Mary Ellen Courtney - Hannah Spring 01 - Wild Nights

by Mary Ellen Courtney

  I pulled out the slip of paper with Margaret’s last words to me. It said: “Meow.” I looked up at Ed; he had a huge smile. I could hear Margaret saying, “Show up and act interested.” The Director was there; even she had a small smile. She nodded once; I should begin.

  The attendant handed me a burning stick and I set it to the straw without hesitation. The heat blew out from the fire beating the sari like wings around my legs. I dropped the slip of paper into the flames. I didn’t need mementos.

  My eyes were hot and watering from the smoke. I looked up to find Ed again; it was like looking up through salt water from the bottom of the sea. He was focused on the fire, lost in thought. The Director looked like a hologram wavering in the heat; she was watching me the way Arthur had watched my mother. I thought I saw Jon, but when I blinked away the smoky water the vision was gone. I wanted him with me, but I’d had to light the fire.

  I waited until I was sure there was a good fire going, then I climbed the stairs and sat by myself on the end. I glanced down the row to Ed, Chahel, Dilip, and the man who I hadn’t gotten to know. Chahel and Dilip had beatific smiles. The Director was a little past them, sitting alone, watching. We were all watching our own movie.

  My body cooled and felt lighter, just as it had when I left the bonfire in Hawaii. I wondered if Margaret felt the same way, the same lightness as she was released from the weight and heat of living, from the weight of the regrets that follow our seemingly inexplicable choices. Regrets that haunt; at the same time they push us down uncharted paths. The day-to-day of washing dishes and making the marriage bed was behind her now.

  We watched as the howling fire burned away the yellow flowers and orange cloth, as it burned away her skin and fat and feathery hair, as she collapsed in on herself. Her limbs danced and swayed like a Manzanita in the flames. The smell of roasting flesh lay heavy under billowing incense.

  I thought about Binky and Amber. I had thought of them from time to time over the last nine months. It was easier to be far away, working. It had been so many years since Bettina had been Bettina; somehow it made the loss softer. I hadn’t known Amber; I don’t think she’d tasted her butterscotch yet. I thought of them buried in all their trappings. It was suffocating to think of them that way, their bloody bodies buried on white satin. Buried in metal vaults under concrete. I wondered if they could at least talk to each other. We should have buried them in the same hole; we should have buried them in the same box. Better still, simply under shovels of earth, so they could melt back into the earth together, the way they had started out. None of us in the family knew that.

  I wondered how this would all sound to the family. My brother might say I was crazy, or not. I thought he’d understand. My mother. I couldn’t guess about her. Like the rest of us, she was a work in progress. But she had coal mine courage; she kept climbing back on the wagon. Aunt Judith just felt small and wounded. I felt sorry for her to miss so much. I didn’t know the why of her pain. I didn’t know why there were such different outcomes in the same family.

  I could see my father going out this way. It would have appealed to him. I could imagine him laughing and saying “Oh Jesus” when the flames really got going.

  The fire burned down to the red place where the last work is done. It all tumbled together in hot ash and chunks of bone. We watched as the few hours that it takes to do all that, so much and so little, went by. The breeze shifted. It washed us in the smoke of other meaty fires. The sun set in peace. Our eyes adjusted slowly to the fading light. Sitting, watching, the veil is thin, like sliding beach fog only partially concealing the clarity beyond.

  Chahel indicated that I needed to go back. I looked down the row at the Director but she didn’t look back. Her work was done.

  The attendant handed me a pole. I raised it only a few feet, but I had a firm grip and brought it down with resolve. Her skull split open along the jagged last seams that had stitched together after her passage through the birth canal. There was a puff. I felt her let-loose spirit swirling above us becoming ocean sky.

  I handed the pole back to the attendant. He looked at me curiously from his hooded dark eyes. Soot darkened every fold in the fabric of his white turban. The fabric folds rippled seamlessly into the dark folds of tidal wash skin running down his forehead to his ashy eyebrows. I smiled at him, his eyes danced in answer. My white sari had taken on the color of ash; my feet were covered with a fine dust. My sandals were the same color as my ashy skin. The fire gave off little heat now.

  I climbed back up and sat next to Ed. He took my hand with a squeeze of fulfillment. We waited a while longer for the ashes to cool. I felt such tenderness for Ed. I knew her drugstore reading glasses with the wild frames she loved so much were scattered all over the house. He’d be gathering those up in time.

  He’d be setting one place at the cabin table. They’d bought it at a barn sale in upstate New York and never did get the rickety out. They’d been living gingerly around that table for years, holding it down to avoid sloshing coffee or spilling wine as one or the other left or came back. There’d be some spills until he remembered he needed to hold it for himself.

