Before the Light

He looked at the tree-covered mountains, worn down and rounded over millions of years. In one of the valleys was the house. He could not remember when he had last been there. His mother never spoke of the place. It existed on the receding edge of recollection. He did not know if the old house was even standing. His feelings, however, were another thing. They were sure.

“Caleb, if I’m reading this map right, the house should be in the valley on the other side of this ridge.”

The early autumn air was brisk and the wind prickled goosebumps on any exposed skin.

“Let me see, Ruth.” Caleb looked at the map and returned it to his sister. From his pocket, he took the copy of the information from the plat book and the directions the old-timer had given them in town.

“The path should be below us,” he said and started down the slope.

Ruth followed. Both slipped and slid down the slope, sometimes holding onto the pines to check their descent, until they arrived at the valley floor. The mountain’s arms, the ridges cradling the valley, and the trees blocked the sun. The sky was but a ribbon of blue. Caleb and Ruth were bathed in twilight.

Ruth looked around. “It’s kind of spooky down here. How far do we have to go?”

“A couple miles. We’d better get a move on it.”

“Why are we doing this? You never mentioned this until Mom died.”

“To you.”

“So why am I here?”

“Because you’re all the family I have.”

Caleb took off and Ruth followed.

The trees were old, their trunks broad, their limbs gnarled. Leaves were turning from green to yellow, crimson, and brown. In another month or two, they’d all be on the ground, and the trees would be naked skeletons. And come spring, there might be somewhere the sap would no longer flow, winter’s icy hand having taken away the life.

Caleb had no recollections of the forest, only those vague shadow-memories of the house, and the knowledge that his mother never talked about it. Ever. Neither did he have any memory of his father; his mother never talked about him, either. He only knew Ruth’s father. When he looked in the mirror, he saw nothing of his mother. He could only assume he was looking at some semblance of his father.

Even though she never spoke of him, Caleb had a feeling his mother had loved him at some point. For he’d often caught her looking at him, and the look was soft and tender.

But his mother was gone now, and Caleb was free to explore his past. That was why he was in the forgotten valley searching for a house lingering on the edge of memory.

“I envy you, Ruth.”

“Why?”

“Because there are no secrets.”

She nodded her head. After a time, she said, “Must be tough. Not knowing.”

“Yeah. It’s like not knowing who I am.”

“How’s finding this house going to change anything?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if it will change anything.”

“Well, I hope you will still be you.”

Caleb smiled and put his arm around her, giving her a sideways hug.

“Seriously, Caleb, what will knowing the past do? It can’t change anything. What is, is.”

“I have to see. I have to find out what I can. It’s like there’s this big hole. It’s like those old maps where the western United States or the middle of Africa was left blank. There’s a blank spot in my life. I need to fill it in.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know that feeling. I just hope you don’t change.”

“I won’t.”

“But you don’t know that. What if you learn something really awful? Something you can’t live with,” Ruth said.

Caleb hadn’t thought of that. So intently was he focused on knowing, he’d never thought he wouldn’t want to know--that he might be sorry he’d dug up the past.

“You know what Gram always said.”

“Yeah. You look long enough, you’ll find a horse thief, and who wants to know that?” Ruth said, giggling.

“The difference is I have to know.”

“For your sake, I hope what you find is good.”

Caleb never thought it would be bad. He’d always assumed it would be good. What if it wasn’t? What if, as Ruth was saying, it was something he didn’t want to know? Something his mother had protected him from for his own good?

The narrow valley floor was darker now. The sun was beginning its descent towards evening and then the night. Ruth took out a flashlight from her backpack. It made little impact on the dusky gloom.

“It needs to get darker before the light can make a difference.”

The path rounded the end of the mountain’s arm. They were entering the valley where, according to the plat book and the map, the house should be.

This valley was wider and the light was brighter here. Caleb thought of the psalm with its valley of the shadow of death. Answers. Soon. He’d have them soon.

The valley was something like a box canyon. Up against the mountain was a grove of trees. Caleb looked around, but there was no sign of a house anywhere.

Ruth pointed. “Must be in those trees.”

They walked to the grove and entered it. In the center, Caleb found stones, barely visible, laid out in a square. There lay what was left of a fading memory. In the silence of the stones, lay his answers.

“No,” he whispered, and ran to where the house had been. Caleb turned in circles, arms outstretched, as if to touch what was no more, then fell to his knees.

Ruth kneeled next to him and put her arm around him.

He looked at her, his eyes wet. “Now I’ll never know.”

“There’s nothing here for you. Maybe there never was.” After a time, she said, “Let’s go home.”

Written by: CW Hawes

Photograph by: Samuel Zeller

Blue Hearts

I wouldn’t ask her to name one after me, even though it was all I wanted. One of two things I wanted, and the second was her lips – anywhere on my skin.

Kisses heal the hurt; isn’t that what they taught us?

“These are my favorites,” Amber said, but she didn’t have to say it. They were the only rocks swaddled in wrapping paper, and she held one out to me, the sparkling flat of it resting in the careful platform of her two palms.

