by T. Greenwood
“She’d kill me if she even smelled pumpkin on my breath. I’ll stop by for leftovers tomorrow,” Chuck said.
“Let me walk you out, then,” I said.
I smiled. He hopped into the truck and turned on the headlights. He rolled down the window and leaned his head out. “Don’t let Pete eat all that apple pie.”
By the time I went back inside, Peter had fallen asleep too, his fingers wound into Esmé’s long black curly hair. They looked alike in this light. Both tall and thin. Long fingers, eyelashes, and narrow feet. Esmé was curled up, and Peter’s head was leaning against the back of the couch. There was a faint smile on his face. I got an extra quilt from our bedroom and laid it across Esmé. Her curly hair spilled across the blanket’s edges. Jessica, after trying futilely to fit into the neat little mountain of quilt and legs and hands on the couch, gave up and followed me into my bed, curling up at my feet.
In the middle of the night, I crawled up into the attic study and picked up the phone. When Lily answered, I felt butterflies in my throat. Wings beating, threatening to choke me. A cold breeze blew through the cracked woodwork across my bare shoulders.
“Lily, I want to talk about Violet.”
I could hear her breathing on the other end of the line. Her throat was filled with butterflies, too.
“And I want to talk about Benny,” I said.
Lily was silent for several moments, and then she whispered, “That wasn’t Ma’s fault.”
My eyes stung.
Silence. And then, quietly, the sound of her hand brushing across the soft skin of her cheek, wiping at tears.
“You’re going to lose Violet and Rich because of what you’re doing. It’s the same thing. Don’t you see?”
Here is Benny. As tall as Daddy and wearing a pair of his rubber fishing boots. Lying on his stomach on a rock at the creek, staring into the water. He reaches deep into the current, trying to change the water’s direction with his hands. A leaf catches in his fingers. Frustrated, he shakes it loose against the muddy ground next to him.
It was July, monsoon season, and the creek was high from all the rain. Too high for swimming. Even for Benny. So instead, after Daddy went to work and Ma went to visit Lily in the hospital, I brought Benny to the creek to go fishing. I found a pole in the shed, and because of the rain there were worms everywhere in our muddy backyard. I didn’t know the first thing about fishing, or even if there were any fish to be caught in the creek. But I did know this—since Ma and Lily came home from Phoenix and Lily went to the hospital, Benny and I were better off outside the house. Inside the house, Ma’s storms were worse than any monsoon. Her anger came on just as quickly, dark clouds passing through the rooms of our house, the only warning a muffled sigh or the sound of her feet gaining momentum until she was standing at your bedroom door. But the monsoons left as quickly as they came, and the air was cleaner afterwards. There was a stillness after these storms that never seemed to come after one of Ma’s fits. Daddy said not to worry. That Ma’s head was full of concern over Lily, and that as soon as Lily came home everything would be back to normal. I didn’t remind him that there was no such thing inside our house.
This morning, I didn’t wait for the storm clouds to come. I woke up when the sky was still bright and hopeful and crawled into bed next to Benny.
“Benny, get up. Let’s go fishing,” I whispered.
His eyes popped open, alarmed and then soft. “We’re going to the creek?”
“Yeah. But you gotta get up quick while Ma’s still sleeping. And be real quiet.”
I found the pole in the shed and a rusty old tackle box. I dumped some old nails and screws from a coffee can and filled it with moist dirt and a few worms that I had plucked from the ground. Benny came outside, wearing Daddy’s gaiters, and closed the screen door softly. I smiled at him and motioned for him to follow me toward the woods.
We ran to the spot in the woods where we knew we were safe, and Benny let out a big sigh. “I didn’t make a sound. Not even the door.”
“I know, Benny,” I said. “That was good. Now come on.”
I pulled him by the hand and we continued through the early morning forest until we got to the tracks.
“Listen,” he said, dropping to his knees and pressing his ear against the ground.