  I thought of Jon, standing around with a bowl of soup, a chunk of bread and an empty dress. He’d stayed constant with that slim connection. He’d left the earth under me so I could live my life forward. It was the greatest gift. I wasn’t dead; I could dance in the dress, get my ass pinched, make the bed, and be there when he worried about Chana away from home. He needed me too. I wasn’t my mother or Margaret; he wouldn’t be the only one to come when called.

  Then, without ado, Margaret was swept into the river with everyone else. Her ashes would make their way to the Bay of Bengal. We would meet again, maybe in Hawaii, a drifting orange jellyfish. Or dancing on a grain of sand. Maybe she would lay with her wet dream boy. We can’t know.

  My thoughts hadn’t pulled sadness from the past, from all that not knowing, to this split open place in the universe where Margaret had howled, meowed and finally mewed her departure. There’d been no tears. I looked down the row; the Director was gone.

  We walked to the top of the steps and out onto the street where everything was still going on everywhere. It was too much for me so soon, to be back out in the chaos of horns and bright colors. I wanted to walk back along the river with Margaret one last time. Ed was tired; he was going back with the men in the car.

  He hugged me and said, “She’s happy, I can feel it.”

  He blew ash out of my hair and walked up the stairs. Chahel, Dilip and the man I didn’t know, were at the top smiling down on me.

  TWENTY

  I started back and just like our first walk, little girls in thin dresses with leaf bowls and marigolds skipped up on the uneven dirt path. There was no moon. It seemed dark and late for little girls to be out alone.

  I bought a boat and sent the shy flickery flame off to dance with the others. They joined with the reflection of stars on the water until it was hard to tell which were stars and which were flames.

  The Aarti was in its full-blown fiery ceremony. Hard-shelled bugs slammed into me. I wrapped the turquoise silk around my mouth and squinted as I passed. I was still alive and I didn’t want to eat a bug.

  After passing through the clanging and brilliance of fire on brass, and the confusion of rain beating bugs, it was impossible to pick out the path again in the dark. I turned back to the street. I would have to find my way home in the light and noise. I stumbled and a hand reached out and grabbed mine. A bolt of fear shot through me and I tried to pull away, but it held tight.

  “It’s okay,” said Jon. “It’s just me.”

  We walked home along the quiet ghats. The buffaloes had gone home for the night. Holy men lay on the stairs, ankles crossed on knees, and looked up at the stars. Rangy dogs were curled around dreams. Someone was singing an evening raga. A harmonium bellowed softly at the music school. Metal dinner plates chimed like cymbals in kitchen sinks. I heard a woman laughing softly, with
either a lover or a child. I’d been there so long, it sounded like home.

  Everything was quiet in the temple. We climbed the stairs to our room. I kicked off the ash-covered sandals and left them outside the door. I looked out the window as the river slowly carried Margaret on. Jon was with me. He sat quietly at the desk. I stripped off the smoke and incense filled sari and dropped it outside the door with the sandals. Then I bathed. I squatted by the spigots and scrubbed off soot and ash then rinsed over and over. I checked in the mirror, there was a trace of red between my eyebrows that might never come off. My hair was long, wet and loose. Jon was in bed and lifted the light cover. I closed the mosquito net around us and wrapped around him in the narrow bed.

  He rolled my pearls slowly back and forth in his fingers like prayer beads. My senses were so acute I could detect the muted odor of smoke and sandalwood soap in the wet string. I realized it was sandalwood that I had smelled in my grandmother’s dress.

  “I thought I saw you,” I said.

  “I was there.”

  “Did you meet Ed?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I wish you could have met Margaret.”

  “I couldn’t get here any faster.”

  “How’d you get a visa on a weekend?”

  “I got it the week you left,” he said.

  “Where’s Chana?”

  “Her mother took her to California.”

  We were quiet. Pale light from the house next door washed the walls of our room. We could hear family voices. The husband was talking as he came out on the balcony, his voice loud, and then muffled again as he went back inside and the screen door slapped behind him. Spice seeds burst open in a pan of hot oil. Water ran clattering into a pot. There was such clarity to it.

  “I’m coming home for a long time,” I said. “I want just one life, as much as possible.”

  “You sure? With Chana leaving it will be easier for me to travel.”

  “I’m sure. Is that okay with you?”

  “Of course, I just don’t want you to get bored living with me. We can work it out.”

  “I’m never bored. And this wasn’t a typical day.”

  “Good to know. What happened to worrying about the future?”

  “I don’t want to worry and live in parallel universes anymore. If we have a child, I want to be mom and dad. I want our grandchildren to know us. I’ll get work if I want it. We’re in the business of drama. This story could hit the front page of Variety. But I might try something new.”