Geodes, not rocks. They were geodes. The difference, Amber claimed, was the crystals crackling from the hollows of volcanic stone. They were the product of fire and water. Warring elements, she said, while I sat against the side of her dorm room bed, the wood of one leg smooth against each pebble of my spine.

Water impregnated with chemicals, rich in minerals, she continued, and I wondered why she was talking about water, but mostly I wondered if she knew I had known her name since elementary school, watched her since middle school, and to find her in college felt more miraculous that any crystal formation.

I had started taking my miracles small, scrounging for them, an addict eager for the pop of his next pill.

“You can hold it.” The rock – geode – was offered to me, but I did not want to take it. She held the flat slice of chemical blue crystal more carefully than I had ever held anything.

Watching her hold out these rocks to me, I wished that I had talked to Amber before. Before today. Before the summer. Before the speeding car and my little sister, running. I wished I had talked to Amber the first time I noticed her, back in third grade show-and-tell when she’d smiled wide at the bright crystals in her hands even though some of the kids laughed at her for collecting rocks. I wished I could have asked her how to hold something so gently, so that I’d have known how to reach out, so that I’d have known how to take my sister’s hand when I had the chance.

But I didn’t talk to Amber before today, so I didn’t know, last summer, how to take my sister’s hand. Her IV had protruded like the brightest star – Sirius, wasn’t it? – in a midnight black sky, and to touch it meant to acknowledge the solidity of the hospital room posed around us. My hands under my thighs meant I could be dreaming, a blink and the pale pink walls would crumble like ash to reveal our front yard, where my sister ran, ran, ran.

She had always liked to run. “What are you running from?” I’d asked her, that day last summer, while I’d stretched my legs across the weeds that I was meant to be pulling.

My sister had giggled like she knew I was asking the wrong question. Where are you running to? I should have asked, and then I could have run after her, faster than that speeding car.

“Does it have a name?” I asked Amber. The other rocks did. The less special ones. Clunky, misshapen lumps that only revealed the side worth anything if turned over. Not the rock in Amber’s palm, nor the three left on the wrapping paper. It was Christmas wrapping paper. Red with pearl snowflakes, even though it was the thick of August. I could feel the crisp shadow of expiring sun on my outstretched legs until a peal of laughter from outside the room reminded me that I was sitting against the dorm room bed of the girl I’d always wished would notice me, back when I could spare my wishes on such simple things.

“No, I haven’t named it yet,” Amber said. The hair she had been tucking behind her ears – black and inky like the deepest parts of the sea – fell over her face again. She could not move it, as both hands still held the unnamed rock.

I searched in Amber’s eyes for the sympathy I’d collected from everyone back home, but instead I saw only wonder at this rock she held, like it was something precious, something alive, something to be kept safe in the flimsy swaddle of Christmas wrapping paper.

Her eyes were brown. Like dirt, the kind that packed together into sedimentary rocks, which sometimes hoarded air bubbles in the empty spaces of their chests so that something beautiful could grow.

If I asked her to name this rock after me, she would. She had texted me to come over, after all, and from what I knew, we weren’t friends. To me, she was just the girl who smiled at rocks, who left me wondering how it would feel, to be smiled at like that. And to her, I was just the boy from grade school who happened to go to the same college.

I was more than that now. No longer “the boy who,” but “the boy with.” My sister defined me, and I didn’t fight. Let her take the place in my chest where only air was whirring, the hollow I ached to fill.

“Go on,” Amber said, hands moving an inch towards me. “It will help.”

Help what? It was a goddamn rock. I lifted my palms to match hers, lifelines-up like we were showing off how much time we had. The rock slipped against the sweat of my skin.

It was smooth, warm from her heat, a kiss falling along the creases of my palms.

“I know they’re just rocks,” she said, but at first I thought I had said it.

My fingers flinched, and the rock trembled against my fingerprints.

“But pretending they’re something more helps.”

Helps what, I thought again. I wanted to say it, but my voice had lost itself in the gaping expanse of my chest, and I looked away from her dirt brown eyes to this rock in my hands.

I pretended it was a heart. Small, warmth cooling, turning blue from lack of oxygen. Did hearts do that? I didn’t know. In my head, it didn’t matter. I watched the heart harden, so tiny it could fit into a rabbit’s chest, like the ones that ran, quick, quick, across our front lawn, sometimes darting into the road without warning, without any time to stop them.

“Will,” Amber said suddenly – sudden as the flash of metal on sun-kissed skin, but not nearly as loud – and I didn’t know if she was finally naming the rock I held, or just saying my name to fill the hollow of our silence.



Written by: Danielle Dyal
Photograph by: Sophie Stuart

The Architect

Tamar watches her twin sisters gaze at the horizon as the merchants row them across the harbor toward the port town of Kerr. There is a crisp, salty bite to the winter breeze that blushes their noses and cheeks. This is the first time that Tamar will lead the priestesses to commemorate the winter solstice with gifts of dried sea plants and pearls. She hides her hands from the chill in the folds of her cloak as her head tilts to the side, eyes gazing beyond the blue as the boat rocks like a cradle.

“Are you excited to see the finished fane?” one of the twins, Adah, calls back without turning.

