The Red Strokes - Chapter 1

Chapter 1 of my latest release, 'The Red Strokes', available on Amazon.

CHAPTER ONE

 

 

Locusts. Although they only show themselves once every seventeen years, their relentless drone is enough to drive a sane woman mad, at least that’s what Heddie Mae always said. She’d say that like a kidney stone, a year of locusts was something seared into memory. I’ve witnessed three such appearances and it isn’t their incessant whirr or the black confetti clouds they form, but the events marked by each visit that I recall in vivid detail.

The first time I remember hearing the locusts was in 1979; I was eight. That year, I replaced my imaginary friend, Hope, with my best friend, Adele Bauman, the only child of the town postmaster. My sister, Mia, was also born that year. Mia was too little to play with and she threw up a lot, but Heddie Mae taught me how to change diapers and would sometimes let me feed the baby, so it didn’t take long before I favored my new sister over any of my toys. Nineteen seventy-nine was also the year that my mother went away for the first time. ‘Went away’ held hundreds of possibilities to a child with a healthy imagination. I daydreamed of my mother being in far-away places, meeting famous people, and talking about important kinds of things that never happen in Pennsylvania. I believed that when my mother returned, I would fall asleep each night to stories of her many adventures. But there were never any stories. She was gone for what seemed longer than a summer break and when she finally came home, she was quiet and took most of her meals in her room. I had to ask Heddie Mae’s permission any time I wanted to see my mother. I couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong, but knew that something wasn’t right because if I put my ear against her bedroom wall, in just the right spot below a framed picture of Jesus, I could hear her crying when she was alone and thought no one was listening. I remember 1979 as being a sad year, but not without happiness.

The second time I heard the locusts was in 1996. I had married my college boyfriend, Bryan, in front of a magistrate and two clerks shortly after the birth of our only child. A beautiful little girl with molasses-colored hair and unusually long fingers and toes, we named her Doriah. But before the ink on Doriah’s birth certificate dried, Bryan and I found ourselves staring down at our freshly inked divorce papers. Having gained a degree, a marriage, a child, and a divorce all in the same year, I felt as though I had done so much living, but still had no clue as to who I was or where the lessons learned were supposed to guide me. Looking back, it was a happy year overall, but not without sadness.

This year is no different. The locusts began arriving only yesterday and already the events of 2013 have earmarked it as a year I won’t soon forget.

* * *

There’s an unseasonable chill this morning, but even without a sweater, I don’t mind. I’ve been sitting on the front porch since the phone rattled me from a dream I no longer remember. What I do remember are the words that invaded those fuzzy moments between sleep and wake. Somehow, I always knew the call would come early, before coffee, a shower, or the newspaper�"before grogginess gave way to the mental clarity I would need to process such a short but powerful sentence. Although I had expected it for some time, even wished for it a time or two, I hadn’t expected the tone in which Mia delivered it. ‘Father’s gone’ came with no more emotion than if she were announcing a trip to the farmer’s market or the chance of rain.

I close my eyes, pull in a deep breath and then hold, count, release, and repeat. Pranayama breathing. I learned the technique during a yoga class I took after the death of my second husband, Scotty. The belief is that controlling one’s breathing is the key to controlling one’s mind. I’m not sure it works, but if nothing else, all of the counting keeps my mind occupied and I’m grateful for the diversion, even though I know that the peace will only last until my sisters arrive.

Staring absentmindedly through the fog as the sun tugs it upward, I think about my sisters. There are sisters who enjoy a relationship that’s as intimate as a heartbeat and others who grasp at something that’s as vague as a breeze. My sisters have been the source of many emotions for me. Mia has been the source of pride, envy, and insecurity while my youngest sister, Val, evokes admiration, courage, and strength. Together, they have also been the source of my frustration with their constant bickering and unwillingness to bend. My parents produced three daughters, sisters as individual as snowflakes with a kinship resembling a stick and plate balancing act. It takes constant work and the slightest misstep threatens to bring it to a shattering end. Yet among our many differences is a bond, a common thread that has carried us through decades of both happy and sad tears. Heddie Mae called it the heartstring. She’d say that family is born in blood, but held together by its heartstring. Over the years, my sisters and I repeatedly stretched our heartstring until it frayed, but we somehow always managed to pull together�"just before it snapped. I often wonder if we will always be able to make our way back from the brink of irreconcilable differences or if one day our heartstring will lose its elasticity.

I turn my head toward the door as it squeaks open, reminding me that I’m not alone with my scattered thoughts.

