Apple, Pumpkin, Mince

Thanksgiving Day dawns clear and cold with the promise of snow. Death doesn't stop for a holiday so my daddy has already left for work by the time I wake up and my mother is in the kitchen, elbow deep into pie making - family tradition demands apple, pumpkin and mince – and my mother is hands down the best pastry baker in the family. My grandmother trusts no one else for the pies.

A bottle of cooking sherry, only partially camouflaged by the coffee pot, sits innocently on the kitchen counter but it tells me what kind of a day it's likely to be. It's just after seven in the morning and my mother is pleasantly buzzed. Remarkably, alcohol has never affected her baking skills and the pies turn out perfectly. It's more than I can say for our family holiday.

We're due at my grandmother's at noon with dinner served at two. The house smells of dinner rolls and evergreen and the table is immaculately set with her best china, her real silver, her delicate crystal glasses and a linen napkin at every place. We are fifteen this year - five in my family, my grandparents, Uncle Eddie and Aunt Helen and all six of the New York side of the family, including (to my grandmother's consternation) their tiny, sharp toothed, yappy chihuahua.

“We couldn't find a boarding place that wasn't full,” my cousin Elaine explains apologetically, “But he'll be no trouble, Alice. He's housebroken and very well behaved and doesn't shed a bit. And we brought his kennel. Just in case, naturally.”

“Naturally,” my grandmother agrees skeptically, “But if he gets underfoot.......”

“Oh, absolutely,” Elaine assures her, “We'll see to him.”

Nana doesn't look convinced - truth to tell, she looks downright skeptical - but she shrugs and lets it pass. My grandfather is less charitable, scowling at the small dog and wondering aloud if he kicks the flea bitten, little rat bastard, will he bounce. Cousin Elaine pales at this and hurriedly shuts the poor thing up in an upstairs bedroom where he eventually barks himself into exhaustion and silence.

Dinner is a tense affair with everyone save my daddy and the kids drinking too much. At one point, a quarrel breaks out between my mother and grandfather and my mother leaves the table in tears. No one gets up to follow or comfort her and no one dares chastise him. The meal ends in a bitter, stony silence and even the pies are forgotten. Nana sends one home with Uncle Eddie and Aunt Helen, one with Elaine, and one to the Armenian family next door. My grandfather falls into a drunken stupor in his reclining chair while my daddy goes back to work and everyone else lends a hand packaging leftovers and cleaning the kitchen.

At some point, it starts to snow - light flurries at first, just enough to be pretty - but when Nana checks the forecast, there's 4 to 6 inches predicted by morning. It's more than enough to panic the New York relatives into an early departure.

“Well,” my grandmother remarks more to herself than anyone else, “That's that. And we don't have to do it again until Christmas. Ain't that something to be grateful for.”

Indeed it was.

The Girl in the Red Knit Hat

For the first week, I didn't miss the girl in the red knit hat.

She was one of those anonymous figures that you saw regularly but didn't really register, not quite invisible but just a part of the landscape of the downtown bus station. It was a sad place, loud and dirty, neglected and usually smoky with exhaust fumes and diesel. It attracted the homeless and the desperate, the travelers who had no clear destination but were just looking for a way out of the city. It gave you the sense that any other place would do as long as it wasn't here. You could buy or sell drugs on the corner, stalk and rob the out-of-town gamblers who frequented the nearby casinos, or panhandle your way to a cup of coffee and a sandwich from the deli around the block. Shootings were not that uncommon and often went unreported. It wasn't a pretty or proud part of the city and no one wanted to get involved.

The girl in the red knit cap favored the corner across the street, just outside the fence of the old library building. She was tall and angular with dark, stringy hair and always carried a scarred up, old suitcase held together with rope and a ragged backpack. Often she had a guitar case slung over one scrawny shoulder and a faded Community Coffee can tied to one hip. She played for spare change and unfailingly would smile at anyone kind enough to throw a quarter or a crumpled dollar bill into the case or the coffee can. Her voice was shaky and quavery, raspy as metal on metal, but she sang nevertheless - out of tune and off key, to be sure - but never missing a lyric or a chord change. Old Baptist hymns, mostly, and some traditional twelve bar blues on her more profitable days.

It was late October when I realized I hadn't seen her in awhile, not at the bus station or on the courthouse lawn or the riverfront park. The weather had turned and as there was no sign of an Indian summer, I imagined she'd checked into one of the local shelters or boarded a Greyhound and headed farther south. New Orleans, I thought, or maybe the Florida coast, someplace where she wouldn't need a heating grate to keep warm at night.

That was a year ago and the weather has turned and turned again since then. And I still keep watch for that red knit hat.

"Everything passes, everything changes.  Even the mountains don't stand still." - Marty Rubin

12 Hours to St. John

It was 12 hours to St. John - a long and tedious drive with my grandparents, my mother, my brothers and two dogs and me all bickering every mile - Nana was in favor of spending the night at Brooks Bluff, a charming and rustic little collection of cottages off the beaten path in the Maine woods but my mother wanted to drive straight through and the feud escalated until my grandfather lost his temper and threatened to a) turn around and drive straight back or b) leave us all, dogs included, on the side of the highway.

“Oh, for Christ's sake!” he finally bellowed and slammed one meaty fist on the steering wheel, “If you don't all shut the hell up, you can damn well hitchhike for all I care! One more word is all it's going to take!”

