| Short Story of theMonth |
swirling like watercolors across the counter. Smoke from burnt toast must have filled our house all the way up to the third floor attic. My father opened the back door, swishing it back and forth, scowling. When he wrapped the Band-Aid around my finger, I looked at my sister, squeezed like old ladies' undergarments into her high chair, and pretended to cry. She laughed and Dad snorted, a laugh snort. After he left for work, Mom came downstairs in her bathrobe. She never spoke before coffee. I chewed my cereal and watched her lift the percolator, bubbles bursting inside the little dome on the top of the pot. She poured the steaming coffee into her white flowered cup until it splashed into the saucer. Lizzy ate pieces of cereal as I placed them one by one onto her tray. Except for the crunching of wheat flakes, only the birds on the back porch made a sound. “Get dressed when you’re finished there, Margaret.” Mom raised her eyebrows when she spoke to me. “Sally Davis invited me for coffee; you two can play with Carol Ann.” She stared at the mess on the counter, yanked on her bathrobe sash while she studied the surface of the liquid swirling around in her cup. Looking back at the counter, her gaze wandered out the window, fixing on a remote spot in the back yard. She held the coffee cup in front of her mouth, blowing, staring, leaning on her elbows; she blew, sipped, blew again. Some mornings she smoked cigarettes. On this day she just drank and stared. Lizzy started to fuss. I carried my cereal bowl to the sink before releasing my sister from the chair. I wondered as I wrestled her out of its choke-hold if Mom would yell at me for not cleaning up the crumbs, but she was still staring out the window when we left the kitchen. I can picture us, hand in hand in our seersucker summer pajamas. * * * * *
been a two-lane dirt road, a by-way for horse-drawn buggies and wagons running from east to west across New York State. Now it was a dangerous street, according to my father, who warned me often not to go near it. “Stay away from that road, Margaret. Don’t even walk in the ditch.” Mostly I cut through the old lady Losey’s backyard. The sidewalk was too narrow for the stroller, so Mom carried Lizzy and I pulled the contraption across the Losey’s front lawn. Sally and Carol Ann lived in an apartment upstairs on the third floor above Sally’s mother. She had grown up there and as far as I knew, had never left except for college and to marry Carol Ann’s dad who I had never even met. I might have seen him walking up the road once, but I can’t be sure. He was an artist; made sculptures when no one was around. I never saw any of his work. Maybe he kept them hidden in a closet; maybe there was a secret room like the one in our attic. Their damp old basement was filled with bags of clay, a big cement wheel you pumped with your feet like a bicycle. The last time Carol Ann and I played down there I had tried on his apron, covered with splotches of dried clay. I took it down from the nail at the bottom of the stairs and put it over my head, tied it around my waist and tried to pump the heavy wheel. My legs got caught in the heavy folds of the rubber apron and I fell onto the floor. Carol Ann must have told her mother because the next time we were over there she pulled me behind the breakfast bar and told me to stay away from Mr. Davis’s workshop, to behave myself at their house. * * * * *
in their back yard. She was watching us walk up the driveway; smoke from her cigarette curling around the maple leaves. I wondered, did she think my mother was pretty. She was certainly prettier than Mrs. Davis, that’s for sure. I held onto the back of my mother’s skirt. Maybe Sally would think I thought my mother was special, even though I didn’t, not really. I knew she was talking about Mom the other day with Mrs. Losey. She didn't fool me and I didn't fool her. I watched her smoke trailing through shafts of sunlight, then disappearing into the tree. “Margaret, keep an eye on Lizzy.” I couldn’t help but look at my mother’s breasts when she leaned over to lift my sister out of the stroller. She was watching me to see if I was listening. I didn’t say anything, but she knew I got the point because I rolled my eyes like I did every time. She and Sally Davis wanted to smoke and laugh and it was my job to keep the kid out of their hair. My sister and I sat in the cool grass, pushing a croquet ball back and forth. Mom and Sally talked fast, like one train trying to catch up with another. Once in a while a burst of laughter made me sit up. Where was Carol Ann? I didn’t want to draw attention to myself by asking, but then I heard her calling my name. Her voice came from behind the hedge, a long thick row of bushes, so overgrown you couldn’t squeeze through. I jumped up and ran all the way to the end and back down again on the other side. Carol Ann had her dolls lined up on an old blanket. She was feeding Tiny Tears from a real glass baby bottle filled with water and waved for me to come