Spooks in the Cupboard

Despite how tempting it is, I don't believe in ghosts, at least not the rattling chains and spooks in the cupboard kind.  But reading the story of a friend who wrote about her daddy's suicide, I found myself feeling haunted and a little restless.  That same night I dreamed about the morning I learned my mother had died, a life altering event but apart from writing about it once, something I hadn't given any thought to in over 20 years.

She died early on a Saturday morning - although I had to look up the month and year - and I remember we were packing for a weekend in Bar Harbor when the telephone rang and a solemn voiced, long time family friend gave me the news. 

You'll come to the wake, he said, somewhere between a statement and a question.

No, I said.

Then to the funeral, he said after a pause.

No, I said clearly.

Your dad would like you to be there, he persisted but very low key.

Then he should have called me, I said, hoping for a mix of indifference and casual, suspecting that all I was managing was bitter, Thanks for letting me know.

She was your mother, he said as if it needed pointing out.

My mother died, I said quietly, a very long time ago, and hung up the telephone.

You can spend years regretting a single word or conversation, wishing for a chance to re-learn the proper lines and carry it off with a better result but I never once felt that way about that particular call.  I remember standing there in the kitchen and suddenly being able to stand straight and breathe for what seemed like the first time in years.

Who was on the 'phone?  my husband asked.

Wrong number, I said and shrugged, only slightly surprised at how easily and carelessly the lie had come. There was no point in ruining a long planned for weekend out of town and I might've instinctively known that the not unexpected death of one alcoholic would mean little to another.  I might even have suspected that he would take my lack of remorse as some kind of sick reflection on his current - but, I feared, temporary - sobriety.  On the whole, it was a Pandora's Box not worth opening.  This spook, I decided, could stay in the cupboard a little longer.  I was up to my ears in relief.

 Who knew that decades later someone else's ghost would try and wake one of my own.

 Every life is complicated, every mind a kingdom of unwrapped mysteries ~ Dean Koontz  

  

Frenchy's Debt

Frenchy was nine the first time he saw the ghost.

Being a practical boy from a hard working and down to earth Catholic family, he told no one about the misty figure in the white cape who'd waved to him from the bell tower then floated away like smoke.  Boys who daydreamed during chores were likely to end up making a trip to the woodshed.  Boys who saw things that weren't there were likely not to sit for a week.  So he rubbed his eyes and dug his heels into the old plow horse's sides and kept riding.  He didn't forget her but he kept riding and was careful not to look back.  Two days later, planting tomatoes in the vestry garden just below the bell tower, the village priest - a relatively young man with no history of cardiac problems -  keeled over with a heart attack and was dead before he hit the dirt.  

Don't fidget! Frenchy's mother whispered testily to him during the funeral mass, Show some respect!

He thought about telling her then.  As unlikely as it seemed, he'd begun to wonder if the two events might not be related in some mysterious, catholic way but her face was stern and impatient, careworn and tired.  Life on a salt water farm had taken its toll on her kindness.  Thinking she was burdened enough, he kept silent.

Just a week shy of his eleventh birthday, he saw her again, this time hovering among the pilings of the old breakwater.  He could see straight through her, he realized, like a fine, sheer curtain.  She was vignetted by mist, her cape swirling and her hair floating like something out of a fairy tale.  When he took a hesitant step toward her, she dissolved and drifted away but that night a fierce storm blew through, lightning struck the radar antenna tower and sent it crashing through the roof of the old guard shack, killing the night watchman and starting a fire that burned clear through til morning.  When it was time for the funeral mass, Frenchy hid in the woodshed and pretended not to hear his mother calling.  

Emile! Her voice carried on the crisp morning air, Come at once!

He covered his ears, shut his eyes and stayed put.  He didn't understand why but he felt responsible.  He was afraid to go to mass, afraid that the Angel of Death might follow.

His mother, Marguerite, fell ill not long after he turned thirteen and for several weeks over the course of an uneasy spring, he watched and waited for the vision, sure he would see her one day looking in a window or curled around the chimney.  He didn't expect her at his mother's bedside and when he saw her there, he flew at her in a helpless rage.  She shook her head at him, smiled with great sadness and broke apart.  Her eyes were kind, he thought, but he would not have her in this house.  She vanished like hot breath on a winter day and his mother recovered.

After that, vaguely convinced that he owed her a life, he saw her more and more often.  She might be idly sitting on the edge of the well in the bright morning sunshine or picking wildflowers on Overcove Road.  Once she was wading in the lily pond, her cape gathered up in her delicate hands but leaving no ripples in the water, he noticed.  Once he saw her perched in the overhanging branches of a tree high above the old post office.  He got used to her after a fashion even though a death most always followed a sighting and it worried him fiercely that he'd never told about her.  When he saw her floating alongside the ferry on a warm summer afternoon, he actually tried to chase her off but she just laughed and fell back out of reach.  He watched her ride the whitecaps all the way across, mermaid-like but weightless and insubstantial.

Whatcha lookin' at, boy?  one of the ferrymen wanted to know but he just shrugged.   The longer he kept his secret, the easier it became.  But just a day or so later, the curious ferryman coughed up one blood clot while another went directly to his brain.  He survived, but his days of ferrying were over and a few short months later while sitting glassy-eyed in the front porch rocker, his heart gave a sigh and a shudder and stopped. By then, Frenchy had come to understand that he wasn't a cause so much as a witness and he sat quietly at the funeral, no fidgeting.  He'd learned to be respectful of things he didn't comprehend, learned to be still and silent in the presence of death.

