Category: Fiction

Worry

Amanda Crum

When the wind wakes the trees, he thought. That’s when I’ll get up. 

Daniel lay in the dark tube of Monday morning, watching the shadow-branches dance on the ceiling, and realized the trees were already awake. He’d been able to smell the storm coming last night as he smoked his last cigarette on the balcony and knew it would be here by dawn. Every time a storm came after dark, he made a bargain with himself that he wouldn’t leave the comfort of his sheets until it broke the atmosphere; sleep was precious to him, but he didn’t like lying prone in bed when the air was tinged with ozone. There were too many things that could go wrong. He could already hear thunder grumbling in the distance like an old dog having a bad dream.

A look outside the floor-to-ceiling windows gave him a panoramic view of the city below, spread out like a blanket of lights. Julia had remarked once how odd it was that a man who disliked storms would buy a house encased in glass. Daniel didn’t have an answer, except that the view afforded him the ability to see anything coming his way. He had never liked to have the room at his back, which was one of the reasons Julia left. She’d said it was too embarrassing to go out to dinner with him–the few times they went anywhere–because there were so few places he could sit and eat comfortably. She never understood him. There was a darkness in him that whispered commands, and what would happen if he failed to follow them?

He knew even as a child that when something bad happened, he was to blame. His earliest memory was of the car accident that left a gash in his mother’s head, of shimmering glass and a sound like fury. He was four and wanted to see the ducks down at the lake; the dirt road had turned to silvery mud the night before in a rainstorm. Afterward, he would catch his mother watching him, could feel her thinking about his utter wrongness and the uneven paths he had created for her.

When he became old enough to figure things out for himself, worrying became his hobby. Terrible things still happened, of course, but he discovered that if he opened himself up to his anxiety and let it guide him, things were a little better for everyone else. On March 23, for instance, he worried himself into a bout of diarrhea and not one murder was reported in any of the major newspapers around the globe. Two days after that, he’d let his guard down because he was tired. While he was asleep, dreaming of soft shores beneath a moon with no memory, a parking garage in his own hometown collapsed, killing five people. No one knew who was to blame, but Daniel knew, and it made him feel like a fraud.

Social media helped, of course. Seven different news feeds, all constantly refreshing to give him the most up-to-date horrors across the globe. He kept three phones–one on the nightstand, one in the car, and one at work–so he would never miss anything. He’d thought about tossing one, slowly weaning off the network, but that was just the meds talking. This was the most connected he had ever felt to anything.

A spear of lightning streaked towards the earth, bringing a peal of thunder with it. Daniel turned on his bare heel and ran for the bathroom, gagging on the taste of sushi as it came up and flooded the toilet. His stomach did a greasy roll and he knelt on one knee, resting his forehead on the cool porcelain as he waited for another wave to hit. He looked up, catching his gaze on the little brown bottle on the sink, and felt a curl of rage come to life in his stomach.

He’d felt it before. Two tiny cylinders every 4-6 hours would suppress his anxiety, keep the worry buried deep down where it used to live. He could almost taste them, feel the perforated coating on his tongue, but the last time had been bad. Very, very bad. Planes had fallen from the sky. 97 children had been kidnapped, killed, or had endured terrible accidents. Relationships had faltered, then burned to the ground. Without Daniel to worry, to shoulder that burden, air traffic controllers had lost interest in their jobs.

Mothers forgot to tend to their children. Stormy skies became broken marriages and fractured friendships. He’d read all the world’s news stories for two weeks straight, each day worse than the last, until he came to terms with what he had to do and stopped taking the pills. Worrying was his job. He stood shakily and regarded the bottle with hatred.

Another Monday morning had come, and with it, the weight of the world.

Amanda Crum

If I Fell

Cheryl Skory Suma

Since the day I fell, my life changed for the better. I’ve made peace with the darkness surrounding that period in our lives — I’ve come to accept that the accident was unavoidable.

That was months ago. Today, as I sink into the chair by the window, I’m caressed by the shadows. We are familiar, these shadows of the past and I. They brought me here, embracing my swollen belly, talking to you while I gaze at the mountain outside. You are my gift from above. You’ve taken away my worries and replaced them with love’s ache, dear daughter-to-be. When you arrive in a few weeks, both of us will be born anew — you, for the first time, I, recently graced with a second chance.