I didn't know about anyone else but I wasn't completely sure this was an idle threat - the old man was known to be hot tempered, unpredictable and willing to cross a line to make a point – so I burrowed down with the dogs and hoped he'd forget about me. The outburst had the desired effect with my mother and grandmother withdrawing to their separate corners and the boys doing the same. The tension was heavy and oppressive but at least it was quiet.

In my family though, things were never forgiven and forgotten and having the last word might well have been an unwritten gospel. The remainder of the trip was uneventful but the sense of dread never faded. Even as we arrived on the island by dinner time the next day, I was waiting for it to spill over and drag us all under. Instead, we unpacked and made ourselve scarce, anxiously pretending that nothing was amiss. Just as we'd been taught. Just as we always did.

Also as usual, we had no company for the week that my grandfather stayed. Aunt Pearl and Aunt Vi and Miz Clara had readied the house as they always did but they were conspicuously absent. None of the local fishermen dropped off anything from their daily catches to welcome us home. No children visited. The old telephone was silent. It wasn't said outloud, of course, but we all knew the cause of this cold shoulder and knew it would pass. To the village, my mother was a middle aged good time girl, sass-mouthed and affable but with deep roots. She was well liked and popular. My island-born grandmother was respected, adored, and maybe just a little feared. She and my mother fit in. But my grandfather was seen as a contemptuous outsider, loud and boorish, with only his money to recommend him, what I once overheard Miz Hilda refer to as “Alice's unfortunate choice”.

Precisely a week later, Nana drove him to Yarmouth to catch a flight back to the States. The house she came back to was filled with food, friends, warmth and hospitality and it mostly stayed that way the remainder of the summer. Life out of the shadows became good again.

A Long Spell of Gray

After the first few days of the fog, Nana had managed to run a length of clothesline from the back door to the wood shed and convinced us it would be an adventure to fill the woodbox while holding onto the rope with one hand and not be swallowed up.

But after six days of being fog bound, even this was losing its charm and tempers were beginning to fray.

“You got stock in Nova Scotia Power and Light?” my mother snapped at me when I left the sunporch lights on overnight.

“Shut the damned back door!” my grandmother angrily hollered at her, “You weren't raised in no barn!”

And so it went. We'd worn out the dominoes, Monopoly'd ourselves into a stupor, run out of card games, re-read every precious book and written letters to everyone we knew. Nana couldn't face another minute of knitting and in a fit of temper, my mother had ripped out half of her crocheting. Driving was treacherous, we couldn't do wash, and the fog horn was on everyone's last nerve. The pale, gray fog was thick as molasses, wet and dense enough to squeeze like a sponge. It obscured the road, the driveway, the old Lincoln, even the dogs de-materialized after a few steps from the back door. We were a thoroughly unhappy and irritable bunch.

When it still hadn't cleared by the eight day, we were barely speaking and the natives were restless. The tourists had abandoned us for the clear skies of The Valley, there'd been no mail for a week, the fishermen were desperate and the factory was shut down. Only those who lived within walking distance of the church had made the perilous trek for Sunday services and while James had preached, it was only to a dozen or so good souls, some of whom were openly suspect about the fog being a visitation from the devil himself.

“It's a fog bank, for pity's sake,” James railed at them, “The good Lord doesn't send bad weather as a punishment! It will pass!”

“One can't abide such superstition and ignorance,” Miz Hilda remarked to my grandmother later, “It's a fogbank not a Biblical plague!”

It was to be a record breaking sixteen more days before I woke not hearing the fog horn, over three weeks of the precious summer season lost, and it would mean lean times for the whole village that coming fall and winter. Even so, with the return of the sun and blue sky, there was light and warmth and reconciliation. They were things to be grateful for after a long spell of gray.

Butterbean

Halloween will be the small brown dog's 15^th birthday.

I glance at her peacefully sleeping on my pillow and am amazed at how the time has flown by. She struggles with congestive heart failure these days and her coughing distresses me but she's still just as active, just as alert, and just as nimble as she ever was. It's not terribly hard to keep the thought of losing her at a safe distance. Her time is coming, I know, but it won't be today.

She was the last of a giveaway litter, a tiny bundle of brown fur with big ears and sad eyes.  I could almost hold her in the palm of my hand.

"Her mama was a Yorkie," the young man in the overalls and feed cap parked in front of the Walmart told me as he lifted her out of the milk crate, "But we ain't real sure 'bout her daddy.  Travelin' man, mos' likely."

I had both my Schipperkes then plus a houseful of cats.  Taking on a new puppy was madness on every level and I knew it - I cringed at the very thought of the housebreaking, the vet bills, the added cost of food, the responsibility, and God alone knew how the cats would take to her - but I couldn't find it in my heart to leave her.

"Tell you what," I said with a sigh, knowing I was lost but not wanting to face it directly, "If no one's taken her by the time I've finished shopping, I will."

The boy grinned and tucked her inside his jacket.

"Yes'm," he said politely, "We'll be waitin'.  If'n nobody else wants her, that is."

People still ask about her. I joke that when I run into some old photo store customer that I haven't seen in years, they don't ask how I'm doing but they always ask about Butterbean. It pleases me enormously to tell them she's still with me - a little grayer, a little pudgier, aren't we all - but very much still with me. It invariably makes them smile. They then tell me how much they miss having a real photo store in town and I force what I hope is a pleasant expression and don't remind them that if they'd supported us more, they still might. It's a stretch, of course, and not entirely fair. The digital revolution did us in every bit as much as dismal management and customers who preferred to shop at the big box stores. Adapt or perish, as the saying goes.

