My Peculiar Family

by Les Rosenthal

  “People have a way of misremembering their youth,” he said. “I spoke of her only rarely.”

  “Maybe. But I know what she would wish for me.”

  He cleared his throat. “It’s unhealthy to wish for the guidance of the dead, especially from loved ones. Terribly unnatural. It is only the agents of the enemy that answer such heart-thoughts, appearing as angels of light.”

  “I’m familiar enough with the teaching. Sitting in a pew every Sunday has its lessons.”

  He looked out the window. “He’ll be here soon. So, I shall tell Rodolph, ‘no,’ then? That your heart belongs to some fantasy instead?”

  Crossing her arms, she leaned back against the bookcase. “Tell him whatever you want.”

  He shook his head, looking at the glass instead of through it, following the folded streaks and trapped ever-bubbles. “People will think it very strange, Angela. I bring you into my home as a child, as a charge and an example of generosity. You live under the same roof as me, seemingly inoculated from the affections of men all this time, and when one finally comes whose only crime is that he’s too perfect, you’d turn him away.”

  “People may think what they wish.”

  He glowered at her. “And are my thoughts equally dismissed?” When she didn’t answer, he continued, “Penhaven is a large parsonage, but no house nor reputation is large enough to keep away rumors of scandal. I beg you - accept Rodolph’s proposal.”

  She dropped her gaze but not her arms. The fallen shell had marked the floor with white the way a thunderbolt scorches with blackness. She reached into the folds of her dress and withdrew another one, far larger than the first. “I meant to give this to you some time ago, and now, of course, since you told me of another baptism this Sunday.”

  He watched her hold it out for him – an enormous quahog, three times the size of his palm. With the one that had just broken he’d performed a hundred baptisms, but this one looked its better in every way. “You’ve been walking on the shore again? You know that’s a dangerous place.”

  She groaned as she placed it on the shelf behind her, right where the other one had been. “I’m not eleven any more. And no, not along the shore - a shell this size would have been picked clean years ago. No, I found it in a cave.”

  “A cave,” he said. The clock on his desk sounded. “In an inlet, underneath a crop covered in wild raspberry bushes, north along the shore - is that it?”

  “You’re familiar with it?”

  Memories swelled up and tickled the back of his throat, and he rubbed them out of the corner of his eyes. “It’s a very dangerous place. The tide swells there twice a day - there’ve been drownings there, did you know that?”

  “I’d heard.”

  “And placards posted by the town to stay away from there - had you seen those?”

  She smiled. “I think someone went and tore those down”

  He was in front of her in a moment, grabbing her upper arms with both hands. “I’m not joking,” he said, his breath still whiskey-tinged from an awakener that morning. “Stay away from there. Promise me you’ll stay away from there.”

  Her eyes swam with wonder over his features. “I promise,” she said.

  His grip faded. “Rodolph will be here soon. And it’s All Saints on Sunday - I need to walk the graveyard. You should leave.”

  She opened the door that led back to the meetinghouse.

  “And thank you. For the shell,” he said, but by then the door had closed swiftly behind her.

  * * *

  Levi wandered the headstones as would a beggar with a memory for just the last doorstep, stopping with prayer at each of graves of Gloucester’s more newly deceased. But his random path had one order to it -- he evaded the stone near the elm tree, the one he saved for last, upon which was carved T. HARKINS.

  And when he arrived before it, then instantly, there in his mind, spirited away but always at the fringe between thought and oblivion, there was the face of Thalia: warm, gentle, her auburn eyes the dusk color of sand, her laugh like waves rolling over his toes. The light was sharp in the fuzziness of his memory - stark at the entrance of the cave, she the walking shadow splitting the light, walking to him, the seagulls upon the wet rocks already starting up their full-throated calls of spectacle and joy. She tasted of the salt air, like she was made from it, dripping with Venus in every way.

  “Oh, there you are!” came a distant voice.