Until then, I play classical music — in hopes of stimulating your developing brain, but with the added benefit of soothing my nausea. You dance gentle summersaults whenever Debussy comes on, which allows me to fantasize that you are destined to become a poet or musician. I already adore this someday-you that lives in my imagination. It won’t be long before you push your way out to join me, then we can cry your first breath together. Then I can begin to know you beyond your kicks and wiggles, and you can get to know this new me — both of us free of our past cages.

*

My favorite time to hike is at dawn when the mist has not yet burned away and still cradles within the mountain valleys. Since moving to the Rockies, I’ve always risen early, intending to start walking after a quick coffee. More often than not, though, I end up leaning on the windowsill to watch the elderly couple across the street as they weed their garden together.

Most mornings, they’re up and working before I’ve crawled out of bed, quietly yet harmoniously expelling invaders. Like long-time dance partners, they move in unison without speaking, anticipating when to go forward, when to go sideways. I envied their harmony — their quiet acceptance of their shared task and of each other.

So far, I haven’t met anyone willing to weed the garden quietly with me. So instead, I walk, seeking the silence between breaths. When I accepted the hostess job at one of Banff’s cheaper hotels, I didn’t come for the free apartment, clearly not for the pay; like everyone else around here, I relocated for the abundance of gorgeous hiking trails the Rockies had to offer.

I’ve come to know the nearby mountain trails as well as any local, and I’ve enjoyed exploring the more challenging summits. Last fall, when I met your father hiking for the first time, I had no idea how much that one particular trail would impact my future.

*

I went back to that trail only once, a few months after it happened. I never finished retracing our steps — around the bend and up the path to her highest peak. When I reached the base of the climb, the landscape had changed. The rock wall had let more of her children fall — baby boulders come to rest at their mother’s feet, their demise blocking my progress.

Instantly, I regretted going there. It appeared as if the cliff could not bear what she had done last spring, nor your part in it. She’d left little pebbles so carelessly at her highest edge — the perfect recipe for a misstep, then a slide backward over her brink to join the offspring she’d so casually released below.

I glanced down at my ever-growing belly. Message received. I went home and never hiked that trail again.
*
Since the moment I fell in love with you, my future daughter, my eyes were opened. That day your father took us on that hike, the day of the accident, was meant to be. Just like you.

I remember how hot I was, having dressed too warm for the weather to cover the bruises on my arms and legs — evidence of his latest rage-fest the night before. He was infuriated I’d become pregnant, became even angrier when I said I wanted to keep you. Nevertheless, he’d been careful not to hit my belly. “What about next time,” you whispered in my nightmare that night.

Yes. What about next time.

He was hungover, so I was surprised when he suggested a hike. Perhaps, he felt guilty for the latest beating and wanted to do something I’d enjoy. More likely, he wanted to ensure I didn’t speak to anyone. I’d ended up with one of the few apartments with an actual backyard, so other hotel staff were prone to dropping by unannounced for a gab and a beer.

As we walked along the trail, I imagined what your smile might look like, how your voice would sound the first time you said mamma. Then, I remembered your dream whispers.

It was you who made me realize I didn’t have to accept his violent outbursts, his need for control. It was my job to protect you, but it was more than maternal instinct that surfaced that day — I fell in love. I realized that if I was worthy of being your mother, then I deserved love, too. I had to protect us both.

I was careful to hug the rock wall as we reached the peak’s narrowest, most treacherous section. Your father, however, grew impatient with my cautious pace and pushed past me along the cliff’s edge.

Then, I tripped.

It was my love for you that allowed me to stumble into his side, then leap back out of arms reach — to save us both. To let the rock wall go about her business. Tiny pebbles. Then the fall. Such a horrible accident.

Now, it’s just you and me. I have fallen, and there’s no going back.

Cheryl Skory Suma

New Beginnings

Don Noel

It was new territory for Melanie, and she was unsure of her footing. She’d chosen to stay in Connecticut because she wasn’t too old to enjoy plays and concerts and visits with old friends. But newly widowed, she’d moved to a ‘life care community’ filled with old people who were mostly strangers.

And she missed Alex. Millie had been right about that.

“Mom, you’ll miss Dad, and be lonely,” she’d urged. “Come to California, live with us. Or we’ll help you find someplace nearby.”