So Happy Birthday, little girl. You're been a comfort and a blessing and one of the best decisions I ever made. You are loved.

Breakfast Buffet

It was far too quiet at the breakfast table for anything good to be brewing. I slid into my usual place and hoped for invisibility.

My grandmother was smoking and scowling at my mother. My mother was trying to pretend she didn't notice and doing a poor job of it. Her hands shook when she raised her coffee cup and she looked haggard and sick, all the easily recognizable signs of a hangover were in place. The boys began to squabble over the jam pot and Nana snapped at them to leave the table. From her tone of voice, it was clear that she'd tolerate no argument and the boys willingly slinked off.

“I'm not hungry,” I ventured and Nana glared at me.

“Drink your juice and make yourself some toast,” she ordered, “It's window washing day and your mother is going to be no help at all.”

My mother surrendered but not peacefully.

“Mother, I'm sick!” she wailed, then slammed her coffee cup down, burst into a flood of tears and fled like a frightened rabbit. My grandmother looked disgusted but calmly lit a Kent 100 and added two tiny sacachine tablets to her coffee.

“Sick, is it,” she said clearly, spitting the words, “Goddam drunk, more's the pity. Just like your grandfather.”

So much for invisibility, I thought dimly, downing down my juice and toast in quick swallows and furiously casting about for an exit. I loved my grandmother with only a little less passion than I hated my mother but her wrath could be just as fearful. I watched her deliberately chain smoke her Kents and drum her white knuckled fingers on the table top while my mother sobbed methodically upstairs, wondering if it might just be the calm before the real storm. As soon as I was pretty sure she'd forgotten I was there, I muttered something about getting the window washing things and slipped away like a thief in the night.

In retrospect, it does seem as though there was very little love lost among the women of my family. My mother and grandmother were at each other's throats constantly with neither having much use for the New York contingent who spent much of their time sniping and bickering at us or each other or at my daddy's sisters who they saw as uniformly lower class.

And of course my headmistress Aunt Helen, who had married in, was universally and enthusiastically disliked by one and all, including - at times, at least so it seemed - her own husband. In less charitable moments, my daddy had been heard to say that her one redeeming feature was her unintentional ability to unite the family, particuarly the women, against a common enemy.

As they almost always did, Nana and my mother worked out a shaky truce by lunch and each gave me a quarter for the windows. I suspected it was more for my silence than my hard work.

Carpenter Logic

It comes as no great surprise to me that the so called “easy fix” the first plumber so tranquilly promised me last week is not to be.

“Wood's rotten,” the second one tells me with a shrug and a scowl, “You gon' need a carpenter.”

I protest mildly, explaining that the prior plumber assured me it was no more'n an hour's work, hardly anything involved, complicated or ridiculously expensive.

He gives me a sullen, blame-shifting glare and stubbornly repeats, “Gon' need a carpenter.”

Of course I am, I think dismally, why in the world would I have believed otherwise just because it was what I was told. Everybody lies, I remind myself. There's no point in losing your temper, I remind myself. It is what it is. I show the second plumber to the door and pointedly don't tell him thank you. I don't need his attitude, I tell myself, I have one of my own. When I call for the carpenter, I consider mentioning this breach of manners but then realize how futile it would be. They would apologize, assure me that he'd be talked to, and promptly do nothing whatever. Because that's how the world works these days. Rudeness and poor service are practically as fashionable as stupidity and just as ubiquitous.

It's three days and two more phone calls before the elusive carpenter calls me back. We agree on a time and day and he arrives on a frosty morning, exactly when promised. I'm marginally encouraged by this but it doesn't last after the first half hour of what can only be excavation. The noise is deafening and dollar signs are buzzing before my eyes like bees. Another half hour passes and I'm beginning to feel like a bystander at an accident scene. My stomach is in knots and I can't bear to look but I'm overwhelmed by curiosity. Too late I realize that a homeowner shouldn't have to be present for this kind of thing. When I discover there's a 4'X4' hole in the bathroom floor from which I can see clear to the grass and mud beneath the house, I hand him a latch key and issue a stern warning (“I'm leaving you with 5 cats in this house. If there are not 5 cats in this house when I get back, have no illusions – there will be blood.”) and flee to the sanctuary of the office.

By the end of the day, the bathroom is still out of order but the plumbers have come and made their repairs, the floor has been built back up and “floated”, and all 5 cats are accounted for.

The carpenter calls to tell me he'll be back in the morning to re-lay the tile and re-attach the fixtures. When I get home, I resist the urge to open the door and take a peek, trying to focus on the carpenter's cheerful reminder that it's fortunate I have a second bathroom.

You can't argue with irrefutable logic.

Middle Ground

I grew up in a loud and angry house and there isn't much that shuts me down faster than being yelled at. In the time it takes to draw a single breath, I'm suddenly a child again, with fear knots in my belly and tears at the ready. Even if the raised and angry voice isn't directed at me, all I care about is finding an exit, the quicker, the better. I despise and am shamed by my own reaction but there it is. Rome can burn, but it will burn without me.