Tamar blinks to attention, remembering that she will meet with the architect they commissioned to build the temple that would serve as their headquarters during their solstice visits.

“Yes. I hope it meets Mother Aviva’s expectations. ”

“Do you think the architect is very old and bald?” the other sister, Zillah, asks.

Tamar’s hush comes out like a hiss as the twins giggle to themselves. The merchants hop into the shallows to pull the boat ashore as the black cliffside towers overhead. Tamar recalls a dream from the night before in which she stood waist deep in the sea and looked up at this very cliff, grasping a silver key in her hand. Her seven sisters stood in the water behind her, waiting as the waves lapped against the small of their backs. Tamar notices the merchant’s hand reaching to help her out of the boat and takes it as the memory of her dream dissolves.

“More comfortable in the water than on land, eh?” asks an older man with a craggy face.

“You should know,” she says, smiling as she steps onto shore.

                                                                                                    ***

Tamar did not expect to see the stained glass windows and the oak altar encircled by benches of shaped wood and stone. Breath stolen, she approaches the center, noticing light falling from above. She tilts back her head to see the window depicting an ornate silver key surrounded by panels of blue and green glass. She remembers her dream, the feel of the key in her palm, and her desire to find it’s owner.

A priestess acolyte approaches, bowing her head before speaking.

“High priestess, this is Liam Eklund.”

Tamar turns around, meeting eyes with a man a little over half a foot taller than herself. His beard is full and betrays his youth.

“Hello, Liam. I am very pleased with your master’s design,” she offers.

The acolyte’s eyes dart toward Liam and a flush spreads across her face and neck, but he is smiling.

“Oh, Tamar. Liam is the master architect, the one Mother Aviva commissioned for the fane,” the younger priestess stammers.

The architect is laughing now.

“It’s really fine. I’m used to it. You’d only know if you noticed the ink on my hands,” he says as he raises them.

Tamar sighs and covers her face for a moment before looking up at him.

“I am sorry, master architect. I only assumed because you are young. I was expecting someone…”

“Old and bald?” Liam interrupts.

“Precisely.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I didn’t expect the high priestess to be so young either. I guess this means I don’t have to be too formal?”

“Formalities are for funerals,” she replies. “Can you tell me about the key? Is that your signature or did we request it?”

Liam rests his hands on his hips and leans back to look up at the skylight.

“Mother Aviva said the image of a key came to her in a dream. When she was searching for architects, she found me because I tend to place it on my work,” he says.

“She had a dream?” Tamar asks, brow raised.

“Yes. She dreamt that her priestesses stood in the sea and one of them held a key. Then, she heard a voice say that love would reveal the truth of our desires.”

Tamar is silent, beginning to sweat beneath her arms.

“Anyway, that’s how she found me. And now I’m here.”

She swallows, hearing the chirp of birds outside beyond the heat of her ears.

“The stars know better than we. I’m very glad to meet you, Liam.”

“Me, too, priestess.”

                                                                                                    ***

The town is quiet and the moon is high as Tamar cracks open the door of the temple and slides in, closing it with a backwards lean. Her eyes are drawn to the altar, to the moonlight that bathes it and the cold silence emanating from the stones. She takes a seat on a bench and grips bunches of her cloak in her hands, thinking of Mother Aviva.

“Love will reveal the truth of our desires,” she whispers, wondering at the meaning.

“Priestess,” Liam murmurs, stepping into the light.

Tamar looks up, startled, and sighs with a laugh.

“Hello, Liam. I guess you couldn’t sleep either?”

The architect rubs the back of his neck with his hand as he takes a seat next to her, then leans forward with elbows on his knees.

“Strange dreams,” he says.

“You and me, both.”

“What did you dream?”

Tamar takes a moment to consider her response, then takes courage as she says, “I’ve been dreaming of your key, Liam. Even before we got here. And in the dream I’m desperate to return it, knowing it is lost and precious.”

“The key represents my mother. She passed after giving birth to my sister, whom I also lost.”

“Your sister did not survive the birth?”

“She did, but she was taken by female relatives. My father did not trust himself to rear her properly. I want to see her, to know her name, but all I remember is the darker patch of skin across her foot.”

Tamar turns her head, heart pounding. Liam also turns as she slides her foot out of her boot and pulls off her stocking, the birthmark just visible in the moonlight.

“Brother, I am here.”

Written by: Natasha Akery

Photograph by: Kayla King

Trash

Read the rest of the "West" saga: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

“Higher!” Brooklyn squealed, pumping her legs out of rhythm, as if her knees were over-oiled hinges.

“You want to go higher?” Drew asked the toddler, tickling her under the arms as he pushed the swing. She squealed in response, tipping her head back as she swung away from him.

Jennifer watched her brother and her daughter from the edge of the school playground. She liked these quiet moments, watching Brooklyn with someone else. She felt she could see her more clearly. Tell if she was happy.

“Hey! How was work?” Drew called, noticing her.

“It was good,” Jennifer said, crossing the playground and taking the swing next to Brooklyn’s. “The almost-feminists have discovered the shop. How was your day, Brooklyn? Is Uncle Drew pushing you so high?”

“Yes! I’m a Neverbeast, and Drew’s a Tinkerbelle, and we’re FLYING!”