When he finally screwed up the courage to talk to Father John's replacement - after he was comfortably and conventionally married with children of his own and a reputation for being rock steady - he approached the priest and told him about the ghost.   Father Andrew listened, smoking his pipe and rocking thoughtfully, now and then giving him an encouraging smile but offering little except the mysteries of God and the essential nature of faith.  When Frenchy asked if he believed in ghosts, the young priest sighed.

Let's say, Emile, he said finally, that I don't disbelieve.  Miracles require an open mind.

But why me, Father?  Frenchy persisted.

Who can tell, Emile, the priest replied, We are all chosen to witness in our own way.  If God chose to reveal His plans, there would be no need of faith, my son.  We aren't meant to understand.

If you say so, Father, Frenchy said without much conviction.

He'd been hoping for a more definitive answer but settled for being believed.  He trudged homeward, deciding at the last moment to stop in and see Marguerite, now in her 90's with her health beginning to fail.  Her roses needed rain, he thought as he walked up the path, and the grass needed a good cutting.  Distracted and making a mental list for the weekend, he didn't see the ghost until he knocked on Marguerite's door and by then her work was done and she was slipping through the closed window.  He caught only a glimpse of her white cape as it melted through the glass and faded into the late afternoon air.  There would be no fight this time, he sensed, he was too late and after he'd made all the necessary calls and watched as Marguerite was carried away, he drew all the curtains, shut up the house, and started home again.  He wondered, in a distant and abstract sort of way, if now his debt was paid.

Don't fidget! he found himself whispering sharply to his six year old a few days later at the graveside.  It was a gray-ish day with rainclouds moving ever nearer and a gentle mist falling over the mourners.

But Daddy, the little boy whispered back, She doesn't have an umbrella and she's getting wet.

Who? Frenchy asked more impatiently than he'd liked.

The lady in the bell tower, the child persisted, The one who can fly.  The one I saw at Nana's.

Startled, he looked upward but there was only gray sky, low clouds, light rain.  A shaft of weak sunlight shone on the old tower and it stood out against the threatening weather like a beacon, almost glowing against the darkening sky.  Though he saw no sign of the ghost, Frenchy felt a chill as he picked up his little boy and heard the first shovelfuls of dirt hit the wooden coffin.

She doesn't mind the rain, he told the boy quietly.

She lives on the other side of the rainbow, the six year old said confidently, I think she's an angel.

Frenchy hugged the child and nodded.  I think so too, he said and finally felt a little more at peace.

Perhaps some debts aren't as much paid as they're at least partially forgiven, passed on to younger, stronger shoulders with no fear of ghosts.  Perhaps some debts are gifts in disguise, meant for children and those who believe in angels.

Those who don't believe in magic will never find it ~ Roald Dahl

Old School

I admit it.  I'm old school.

I miss film cameras and proof sheets and grease pencils.  I miss manners and punctuality and customer service.
I miss civility and nickle bus rides and integrity.  I miss common sense and proper grammar, letter writing and math pads, carrying a dime for a pay phone in an emergency, trusting the police.  I miss books and honesty in politics.  I miss the ethics of earning and hard work.  I'm not sorry I'll miss the future of what we've turned into and what we'll eventually make of the world.

The body in the park - a young woman, the news reported but mercifully didn't identify - was found early on a Thursday morning.  Sometime the night before, so the police thought, she had hung herself on the swing set, not an uncommon tragedy but in this case a fairly public one.  The neighborhood was shocked and stunned, her family devastated.  No one comprehends such things, how the world can turn so hard and cruel that there's no way out, how you can be victimized and overwhelmed by depression and fear and illness and isolation.  I hope she's found peace and reason on the other side.  If there is another side.  I can't help but wonder if she didn't find the world as I so often do - a sad and sorry excuse for a civilization - a place only good for leaving.

Most of us shake such feelings off and keep going, one foot in front of the other, one day at a time.  We have children or animals or friends depending on us.  We keep hope alive somehow and fight off the hard corners of despair with bright smiles and stubbornness.  We don't like being beaten at the game but we like giving up even less.  Parents should not have to bury their children, it's an offense, an upside down and twisted version of how things are supposed to be.

So we muddle on, no longer hoping for fairness or rewards, not even trying to understand how we got here or what here actually is.  It takes all we have to do the best we can and when we come up short, there's a swing set somewhere.

I'm old school.  I miss decency and kindness and a world where violence wasn't an answer and suicide wasn't a solution.

To the unidentified young woman in the park, rest in peace.

And Then There Was Silence

My  mother's friend Claire - a tall, elegant looking and statuesque redhead in her very late forties with upswept hair wound tightly and held in place by an ivory colored comb - comes home from her six week Mediterranean cruise with startling news - she has met a man, she tells us almost shyly, and she's to be married.  My mother and grandmother look at her slack jawed and speechless, as if she has suddenly taken leave of her senses and announced her plans to leave for the moon on the next shuttle.  My daddy smiles hugely and kisses her cheek.