And now we live in a loud and angry world and I feel as if I'm under assault nearly every minute of every day. Everybody's yelling and there's no escape, no shutting it out. It's like re-living the very worst days of my second marriage and I cringe to remember those hate filled shouting matches in between the silences. It's impossible to know which was more painful.

Verbal violence is a desperate creature. It grows fangs and talons and a taste for blood. It develops a will of its own. I think of it as a virus, airborne, highly contagious and eventually, all consuming.

I wonder if there isn't a middle ground, somewhere between flight and the urge to fight back, but so far I haven't found it.

Keep the Porch Light Burning

It was coming up on midnight when I made the final dog run. The night was still warm, clear and quiet with a half moon high in the sky. I locked the door behind me, stepped through the porch gate and latched it, and was about to cross the lawn when I noticed the man innocently walking down the street. He was tall and thin and not young, wearing shirt sleeves and jeans, and doing absolutely nothing wrong or threatening or even suspicious. The sudden and wholly unexpected stab of fear that went from my belly to my ankles caught me completely off guard and all rational thought deserted me. I ran for my car, slammed the door so hard it rattled and jabbed savagely at the door lock with one hand and the ignition with the other. By the time I realized that the innocent passerby had barely given me a glance, I'd fought off the panic and was feeling totally disgusted with myself.

I accept that my city has become a dangerous place to be. I understand criminals care nothing about time of day or zip codes, fences or guard dogs or even the risk of getting shot. I get that we're not protected anywhere anymore. I've gotten somewhat used to scanning crowds, paying more attention to my surroundings and taking more than the usual precautions. I don't open my door to strangers, I stay in more after dark, I watch where and when I drive. And all it gets me is an unreasonable panic attack over a stranger minding his own business on a dark street. I suspect I'd never have given him a thought as little as five years ago.

I get home and lock the door behind me, check the windows just to be sure, flick on both the front and back porch lights and settle in with the dogs. I tell myself things will look better in the morning but a part of me wonders if anything will ever be the same again.

The Night the Kitchen Caught Fire

My grandfather was an abusive, combative and ugly drunk and in ways that never made the slightest sense to me, was admired by many for it. He took inordinate pride in the fact that he could out smoke, out drink, out gamble and out philander any man alive and he liked to say so, loudly and often. What little he had to do with raising my mother was done with an iron hand and a mean mouth and every great once in awhile, I think I ought to be more charitable to her memory. And I might could if forgiveness was in my nature or if pigs could fly.

“I suppose,” my daddy once remarked to me in a rare, unguarded moment, “You could say your mother comes by it honestly.”

“Her drinking or her parenting?” I'd asked nastily and even when my daddy paled and looked so desperately hurt, I couldn't find it in my heart to take it back.

The conversation had taken place in what was left of the kitchen after my mother had spilled a glass of her favorite cooking sherry onto the broiler. It ignited a grease fire which rapidly spread to the dishtowel she was using as an oven mitt and then, when she jerked the broiler out and tossed it into the sink, to the curtains and the cabinets and the wicker baskets of paper plates she kept atop the refrigerator. Hearing my mother's helpless screams and the wild howling of the dogs brought my daddy running otherwise the whole room, maybe the whole house, would've been ablaze. He yanked open the under the sink cupboard - where the fire extinguisher should have been - only to discover several cardboard cartons of empty beer bottles, each individual bottle inexplicably wrapped in a paper towel, but no fire extinguisher.

“Holy Jesus Christ, Jeanette!” he roared and my trembling, hysterical mother, still clutching her sherry bottle, staggered and fell to her knees with a whimper.

“Wet towels!” he yelled at my brothers and me, “Now! And get her the hell out of here!”

We got the fire put out with a combination of the sink sprayer, water soaked towels and a pitcher of lemonade. The curtains, not to mention the steak on the broiler, were a total loss and the kitchen with its singed and blackened cabinets smelled of smoke for days. My mother made it halfway up the stairs before collapsing in a drunken, sodden heap and for the first and only time in my life, my daddy let her lay. Both my brothers protested, wanting to carry her the rest of the way and into her own bed but my daddy was adamant.

“Leave her be!” he told them sharply, “Let her wake up right where she is!”

The boys were shocked into silence and crept away. I was wondering when he'd discovered he had a spine and thinking it wouldn't last long.

“I have to leave this house late at night a couple of times every week to drag your grandfather's sorry ass up the stairs and into his bed,” he said and his voice was colder and harder than I'd ever heard it, “It would mean my job if I didn't but I'll be goddamned if I'll do it with your mother too!” Then he sagged against the stairway wall and finally crumpled, burying his face in his hands. “Dear God,” I heard him say, “Dear God, I can't keep this up.” It was shattering to watch. For a brief moment, the world I knew had been turned upside down. For a brief moment, my daddy and I had changed places and I had become the adult, the clear thinker, the strong one. It was beyond my understanding.

“Go to bed,” I told him, “I'll clean up.”

He raised his face, cleared his throat, distractedly brushed his hair out of his eyes and the world shifted back to its original and familiar orbit. Only not completely.

“No,” he said quietly, “Your mother caused all this. For once, she can clean it up.”

Strong words from a man who had spent his entire marriage drowning in denial, making excuses for her behavior, covering up her drinking and teaching his children to do the same, only better. I didn't doubt he was sincere, at least for the moment, but suspected he would have a change of heart in the not too distant future. He was wearied out and angry but he wouldn't stay that way. He wasn't made for hate, couldn't sustain it. I had no such difficulty. I stepped over my mother's body and left.