It was tempting; three of her four grandchildren were Millie’s, and all of them were settling in the West. She could hardly spend every day with family, though. And apart from them, she’d have been starting life all over again.

So she’d opted for Harmony Meadows. It would be a base, and she’d make new friends there. Meanwhile, in the near term, she’d be a short drive away from friends with whom she and Alex had shared joys and sorrows for four decades; friends with whom she could continue to enjoy everything from book clubs to museums to operas to meals in special places.

The move was astonishingly easy. One of those friends introduced her to Harriet, a woman who specialized in helping people move from big houses to small apartments, disposing of what was left behind by sale or charitable gift or just giveaway. In two heady, exhausting days the thing was managed and she was ensconced in new quarters that Harriet had made seem almost familiar.

She was an early riser; by sunrise the next day she’d showered and made breakfast from the fridge clever Harriet had stocked handsomely. Soon she was out on her very chilly second-story patio. Good decision, she congratulated herself: It was amazing how many of her new neighbors were out for morning constitutionals. In the next half-hour a dozen people came by, noticed her and stopped to say hello, looking up to introduce themselves and welcome her.

The Meadows, as everyone called it, had a calendar buzzing with committees, book clubs, discussion groups, a chorale and chimes group, artists and poets and more. Melanie’s plan was to dip a toe into all that variety a little at a time. Meantime, she would continue her own busy schedule in the wider community, friends who would remember Alex, understand and help her recover from his loss.

Then, utterly unforeseen, that carefully planned new life quite literally came apart. Her first night there was March 4. The state’s first coronavirus case was discovered on March 7. Within a week the state was hunkered down. Schools were closed, and any place with an elderly population was taking maximum precautions. She was suddenly ordering meals from her laptop, having them delivered to the shelf outside her door, and spending twenty-four hours a day alone.

It was devastating. She came to prize those early-morning walkers, all of whom at least waved and some of whom came into the courtyard to look up and exchange a few words. Talking through masks with one on a balcony and the other in the garden was hardly conversation, but it was better than nothing.

And she missed Alex more than ever.

Then the rules were relaxed a little. They were allowed to sit outside with others, and a few at a time could take meals together, although she had done neither. One morning she looked out and saw a familiar face. Out there in the pergola that defined her courtyard, on a wooden bench with a comfortable back — one long enough, it seemed from here, to be defined as socially distant — sat Brian Howard.

They had known each other as couples whose children grew up together in the same schools and on the same clubs and teams. With their spouses, they had shared PTA assignments. As the friendship grew, the four also shared occasional non-parental pursuits like plays and concerts, usually with restaurant dinners beforehand. They’d become friends, but not best friends.

There would be nothing suggestive, Melanie hoped, if she went down to sit at the other end of that bench and renew acquaintance; just two souls sharing the diminuendo of grief, getting on with life alone.

It was a warm day for late March. The snowdrops, those unreliable augurs of winter’s end, had blossomed; the season of crocuses and daffodils was under way. The tall honey locust trees that dominated the courtyard were barely beginning to leaf out, casting a thinly dappled shade through which a feeble spring sun spread warmth enough to demand only light sweaters.

She went down and out. “Brian! I knew you were here. If I’d saved the return address on your sympathy card, I might have realized how near neighbors we’d be. Thank you for that card.”

Her Alex had succumbed six months ago to a massive heart attack. Brian’s wife Rosemary had died here at Harmony Meadows not much later, after years in what was improbably called the memory unit. She and Alex hadn’t known of the Alzheimer’s until maybe a year ago and had promptly arranged a visit, but by then Rosemary had been too far gone to recognize them.

He folded the paperback he’d been reading into his lap. “Melanie! Good morning, what’s left of it! And thanks for yours. I suspected our paths would cross soon: They give us lists of expected new arrivals. Sit, please, at the far end.”
“We’re allowed to shed the damned masks, if you’ll pardon my French?” she asked, peeling hers off.

“Outdoors, yes. A blessing: I have a bit of hearing loss.”

“Oh, Brian, that’s too bad. One of the crueler handicaps of age, I suspect. You’ve learned to lip-read?”

“Actually found an online course. It helps, but you’re right about damned masks.”
He had an easy chuckle that stirred memories of foursome times. “I’ll try not to mumble,” she offered.