Claire was the only friend of both my mother and grandmother who was self supporting and still stubbornly single. She worked as a legal secretary at a downtown law firm and lived in an upscale terraced apartment on Beacon Street with a glorious view of Boston Harbor.  She drove a perky little two seater sports car and always dressed to the nines - she believed in seamed stockings, high heels and hairdressers - and got her make up at department not drug stores.  She was what my mother sneeringly referred to as one of those career women, making it sound like a communicable disease and clearly undesirable. 

It goes against nature for a woman not to marry, she liked to say with a smug smile, When her looks go, she'll be just another lonely old maid.

Maybe her looks won't go, my grandmother suggested wickedly, She looks better now than you did at eighteen.

Don't be a bitch, Mother, my mother would snarl.

Your mother is so jealous her eyes cross at the thought of a woman making it on her own, Nana told me coldly,
Claire is everything she wanted to be and couldn't.

Claire heard none of this, of course.  Back stabbing was an art in my family, gossip a means to an end, but to get caught at it was unthinkable.  My maternal relations were careful to keep these conversations mostly private.

So, my daddy said with a sideways warning glance at his wife and mother-in-law and a wink in my general direction, Tell us all about it, Claire.

Well, Claire began, a little nervously, I thought, It started as a shipboard romance.......

It was a magic tale of sunsets and pink champagne and candlelit dinners for two with dancing afterwards, a variation of Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr in "An Affair To Remember" except without the tragedy.  And on their last night at sea, the handsome first officer had proposed and the pretty redhead had said yes.  

Just like that? my mother wanted to know.

Just like that, Claire nodded.

Sounds too good to be true, Nana said with more than a trace of doubt, Sounds like there ought to be a catch.

That was when the doorbell rang and while we didn't know it, "An Affair to Remember" was about to change to "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner".

A tall and distinguished looking black man in an immaculate white dress uniform was at the door.  He nodded to me, smiled and with a definite island lilt, announced that he had come to collect Miss Claire for the evening.  His coffee with cream skin shone under the porch light and the brass buttons on his uniform gleamed.
He was holding a single red rose and carrying a heartful of expectations.

Now that you mention it, I heard Claire saying serenely, there is one small thing......

And then there was silence.

Moon Children

I had - didn't we all? - a brief fling with Jack Kerouac in college, imagining life on the road as a glorious and high adventure, the ultimate freedom ride.  Romance lay glittering just around the next corner on The Road, romance and independence and emancipation from the ordinary and the dull.  I would find kindred souls and join them.  I would abdicate family and routines and the rat race.  I would fly on wings of my own making and be free. 

Lying awake at almost four in the morning, I listen to a far off train whistle and imagine shucking it all and hopping a slow moving freight.  It's been a long time since I was a free spirit and there are those sleepless times when unattached and possession-less sounds like a good thing.  Florida, I think to myself, I'd go to Florida and sleep on a beach.  Pick oranges and go barefoot.  It's almost enough to put me back asleep but it's interrupted by a staccato trill from the kitten who notices I'm awake and comes from nowhere to make her presence known.  Sharp little claws sink into my shoulder and the barefoot beach and orange grove scene fades abruptly.  Real life - all trilling and energetic eight pounds of it - intervenes with a vengeance.  I decide it's better to get up and write than lie here and piss and moan about my sleep deprivation so I crawl out of bed and let the dogs out.  That's when I notice the moon, high and hazy in the sky with transparent veils of clouds like cobwebs moving across it swiftly.  The edges lighten and darken, darken and lighten and for a second or two I feel almost hypnotized watching it.  It was only later that I realized I was watching the process of a lunar eclipse, what many call a Blood Moon. 

“The moon is a loyal companion.
It never leaves. It’s always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do. Every day it’s a different version of itself. Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of light. The moon understands what it means to be human.
Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections.”

Tahereh Mafi

Lilac, Llewellyn & The Gale of '53

Llewellyn lived alone in a small, snug, well built cabin in the hills above Bay St. Mary.  On a clear night, you could see the lantern light glowing from the windows and, if you listened closely enough, hear dulcimer music from the tiny front porch.  He had no near neighbors and kept only a dappled old cur dog - unaccountably he called him Lilac - for company.  In the summer, he came to the village to sell apples and sweet corn, maybe even make a yearly stop at Alton's barber shop.  Otherwise, he minded his business and stayed to himself.  He was a rough-looking old man in homespun clothes, not unfriendly exactly, but hardly congenial or outgoing. He might nod if you passed him, Lilac might raise his shaggy old head from the back of the buckboard and give you a passing glance - more like a sneer, the old timers liked to say - but neither was much noticed.  In the winter, they hardly came at all and the village, hunkered down and resignedly waiting out the snow and ice, rarely gave them a thought.

The gale of '53 changed that.  The storm was especially hard on Bay St. Mary, blowing down Llewellyn's fences and uprooting trees, eventually violent enough to tear the roof off his barn.    It was early spring and with no shelter for his stock, the old man packed up his chickens and pigs, hitched the oxen to the wagon, and made the journey into the village over the still icy dirt roads and through the snow drifts, all the way to McIntyre's.

Done lost the barn, Missus, he told Mrs. McIntyre hesitantly, Be needin' someone to take in the animals for a spell.