“What the fu--crap--is an almost-feminist?” Drew asked, catching the curse before it escaped into Brooklyn’s ears.

“You know. The women who come in and talk about how much they love Chuck’s shop because male mechanics treat them like they’re stupid and overcharge them for oil changes. The real question is, what the crap is a Neverbeast?”

“Some movie Mom streamed on-demand. Brook’s obsessed,” Drew said. “I still don’t get it. Why ‘almost-feminists’?”

“If they were real feminists, they’d learn how to change the oil themselves.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Drew said, laughing.

Jennifer rotated her swing in circles so that the chain twisted all the way to the top, then let go. The schoolyard blurred around her.

“Whoa, Mommy!”

“Today is totally throwback Thursday,” Jennifer said. “You remember? They used to sell ice cream over by that door.”

“I would pay some serious money for an orange push-pop right now.”

“Sick. Those were so nasty.”

Brooklyn slid out of her swing and wandered towards the monkey bars.

“You remember when Jimmy Pincetti broke his collarbone on that thing?” Drew said.

Jennifer grimaced.

“Honestly, that wasn’t as bad as when Katie McAlister fell and knocked her teeth out,” she said. “Monkey bars are a death trap.”

Brooklyn was squatting in the dirt inspecting a discarded cereal box, probably nicked from the school cafeteria.

“Brooklyn, don’t pick that up!”

“But Mommy, it’s Corn Flakes!”

“It’s trash!”

“You sound like a mom,” Drew said.

“She-ittttt,” Jennifer said, dragging the word into two syllables.

Jennifer’s phone vibrated in her pocket. For a second, her heart leapt into her throat at the flickering thought that it could be a text from Dena. She swiped the screen. An email coupon from Baby Gap. Jennifer rolled her eyes at herself.

“What is it?” Drew asked.

“Nothing. I’m a total mom.”

It wasn’t that she’d wanted anything. Dena was with Chris. Dena didn’t even live here. Dena was totally freaked out by the thought of Jennifer as a mother. Wasn’t she? Everyone else was. Jennifer could predict the rest of her story--people would see her kid as baggage for another ten years, and then half the dating pool would have kids, and it would be no big. She’d end up thirty, dating some goateed guy with two children from a previous marriage. Someone who thought it was sexy she could fix his motorcycle. Fucking basic as hell. She should really go back to college.

“So I’m thinking about quitting Best Buy,” Drew said.

“Uh, that’s stupid,” Jennifer said. “Hello? Money?”

“Kurt keeps making me chase people off the iPads if they’re not going to buy one. I know it’s not the public library, but Jesus. Give people a chance, you know? Not everybody can afford internet. Plus he keeps cutting my hours.”

“Kurt’s a dick. But isn’t that part of having a job? Being managed by dicks?”

It was conversations like this that made Jennifer feel out of place--as if she were the older sibling, not Drew. Drew’s life was on the cusp of getting really great. Sure, he still lived with their mom, but he wasn’t the brunt of her criticism. My son, the college graduate, she was always saying.

“Don’t you want to move out?” she asked, eyeing Brooklyn as she piled pea gravel into little hills by the slide.

“Yeah, but I don’t think Best Buy is the best I can do with a computer science degree. I was thinking I might see what’s up in California. Carl has a friend who works at Google.”

“You are a total fucking cliche, Drew,” Jennifer said.

“Whatttt. Kill me. It’s not like I’m going to turn into a surfer.”

Jennifer felt like trash. Everyone else, even her own brother, could pick up and head out at any point. And here she was, clinging on. First Dena, the only person in forever who had looked at her like she was something special. Now her own brother? Who would help her stay sane around their mom? She itched for a cigarette, but resisted.

“Whatever, it’s cool. I’m sure it’ll be awesome,” she said.

“You could come with me?” Drew said, turning his palms up in a pleading shrug.

Brooklyn’s scream more than answered Drew’s half-assed offer.

“Brooklyn? What’s wrong?” Jennifer ran to her daughter, who was still sitting in the gravel next to the slide. “What happened?”

Brooklyn’s legs, only just starting to lose their rolls of baby fat, were covered in fire ants. Jennifer picked up her daughter, smacking the ants from her legs. Brooklyn shrieked a noise so high it felt supersonic, like it was scraping Jennifer’s eardrums.

“Shh, shh, baby, it’s okay. Those mean bugs bit you, but we got them,” she cooed as Brooklyn wailed.

“Fuck,” Drew said, unfastening Brooklyn’s sandal where her ankle was starting to swell from the bites.

“I’ve got it,” Jennifer snapped, pulling Brooklyn’s foot away.

Drew looked at his sister and noticed what he didn’t understand before--the pain that could weave between one connected body and another.

Jennifer’s phone buzzed in her pocket again. She didn’t bother to check it. She cradled Brooklyn against her as the child’s heaving sobs turned to sniffles. She set off in the direction of her mother’s house, her brother trailing a few paces behind, still holding Brooklyn’s tiny pink sandal.