The Pit Bull & The Possum

As a general rule, I believe that drama is by invitation only but not always. Sometimes the stars align and wreak havoc for the sake of havoc. In Michael's world, this happens more often than with normal folk but still, now and then there are times when he's actually an innocent bystander, caught up in a mess not of his own making. Take, for example, the case of the pit bull, the possum, the purse snatcher and the police.

When I got there, the purse snatcher was long gone and the police were, somewhat listlessly, interrogating the Mexican work crew replacing the roof. Since the police spoke no Spanish and the Mexicans spoke no English, it was unclear how much actual communication was taking place but everyone was trying. By the time I got to the front porch, more drama was erupting in the backyard - Michael was yelling unintelligibly and the dogs were sounding like the hounds of hell - the cops were unmoved but the Mexicans on the roof began scrambling over the tar paper to see what the commotion was while those on the ground ran anxiously around the side of the house. Ladders tumbled over, tar spilled, and roof debris flew in every direction. All I could think of was how every second was bringing us closer to a Keystone Kops movie.

The source of the new drama was revealed quickly. The old pit bull had discovered and caught an unwary possum and Michael – clad only in his usual morning attire of white Calvin Klein briefs and flipflops and reasonably enough thinking the poor, bedraggled thing was dead – was trying to argue the dog into letting it go while the dog, slow and dull witted but lovable, was prepared to defend his prize to the death. He stood his ground while the other three danced and howled around him like dervishes. Michael finally prevailed and was attempting to simultaneously fend off the dogs and scoop the possum up with a shovel when the poor thing came back to life with a shrill, hysterical squeal. Shovel, possum, Michael, all four dogs and several Mexicans were so startled they all froze, giving the possum a window of opportunity to stagger through the latticework and reach safety. Unobstructed, he made his way to the sanctuary of under the house. I like to think he waited for cover of darkness and escaped to the vacant lot across the street but whatever his fate, he hasn't been seen since.

A Miracle in the Making

It didn't seem completely real when I learned that my cousin, Linda - for all practical purposes, the only living blood kin I have left - had been diagnosed with liver cancer. Try as I might, I couldn't get the words to make sense and when I finally did, it was too dreadful to contemplate.

While I was waiting for the initial shock to wear off and vainly searching for something comforting to tell her, she reverted (as she almost always does) to her usual resilient, reassuring, and optimistic self. She updated me about treatment options and what the doctors were and weren't recommending and complained regularly and usually sarcastically about the complexity of navigating the system. She made trip after trip from Tallahassee to Gainesville for a never ending parade of tests and bloodwork and evaluations and then more of each. I learned that radiation wasn't anyone's favorite idea, that tumor ablation wasn't likely to be successful and that she was being considered a candidate for surgery. Sometime, I think it was in June, she began easing us and herself into the prospect of a liver transplant. The words paralyzed me and though I refused to admit it and certainly never put it into words, a part of me began preparing for her to die. Even when she made it onto the transplant list, I wouldn't allow myself to see a miracle in the making. Morbid as it was, I couldn't shake the thought that more people died waiting on transplants than survived. It felt much too close to desperation.

Linda, of course, was having none of it. Her emails stayed philosophical and accepting but still confident. She and Robin, life partners for some 40 years, set about making preparations to be ready to leave at a moment's notice. They arranged for the house to be looked after, the cat tended, the wild birds fed. They de-cluttered with a vengeance that, under the circumstances, I found admirable if not flat out heroic.

The call came in August and in a matter of hours, they were on their way. I sat in front of my computer and tried to work through a maze of emotions but all I felt was a scattery kind of hope with a side dish of terror. I couldn't find words through the worry and apprehension and after awhile, I gave up and settled for trying to keep myself distracted. It was as close to giving up my agnosticism as I've ever come.

Fast forward a week, and she's out of ICU, off the ventilator, and feasting on watered down applesauce and yogurt with chicken and rice waiting in the wings. Her sense of humor is intact.

“Robin's camping out in my room again,” she texts me, “Where are the marshmallows?”

“Did you remember the fire permit?” I text back.

There's a pause and then the words “Oh, shit.....” and a downcast smiley face appear on my phone followed by “I knew there was something I forgot!”. I have to laugh.

When you're lost and don't know what's around the next corner, it's hard to prepare for what life can and will throw at you and even if you could be ready, there are things you simply don't allow yourself to think about. I never imagined I'd have a friend be murdered, or lose so many dear people to cancer, or have a cousin who needed and got a liver transplant. I never thought about getting to be my age and being surrounded by empty spaces. Even with reality staring me square in the face, I still try not to think about it. My cousin Linda has beaten back adversity her entire life. It's not so farfetched to think that she earned this chance. She and Robin ride out the hurricane in the hospital and just a day or two later are released and head for home.

Miracles happen every day and sometimes we don't notice but here's the lesson: Never underestimate an old broad with blood that doesn't clot and a second hand liver. Way to go, cuz.