A good hearted woman, Mrs, McIntyre nodded and made some calls.  By noon, every chicken and pig and even the oxen had been farmed out.  Llewellyn carefully recorded each and every one and where they went in a small leather bound notebook.

I'll be payin' for their care come June, he told everyone, Ain't lookin' for no charity.

Ain't nobody lookin' to give none, Sparrow, who had been warming his hands at the pot bellied stove, assured him shortly, 'Ceptin' you might be needin' a ride back.

Reckon we kin walk, Llewellyn said roughly.

Yep, reckon you could, Sparrow nodded, but it's a long road for Lilac.  And it's colder'n a witches tit so git your mangy ol' dog and you raggedy ol' ass into the pick up.  I'm drivin' you and that's all I'm sayin' 'bout it.

The stand off might've continued but for Lilac, who at hearing his name, had gotten to his feet and barked sharply.  Llewellyn shrugged and gave in.  He pulled his bearskin coat a little tighter, settled his sweat stained hat on his head, stamped his muddy work boots.

Reckon I got all day then?  he demanded and trudged toward the door, Lilac at his heels.  Sparrow laughed, tipped his hat to Mrs. McIntyre and followed.

Well, Nana said with a sigh and a smile when I told her about it, Ain't that somethin'.  Those two old coots ain't had a word for each other in forty years.

Not since Lilac run off with that preacher-man, Aunt Pearl agreed aimiably.

Scandalous!  Aunt Vi declared, I heard tell he died a year or so back.  Kinda though Lilac might come home after that.

Not likely, Pearl shook her head, Why, that woman was a train wreck to every man that crossed her path!

They was might young then, my grandmother said thoughtfully, Mebbe it ain't for us to judge.

All's I know, Miss Clara looked up briefly from her newspaper to scan the card table and frown at Aunt Vi, All's I know is that a woman ain't got much choice 'cept to follow her heart and .... VIOLA!  WE BEEN PLAYING BRIDGE ALL YOUR NATURAL LIFE AND YOU STILL AIN'T CAUGHT ON!  DON'T PLAY THAT GODFORSAKEN ACE WHEN A JACK WILL DO!

And what, Clara?  Aunt Pearl smirked.

And that's what she done, Clara said snappishly, still glaring at her helpless partner across the table. Aunt Vi trembled and her eyes welled up.  Clara muttered an apology and Nana patted Vi's shoulder gently while  Aunt Pearl took another trick and looked serene.

The bridge game ended and it wasn't until the women were settled on the sun porch with pound cake and martinis that the story of Lilac and Llewellyn emerged.

They was childhood sweethearts, Nana began, lived next door to each other up by where the ol' Crocker place used to be.  

Practically joined at the hip, Pearl added.

Never did see one without the other, Vi agreed, Always planned on gettin' hitched.

Leastways 'til Lilac and Sparrow got stranded in the hurricane, Clara said and there was an edge of bitterness in her voice, Ended up spendin' all night in the root cellar while Llewellyn was still on the mainland.

Ayuh, Pearl nodded, Lilac called off the weddin' the very next day, like to broke her mama's heart.

Sure broke Llewellyn's, Nana said mildly, He was mighty forgivin' of her but he never had another word for Sparrow.

Then, Aunt Vi said tentatively, the new preacher-man come and......

And all hell done broke loose, Clara interrupted, end of summer come and Lilac and the preacher-man run off together.  Sparrow went after'em, acourse, but he never did catch'em.  

And Llewellyn and Sparrow ain't never spoke ever since, my grandmother wound up.

Until now, I said.

Until now, the women agreed.

And Lilac?  I asked.

Don't rightly think anybody knows, Clara said with a frown, Ain't heard her name in a coon's age 'ceptin' for Llewellyn namin' every dog he's ever had after her.  Damn foolishness, if you ask me.

Later that spring, the village united - as tiny villages do everywhere - and Llewellyn's barn got a new roof.  He collected his stock and paid for their care just as he'd promised and sometimes Sparrow accompanied him, sharing the seat of the old buckboard with Lilac the dog sitting proudly between them.  It wasn't a pure reconciliation and to anyone who didn't know them, you'd wouldn't have thought them friends.  But it was a place to start - forty years notwithstanding - it was a place to start and now and again, that's all any of us really need.

Sometimes life pushes us in directions we ought to have found for ourselves ~ 
Bob Hoskins, Maid in Manhattan





  

A Passing Storm

I wake to wave of vicious thunderstorms.  Lightning cracks like tree branches and for several minutes the house is under a wild assault of hail - it slams into the windows and echoes like fireworks - the small brown dog barely seems to notice but the little dachshund turns unexpectedly gun shy - his eyes widen and he crawls into my lap and trembles.  I stroke him, speak softly in my best reassuring voice, hold him tightly, but it isn't enough.  He's never minded storms before, turning just a little restless when the thunder is close, but the hail is a new and frightening thing and it breaks my heart to see him so afraid.  My second thoughts are for the outside cats and the half grown kitten and I say a small prayer that they've found some sort of shelter from the storm.  The rain beats hard and cold, a dismal and heartless thing with no mercy and even though it's nearly eight in the morning, it's still pitch black outside.  Just when I think the worst is over, a second round of hail begins slamming into the windows and pelting the roof.  

It's just noise, I tell the little dachshund, it can't hurt you.  