Written by: Dot Dannenberg

Photograph by: Daniel Vidal

The Star

Her grandmother took her to the opera house to see the Nutcracker. She sat very still in her seat, the red fibers of the chair scratching her thighs. She watched patrons move down the aisle with bouquets of roses and greenery in their arms and gift bags dangling from their elbows. She knew they were presents for the dancers.

But what they didn’t know was that her name was Clara, too, just like the star of the ballet. Surely, for that, someone would give her a gift. Maybe clip-on earrings or a porcelain doll like the one she saw when she was shopping with her parents at the antique and garden store.

Clara knew if she could just rise from her seat, twirl her velvet dress, and approach the woman with the present, all she would have to say was, “My name is Clara,” and the woman would be charmed. Everyone would be charmed.

But at that moment, her grandmother wrapped her leathery hand around Clara’s wrist and squeezed.

“Do you want a peppermint?”

Clara rattled it around in her mouth, clicking the candy against her teeth. Now the lights were dimming. She had missed her chance.

When the ballet was over, it was decided. She would become a dancer, and everyone would shower her with gifts and flowers. The spotlight would shine down from the roof and the whole room would gaze on her alone.

Back at her grandmother’s, she rummaged through the closets for ballet slippers. She settled instead for terrycloth house shoes with rubber grips on the bottom. She spent the rest of the afternoon imagining the patio was a stage, and she was Clara, the star Clara, who had a growing Christmas tree and a real prince and a benevolent uncle who was also a magician.

When she finished her dance, she set about gathering leaves and sprigs from her grandmother’s yard, topping off the arrangement with all the fern fronds and large succulent leaves from her grandmother’s potted plants. She wrapped them in a paper towel like a bouquet and cradled them in her arms, thanking her adoring fans.

Her grandmother had had enough ballet for one day.

“What have you done to my fern?” she said.

Clara didn’t have an answer.

“Let’s get you back home,” her grandmother said, shaking her head.

Clara spent the drive back to her house staring out the window, imagining she was alone, and imagining that everyone loved her.

“I don’t see why I couldn’t spend the night,” Clara sighed.

“We didn’t plan for that,” her grandmother said.

When the screen door of her parents’ house slammed behind her, the magic was gone.

“Get changed—you don’t need to play in that dress,” her mother shouted from the kitchen.

Clara could smell spaghetti sauce and some kind of vegetable she was certain to dislike. Downstairs, one of the twins was screaming. She hung her dress on a pink plastic hanger in the closet she shared with Emma and traded it for blue polka dotted leggings and a yellow turtleneck with a faint Kool-Aid stain near the hem.

Emma wanted to hear about the ballet, but Clara didn’t want to talk. She knew if she stayed inside, she would be asked to do chores. She had enjoyed an afternoon of extravagance with her grandmother, and now someone would want to make her pay. Drying the dishes. Picking up pine cones. Sorting the clean laundry into seven stacks—one for each member of her crowded family.

“Where are you going?” Emma whined, as Clara double-knotted her sneakers.

“Shut up,” Clara said, even though those words were off limits.

She sneaked outside and hid under the deck.

It was too tight to stand up and continue practicing the fine art of ballet, so she braided two clusters of pine straw together and pretended it was a dancer. There was a dead roly-poly near her foot.

“A rat!” she whispered, and jumped her pine straw dancer away.

She wished she had kept a piece of her grandmother’s fern. Ferns are infinitely more graceful than pine straw. Clara arched the straw dancer, bending it into an arabesque. The straw broke, leaving her dancer’s leg ruined.

She heard the thunder of little feet on the deck above her head. It was Emma with the twins.

“Clara!” Emma called. The twins echoed. “Supper’s ready!”

Under the deck, Clara tensed, drawing her knees up to her chin. She had forgotten her jacket and was getting cold, but she didn’t want to go in. She didn’t want to go to the dinner table, fight over the breadbasket, and watch the twins and baby Julie smear spaghetti sauce in their hair. She didn’t want the noise and pain of it. The knives screeching on plates, Emma kicking her shins under the table.

No one would pay any attention to her. No one would think she was special for having the same name as the star of the ballet. She was the star of nothing. There would be no elegance in scraping leftover food into the garbage can and loading plates into the dishwasher. Nothing lovely about sliding a nasty broom under the baby’s high chair and pushing crumbs into a dustpan.

“Is Clara gone?” she heard one of the twins ask Emma. “Where’s Clara? We love you, Clara!”

“Go on in,” Emma said. “I’ll find her.”

Clara heard the twins run back across the deck, and she saw Emma’s feet coming down the stairs. Emma peeked around a beam.

“There you are,” she said.

“I’m not hungry,” Clara said.

“Look what I found in mom’s room,” Emma said, crawling beside Clara in the dirt. “She said you can have them.”

Emma handed Clara a tattered pair of ballet slippers, long and narrow like their mother’s feet. The leather was still a perfect rosy pink, and inside each heel someone had written their mother’s initials with permanent marker.

“After supper, will you show me how to dance?” Emma asked.

“Maybe,” Clara said. “I’ll think about it.”

They left the broken pine straw in the dirt and went inside.

Written by: Dot Dannenberg

Photograph by: Emily Blincoe

Paloma

Continued from "Tequila Sunrise" and "Salt on the Rim."