  Levi turned. It was Rodolph calling from the side door, approaching. “I thought I had the wrong day, it was so quiet inside.” The Reverend Hooper stood motionless until he neared. “Are you all right, Reverend? It’s a bit too cold out here.” He looked down at the gravestone. “Harker? One of Angela’s relatives?”

  “Yes,” said the Reverend. “A distant one, I think.”

  “Good of you to say a good word for his soul. Come, let’s go inside. It’s much warmer inside.”

  It was no easy matter to convey a woman’s demands when she has none, but the Reverend thought the two cups of hot cider he poured for Rodolph helped.

  “I just don’t understand it,” said Rodolph. “What could possibly please her? It seems there’s nothing about me she won’t find unsatisfactory in some way. What could I now use to stir her heart besides persistence?” He looked down at his empty glass. “Hmph. Listen to me - I’m asking for love advice from a minister.”

  “That’s not entirely foolish.”

  “If you have some insight, I’d like to hear it.”

  Levi’s tongue stiffened, but it quickly melted. “Scripture holds a book we don’t speak of much on Sundays - it tends to not be as instructive to a group as it might be to a lone person. But the love poetry in Song of Solomon is something I’ve come back to many times before. That is, when this subject comes up. Being raised by another.”

  Rodolph tried hard to kill his growing smile. “Very well, I’ll go read it at once.” As Rodolph took another drink from his cup, the Reverend felt the heat in his stomach of invisible shame, having paraded his thoughts of Thalia and the tenderness and power of full, fiery transformation that book had brought when she was in his arms, watching as those thoughts were now trampled as pigs upon pearls. “And you’ll continue with my suit?” said Rodolph. “Surely, she’ll eventually listen to you, and if this reading of mine will make it easier in some way, then of course I’ll do my part.”

  “Of course.”

  Rodolph extended his hand, and clasped the Reverend’s vigorously when it was offered. “I very much wish that we’ll be blessings for each other, Reverend Hooper, and I’m sure we will. If her hand is yours to give away to me, then it will be given. And I shall then immediately open my wallet even further and end all these financial woes of the church, of Penhaven - all of it - gone.” He was shaking like the way the wind rattles a shutter. “No more of that back room talk of selling and disbanding - with my endowment” - he pointed with his other hand - “this church will stand in this town for another hundred years even if not another coin fell into the collection plate again.”

  “It’s very generous of you,” said the Reverend, growing a little sore. “You’d given me your word before, we don’t need to speak of it again now.”

  Rodolph released his grip. “I see that I’ve embarrassed you - I’m sorry. I am good for it, though. Ah, what blessings are sure to come! And of course they’ll come – I’d hate to see what would come if blessings never arrived.” He tipped his hat. “Good day, Reverend.”

  * * *

  The Reverend held his leather-bound Bible to his chest as he approached the entrance to the cave. Just as he remembered, the tide was low and briny, the water barely reaching the lip. The elevated rock was there - the one he’d set his Bible upon, open to Song of Solomon, while he and Thalia lay within the damp crevice - also still there, though less inviting than he’d remembered. Four seagulls - perhaps descendants, he fancied - lay upon the rocks near the cave entrance, watching him with suspicion.

  He l
aughed at himself. It was foolish to come here; it was so long ago. But when Angela had spoken of it, out of nowhere, it needed a visit, just as much as any graveside.

  He sat for a few minutes and thought of Thalia, her stupid jokes about British aristocrats, though she surely never met one; her kindness to three wandering vagabonds who would hobble through Gloucester every spring. He hadn’t seen them for fifteen years. They must have died without her touch. He thought they weren’t the only ones.

  He was about to go, when he heard footsteps on the rocks outside the cave. He pressed himself against the wall. After a moment, there was Angela, stepping from rock to rock like a girl a third of her age. Not stomaching the indignity of her calling him out of the shadows if he’d remained still but was spotted, he stepped out.

  She froze. He held still, thinking how much she’d look like Thalia if there was confidence in her eyes, and they’d been a different color, and her hair, too, and the ruddiness around her cheeks gone, and the bones forming those a little higher.