The lights start to flicker then and keeping him tucked under one arm, I scurry to light a half dozen candles, just in case.  After several more minutes, one storm center passes but another is right at its heels.  I can hear water cascading down the gutters, the walls vibrate with the force of the thunder.  Nature reminding us of our insignificance, my daddy used to say.

Slowly, slowly, slowly, the sky begins to lighten and the thunder and lightning begin to ease.  The rain is still coming down like a monster but the noise fades and the little dachshund begins to breathe more evenly.  I set him on the floor gently and after a few seconds he lies down on his side and falls asleep.

It's almost over, I tell him quietly, no harm done.

By nine, the rain is barely noticeable and I can hear birds singing in the azaleas and a distant train whistle. Both dogs are peacefully asleep on the bed and the cats have come out from hiding.

You'd never know the world had almost come to an end.

Better A Solitary Life

The newest cat to find her way here is a half grown, at least partly calico little girl with a sweet, heart shaped face.  When I pull into the driveway, she skitters off the front steps, careens through the azaleas, and like a small, heat seeking missile, dives through the lattice work to the shelter of under the house.  I suspect she's more stray than feral and despair at the thought of more kittens in the spring.  Of all the houses on this dead end block, mine seems to be the most popular, a veritable halfway house for stray felines who would rather live a solitary life than a compromised one.  I know it's done all the time, but if I live to be a hundred and fifty I will never understand how people can abandon animals.

I don't know how many cats now call under the house home, in truth, I try not to think about it.  The Cat Who Lived in the Garage still comes by now and then, just as skittish and unapproachable as she ever was.  There are one or two tabbies that wander the neighborhood and of course, sometimes the enormous and bad tempered Siamese strolls by, picks a fight, and moves on.  Now and again I see one with a notched ear, the local spay neuter clinic's way of marking the Trap/Neuter/Return cats - a noble effort but for the fact that it actually accomplishes so little - the lives of the animals are only marginally improved but at at least it puts an end to their breeding.  Meanwhile, feral cat colonies seem to be blossoming all over the city.  There's no end in sight.

We may call it independence or a retreat from a mad world, but I imagine that we all have a little stray cat in us, a tiny bit of spirit that wants no ties and who in the words of Tennessee Williams, has always depended on the kindness of strangers for it's uncertain life.  This little girl is clean and sleek, with no visible signs of neglect or injury  and a street wise wariness of humans.  She appears cared for and healthy and while so far I've refused to feed her, my neighbors are not so heartless, little dishes of dogfood appear in the driveway on a regular basis.  She licks them clean and then retreats, slipping under the latticework and disappearing.  It's not the easy life I suspect she knew at one time but she does the best she can.

When the rain comes, falling fiercely and punctuated with thunder so close and loud it shakes the walls, I think of her and hope she's managed to find a warm and dry place under the house. 

 I don't suppose a dish of dry food every now and again would hurt.

Listening Rooms

We need more listening rooms.

After 35 years of bars and restaurants - five hours a night, seven nights a week - my friend Jack stepped away in favor of listening rooms.  The money was nowhere as good but the air was clear and people came to hear his music rather than drink and smoke and chatter.  It was a risky move but at 70, he looks back and smiles.  I think there may be an analogy of some kind here.

We spend our lives in bars and restaurants, working and learning and worrying and chasing the paycheck.  We often don't make much progress, arriving at an end point which is suspiciously like the beginning only with less time.  We call it a journey not a destination and we look back and can't help but wonder where it all went - the money, the time, the youth - the friends and lovers we met and discarded, the good times we miss and the bad ones we try not to remember.  Maybe if we'd had less smoke and noise and less clutter, we'd have fewer regrets.

People sit quietly in listening rooms.  They tend not to cough and shift in their seats and whisper and get antsy for things to move along or end.  They're not interested in picking up the pace just to get nowhere in a hurry.  I've seen them close their eyes and almost drift off in music.  They're here for the story, for the experience, for what will be a sweet memory.

You can always take the easy way 
The road that many choose 
You can always wander in the haze 
Never mind what you would lose 
You can always follow the whims of this world 
But what will it mean in the hereafter? 

Jack Williams

The Fabric of Friendship

It would be, Miss Hilda observed to my grandmother over hot buttered scones and peppermint tea, frightfully clever and exceedingly convenient if The Deity had thought to make skin flexible.

In what way, Hilda? my grandmother asked with a sigh.

Thick when you are most in need of protection, Miss Hilda said tarty, Thin when you are not.

Nana considered this for a moment then nodded.

Perhaps you're right, she said calmly, You don't think we can do it on our own?

Do you?  Hilda replied a little fiercely and my grandmother shrugged.

It wasn't clear whether Miss Hilda had had her feelings hurt or whether she'd hurt someone else's but she was troubled by something and my grandmother was wary.  There was precious little of the sugar-coater to our most prominent British transplant - she was considered a sort of displaced royalty by many in the village and was known for an acid although wickedly well educated tongue - she had no patience with dull wittedness or sloth, believed the overly emotional among us to be victims of genetic weakness, condemned drunkenness with a blinding passion - and yet would flog any man who might even think of raising his hand against a child or an animal.  She'd lived on the island for over thirty years and had never married nor lost a trace of her accent.

