check.

“Where’d your father go?” my mother asks me as soon as he leaves. She asks even though he had just explained where he was going. I wonder if I’m in for it now, and we’ll play the “who’s on first” game of confusion.

“He went to find a nurse, Ma,” I explain. “To see about your pills.”

It’s her turn, but she says nothing, just frowns. Her wrinkled face reflects nearly ninety years of life. Her sagging cheeks resemble a crumpled brown paper bag. She gives no other clue as to where this conversation is going. So I go ahead and take another turn.

“You have a doting husband,” I tell her.

“Dopey?” 

“Not dopey. Doting!”

The crumpled paper bag is crinkling and shaking slightly. Her face now boasts a smile. She’s laughing at me and her wonderful joke. I laugh, too, delighted that she’s having fun with me. 

Finally, my dad finds a nurse. The pills are given. A kiss all around and my dad and I are ready to go. As my dad makes it through the doorway with no resistance, I take a chance. I ask my mother if she minds if we leave.

She answers with some twisted explanation of why she has to stay there anyway. There’s some reference to a door prize that she has to be there to claim. Sadly, I realize she’s lost again, the bewilderment bubbling to the surface once more. It’s time for me to go.

“See you tomorrow,” I tell her.

“Okay, dear.”

I leave with a smile on my face. It’s been a gift of a day. It was a good visit. And, since I’m staying over at my dad’s house -- my parents’ house -- I will get to see her again tomorrow. 

I wonder if she’ll remember me.

 

Spirit

An Essay by P.K. Allen

Three miles off shore, near Acadia National Park, in the shadow of Cadillac Mountain, lies Little Gott Island, Maine. 

Little Gott is overrun with ghosts. They don’t rattle chains or shift furniture or mutter in the night. In fact most people are unaware of their presence. I see them everywhere.

The Visitor hops off his skiff onto the beach. It’s a small beach but rare in that part of Maine, made of crushed shells and pulverized pink granite. He remarks on the crystal water, green like the Caribbean but cold as liquid snow. 

The Visitor is sharp eyed and perceptive. He knows that there are clams to be found in the sand at low tide, that you can trick a clam into revealing its hiding place by stamping on the sand and watching for the telltale spurt of water when he clamps his clamshell tight. 

The Visitor sees a lot, but he can’t see my ghosts––The three babies who munched their first rockweed on that beach, whose baby blubber insulated them from the chill as the tide rose and tickled their feet. The figure eight racetrack cut in the sand by our jubilant yellow Labrador released from eight hours of travel. The sick baby seal, aground on the beach, that bravely hissed at us as we pushed him toward the water.

Clumping up the steps my daughter and her husband built, the Visitor passes the hand-dug well. He works the handle of the pump and cups some fresh water into his mouth, pronounces it sweet. He passes on up the slope toward the cabin. I linger a moment to listen as Russy Gott argues with my Grandfather both of them long dead: “If you don’t let me dig through the clay into the pin gravel your damn well will run low every August.” My grandfather was stubborn. “I’m not paying for another inch. Climb up out of there.” We usually have to ration water in August.

I catch up to the Visitor as he admires the main cabin of spruce logs perched on the hilltop. “Lot of work in that,” he says. I hear the whine of chain saws in the woods. I see a seventeen-person caterpillar snaking through the swamp bearing a thirty-foot log. I see my children notching logs with chainsaw and chisel. I see my wife washing beach rocks and laying them in mortar. “Yep,” I agree.

He looks across the bay. The tide is low now, revealing sculpted granite ledges plush with barnacles at once sensual and harsh like a kept woman. The tide will rise 10 feet in the next six hours and change the seascape utterly. The relentless cycle of tides regulates our life on the island. 

The sun beats across the ripples of the sea making us squint against the brilliance. The Visitor says the lobster buoys in the shimmering bay look like pansies in a bed of diamonds. An osprey cries. I know where that osprey lives. I know the buoys belong to Benji, who wrote a book, and Jimmy, who trucks yachts across country, and Micky who once ran over a cop. 

The Visitor glances to the East where Great and Little Duck Islands float five miles away. Russy’s Uncle Monty used to man the lighthouse on Great Duck. If I squint into the prohibition past I can almost see the police boat towing away his little skiff loaded to the gunnels with barrels of rum that “just floated ashore.” Audubon owns those islands now and the lighthouse is automatic.

“What’s beyond those little islands?” the Visitor asks. I visualize the globe. “That would be Portugal.“ 

He wanders past the storage cabin my wife and I built and taps the bottom of the galvanized tub hanging on a nail. I see bare babies splashing in that tub before a roaring fire. He hefts one of the axes hanging on the side of the cabin. It’s got a different handle now, but the head is the same one I drove into my shin the summer Phoebe and I were married. My brothers-in-law rowed across the bay to Great Gott Island to fetch a boat while my dad applied pressure to the wound. When the boat came to take me ashore, Phoebe boarded with me. My mother, resigned to her new status, stayed on the beach.

We pass the outhouse. “Do you need to…?”I ask. “Not right now,” says the Visitor. I say, “It’s a good read.” He looks at me. “What?” “The outhouse. It’s our guest book. Every surface is covered with graffiti –poems, notes, drawings. It’s a good read.” “Perhaps later,” he says. I don’t bother to tell him that it’s a composting system or that Phoebe’s garden is nourished by its output. 

We follow the path out to “the point” where the waves sweep in from the open ocean and blast against flat slabs of granite. The Visitor notices glacial deposits of alien rock, sees how the ice must have pushed onto the island from the north creating gentle slopes on that side and rugged cliffs and tumbled rock masses to the south. The geology is clear to him. But I see a star washed night, the children snuggled in sleeping bags next to a careful fire under the stars, savoring their marshmallows and their independence. I see a much younger me watching secretly over them from the cover of trees. I hear the daylight giggles of hide and seek and the gasps of astonishment as we discover garish anemones in tidal caves. I see Phoebe and my dad get drenched when a rogue wave explodes near them with unexpected energy. I hear the chirps of delight when thirteen small cousins bang the last nail in their dubious tree house. There are lots of ghosts on the point.

It is late when we return to the cabin; the red of the fading sun finds the pink of the granite and turns it on. Indoors the light is dim. The Visitor looks for a light switch. I hand him a match. There is a generator, but we only use it to run tools. We read at night by the yellow glow of lamp oil. A fire chortles, lighting the red eyes of the Hessian andirons marching through hell. The Visitor rests his feet on the carved footstool and idly rocks the baby rocking chair that Phoebe painted with underwater scenes. It is empty now waiting for our children’s children to rock and listen to One Morning in Maine and Goodnight, Moon. 

The Visitor sighs. “It’s peaceful here. So quiet. But don’t you ever get lonely?” I take a seat at the log dining table my grandfather built, turn down the volume from all the lobster dinners eaten there with family and friends, nudge aside images of puppet shows and charades and song fests, of Phoebe and me growing together, of babies becoming children, becoming adults, finding themselves. I turn my eyes to the present. “Lonely?” I say. “Not for a minute.”

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