“Can I play on the monkey bars today?” Paloma asks.

The playground stretches in front of them: an ancient thing, untouched by safety concerns. Vibrant paint peels to reveal shiny metal. It feels familiar to Lori, and that’s why she insists on coming here, even though there are four other parks closer to their apartment. Familiarity is a luxury.

“If you can reach ‘em today, then sure,” Lori replies. “If you fall, just spit on it.”

“Gross,” Paloma says, then nods. She tugs at the hem of her favorite sweater, mustard yellow with a big teal dove embroidered on the front. It’s starting to pull, and soon she won’t be able to wear it at all. Maybe Lori can make it into a cute pillow. Better yet, maybe Lori can hire someone to do it for her. It’s something Beth would’ve done.

“Hey, is there anyone here you like?” Lori knows from Paloma’s expression that she hasn’t phrased the question right, so she tries again. “I mean, do you have any friends here you might want to invite over? Like for a play date?”

“I like everyone,” Paloma says, and runs off to join an in-progress game whose purpose is only understood by children.

Lori realizes that without Paloma, she is alone. A dozen mothers mill around the perimeter of the playground, their pristine New Balance sneakers crunching over the bark. Most of them wear tasteful pea coats in shades of coal, pewter, and cocoa. There are a couple of outliers — a jade and eggplant — but they still feel restrained compared to the bright pink blazer Lori wears over her favorite gray sweater.

Lori stands off to the side, afraid to break into one of the established groups. How would that conversation even go? ‘Hey, have you ever thought about who your kids’ godparents are, and what that means? My sister didn’t. How about one of your kids comes over for a play date? Draw straws. I’ll wait.’

Her cell phone cuts through the silence of the morning. She has to get a new bag, one that won’t swallow everything she owns. Everything about her feels loud and obnoxious.

“I think it’s in your pocket,” the mother with the eggplant coat gives her a helpful smile. Lori groans and retrieves her iPhone from her blazer.

“Got an email from one of our little lovebirds. Whitney wanted to make sure you were doing okay. What should I tell her?” Nicole doesn’t bother with pleasantries.

“That I’m fine, of course.”

“Really?” Nicole asks.

“I can’t stop thinking about how Paloma will never know how great her mom was. She’ll never taste Beth’s triple chocolate brownies, or listen to her read the Harry Potter books, or make snow angels at Christmas. I have to do all of those things, except I almost put Kahlua in my last batch of brownies, and I can’t get Hagrid’s voice right, and my last snow angel looked disturbingly phallic.”

“You won’t let anyone forget Beth, but don’t suffocate yourself with the weight of her memory. Plus, I’m pretty sure Kahlua bakes out, but maybe Google it just in case? No one can ever get Hagrid’s voice right except Robbie Coltrane. Make snowmen instead.”

The two women make small talk until Paloma falls. It happens in slow motion: tripping over herself and splaying out in the bark. Lori hangs up on Nicole mid-sentence, watching her delicate niece right herself, inspect the skinning knee, and spit on it. Paloma looks up and waves at Lori.

“I think it worked!”

Unfazed, Paloma skips over, dark hair a tangled mess. She has Beth’s button nose, but her dad’s light blue eyes. Her smile is entirely her own.

“Look what I found!” Paloma chirps, cupping her hands around a small wooden heart.

“Cool,” Lori takes it from her. “Uh, you didn’t put this in your mouth, did you?”

Paloma shakes her head.

“Good, ‘cause you’re not supposed to do that.”

“Can we get hot chocolate?” Paloma asks.

“Sure,” Lori says. Paloma grabs her hand and Lori doesn’t flinch this time. It feels like a tiny victory.

She looks back at the wooden heart and a long-buried memory surfaces. It is a happy memory, one with Beth. They buried treasure together, when Lori was a kid and did everything Beth told her to without a second thought. Why did they bury it when they could have gone looking for it?

Grief has taken root in her, a dull throbbing ache that resides under the surface of her skin. Its only benefit is that it offers her perspective, gives her new acuity with which to view past events. At the funeral, Lori experienced an odd revelation about why Beth stopped lending her clothes. Beth’s were too adult, too sophisticated for a high school kid, and then too professional for a college kid. They grew apart in yards of fabric and heel height.

They buried the treasure because others might need it more than they did.

“I don’t think we should take it home,” Paloma says, pointing to the heart. “It belongs to the park.”

They find a small patch of dirt near the pond. The earth is damp, and their hands get dirty from digging. Lori tucks Paloma’s hair behind her small, perfect ear, and leaves a smear of dirt behind.

When the hole is large enough, Paloma places it in with the stoic reverence of a child mimicking adult behavior.

“When you plant a garden, you start with earth and seeds,” Lori says. “We’re lucky, because we live somewhere with good soil and good weather. We’ll plant it here and love will grow.”

“What kind of love?”

“Does it matter?” Lori smiles.

“Can it be like the way I love Mom and Dad and you?”

Lori can’t look at her. Paloma has seen too many tears. She has watched Lori’s grief beach itself, an immobile leviathan. Instead, she takes the child in her arms and hugs her.

