Talespinning

Word Count: 477

The family left for three weeks in Italy. They took the nanny and butler and maid. The chauffeur was let off for his own vacation, somewhere up north on a lake where he spent every day fishing, stocking his pantry with supplies for the length of the stay so he wouldn’t have to drive at all.

But they left her behind, “to take care of the house,” since as housekeeper for twenty-three years, who better to trust? Still, she’d always wanted to travel but they never seemed to invite her along.

For two days she vacuumed and dusted. Changed bedding and picked up the God-awful mess they’d left. She went grocery shopping for things that she loved and they hated. Kidneys and ground round and Hamburger Helper. Cauliflower and limburger cheese.

She slept upstairs in the master bedroom. Showered and dressed in the bath that was three times the size of her own little room off the kitchen. Handy and ready to clean up after their late night snacks.

She put the mauve satin sheets on the bed and sprayed them with perfume. The one that madame liked. To be honest, it kept her awake and she washed out the pillows before she slept there another night.

The large screen TV slid down at the press of a button. The stereo was on the same remote. The bed had its own set of buttoned controls, as did the drapes that she flew open in the morning and danced closed at night. The bathtub was as big as a pool and the waterfall down the wall flowed at three different speeds. She knew how everything worked because she did the cleaning. It hadn’t occurred to her just what a luxury all this was.

She held a dinner party the first Saturday night to which she invited some people she’d met at the store. The cashier on register one and her husband. The produce manager and his wife and four kids. She had to admit they were better behaved than madame’s. The drycleaner’s family, the bank teller’s too, and the package store owner who brought over a lovely Merlot.

They had a grand time and laughed long into the evening, she closed the door on the last guest just before the grandfather clock in the foyer struck twelve.
She shut off the lights and wound her way up the stairs where she dressed in madame’s silk nightgown, sprawled on the huge bed, and passed out.

Leaving the dishes undone. Not even clearing the table. Though she did finish up the wine.

It was madame who found her. Struck with an instant headache when they walked through the door; the stench overwhelming, wineglasses, plates rotted with cheese left on side tables, the dining room buzzing with flies. The police guessed that she’d forgotten to lock the front door.

Word Count:  325

After fifteen married years she got pregnant. Just about when they’d given up hope. She was thrilled, he was beaming, but she warned him they’d have to take every precaution and he willingly agreed to do whatever he could.

It was a difficult pregnancy at her age but the doctor optimistically told them that he believed she would carry this one through. She quit her job at four months and housework at six. The last two months she was confined to her bed.

They were thrilled with the healthy son she delivered and at two weeks early, he was near fully developed and strong. He nursed, he transitioned to solids, he giggled and grabbed at her finger, he walked just before he turned one and he spoke in full sentences right around age two.

Still, she was overly careful, worried at each little sniffle, cried every time if he fell. Each skinned knee was kissed before bandaged. Every change in his mood was watched over. Every electrical outlet was plugged up and each Christmas toy was researched for safety before it was bought and placed under the tree.

He grew healthy and happy and just like a kid, loved to explore and ask questions.

At the crosswalk downtown the two waited. She held tightly on to his hand.“Why do I have to wear boots over my shoes?” he asked. “Why three scarves, earmuffs and hat, and why double mittens?”

“Because it is cold out,” she told him. “Because you are precious and loved.”

As the light changed and the crossing light started flashing she took one step off the curb. But her motherly instinct saw the car that was speeding right toward them just as he stepped down beside her.

She jumped back, gripped tighter, and pulled him back up on the curb but his wee little hand slipped out of the big bulk of mittens and thwump! just like that, he was gone.

Word Count:  281

She ate carrots for eyesight and hamburg and spinach for protein and iron. Milk and cheese for strong bones. She bought green leafy vegetables and broccoli. Had a peach, pear, and plum every day. She counted her calorie intake and checked labels for carbs and sodium as percentage of daily allowance.