  He wouldn’t recall later if it was he or Angela who first suggested it, and whether it began with some gesture or mutual movement. He liked to think when he lay in bed later that night, both guilty and satisfied, that it somehow just happened. Like the rolling away of the stone, the best things in life somehow just happen.

  But when next he woke, still in the cave, his arm underneath Angela’s head, his trouser waist at his knees, he was horrified and thunderstruck. He extricated himself, his back sweating with seawater, his hands shaking with terror, jumbling to clasp his belt again. He stumbled to the cave entrance, praying for her forgetfulness. But the water now had risen already to the edge of the cave’s entrance, and in a few moments more it would drown away whatever sins had stained its floor, and all else that remained there.

  He went to her side, arranged the clothes she wore as best befitting a woman’s awakening, and roused her. She stood, her eyes lowered, collected herself, and then followed him back to Penhaven.

  When they arrived back at Penhaven, a dozen assembled people had expressed their thanks to God Almighty: where could he have gone, the both of them? A meditative walk, he claimed, down on the shore, before the winds thrashed up and it became unbearable to remain.

  They accepted it without another word. Except for one smirking youth. “A strong wind, must’ve been, and headed out to sea. Knocked you both on your backs into the water, did it? Good thing you stayed dry on your fronts.”

  The Reverend looked blankly upon him. Then he took Angela by the arm, led her inside, and wished for the anonymity of nightfall.

  * * *

  That night, Levi awoke with a rope splitting his lips in a lynched man’s smile. He raked the black form over him, it yelping before holding both his arms fast. “We were careful not to break down your door, Reverend,” came Rodolph’s voice from the darkness. “Don’t spoil things now.”

  Men took him, sealing him in a sack under layers of rotten burlap, hoisting him up into the back of a cart, joking how Rodolph is made a fool of only once. The cart stopped and near silent steps whispered on the sand before ejecting him like a stillborn onto the damp floor of the cave, Angela thrown there beside him. Rodolph’s face was as fiery as the lantern light he held. “Is this what you wanted, Reverend? You’d take my money and cuckold me in the same breath, is that it? Why don’t you show us more of your holy sex?” He cocked a rifle. “The water will be rising again in here soon - they’ll find you all swollen and blue tomorrow. Best give them a good story of your last moments.” His angry kick shattered the Reverend’s ankle. The cry drowned in the roar of the surf.

  “Stop it!” shouted Angela before the rifle’s barrel pressed against her forehead.

  “Some old witch told me you’re his daughter - did you know that people think that?” Rodolph spat and the rock sizzled. “It’s crazy what some people think. Absolutely crazy.”

  “Leave her alone,” said the Reverend. The lanterns were a hazy blur.

  “I will,” said Rodolph. “You’re going to show us your little holy sex show - we’ve been dying to see it.” He pulled out the leather-bound Bible from the folds of his coat, tossed it into the puddle-strewn rocks at the Reverend’s feet.

  “You have it all wrong. And it’s not too late.”

  “You’d better find your place and start quick, Reverend, or you’ll be loving a corpse.”

  The Reverend reached for the Bible, arms shaking forward, mind racing to Thalia.

  Thalia.

  The wrinkles on his hands melted off of him, dripping to the cave floor like candlewax, leaving smooth skin and nails behind. He heard a man’s gasp as his hands neared the book, sending the pages flurrying without a touch, stopping where the broken print read Song of Solomon. Gull cry split the cave, screeching from the pages, first in sound and then in form, ripping themselves out from the binding, folding onto themselves into paper wings, taking flight in a dervish path, and slicing across the faces and eyes of those who should not see full, fiery transformation.

  Rodolph cried out, his jarred rifle firing into a tide pool. He cried and swore and cawed, his neck lurching back, his nose stretching into a broad yellow bill, his form crumpling upon itself -- the same as his men -- into a feathery ball that waddled out of his empty clothes, beholding the light of the fallen lanterns melting together in a sphere of lit gold that hovered at the cave’s entrance.