Fashion First

Nothing is so common as the wish to be remarkable ~ Shakespeare

Very little amazes me more than the quality of people, women in particular, who dream of becoming a model. I find myself constantly wondering what they see when they look into a mirror - it's certainly not what I see when I look at their pictures - and I have to resist the urge to be cruel. If you're 5'1 and 190 pounds, I want to ask, what exactly do you imagine yourself modeling? We have very little call for someone to be the broadside of a barn. And nobody's looking for someone to sit on the back of trailer truck holding a WIDE LOAD sign but thanks anyway.

The voice mails are even worse. No manners, not bright enough to leave a telephone number, and overwhelmingly inarticulate, unintelligible and mush mouthedly illiterate. I despair, not just for modeling but for the future.

“To hell with this,” I tell Michael at least once or twice a week, “Let's just go with the petting zoo or the gay nursing home and be done with this.”

Never willing to give up hope for a decent candidate, I wend and weave my way through the rest of the applications, weeding out the outright trash and sorting the rest into separate stacks. To the mothers, all of whom claim to have the most adorable and photogenic baby since the dawn of time, I explain that the next Gerber baby will not come from little ol' Shreveport but rather a major market such as Los Angeles or New York City. To the cheerfully rotund, two-ton Tessies, I explain that even plus size models have to be proportioned and have some semblance of a waistline. To the eager under 18's begging for the chance to be discovered, I suggest they talk it over with their parents. For the thousandth time, I explain that we don't take children under seven because we need them to be able to read and take direction. To an uncertain handful, most of whom will fade quietly away when they learn it costs money, I send an invitation to audition. When I'm done, the prospects are exceedingly dim.

Some days are exercises in patience, tolerance, and futility.  I suppose they're meant to teach me something, some obvious life lesson I should already know after nearly seven decades, something about hope or faith or never giving up, perhaps.  But most days all I can see is fog and dying light.

Biscuits for Bravery

The little dachshund races to the edge of the deck and leaps off in a graceful swan dive then runs madly for the back fence. He's the least bothered by wet weather and the rain slows him not one bit. The small brown dog, less enthusiastic but resigned to her fate, follows and heads immediately for cover under the shrubs. Only the tiny one remains behind, looking thoroughly miserable and timid. When I reach for him, he immediately cowers and goes into panic mode. I ignore this, abandon my umbrella, and deposit him firmly on the wet grass where he freezes and starts to shiver and whine. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this pitiful display.

“It's only rain,” I tell him sternly, “You won't melt, now go pee.”

It doesn't work, of course, and I can't stand to watch him so unhappy so I snatch the umbrella back, pick him up and carry him to the shelter of the trees. It takes several minutes but he finally hikes one tiny little leg and when he's done, runs like a wind up toy back to the deck. Once inside, I give everybody a quick towel off and a biscuit and miraculously, all is forgiven.

Wet, but forgiven. I try not to think about the fact that this particular rain is the outer edge of a hurricane and we will likely have to repeat this process several times in the next day or so.

By noon, it's coming down hard and steady and to no one's surprise, we're under a flash flood warning. All the coaxing in the world has no effect on the work dogs - when I try and lead them outside, all four of them look at me as if I've lost my mind and scatter like bedbugs - Michael shrugs and offers no help and I'm not inclined to get any wetter than necessary so I leave them to him. I'm late getting away and when I get home, all of mine scurry outside despite the rain.  Each earns an extra biscuit for bravery.

Unlike the biblical destruction next door in Texas, the storm mostly breezes past us and the flood waters recede quickly.  Nature has seen fit to spare us this time around and I am profoundly grateful.  The sun is out the very next day and as I make the trip to Walmart to buy disaster relief supplies to donate to the animal shelters in Houston,  the world seems a shade or two brighter.  It's not enough but it's a start.

Keep Out

From where I'm sitting and waiting for the light to change, I can only see parts of the old house on the corner. It looks empty and exhausted, like a derelict who has made a home on the wrong side of the railroad tracks.

The first story is barely visible for the un-mowed, un-watered grass and shrubs. A dozen or so elephant ears, as brownish and dispirited as the cracked and tired looking planters that hold them, are littered across the veranda. Weeds grow in and around the windows, advancing and encroaching on the second story with the patience of Job. Some have already met the low hanging tree limbs and embraced them, they wave gently and brush up against the discolored stucco walls and precariously attached shutters. The tiled roof is faded and peeling under a thick blanket of pinestraw and a lone squirrel perches on a gutter, bright eyed, alert, tail swishing. He seems to be waiting and watching, for what I can't imagine. The only thing missing is the half dozen loud, territorial and neglected dogs who once lived in the yard of this old relic and routinely terrorized delivery people, mail carriers and innocent passersby. After years of abuse, their predicament finally generated enough complaints that a rescue stepped in and convinced the owners to surrender them. No one appears willing to do the same for the old house and it fairly reeks of past glory and sadness.

I never heard what happened to the occupants and sometimes I wonder if they're still there. I pass the place several times a day, every day, and have never seen a single sign of life, not so much as a curtain has ever moved or a light been turned on. The three sides of iron fencing surrounding the property, even when the dogs were there, have always been shut and locked. All in all, everything about this old house says Keep Out but whether it's from misery and mean spiritedness or just a tragic blend of old age and loneliness, I'll probably never know.