“Thank you. I’ve forgotten where your kids ended up; any of them near enough to help you move in?”

“Alexie — Junior — is in Oregon, and Millie in California, but I found someone who makes a business of cutting retirees down to size.”

“Harriet, I’ll bet. She’s moved a lot of us in here.”

“It wasn’t so much moving in as getting rid of all the stuff not worth moving.”

“I remember. Makes you realize how much of your life was spent accumulating things you don’t really need.”

And accumulating one husband with whom you shared 55 years, she wanted to say, whom you really did need. It would hardly do, though, to start this renewal by confessing the depth of her loneliness, beseeching sympathy. “Yes,” should suffice.

But he, bless him, must have intuited the bleakness. “You’d been married a long time, if I remember right. It must still be hard to accept. To accommodate.”

“No more than for you.”

“No, not as hard for me. I had six years to get used to the idea of losing Rosemary; a gradual goodbye for most of that.” She thought she saw an eye moisten. “And then the last couple of years with a different person. A kind of non-person. Lost long before the final loss.”

“I remember.” She found it unsettling that he so obviously focused on her lips. “We came to visit, but she didn’t remember us.” She hesitated at what suddenly seemed a too-intimate question. “Did she remember you to the end?”

“Mostly. Not always.”

“It’s a terrible disease.”

Now, it seemed, it was he who hesitated. “I read that your Alex had a massive heart attack. Did you . . .”

“Have a chance to say goodbye? No. At least I don’t think he heard me. He was just gone.”

“That’s a hard end, too.” His focus shifted up to her eyes. “And damn this covid thing, too. Otherwise I’d give you a hug.”

“And I’d hug you back. Thank you.” Her eyes blurred, and she fished in a pocket for a tissue.

There was silence while she blotted the tears. Finally, he spoke.

“Stoicism,” he said, “is considerably over-rated.”

“What?” She put the tissue in her lap, and tried to read his face. “Stoicism?”

“You’ll get to know this place. More than half of us are widows and widowers, and the rest sooner or later will be. A rose is put in a vase in that big front parlor when someone dies; just a spartan single rose. We murmur condolences, and we have memorial services when we can. A few let themselves cry, but not many; we bridle ourselves. Stifle sorrow. And no one says out loud, ‘I’m devastated and lonely.’ But a lot of us must be.”

It had been a long speech, and more silence seemed appropriate to absorb it.

Finally she responded. “Because asking for comfort might seem disloyal?”

He obviously understood. “Yes, maybe that’s the right word. Disloyal for a recent widow to bury her face in a male shoulder and accept a hug? That’s surely part of it. Also, not wanting to leave the impression that you think your loss deeper than your neighbor’s. That’s the stoicism part.”

“I get it. When I chatted from my balcony with a neighbor out for a walk, on my first day here, I mentioned that I was recently widowed. She said something like ‘Sorry. We all get used to that’.”

“That’s the stoicism part. Probably didn’t realize how calloused that seemed.”

“Probably not. Certainly not intentional. So the widows and widowers never get together to comfort each other?”

“A few. Not often, or at least mostly not visibly. And there wouldn’t be nearly enough widowers to go around if that got started.”

“They told me that we women outnumber the men.”

“Almost two to one. Any student of geriatrics would tell you: Women live longer.”

In the silence, she mustered a bit of candor. “You know,” she said, “I was hesitant, a few minutes ago. Didn’t know whether to come down. How to begin.”

“I’m glad you did.” He shifted awkwardly as he sat, then stretched a long arm down the back of the bench. An offering.

She reached across and took his hand. “Thank you, Brian. It’s good to see you again.”

“Likewise.” He gave her a big smile. “If we weren’t out in the open like this, I might break the rules and make it a hug.”

Dear God, she thought, a little comfort! “And I’d accept,” she said. “Even reciprocate.”

Alex would approve, she was sure. We’re not teenagers with raging hormones; we’re lonely old people welcoming the brief solace of warm flesh. “It’s almost lunchtime,” she said. “How about going up to that almost-restaurant dining room? Put our masks back on getting there, but off to eat?”

“Good idea,” he said with a big grin. “That’s two floors up. I’ll offer that hug in the elevator.”

“You’re on,” she said.

Don Noel