What need I of some mush mouthed, spineless, parasite interested only in securing his financial future?  she had once demanded when the subject of courting had been raised over a spirited bridge game, I do not adjust my standards for any man.  Better a solitary life than a compromised one!

And so she kept her dogs and her imported-from-England horses.  She lived quietly and quite privately in her gingerbread and turreted house.  She tended her flower garden and watched her posture, walked five miles a day - rain or shine, no matter the season - to maintain her health, and now and then wrote a smidgen of Elizabethan poetry for the Digby newspaper in between tutoring the children with dreams of attending Grade 12 on the mainland.  She was what her dear friend Clara called a woman of true substance, of steel-like convictions.  She was formidable and without a trace of self doubt.  To see her at odds with herself, about anything at all, was impossible, nearly unthinkable.

Is there something on your mind, Hilda?  Nana asked cautiously.

Certainly not! Hilda's tone was brisk and on the dismissive side but, I noticed, she didn't meet Nana's eyes when she answered.  And when Aunt Vi and Aunt Pearl arrived, she was uncharacteristically quiet.  It wasn't until the bridge game was finished that she made her speech.

Viola, she began, as I recall, I called you a mindless, silly creature with no more sense than a single celled amoeba.

Nana's jaw dropped at this and Pearl whitened noticeably.

That was.....unkind.... Hilda continued and my grandmother, determinedly staring out the window, cleared her throat audibly.

Miss Hilda glared at her but amended her words.

That was....cruel.....she said with a good deal of effort, and I had no right to say it.  Apologies are not in my nature, Viola, I make it a point to say nothing which would require them but in this instance, I have failed and I would like to say I'm sorry.

There was a silence on the sunporch the likes of which I'd never heard before or since.  Miss Hilda rapped her riding crop against her boot.

If you don't accept my apology, Viola, I completely understand.....she said finally and that was when my Aunt Vi - my sweet natured, timid, and shy Aunt Vi - got to her feet.

But acourse I do, Hilda, she said gratefully, It's forgotten.

The two women stood facing each other, not quite sure what came next.  It was an awkward and foreign moment, both being on opposite and unfamiliar ends of an apology and badly out of their elements.  It was Aunt Pearl who broke the tension with a totally unexpected war whoop - the three other woman visibly jumped - then all four broke out in relieved laughter.  The moment passed, slipping into the land of shared experience where the fabric of friendship is often tested before it's secured.

A Unicorn in the Strawberry Patch

Well, now, my daddy remarked casually from where he was standing at the screen door, drinking coffee and about to light a cigarette, There's something you don't see every day.

What's that, Guy? my grandmother asked, distracted by the morning ritual of starting a fire in the old wood stove and not even bothering to turn.

There's a unicorn in the strawberry patch, Alice, he said.

At that, Nana did bother to turn, she spun on the heels of her sensible shoes, her elbow collided with the edge of the trustworthy cast iron beast, she cursed, and an armful of kindling scattered all over the newly waxed linoleum floor.

Sally Forth!  she exclaimed, inelegantly pushing my daddy aside, What in the name of all that's holy is Sally Forth doing in the strawberry patch and what in hell is that thing on her her head?

By that time I'd gotten between them and could see Sally Forth, Miss Hilda's new mare - imported all the way from Sussex, I remembered Miss Hilda saying pridefully - peacefully nibbling her way through the wild strawberry field that bordered the gravel driveway.  She was pure white from forelock to tail with a feathery mane blowing slightly in the morning breeze and a dignified, regal posture.  On her head, there was a shiny, silvery cone, wide and rounded at the base and coming to a sharp point at the end.  We didn't know it then, but it was a witch's hat with the brim cut off, adroitly wrapped in aluminum foil and meticulously attached with a network of thick, white string.  With the fog still burning off, so that the animal was framed with a soft and misty light,the effect was startling real, a fairy story come to life.

Close your mouth, you'll catch flies!  Nana snapped impatiently, Now don't just stand there gawking, you two, go and get her while I call Hilda!

The mare offered no resistance when my daddy slipped a rope over her head and neck and coaxed her out of the field and across the driveway to the back door, tying her makeshift reins to the woodbox and producing a carrot from the pantry.  He snipped the string with a pocket knife and carefully removed her tinfoil horn.

Fourteen hands if she's a foot, he told me though I had no idea what that meant, And somebody put some thought into this little decoration, I'm here to tell you.  This is some work!  It took him several minutes to cut the webwork of string and detach it and when he was done, he smiled at me, nodded toward her.

Want to ride her? he asked and I thought I might cry.

Waiting for Miss Hilda to arrive and reclaim her, my daddy circled the mare around the backyard and I rode, feeling like a princess in a fairy tale and instantly in love.  She was sleek and smooth, she moved with exquisite precision and grace, she high-stepped and whinney'd and I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.

My ride ended when Miss Hilda arrived, striding down the drive in her jodhpurs, red blazer and shiny riding boots , carrying an English saddle under one arm and dark as a thundercloud.  She saddled and bridled the mare, thanked my daddy and my grandmother for keeping her safe, and crushed the aluminium horn under one proper and immaculate heel.  We watched her ride away on Sally Forth, horse and rider in perfect unison, a vision from an English fox hunting novel if ever I'd seen one.

Not everyone gets to ride a unicorn, I often reminded myself that summer, but beware if you do - there's a little magic in it.