  “Spring Moon,” he said. “If we have a daughter we could name her Margaret Spring Moon.”

  “I like that. We could call her Meggie. That’s what Ed called Margaret.”

  “What was your father’s name?”

  “Roger Chance.”

  “Chance?”

  “It’s a family name. Eric’s son is Adam Chance.”

  “So Roger Moon if it’s a boy?”

  “How about Chance Moon, Chance Jon Moon. Follow form. Do you think it’s too close to Chana?”

  “No. I think it sounds right.”

  “Ed sang to Margaret last night. It was the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “What’d he sing?”

  “’The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’. It was their theme song,” I said. “I always think of us when I hear Adele sing ‘Lovesong’.”

  “You know those words,” he said.

  “I do?”

  “You do,” he said. “You sing that one straight through.”

  He rolled my pearls back and forth.

  “I knew when I saw your face the first time,” he said. “You had a Cheerio stuck in your hair.”

  “I did?”

  “That’s what it looked like.”

  “I can’t believe you went for me with a Cheerio in my hair.”

  “It was more in spite of it. I don’t think my mind was real involved at that point. But I knew. I just didn’t know it all. ”

  “I did too. I thought you were salty and comfortable,” I said. “Do you want to talk about today?”

  “I don’t need to right now, unless you do.”

  “I don’t want you to worry about me anymore,” I said. “It doesn’t help.”

  “I’ll try. After today, I think it will be easier.”

  “Why?”

  “It took a lot to do that. You can handle what comes.”

  “Did you think I couldn’t? I inherited coal mine courage.”

  “I know. Let’s just make the best of it.”

  I put my mouth to his ear. “Are you talking like my father again?”

  “I hope not. I wasn’t thinking fatherly thoughts just then. I don’t even know why I said that.”

  “I know why. Will you remind me? When I get scared?”

  “I’ll remind you.”

  “I’ll remind you not to worry. Every second.”

  “Good luck with that,” he said. “You okay about today for now?”

  “Yes. The Director said it would be easy and it was. It might have been easier than good-bye. I’m sure it will hit me down the road.”

  “Or it could always be fine. It looked right. It’s what she wanted.”

  “It felt right. I’m glad you were here. I can’t imagine trying to explain that to you.”

  “I don’t think there’d be any way to understand it from a distance.”

  “So Chance or Meggie?” I asked.

  “Either one,” he said. “Or both.”

  We were quiet in our cocoon of mosquito netting. I could feel him against me. I slid down so I was looking into his eyes. “You don’t feel fatherly.”

  “It’s been nine months, it’s completely out of my control,” he said. “Do you think Margaret would be upset if we got started?”

  “You mean in India? She’d love it.”

  “I mean right now.”

  “She didn’t like wasted time,” I said.

  I slid my hand down his stomach. Ah yes. He was looking a little unsure, who could blame him after today?

  “How about you?” he asked.

  I licked his ear. He was butterscotch.

  “I’m absolutely sure we have to do this,” I whispered. “But we need to be quiet.”

  He smiled. “We can try.”

  The End

  Acknowledgements

  I want to thank my husband several hundred thousand times. He read every word of every draft. He rocked the promise—for better, for worse.

  Many thanks to Alice Acheson for resource recommendations, and to Carol Costello for it all. Even when we didn’t agree, it helped. To Emily Reed for her gentle but firm copyediting. To W. Bruce Conway for making it into a book. To my readers: Thrinley DiMarco, Renee Greif, and Courtney Nelson. To Gina Salá for her Shiva tweaks and bright light, to Adrien Taylor for his ode to marriage, and to Peg LeBlanc for her stunning bolts of clarity.

  To Sue and Denny Salveson for the hilarious dinner table reading, after way too much wine. Denny, you tried. To Sue Merry who said, “Write your heart out.” To the other three in my foursome for airing me out a few times a week. To my Downriggers carousers, you know who you are. And finally, to Max the dog for insisting on a long walk every day.

  All are held harmless with regard to the final product, especially Max.

  If I have stepped on any ritual toes, or made any cultural errors, I apologize. This is a work of fiction, and seen through the eyes of a young woman who is seeing it all for the first time.

  A Note About The Author

  Mary Ellen Courtney grew up in Southern California where she ratted around on the beach and daydreamed to avoid high school. Despite her sketchy attendance, she went on to love college. She worked in design and in the film business.

  Like most writers, her biggest adventures are all in her head. She lives on a small island with a large dog, a canary, a husband who understands, and a license to fly.

  Her third novel is scheduled for release November 2014.

  She may b
e reached at:

  maryellen@porterchancebooks.com

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