She took every precaution, chewed and swallowed food she would normally spit out. This was important; her baby would be the healthiest, have the best BMI, be the tallest, the smartest, the next U. S. President or CEO of a big corporation with his face on the cover of Forbes, Newsweek, and TIME magazine.

As the months went by her belly grew large but she didn’t put on much excess weight. Her ankles were unswollen. Her face, its normal finely defined. It was all baby and of course, just the water he swam in in his natural pool.

She insisted on a natural delivery at home. Had found the perfect midwife. Every plan was in place, nothing forgotten, and her water broke at nine on the morning of her due date. Her husband held her hand and as soon as she let him, called the midwife and told her it was time.

“This baby’s too large!” she cried at nine o’clock that night. By midnight, between shrieks she agreed to go to the hospital. By dawn the next morning the doctors talked her into caesarean. By nine in the morning her baby was born.

Her husband passed out along with two nurses. One other ran out of the room. But the last nurse, who’d seen much in her forty years’ service, helped the doctor do what had to be done.

Word Count:  246

The leaf lettuce is fanned out and formed from pale chartreuse voile. The brussels sprouts from pipecleaners and blue-green taffeta moire. The peas are from silk strung on wrapped florist wire and the tomatoes are satin-covered styrofoam balls.

Each morning she goes out and adds leaves and new yellow flowers. Moves the small buds to new stalks replacing the old with the larger ones she has made during the night. Changing colors as the tomatoes grow larger and ripen. Adds sticks to the okra for height.

It’s a garden that’s moving along with the season. Adding a surprise of new blooms as the rain comes along. No one can tell as they’re quick-driving by that the lushness is all fabric like velvets and wash-and-wear polyester/cotton blends that don’t fade in the sun.

After dinner she sits with her husband and with needle and thread, adds a new wrinkle or two to his face. Darkens his arms with watered-down tea as the sun might have tanned them and satisfied, sits back and reads as he watches TV.

In the morning, just before she goes out to tend to the vegetables and satin-tipped roses, she unzips the baby, fills out with batting his rosy chubby cheeks and his round little tummy. Redresses him in a clean outfit and puts him back in his crib for a nap.

She then sprinkles the dust on the tables and floors, then vacuums it all up again.

Word Count:  154

Some summer nights now I lay down under the moon in the cucumber patch. Feel the tiny prickles of their stems on bare skin. Feel the soft leaves like hands on my body, caressing my breasts.

In the moonlight the tall cornstalks shadow my bed, like a lover waiting to enter. It’s a soft blue-gray phantom that springs from my memories of youth.

This isn’t just a dream I’ve been having. Since the tumor was felt in my belly. Since it’s spread its long fingers into my womb.

One of these nights I will bring with me the knife, the one that I use to gather bouquets of zinnias that border the garden. Their bright colors tinged dusky with the moon’s paler light. I will close my eyes, fall asleep in the warm night air. In the arms of my lover I will bleed out my life, like soft summer rain into soil.

Word Count:  110

She watered the pepper plants with arsenic. Imagined it winding its way through the stems to the veins of the leaves.

She fed indigo ink to the roots of tomatoes, turning them plump and a violent purpley-pink.

The fast-growing squash squooze through fine netting she’d crocheted around each as soon as they popped out beneath their bright yellow blooms. She liked the effect; thought they looked prettier that way.

The snow peas dangled like daggers. Their vines braided and tied into shapes.

The cucumbers lumbered their way into forms, twisted together like party balloons.

And the baby, her own sweet Thomas John Junior, changed too, with each growing day.

Word Count:  236

He lives in a basement apartment. Must stretch at the small window over the sink to look at the moon. He waits all the long month for the full blue one, the one that won’t slice into his dreams. Cutting them open with wounds that leave them in nightmares. Nightmares that pour sweat from his body. Sweat that soaks into the twists of the sheets on the small single bed where he sleeps.