When the light turns green, I turn down the side street and see that here the weeds have taken over even more forcefully.  Behind the gates of the driveway, I can see a pile of trash, randomly scattered by the wind and beginning to draw flies.  The rest of the backyard is pretty much a debris field of useless, rusted appliances stacked amid moldy plastic containers and the feeling of decay is palpable.  A couple of ragged and forlorn looking stray cats keep watch from the back steps and I can smell the stench of ammonia and rotting food.  I wonder that the neighbors haven't called the property standards board or the health department.

I drive on, leaving the old house in my rear view mirror until it disappears.

Inward & Upward

“You know,” my aftercare counselor says casually, “Sobriety changes things. And people. It's possible that you might not like who he becomes if he gets sober.”

“I don't think that's a bridge that's ever going to need crossing,” I tell him shortly.

Calvin shrugs and reminds me that when there's life, there's hope.

“This is his 4^th rehab, Cal,” I remind him, “I'm fresh out.”

He glances at the file, flips a page or two, frowns. Even with the windows opened, it's stuffy in the small office and the street noises are annoying. Everything annoys me these days, I think dismally, everything seems to be getting between me and peace of mind. This recovery thing isn't all it's cracked up to be.

“How long has been out,” Calvin asks, “Is he going to meetings?”

“Two weeks,” I say and pause to consider the second question. What I suspect, what I know, and what I can prove are all distinctly different things. “He says he is,” I say finally.

“You don't believe him?” my counselor persists.

Cal has kind eyes and he cares deeply about his clients and their troubled lives but he's not much for finesse. He likes to remind me that it's not my job to cure the man I married, that it's not within my control to change him, that caretaking has it's downside and it can be perilously close to enabling. I still remember our first session and how he listened to me cry and moan about living with a drunk, how long suffering and under-appreciated I felt, how I was at my wits end, how nothing I tried was working. His answer was to hand me a box of kleenex and ask where had I tied my white horse. The suggestion that I might be in the wrong had offended me then and now I was realizing that the old feelings of defeat, betrayal, and anger were back with a vengeance.

“No,” I confess, “Not for a second.”

He sighs, gives me his best professionally resigned look, but at least has the grace not to tell me that he warned me. Not that I needed warning, I think bitterly, after the third failed rehab, I'd learned the drill.

“You think he's still drinking,” he says flatly.

“I do,” I say tiredly, “And lying about it. Every day. Just like he always has.”

Saying it outloud ignites something in me and I can feel acid knots of rage beginning a slow crawl up my throat. I have an urge - a need - to scream, to fight, to break something or hurt someone. I swallow hard and beat back the desire to give way to helplessness and and the hysteria that will inevitably follow. I can't think of how to tell Calvin that I don't want to do this anymore, that I'm tired and defeated, worn out and worn down. I feel broken beyond repair and find myself wishing my husband dead.

How Calvin sees through this wall of self pity and stagnation is a mystery.

“Jeee-sus!” he says mildly, “That's pretty good. No Sarah Bernardt, but pretty good. Now, how about we skip the histrionics and self-pity and get back to basics. What are you doing about you?”

“You self righteous son of a bitch!” I snap, “Save your know-it-all, holier than thou lectures for the drunks upstairs! I don't need them!”

“No?” he snaps right back, “Because you're doing such a bang up job on your own? Or because you've gotten to like drowning in your own misery and playing the misunderstood heroine? You came to me for help, for Christ's sake, either take it or don't, but spare me the poor, pitiful me act! I don't need another victim! I've got a whole floor of them upstairs! Now for the last time,

what are you doing to help you?”

Every word he'd said was accurate and the urge to claw his eyes out fades. I sit back down and concentrate on breathing until I feel calm and ashamed enough to apologize. He waves it away and offers one of his own.

“This shit is hard,” he tells me.

“On all of us,” I agree.

Secrets of Shingle Creek

Shingle Creek Road was a place everyone knew of, very few talked about, and absolutely no one would ever admit to visiting. You'd find no gaily strung paper lanterns here, no sweet dance band music or pastel girls in taffeta dresses and silver slippers. Shingle Creek was a low place, a dark place, and its patrons had no regard for the outside world or its rules. They came in search of drugs and rotgut whiskey, cards and dice and back rooms with blacked out windows and used up women. No moonlight penetrated through the thick, low hanging trees and even the law left it alone. Any secrets Shingle Creek kept, it kept to itself.

But for the fact that our newest foster dog, a young and rambunctious Golden Retriever with an adventurous spirit had jumped the back fence and taken off like a shot after a trespassing deer, I'd never have found it at all. After a half hour of crashing and hacking my way through the dense woods, I was scratched, bleeding and bad tempered when I finally came upon the dog, hackles raised and barking non-stop at the ruined remains of what looked to be an abandoned farmhouse.

In the fading daylight, it wasn't much, just a deserted, mostly falling down wreck of a building, rotting in some places, fire damaged in others. Even so, there was something about it, some sense of foreboding. It felt vaguely threatening and I had an idea the dog sensed it as well. He kept to the edge of the clearing, defiantly growling, and when I took a tentative step forward, he snatched firmly at the hem of my blue jeans and tugged.

“Okay, already,” I told him a little impatiently, “You don't have to get rude about it.”

He let go - reluctantly - but then began anxiously pacing back and forth, his eyes darting between me and the old house, alternately whining and barking and looking more and more distressed. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck suddenly prickle and for a second or two, had the ridiculous notion that I was being watched.

“Damn fool dog,” I muttered, “Now you're giving me the creeps. C'mon, let's get out of here.”