“It’s fine, Benny. One just passed. I heard it when we were in the woods.” I was eager to get to the creek. He looked at me suspiciously and then scrambled to his feet when I stepped over the tracks and wooden ties to the other side.
“You should be more careful,” Benny said.
“I know,” I nodded. “Let’s go.”
The sky was bright and sunny. It was early in the morning, though, and the air was still, clean, and cold. By the time we got to the creek, the sun was warm on our backs and I knew it was going to be a hot day. Benny wiped the back of his sleeve across his face. He was sweating in his flannel shirt.
“Why don’t you take your shirt off, Benny?” I said.“You’ve got an undershirt on, right?”
He nodded and unbuttoned the heavy flannel shirt and pulled it off. He hung it from a tree branch that was jutting out over the rock where I was sitting. Then he stretched out across his stomach on the flat rock.
“What kind of fish are in there?” he asked, staring into the water.
“I don’t know,” I said, opening the lid of the tackle box.
“I ate a fish once that was rotted inside.”
“Hand me the pole?” I said, motioning to the pole I’d left leaning against the tree.
He reached for the pole and handed it to me. “I took one bite and I almost barfed.”
“It wasn’t rotten. It was just frozen still. Remember? It was a fish from the grocery store.”
“I hate fish sticks.”
“I know,” I said.
“I really hate ’em.”
I found a hook in the tackle box and tied it to the end of the fishing line. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but it seemed like it would work okay.
“Can you pass me the coffee can?”
“What’s in here?” Benny asked, peeling back the plastic lid.
“Worms. Now give it.”
“Gross. Worms!” Benny squealed and shoved the can toward me.
“Shush,” I said, looking up toward the overlook to make sure there weren’t any early-morning tourists spying on us.
I’d never put a worm on a hook before. It wasn’t as easy as you’d think. The first one was wriggling so hard it slipped right out of my fingers and fell into the water. I was able to do it the second time around, though, and then all we had left to do was to wait.
Here is Benny. Leaning into the creek, staring at the way the water changes the shapes of his hands. The creek is so full of sun that it could be colored glass. He is quiet here. Quieter than he has ever been. When he closes his eyes the sun is warm on his eyelids.
I knew we wouldn’t catch anything. But that wasn’t why we were here, anyway.
“Want to see what I found?” Benny asked.
“Sure,” I said.
He stood up and went to the tree where his shirt was hanging. He reached into the front pocket and pulled something out.
“It was on the floor to my room this morning.” He opened up his hand and sitting in his palm was a moth. It was one of the big ones that came in at night if somebody left the screen door open. They were clumsy, beating their big wings against the walls, looking for light. Sometimes there were six or seven of them hovering near the bare bulb that hung over the back porch.
“I’m gonna give it to Lily when she comes home from the hospital. She likes butterflies.”
“That’s not . . .” I started and then stopped.
He was looking at the moth in his hand and stroking its papery wings with one of his large fingers.
“That’s nice, Benny. She’ll like it.”
“She’s very sick,” he said, looking at me. “She might die.”
“She’s n
ot going to die,” I said.
“She might,” he insisted, and I let him.
“Put it back in your pocket,” I said. “You don’t want to lose it.”
Benny returned the moth to his shirt pocket and sat down next to me on the rock.
“I don’t think there’s no fish in there,” Benny said, shaking his head.
I shrugged.
Benny wanted to go swimming, but the current was too strong and the water was too high. “Put your feet in if you want,” I said. “But we gotta wait for the water to go down before you go swimming.”
“Will it go down today?” he asked hopefully, tugging at the rubber gaiters.
“Not today.”
After a while I gave up. I looked at my watch and saw that it was 11:30. Ma would be leaving for the hospital any minute. We could go home soon.
“What do you think?” I asked. “Call it a day?”
Before he could answer, thunder cracked above us. Like a slap. Benny’s hands flew to his ears.
“Let’s go,” I said. I yanked the pole out of the water. The worm was gone. I could see it being carried away by the current, white and limp, several feet away. I closed the tackle box and thunder rumbled deep and insistent. Closer and louder this time. It was a warning.