“Of course it can,” Lori whispers.


Written by: Erin Justice
Photograph by: Pekka Nikrus

The Living Dead

Beth slammed the bathroom door and thrust her shoulder against the worn sheet of wood. She suctioned her ear to the textured surface and listened for footsteps climbing the stairs. Tears cascaded down her cheeks as water droplets trickled out of the faucet; the one she always forgot to have fixed.

She pressed her back against the door and slid to the ground, watching a bead of moisture lose its grip on the steel spout as she made her way to the floor. The water droplet splattered against the porcelain bowl just before she reached the molded tiles. She snapped out of her hypnosis once she heard sluggish steps scaling the hallway staircase.

Beth covered her ears with her hands and squeezed so tightly, a puff of air ruffled the graying hair covering the back of her neck. Tears rained on her lap as she rocked and hummed, trying to drown out the nearing groans reverberating through the door.

A knock from outside sent chills down Beth’s spine, turning her hums into howls and her rhythmic swaying into violent thrashing. She writhed about until the back of her head collided with the metal knob beside her, leaving a speck of blood clinging to the vertical lock as her limp body slid to the floor.

                                                                                             ***

“What’s wrong with her?” Chris asked as his mom disappeared at the top of the staircase.

“Gee, I don’t know, Chris,” answered Robyn. “Maybe it has something to do with two strangers showing up on her doorstep, insisting they’re her children?”

“We ARE her children.”

“Not in her mind, we aren’t.”

Robyn opened the screen door for Chris and followed him into the foyer.

“But I spoke to her on the phone just last week,” Chris said as they ascended the stairs. “I told her we were coming by today.”

“And I’ve been trying to tell you for months now that she has dementia, but you seem to forget that pretty easily.”

“You don’t know it’s dementia.”

“You’re right, she’s probably just trippin’ balls.”

“Is that some symptom you’re studying? I don’t know what that means?”

“What, there wasn’t a lot of acid dropping going on at divinity school?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“There probably wasn’t much laughter either.”

Chris ended the conversation with a scoff as they reached the top of the stairs.

“Christ, is she humming?” Robyn asked.

“Mom?” Chris said, tapping the door with his knuckles.

“Mom, open up,” Robyn said, followed by a firm strike with the side of her fist.

Chris cupped his hand between the door and his ear and listened for a response. Their eyes widened once they heard the crashing of bone against brass.

“MOM,” Chris yelled, jiggling the handle. “Shoot! It’s locked.”

“Shit,” Robyn muttered as she rifled through her hair for a bobby pin. “Didn’t I tell you this would happen?”

“This isn’t the time for I-told-you-so’s.”

“Only God can judge you, right?”

“Condescending remarks aren’t going to unlock this door.”

Robyn rolled her eyes and removed a pin from her bun. Her brown hair unfurled over her shoulders as she straightened the curved piece of metal and slid it into the narrow hole in the center of the knob. She fidgeted the instrument with surgical precision until the latch clicked.

“God dammit,” Robyn grumbled.

“What? it sounded like it worked.”

“I know, but the door won’t move. She must be leaning on it.”

“Here.”

Chris pushed Robyn aside and rested his shoulder against the door. He pushed off the ground with his leg until a tiny opening started to form.

“FUCK,” Chris shouted. “Call 9-1-1!”

“You said ‘fuck?’” Robyn noted.

She glimpsed through the opening while taking her phone out of her pocket. She spotted the top of her mom’s head lying in a puddle of blood on the bathroom floor.

“FUCK!”

                                                                                             ***

“Good, she’s awake,” Dr. Bachman noted.

“It’s Alzheimer’s, isn’t it?” asked Robyn.

“I’m afraid so,” he replied.

“Happy?” Chris asked.

“Yes, Chris, I’m fucking ecstatic.”

She looked down at her mom to see how she was taking the news. Beth was wearing the same bewildered expression she wore when she answered the door.

“Mrs. Carlisle,” Dr. Bachman interrupted. “According to the brain scans and what your children have told me, it appears you have Stage 4 Alzheimer’s.”

“How many stages are there?” Chris asked.

“Seven,” Robyn answered.

“I was asking the doctor.”

“Which one?”

“You’re not a doctor yet. You’re still in school.”

“I’m in my residency, dick. That means I have an MD.”

Once Robyn stopped talking she could hear her mother sobbing.

“Will you two please step outside for a moment,” Dr. Bachman interjected.

Robyn stormed out of the room without saying another word. Chris gave his mom a kiss on the forehead and followed his sister’s lead.

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” Robyn continued as soon as her brother appeared in the hallway.

“What?”

“Her lucidity.”

“How can you be so cold about this?”

“Because I know how Alzheimer’s works, Chris. Back in med school we used to call it the Zombie Disease. It could take months or even years, but one of these days, mom will be nothing more than an animated corpse.”

“And then what, we shoot her in the head?”

“No. We take her off medical support and let nature run its course.”

“If we’re not doing everything in our power to save her, we’re killing her.”

“And if we let her become a bed-wetting, pants-shitting, incoherent shell of herself, we’re killing every laugh, every smile and every wonderful moment we’ve ever shared with her. MEMORIES are life after death, Chris; not some fucking gated community in the clouds where she and your dad will reunite and live happily ever after.”