As I reached to clip the lead to his collar, he bared his teeth and lunged past me, spinning me around with a sideswipe to the hip that unexpectedly knocked me to my knees. He let out with a long and eerily un-doglike howl and that's when I heard the voice, gravely and roughish but not menacing. At least, not much.

“This here's private property, girlie,” it said, “And trespassin's a good way to get yourself shot.”

I turned to see a man in overalls and work boots with a pistol strapped to his hip and a beer bottle in one hand, leaning casually against the door jamb. He tipped his cap and nodded and I felt a shiver - a minor one, to be sure, because the dog, now quiet, was sitting calmly at his feet - run up my spine. I sensed sterness but no menace.

“Dog ran off,” I offered truthfully, “I just followed him.”

“Figured,” he said, “But you'll be wantin' to head back now. We ain't much for company.” He shifted his weight and gestured with the beer bottle toward the remnants of a path I hadn't noticed. “Ain't much, but after awhile it passes for a road. Be some longer but easier'n through the woods. It'll take you out to the main highway.”

I managed to thank him and when I slapped my thigh, the dog trotted obediently to my side and we started for the rutted path.

“And girlie,” I heard from behind me, “I ain't expectin' to see you here again. You'll be wantin' to forget about bein' here in the altogether. Shingle Creek ain't no place for the likes of you or the dog. We clear?”

“As glass!” I called over my shoulder but the screen door had already slammed shut and the porch was empty and there was no one to hear.

The overgrown, rutted path did indeed turn into something that passed for a road but it took the better part of an hour before we reached the highway and I couldn't imagine trying to drive it after dark. On foot and whiskey'd up it seemed even less probable. It felt as if the woods might reach out and grab any unsuspecting passerby and I was foolishly glad for the company of the dog.

I took the Shingle Creek man's advice and never did tell anyone about that afternoon but I often thought about it and wondered how much of what the rumor mill ground out was fiction and how much might be reality.  A couple of winters later, I read about a couple of fishermen finding a body in Darkwater Lake, just a few miles from that lonely clearing where the dog and I had wound up.  There was a pistol strapped to his thigh, a pair of dice in a velvet pouch in his hip pocket and a moldy wad of cash tucked under his belt but no wallet or id.  He'd been badly beaten and then shot, the paper reported, and anyone with any information was asked to get in touch with the county sheriff's office.  After that, I wondered a whole lot less.

The Bridge Game

Reconcile Smith, as confirmed a bachelor as the island had ever had seen, and Mae Louise Nickerson, an unmarried lady and Uncle Shad's oldest girl, began courting in 1959. He was 34 and she had just turned a discreet and mostly uncelebrated 32. The courtship lasted for 24 years.

“I declare,” my grandmother remarked one afternoon at the weekly bridge game, “I don't see why she don't jist marry that man. They's been keepin' company since 'fore hens had feathers and they ain't getting' no younger. Two spades.”

“It's geographic,” Aunt Pearl said mildly, “Two hearts.”

“Ayuh,” Miz Clara nodded, “Ol' Rec's right partial to livin' in that old shack in the woods and Mae Louise don't like the idea of not livin' on the square. Three diamonds.”

“Pass,” Aunt Vi ventured timidly and all three women glared at her. “I heard tell he didn't ask her for the first 10 years,” she added with a shy kind of shrug and my grandmother gave her a skeptical look.

“Viola,” she said sharply, “Pass? Again?” But then she saw my delicate Aunt Vi - who had never wanted to learn bridge in the first place but was too fainthearted to say so - was about to cry and she softened and patted her hand lightly. “Never mind, dear, we'll manage,” she sighed, “I didn't mean to scold.” Vi brightened at once and the conversation returned to Reconcile and Mae Louise.

“Folks git set in their ways,” Aunt Pearl suggested, “A body gits used to livin' alone.”

“I 'spect so,” Miz Clara said, “Cain't be easy to make room for somebody else after more'n 50 years. Likely folks just git in each other's way.”

“Bein' married ain't no Sunday stroll,” my grandmother admitted as she scooped up the last trick with a victorious flourish. I suspected she was thinking of her own loutish, thug of a husband, “Mebbe they's better off.”

“Mebbe so,” Aunt Vi said, “But it be fearful to think so.”

Clara, the only one at the table still single and clearly irritated, lowered her bifocals and looked directly at each woman in turn. “This be one damn fool conversation for three married women to be havin,” she said snappishly, “It ain't nobody's business whether Mae Louise marries Reconcile or not and it don't matter how long it takes if'n she does or doesn't! Ain't a single one of you know the first thing about being an old maid spinster and I reckon we'd all be better off if folks jist tended their own gardens and their own bridge games!”

Nana laughed first although she tried mightily not to and soon Pearl and Vi joined in. All three women rocked in their seats and Clara really didn't have much choice. She blushed as red as a beet from Lily Small's vegetable patch and finally managed to mutter an apology. The bridge game was called on account of foolishness and the four old friends retired to the sunporch to eat hot buttered scones and drink iced tea laced liberally with gin.

To the delight of the entire village, Mae Louise Nickerson and Reconcile Smith married the following summer and set up housekeeping in a small cottage on a dirt road that overlooked the ocean. It was close enough to the square and far enough removed from the village that it satisfied them both and the last time I was home, they were still there, happily raising chickens for him and tea roses for her.