“Here you go,” Doriah says, as the screen door slams shut behind her. With her fingers wrapped around my favorite mug, she reaches out to hand it to me causing her shirt to rise just enough to expose her bare belly. When she catches me looking, she tugs at the bottom of her shirt with her free hand. “Mom�"”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“I know what you were thinking.” Doriah rolls her eyes and takes a seat in a cane back rocker next to me.

Funny. When I was a teenager, getting my period would have meant moving to the adult table for holiday meals and growing out of my training bra would have meant finally having a say in my own wardrobe. But getting pregnant at seventeen would have meant a flood of adoption and pro-choice pamphlets and hearing my father bellow, ‘I knew this would happen if you allowed her to wear makeup’, until even I believed that that was how it happened. My emotions would have run the gamut without passing anything that resembled happiness.

But Doriah was born in a different era. She broke the news in mid-March during Palm Sunday service and has spent most of her free time since thumbing through mom-to-be magazines and doodling potential baby names on the covers of her school binders. Her friends think her condition makes her ‘way cool’, which she believes gave her the edge in this year’s race for prom queen. At this point, her only concern is making it through her pregnancy without ever having to wear the blousy maternity clothes of generations past. I let out a sigh; at least she has goals.

Doriah rocks back and forth, kicking her legs out with an exuberance I barely recall having at any age. “Is Aunt Mia coming here?”

I nod. “Soon. And Aunt Val should be here by five.”

Doriah brings her chair to an abrupt stop that causes her upper torso to jut forward. “Aunt Val said she was coming to the Christmas get together and Easter dinner�"”

“She did,” I interrupt.

“And don’t forget your birthday. She missed that, too.”

“I know, but this is different. She’ll want to be with us today,” I say, not sure if I’m trying to convince my skeptical daughter or myself.

“Uh-huh,” Doriah murmurs and lays a hand on top of mine, spreading an emotional warmth across my skin.

Although faint, the air is filled with the odor from Glatfelter’s paper mill, the first sign of dreary weather. Doriah and I live on a quiet road just west of the factory, in an old brick farmhouse with olive-green shutters and a slate roof in desperate need of repair, one of the few tangible reminders of what Scotty and I once shared. Mandatory filters have decreased the factory emissions over the years, but rather than give thought to the presence of the rare and repugnant odor, I consider the irony of its timing, rolling in only hours before Mia arrives. The thought causes a half-hearted smile.

“Daddy’s coming.” Doriah’s words break through my moment of solitude.

I reply without opening my eyes. “Good. I’m glad he’ll be here for you.”

“He’s coming for you too, you know.”

I catch and ignore my daughter’s encouraging tone. I believe that deep down, in a part of myself where I hide all things too painful or complicated to face, Bryan is hopeful for reconciliation, even after so many years. Aside from being a good father to Doriah, he’s been there through every one of my own life crisis, holding my hand when Scotty died and sending me birthday and Christmas cards each year claiming reasons of habit. He’s a good man, but the first round of any fight is always the easiest and I haven’t forgotten how miserable our first round was.

I shift the conversation. “Do you plan on telling him while he’s here?”

Doriah pushes off with her feet and resumes rocking. “I was kinda hoping that you’d tell him for me,” she says in the baby voice she normally uses when asking her father for money.

I give her hand a squeeze. “Uh-huh.”

During the next few moments of silence, I make a mental checklist crossing off the calls I’d already made and adding tasks I hadn’t thought of earlier. Once the doctors informed us that the time had come to begin thinking about arrangements, we decided among us, and without too much disagreement, that Mia would deliver the eulogy, I would take care of any final details that our father hadn’t taken care of himself while he was able, and Val would worry about nothing except showing up. Being the type of man he was, I was certain he’d crossed all of his T’s long before he became too ill so my job would be minimal.

The air is growing heavy. To the east, the clouds are angry, one blending into another like a charcoal drawing, their defining lines smudged by the artist’s finger. Dark, dense, and headed our way, they carry a thicker odor as the wind picks up.

Doriah gives my hand a quick rub. “Are you okay, Mom?”

“I wish Heddie Mae were here.” I hadn’t realized that she’d been on my mind until I blurt out my random statement.

Doriah asks, “Heddie Mae, your nanny?”

I think for a moment. How do I define the role Heddie Mae played in my life? She took care of my sisters and me, but I never thought of her as a nanny. She took care of my mother during each of her many episodes, but she wasn’t a nurse. She wasn’t hired help, a servant, or a relative. A middle-aged woman with skin the color of a tootsie roll, a thicket of scour pad hair, and a hug-smothering bosom, she was a part of our lives for as long as I could remember. A favorite part. Growing up, I never had a question Heddie Mae couldn’t answer or a problem she couldn’t fix.

“No.” I sigh. “Heddie Mae, my friend.”