“I don’t appreciate you belittling my life’s work.”

“Yeah? Well now you know how mom feels.”

Robyn’s wall of words broke like a dam holding back a flood of tears. She turned towards the window and stared at her mother until she became blurred beyond recognition.

Written by: Mark Killian
Photograph by: Vrinda Agrawal

Hail Caesar!, or The Extended Obituary of Nell Riley Foster

Nell Riley Foster, 23, of Brooklyn...

I can't do this.

Okay, fine - I don't want to do this. I volunteered. It's too late to back out now.

Nell Riley Foster, 23, of Brooklyn died early Sunday morning because some fucker got greedy and decided to rob the corner bodega with a loaded gun.

I shouldn’t say that, but you know when people your age die there's always that morbid curiosity about how it happened. I have to say something, Nell.

Nell Riley Foster, 23, of Brooklyn, died early Sunday morning. She was the victim of a violent crime.

Happy?

Nell was born to Patrick and Lori Foster, March 15th, 1990, in Cambridge, Mass. After her brother learned about the Ides of March, he called her 'Caesar' and staged elaborate fake assassinations on her birthday. He feels a mixture of discomfort and joy about this now.

Of course I won't include that when I send it. That is too personal. Still, if only I hadn't tempted death or God or karma thirteen times.

Nell graduated from Cambridge Rindge & Latin School in 2007 and received a BA in English from Brown University in 2011. Nell studied abroad in Italy the summer before her junior year. She took an intensive language immersion course but still mistranslated dishes at Italian restaurants. She dated a guy who doesn't want to come to her memorial because it's "too hard, bro."

You'll note that out of respect, I did not call him a douchebag this time.

He is a total douchebag, though.
Nell worked for an online literary start-up. She blogged about Shakespeare's wittiest, dirtiest double entendres and why Northanger Abbey is a better Jane Austen novel than Pride & Prejudice. Her favorite response to readers' angry messages was "haters gonna hate." Her editor's favorite response was "I appreciate your comments and will keep this perspective in mind."

In her spare time, Nell wrote haiku poetry on fogged windows and steamed-up mirrors. Her goal was to finish the poem before the glass cleared. She became really good at it, dissecting syllable counts with an invisible abacus.

Nell spent a staggering amount of time contacting “those Iron Chef people.” She engaged in a one-woman campaign to have Nutella appear as the secret ingredient. Her emails bordered on propaganda.

Nell ran every day. Her brother would sometimes join her, but not enough for his own health, he thinks now that he has an opportunity to reflect and to regret.

Her legal name was "Nell," not Eleanor. She was very happy her parents skipped right to the nickname.

Nell preferred Thai curry to Indian curry, naan to pita bread, and coffee to tea. Her favorite taste was “Nutella” although she liked to use “umami” when the occasion arose. Based on her own ordering and cooking preferences, it seldom did.

This has turned into “Fun Facts about Nell.” I had to Google “how to write an obituary.” It seems like content shifts from salient biographies to trivia. Maybe I can contact your old editor and write a piece about it. It would either be hilarious or macabre. I’m betting the latter.

If our places were reversed, you would have made it a personal challenge. It would have been the former; it would have been brilliant and pitch-perfect, probably the best piece you’d ever written (but not the best piece you’d ever write). It would be a glorious memorial.

It should have been me, Nell. I should have gone with you. I could have pushed you out of the way. I could have done something. Even if it all played out the same - the stumbled-upon robbery, the gun, the shot - I would have been there with you.

What's the old saying? The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long. You burned so bright you left pieces of yourself behind, and you linger like the light people see when they close their eyes. I swear I see you everywhere. Faint lines of you glow in panes of glass; your laugh smolders in my dreams (and nightmares); your smile flickers in the corner of my eyes. There is something comforting about walking into an empty room and it not feeling so empty anymore. Maybe I’m going crazy - I probably am; crazy is what happens when you intertwine your sister’s obituary with a letter to her, a letter she can’t see, a letter she’ll never see because she - you -

I need to take a break.

Nell is survived by her elder brother, Chase Foster, of Brooklyn; and her parents, Patrick and Lori Foster, of Cambridge. She is also survived by a chubby cat named Hazelnut and a betta fish named Cocoa.

Hazelnut and Cocoa seem to be adjusting to life with Mom and Dad. We try to adjust to life without you. It doesn’t always take.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made in Nell's name to 826 National, a national literary charity.

You mentioned trying to find a place to volunteer, and when I came to get Hazelnut and Cocoa I saw the pamphlet on your desk. It wasn't in the recycling pile, so I am almost positive it was on your shortlist and we would have talked about it.

For the record, I would have said "go for it!"

A private memorial service will be held at her family's home in Cambridge.

I will cry because you are gone. I will laugh at the good memories you gave me.

I miss you. I love you.

I know I will see you again when a room is empty. I will feel your presence fill it. Empty rooms are the dominion of the dead.

I will keep trying to adjust to life without you.

It will take. Eventually.

Written by: Erin Justice
Photograph by: Whitney Ott