But before Benny had even pulled the giant rubber boots back on, rain began to fall in hard sheets. Guillotines of water sliced through the tops of the trees. Benny stumbled, falling forward onto his hands. When he stood up again his hair was already plastered to his head. He opened his mouth and let the hard rain fall into his throat.
I scurried to my feet and pulled his hand. “Come on, Benny.”
We ran up the slippery embankment. Benny’s boots made sucking sounds on the wet grass and mud. By the time we got to Highway 79, we were soaking wet and covered with mud. A couple of cars whizzed past us, their headlights shining through the darkness.
“I don’t got my shirt,” he said.
“That’s okay,” I said. “We’ll get it later.”
“I gotta get Lily’s butterfly.”
“We’ll find another one,” I said. His face was fallen, serious. “I promise.”
Benny hit his temples with his fists. His undershirt was so wet you could see his ribs through the ribbed cotton.
“Stop it,” I said.
Another car whizzed past us, splashing cold water close to our feet.
“It’s the only one I had,” he cried, pulling the hair at his temples.
“I said stop it,” I said, angry now. The rain beat and beat, like a thousand small fists pounding my skin.
Here is Benny. Standing at the edge of the road in rubber gaiters, in a tired undershirt drooping like a second layer of skin. Fourteen years old and as tall as Daddy. Crying like a baby. Tugging at his hair. Through a passing car window it might not make sense. Through rainsplattered glass you might think he was a man instead of a boy. Only when you slow down can you see that he is only a child. Only when you roll down the window can you see that the rain distorts things.
The woman was wearing a baby-blue shirt with embroidered silver flowers on each pointy collar. Her lips were the color of peaches. She smiled when she rolled down the window.
“You okay, honey?” she asked Benny.
Benny kept crying and tugging at his ears and hair.
“He’s fine,” I said.
“You sure?” she asked. “He doesn’t look okay to me.”
“He’s fine. I’m just taking him home.”
“Maybe I should drive you home,” she said, shaking her head. Her hair was frosted. White streaks on top of dark curling iron curls.
“That’s okay,” I said, blinking away the rain that had settled in the corners of my eyes. “We live just over that way.”
“You’re Indie Brown, aren’t you?” she asked then, reaching her hand toward me. “I’m Starry’s Aunt Cathy. Remember? I met you once when you came over to spend the night at the A-frame.”
I remembered her now. She and Starry’s mom were planning a Tupperware party that night. She was the one who showed Starry how to use liquid eyeliner. She also gave Starry a brand-new record player for Christmas last year.
“Oh, hi,” I said.
“Let me give you a ride.”
Benny was tugging at my elbow now. “Let’s go see Starry,” he said softly.
“No Benny,” I said.
When lightning split the sky in two, Benny covered his ears and started to twist his body back and forth.
“Thanks anyway,” I said and turned to Benny. “Let’s go.”
“Okay then,” Cathy said and started to roll up her window. “See you later.”
“I said let’s go.”
Cathy’s car drove away and I walked ahead of Benny all the way home. And after we were inside the house again, I didn’t offer him a clean dry shirt from the pile of clean laundry I found on top of the dryer. And I didn’t drag a clean towel across the top of his wet head. I just locked myself inside the bathroom and ran a hot bath. I would stay there until Ma came home. I would stay there until my skin was loose on my bones.
I turned the water on full blast and as hot as it would go. I stared at my face in the mirror until it disappeared behind a film of steam. I opened up Ma’s drawer and found her favorite bath crystals, the pink ones that smelled like roses. I dumped them into the running water and watched them melt at the bottom like hard candies.
I turned the portable radio on as high as it would go and peeled off my wet clothes. I put one foot into the tub, yanking it out when my skin turned bright red with the heat. Then I put it back in, biting my lip. Enduring the heat. I sat down and let my body get used to the water. The tub filled almost to the rim because Daddy had filled the drainage holes with caulking when we got a leak last year. Then I leaned my head back and went under.