  And Levi Hooper, young, hobbled to where Thalia sat, where a scared girl had been sitting a moment before. She folded her legs around his, the gulls cat-calling, the seawater lapping at the entrance, waiting to be invited in.

  Joshua

  The story of:

  Joshua, a Store Clerk

  George O’Connor

  Joshua was my favorite. I know, you’re not

  supposed to but the truth is, we all do.

  We just never admit it because we know the strife it would cause if we did. But at this point, the truth can’t cause any more harm. Joshua was my favorite and he was from the moment he was born.

  Now what I’m about to tell you about Joshua, it’s not to excuse what he did. I know there’s nothing I could ever say to undo his choices. But maybe I can help explain him a bit. Explain him as only a grandmother can.

  Before Joshua was born, there was no sign that he would be special. He was my fifth grandchild and the third boy. He was going to be the second child to my Mark and his wife, Rose. No, his time in the womb was wonderfully unremarkable. But that all changed on the day of his birth.

  I was in the room when Joshua was born. I know Rose wished I wasn’t but being the only local grandmother in a small town has its advantages. I sat in the corner, out of the way, and prayed quietly. The moment came and the world welcomed my sweet Joshua.

  As Mark and Rose hugged and professed their love for each other, I walked over as the nurses cleaned up Joshua. He was crying something fierce and so I did the same thing I had done four times before – I put my finger into his hand so he knew he wasn’t alone. He stopped crying, turned his head and looked at me. Not towards me. At me.

  We held each other’s gaze for what felt like an eternity. That’s when he became my favorite. Eventually, the nurses presented Joshua to his parents. Mark and Rose were so happy they didn’t notice Joshua was still staring at me. I quietly slipped out, found an unoccupied room and began crying. I tried to compose myself but couldn’t. Eventually I stopped trying and just let whatever needed to come out, come out. When it was finally over, I realized someone had left me a cup of water and a towel. I was in that room for an hour.

  A week later, Joshua, Mark and Rose left the hospital and came back home.

  Mark and Rose moved in four years prior when Rose became pregnant with their first boy. They helped fill the void after my Peter had passed away.

  I still smile, thinking of all the mornings Mark and Rose would scold the children, “You be quiet now. Don't you dare wake your grandmother.” Truth be told, I was awake before them ev
ery morning and would just listen. My house was alive again and I reveled in every moment.

  I know I’m supposed to tell you about Joshua, but to do that I have to start with Mark. He always struck me as being lost in this world. Unremarkable in school and never held a job for long. Always thought there was something bigger just over the horizon.

  He’d disappear for months and then one day knock on the door, asking to stay a spell. It frustrated his father to no end. “We can’t keep coddling him, Monica,” he would bark.

  “The boy needs to learn to make a living. He needs to grow up.” Peter and I rarely disagreed, unless it came to Mark and his wanderlust. What were we to do? You don’t stop being a parent once they graduate school. So Mark knew he always had a place to come home to. And in the end, so did Joshua, I guess.

  Now during one of his homecomings, Mark met Rose. She was a fine lady. More mature and, I must admit, more intelligent than my Mark. Peter and I had hoped she would help ground him but pretty soon he was leaving, this time with Rose. Months later, they returned for Peter’s funeral and remained with me until I was settled. Once everyone had felt I was done mourning, (you never really are) Mark and Rose were off again.

  The next time I saw them was when Mark told me they were expecting their first boy. “Just need a place to stay until we get settled. Then we’ll be out of your hair,” Mark told me. I felt Peter smiling down on the house and heard his gruff-but-loving voice grumble, “Now maybe the boy will grow up.” A few months stretched – wonderfully – into eight years.

  I know, I know. You want to know about Joshua’s jewelry making. People have often claimed that I was the one who taught Joshua to craft. And that is false. I don’t say that as a way to distance or defend myself. It’s just the truth and frankly I’m tired of hearing lies spread as gospel by people who weren’t there, don’t know me and don’t know my kin. So here’s the whole story of me, Joshua, and jewelry craft, at least until he came back.