He fully believes he’s a werewolf. All those Friday night movies he’d watched as a kid. The flickering TV and the moonlight that lit up the small space between him and the screen. The moans of his mother leaking under the door from her bedroom where she spent most of her time with the men.

He’d asked her once if he had a real father. She’d said yes but couldn’t remember his name.

Saturday mornings used to be special. Elvira with her black mane of hair. She brought stories that flared up his mind, reached into his instincts, howled like a wolf in his throat.

On most nights now he sat in watching movies. The old ones that he’d seen as a child. And on full blue moon nights once a month for a while now, he’d slip up the stairs to the sidewalk. Quickly creep in the shadow of the long rows of houses. Peek in windows, just like the blue moon.

Word Count:  230

Once a year I drive up here, two hundred miles each way. Every year on your birthday, or if it snows bad, on the anniversary of your death in June. Just because I will always remember. Just because I can never forget.

You were a beautiful baby, my Marilee Jean. I was just seventeen and alone but I wanted to have you, wanted to keep you, my adorable, warm, rosy-cheeked blonde little girl who was the first thing I could call all my own. Who depended on me, whose first smile was for me, who would have taken your first steps into my proud outstretched arms.

The trail is overgrown, almost lost in the woods, new trees shade your grave, but I find you. Like your laugh and your chubby pink fingers, it is engraved like a map on my heart. I alone know you’re here and I will always come see you, though no one else but the birds and the scurrying squirrels come to spend some time in your sleep.

I’ll sing you a lullaby, rock you in memory. My heart breaks. We were all packed and ready to go but you did nothing but cry. I was impatient and scared of the move, scared of your crying. I was so young. Too young to know better.  I’m so sorry. I just didn’t know what to do.

Word Count:  381

Chuck comes home on a Friday with a sorrowful face, a belly of beer, and a layoff slip clutched in his hand.  Lena feels that awful turmoil as her own belly moves with new life. She’s been through this before. Too many times. They were down to five children. This would make six. Would she have to get rid of the baby? Better to let go of one of the others, maybe Toby who was now in his terrible twos.

The tension fills the small house like an overblown balloon. After the first week of Chuck being home, the kids play in their bedrooms, hang around in the yard after school. They stay out of his way which only encompasses the living room where he sits all day watching TV. Lena even feeds the kids dinner after Chuck has eaten his meal. This is not family time, this is survival and Chuck, well he is a low-voiced quiet man and with the drinking, he is more prone to mumble when he bothers talking at all. Not even Lena cares to know what he says.

She worries, tries to stretch food as far as she can, but the weight of the dire financial scene they face once again has her more nervous than ever before. She starts looking more seriously at each of their children, knowing as only a mother can know their good points and bad. Sarah, the oldest, helps her take care of the little ones. Jess, two years younger, is funny. Makes her laugh. The twins shouldn’t be separated. No, the twins she couldn’t let go.

So it comes down to Toby. Blonde as an angel. Worse than any of the others had been at this age. Devilish. Stubborn. And she thinks, a liar, a thief. Sneaking food out of the pantry; she knows it is him. She loves him regardless, but, well.

Only the twins ask about Toby. The others all understand. She explains to the twins that they just couldn’t afford any longer to feed him. That he’s living in a nice home in a place far away. She knows she only did what she had to, but still, no mother should see her child die. She crosses herself, looks up at the ceiling, and sighs.

Word count:  118

I’m fast. Can catch hummingbirds zipping by in my hands. Snap their necks in under three seconds. Watch the ruby-throat feathers catch the light of the sun.

I can outrun the cats who howl in the night in our alley behind the back yard. They’re wild and they’re mean and I grab them by only their tail. Swing them around till I’m dizzy. Let go and watch as they fly.

I once caught a wasp in my fist. Squished it before it could sting me. Straightened its legs and spread out its wings, then blew it into the sky.

But I can’t run faster than Daddy. Someday I will when I’m big and I’ll run and I’ll run far far away and I’ll hide in a place where I know he’ll never find me.