On the backs of my eyes I saw the frosted tips of Starry’s aunt’s hair. She looked a little like the lady in the tube top at Rusty’s who had lost the tournament to me. I squeezed my eyes shut tighter until both of them disappeared. I imagined them rising like steam. Only transparent ghosts now. It was so hot inside the bathroom, it was almost hard to breathe. But I didn’t want to stand up to open a window. I didn’t want to get out of the water. I sunk deeper, the edge of the tub sharp against the bones of my shoulders. The water was cool enough now that it didn’t burn when I opened my eyes. Through my watery lenses I saw Lily’s sequinned costume. Silver sparkles and her baton slicing through the air like a sudden streak of lightning. I saw the silvery wings of the moth that Benny found, dead and dusty on his bedroom floor.
I sat up and wiped at my eyes, stinging from hot, watery roses. I reached for a towel and pushed it against my eyes to try to make the stinging stop. I opened the window and let the cold air rush in, let the steam slither out. It was still raining outside. I could hear thunder, far away now, but persistent.
I knew before I walked into the quiet kitchen that Benny was gone. I knew before I dropped the towel and pulled on my jeans and sweatshirt and a pair of flip-flops by the door. I knew the way I knew that the storm was almost over. That the sky would become benevolent again.
I let the screen door slam shut behind me. I ran through the rain-drenched field of heavy sunflowers to the woods. I cried as I ran, following the fresh footprints made by Daddy’s gaiters in the wet ground. I let each of my breaths resound like thunder in my chest as I reached the clearing and the train tracks.
JULY 28, 1978. Mountainview, Arizona. Here is Benny. Stumbling down the embankment to the spot where he’d left his flannel shirt hanging on a limb. Reaching into the pocket for the butterfly. He would leave it on Lily’s pillow so that when she came home from the hospital it would be there, waiting for her with silver wings. He is careful not to crush it when he puts it back into his pocket and puts his shirt on. It isn’t raining so hard anymore. It feels good on his neck and his hands. He climbs back up the embankment and walks along the road until it is safe to cross. And th
en he runs as fast as he can across the pavement. At the tracks he kneels to the ground and listens for the train. But it is only distant thunder that he hears. He presses his ear harder to make sure. Distant thunder, the passing storm. It is quiet. Only the sounds of his breathing. The sounds of the moth’s wings beating against his chest. And so he crosses the tracks, careful not to slip and fall. The light coming toward him could only be the sun emerging from the darkness of the stormy sky. The whistle, only wind through the trees. The rumble of the train only thunder beneath his feet. And then it is quiet. Not a sound. Not even a breathing sound.
After Benny was gone, I found the photographs that he and I had taken in the photo booth crumpled in a pocket. In the first photo, Benny’s face was a blur. In the second, he was completely missing from the picture. I lament the lost photo, the one that fluttered down from the top of the Ferris wheel. But it’s rare that there is clarity in recollection. Most memories are like the blurred photo of Benny’s face. Moments of bright light are rare and precious. This is what the lightning taught me.
It was cold and sunny and the streets were filled with people loaded down with shopping bags. Esmé ran ahead of Peter and me, peering into windows. She had a Christmas Club account this year into which she’d been putting five dollars a week. She clutched a brightly colored envelope filled with her savings. Peter and I always go shopping the weekend after Thanksgiving. Usually we are in Bar Harbor with his family, and I wind up bringing home bags full of tacky souvenirs: ladies made of seashells, rubber lobsters, music boxes with decals that say Bah Hahba. But this year we took Esmé into town. She thought this was perfectly wonderful; Bar Harbor was about as thrilling to her as going to the dentist, she said. We took her to the places we knew she would love: the stained-glass store, a vintage clothing shop, the bookstore. When it was time for lunch we decided to go to the Swan so that she could see Joe. She rushed into the kitchen as soon as we walked in, Peter went down to the office to pick up some paperwork to work on later, and I picked out a table for us near the window, facing the busy street.