October Light

Each autumn - as regular as clockwork and for absolutely no discernible reason - I get heavy hearted and sad.  I know it has to do with the quality of the October light on these late fall afternoons, there's something in it that seems to pull me under like a wave.  I can already feel it coming on and it's only three quarters through September.

Nothing is wrong or worse or out of sync.  Nothing is out of place or threatened or dying.  Nothing is missing or lost.  Nothing is altered or gone but the light feels different.  I feel shadows and dark corners, a very real sense of loss although for what, I have no idea.  Nothing I've found lightens it, shortens it or pushes it away. The sadness, the melancholy feeling, is overwhelming but insubstantial, as if I'm suddenly seeing everything through a veil.  I want to cry all the time.  It makes me a little crazy, mainly because it seems so mysterious, I suppose.  Because I can't explain it away, can't rationalize it or put it in its proper place.  It's a dark feeling, like standing on the edge and being too afraid to jump but too afraid to step back.  There's no bright side except that I know it will pass.

It's the quality of the light, no longer the summery brightness of July, not yet the grim gray of November, but some un-named month in some forgotten place where the late afternoon sky turns a stormy yellowish and all the leaves are fallen.  It's dead warm for this time of year and often there's a smoky scent in the air.  The very stillness is alive.  It feels over with.  It feels unknown.

It's just autumn, I tell myself, just a small window of time where the light is not what it should be, not what it's meant to be, not what it was or will be.

It can't pass too soon for me.

Wild Child

Here's something I've noticed - if you follow the noise, the panicky little footsteps that skid to a sudden stop and the inevitable hiss, the clatter of curtains falling or a tabletop being unceremoniously cleared - in other words, if you follow the mayhem, at its center there is always a small gray kitten.  I'm beginning to suspect it may be in her genes.

Not that the house was all that serene before her arrival - cats being territorially sensitive and in some cases, outright bullies - but it does seem to me that armed conflict has escalated and peace talks appear to be stalled.  I hear her little pigeon-like trill - I've come to think of it as a kind of Emergency Broadcast System warning - and I ready myself for whatever small chaos is about to be unleashed.  The older, established cats are weary of this nonsense, this wild child in their midst, they have no patience with her and no interest in her frantic games so they will only engage her in self defense.  As if to compensate for her diminutive size, their submissiveness brings out her assertiveness - she pounces, they run, she chases - and the house rings with unhappy wails.

She is a small cat, double pawed in front and low to the ground - I've sometimes wondered if somewhere in her history there might not have been some Munchkin blood - her body tilts slightly down so that her shoulders are not aligned with her hips but her lack of physical stature is deceptive.  She can, as the saying goes, rock and roll with the best of them.  

At other times, when I discover her peacefully curled up and asleep with the little dachshund, I wonder if she has an evil twin.

Beware of masks.

Mellow Moments

A small black paw reaches from under the desk and snags my sleeve.  Trying to focus on my writing, I absent mindedly scratch his ears but this doesn't satisfy him.  He meows loudly and insistently, head butting my thigh with considerable force for a small cat until I stop typing and look down.  Two wide open yellow eyes look directly back at me and I sense a little resentment along with a suggestion of stubbornness.  I slip my hands under his front paws and lift him into my lap but once there he immediately wants down.  He looks mildly offended that I would think he could be bought off so easily and exits without another sound except to take an almost indifferent swat at the the black dog as he goes by.  She's unimpressed and curls an obligatory lip but for once, doesn't take the bait and the cat is allowed to pass safely.  It's a mellow moment, rare in this crowded, competitive household and it doesn't last long.  Only seconds later the kitten and the old tabby clash briefly and this time the black dog does intervene, chasing and snapping at their heels as if she were herding sheep.  The small brown dog instantly dives deeper into the pillows and the drama-disliking little dachshund promptly trots under the bed to safety.  So much for mellow.

There's not a lot of golden rule in this house but for the most part I'm willing to settle for maintaining the balance of power and a superficial peaceful coexistence.  Unless it gets howlingly out of control, I try to let the little ones sort out their differences on their own.  It's a small house and there are eight of them and only one of me - a lifetime of Kodak moments is unreasonable - but there are still mornings when I dream (though never for long) of an animal free existence.  Of what it would be like to go to bed early and get up late, of buying actual groceries at the grocery store, of a knock at the door not bringing complete and utter chaos, of un-saliva-smeared windows and cat-hair free furniture, of not having to time an evening out to match an old dog's bladder.  Of the inevitable certainty that one day they will all be gone.

I'm not sure if I chose this life or it chose me or even if there ever was a choice, but I can't imagine living differently.

So I stock up on Pedigree and Blue Buffalo and flea spray and keep an eye on my watch.  I learn to assemble pet gates.  I keep track of heart worm medications and oatmeal shampoo and watch for holes in the fence.  I keep the peace and try not to play favorites - not very successfully since the arrival of the little dachshund, I admit - I clean kennels and wash bedding, tread carefully over small, sleeping bodies, wait for the random mellow moment and try to appreciate it.  As has been demonstrated to me recently, life can be cut short at a moment's notice - snatched away by a handgun or a lethal injection - and there's no going back.

That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet ~ Emily Dickinson

Guns & Alcohol

The night of the killing, I arrived at the bar just as I had the night before, only this time I was met and turned away by a plainclothes detective in an unmarked car.