over. We sat cross-legged on the scratchy blanket while she fed the doll. I wished it was mine, but was careful not to look at the doll, or any of her precious dolls. My legs started to itch. “This blanket stinks,” I said. She ignored me; kept feeding that silly doll. There was no more water in the bottle and Carol Ann turned the doll upside down and felt its diapers . “She’s supposed to pee when you feed her.” “Stupid doll,” she jumped up and ran around the bushes and I followed her—didn’t want to miss out on anything. I was envious about the doll, I admit it; curious about the workings of it, curious about Carol Ann and her mother who always seemed interested in pleasing her daughter. I wouldn’t have been surprised if her mother offered to buy her a new doll. One time we were all in the grocery store and Carol Ann pointed to a Golden Book on the big rack of kid’s books and her mother just grabbed it and put it in the cart. She bought Carol Ann whatever she wanted; I never heard her get mad at her either, like she was sometimes mad at me, like my mother, who was always mad at me. “Where’s Lizzy?” my mother asked, crushing her cigarette into the overflowing ashtray. She and Sally Davis were laughing about something again. “I asked you a question, Margaret, where is your sister?” I don’t remember exactly what happened next. I didn’t know what had become of Lizzy. Mom and Sally jumped up and ran towards the garden nearly knocking me over. Carol Ann and I ran behind them. She grabbed my shirt and then we got ahead of them. All those dolls were lying face down in the middle of the blanket next to the rose bushes. You could smell them all the way to the end of the hedgerow. Robins were chattering up in the tree like they were cheering us on, and cars rumbled past out on the road. Carol Ann was clutching Tiny Tears to her chest as we all ran down the garden path, past the blanket and on toward the other side of the yard where it was all dark and shady underneath an overhang of big-leafed trees and vines. There was a loud splashing over by the fish pond, I thought maybe that big frog we had tried to catch in the pail. I think we were holding hands by the time we tore around the big bush with the white flowers. Mom screamed. I tried to scream too but nothing came out. Lizzy was lying in the mucky green water in the slimy cement pond, her face in the water—her dress spread out like wings of a dead bird. Mom was in pond, twirling her arms and crushing giant lily pads. She plunged toward Lizzy floating and not moving in the center of the pond. I remember the bottom of her shoes that were floating upside down next to her head. Carol Ann shrieked so loud they must have heard her up at the gas station, but I couldn’t make a sound, just a loud scream in my head, louder than all of their screams. Sally grabbed the back of my hair to keep me from moving and I watched my mother heave my sister out of that darkness, water pouring off of her and out of her. Mom had her by one arm. It looked like it might break off.
when he came in the back door. My mother’s muffled voice echoed through the house and up the stairs like it did when she was angry. She was telling him how I had almost let my sister drown. Then the house was quiet. A fly buzzed on the sill next to the open window. Cars passed on the Turnpike. I crept across the floor, trying to avoid the creaky spots, and put my ear on the heat grate. Nothing. After a while I climbed onto my bed and opened Alice in Wonderland. I read what the cat said several times, but nothing sank in because my head was spinning. I started turning the pages when I heard my father’s footsteps on the stairs. Would he give me The Look or would spank me right away? The door opened slowly, creaking. He stood in the doorway and I wondered why he didn’t just come barreling in there and end it all. We looked into each other’s eyes. I could see his pupils, like his whole eyes were pupils. “Guess you had a rough day?” He pushed the door open all the way, but still didn’t come into my room. “Yes.” I looked down at the bedspread. I didn’t want to be looking at him when he told me how bad I was, that I had let him down again. I had heard it all before. “Margaret?” “Yes?” I raised my eyes enough to watch him walk across the room. You could see the pack of Lucky Strikes in his pocket through his summer shirt. He sat down on the bed and put his arm around me. The pages in the opened book on my lap were just a blur of color. My ears rang and tears dripped onto the rabbit lifting his watch fob into the air. “Look at me, Margaret.” My father's eyes were soft blue now. He stroked my back. “I understand that life is confusing sometimes. All I ask is that you do your best. Do you understand what I’m saying?” I nodded, gulped air, lowered my head again. What would Alice do? Would she be banished? Would the rabbit hurt her? The door clicked shut when he left the room. I listened for his footsteps on the stairs but it was quiet for a long time. |
| The Fish Pond by Camille Cole |