It's closed, he told me shortly, We're investigating something.

Is everybody alright? I asked.

Don't know, he shrugged.

But he did know.  He knew, as surely as everyone would know over the next few hours, that the owner of the bar - a five star pub and as embedded a fixture in downtown as the sidewalks - had been found shot to death that very afternoon in her quiet and quite ordinary suburban home.  He knew that her live-in boyfriend, chef of the five star pub, was on the run.

Over the next 24 hours, as police released details - multiple gunshots wounds, no forced entry - the music community went into mourning.  Stories of suspected domestic abuse began to emerge along with tales of convictions for several DWI's and aggravated cruelty to animals.  Chef was known to be gun-happy - everyone had a story of the arsenal he allegedly maintained in the pub's second story - and we all remembered the night he'd lost his temper with a customer and shot up the place.  That had cost him a brief stay in jail and the pub had been closed for several weeks but no one had been injured.  As someone who'd taken hundreds if not thousands of pictures in the tavern, I'd had my own run-ins with him and thought him a gruff, disagreeable, anti-social and arrogant old son of bitch but it'd had never crossed my mind that he might kill.  Social media thought otherwise, I realized, even before the warrant for his arrest on a charge of second degree murder was issued, there were dozens of comments from people who'd "see it coming for years" or "weren't the least bit surprised".  There were calls for vengeance in the name of justice, a handful of innocent until proven guilty reminders, but mostly, there was shock and profound sadness and a sense of it not being quite real.  A woman we all knew was dead and a man we all knew was accused.  Murder happens but not to people you've had drinks or dinner with, not to people you actually know.

On the second day, the popular belief being that he'd "fled the jurisdiction", U.S. Marshals joined in the search. More horror stories - combinations of guns and alcohol usually - surfaced and social media began adding tributes to the victim.  It had taken less then 36 hours for her to be sainted and him to be condemned.

On the third day, he's arrested in Mexico.  

Lying in bed and waiting for sleep, unable to wrap my mind about it and equally unable to let it go, I thought of my second husband and my mother, the too many to count times I'd come close to one end or the other of that kind of violence.  It makes me wonder if anything about a murder - or for that matter, any dynamic between any two people - can possibly be so saint/sinner black and white.

One Less Dog

She was a typical product of backyard breeding - bad tempered, unpredictable, willful, overly protective, suspicious, jealous, violently aggressive, insanely hyper-active, stubborn as a mule and sometimes mean as homemade sin  She carried chaos with her everywhere she went, made absolute shreds of my patience and most of the time I'd have cheerfully strangled her but without her, the house is just a little empty.  Funny,
the things we don't expect to miss.

In her thirteen years, she ate four pairs of glasses and three separate partial dentures.

Not a single squeaky toy survived more than four minutes.

She once consumed an entire 6 pack of Hersey bars without the slightest side effect.

Four sessions of obedience training were completely useless.

She could smell a eucalyptus cough drop at 40 paces, a lipstick at 10.

She hated being bathed and adored the hair dryer.

She had two speeds - asleep and warp drive.

She never forgave me for nicking a toenail during cutting.

She would bite anything with a pulse and required no provocation.  Until she was nine, it took three vet techs and a muzzle to approach her.

She could argue with a fence post all night.

Needed or not, she was a finely tuned alarm system.  Strangers never had a chance.

She considered cats the best of all chew toys.

She had exceptional chase instincts and limitless energy.

She was the poster child for everything you wouldn't want in a dog and she wore me out.

Every behavior modification drug we tried seemed to work in reverse.

And despite it all, I wouldn't give up and I'd likely do it all over again.  I may not have liked her much but I loved her dearly and it was hard to watch her die.  Knowing it was the right thing brings no comfort.  It's not rational but I can't quite shake the feeling that I failed her somehow.  It may be that small voice that whispers in my ear, What is there to miss?

It reminds me of a painful lesson - with people or animals, love is so often not enough.

Maya

Just a week or ten days ago, I could toss her a biscuit and she would effortlessly catch it in mid air.

This morning she doesn't even see it and has to hunt it down.  I watch her stumble on the aluminum food bowl and come perilously close to walking into the cabinet.  To be sure, I tear a slice of cheese into strips and hold it in front of her - she stares to the left of it, sniffs anxiously - but doesn't see it.  I kneel down, take her muzzle in my hand and look at her eyes, praying that it's a trick of the light, knowing that it's cataracts.  My little girl is blind.  Maybe not completely, surely not fatally, but certainly close enough.

Before we leave for the vet's, I let her and the other two out in the back yard.  She steps off the low end of the deck and trips, nearly falls.  The front steps are more than she navigate.  I lift her into the passenger seat and she sits quietly for this last drive.

The vet confirms the blindness and the blood sample confirms diabetes.  Her glucose is so high it doesn't register on the monitor.  The prognosis is not good - a special diet and daily injections for the rest of her life - and she'd still be blind.  He hates telling me this almost as much as I hate hearing it.  

I shake my head.

The injection is quick, administered gently.  She lays her head on my arm, her eyes close, and in less than a minute her heart stops.  It's a kindness.  It's humane.  It's the right decision.  I've never believed in extending life just because we can.

I miss her.