Written on My Heart

by Morgan Callan Rogers

  “We just made time stop,” Carlie said.

  Time doesn’t stop, Carlie, I said to her now, cross that I had believed her, or anything she had ever said.

  “You home?” Dottie hollered from the front hall, interrupting my memory.

  “No,” I said, and she tromped onto the porch and sat down beside me.

  “You might think about putting on some lights. It’s dark, case you haven’t noticed,” she said. “You coming to the beach?”

  “Travis smiled for me.”

  “When?”

  “Couple of minutes ago.”

  “Ain’t that something.”

  Flames from the newly lit bonfire licked a hole in the sky.

  “Let’s go,” Dottie said. “Smell that pig.”

  “Suck-yoo-lent,” I said.

  I never was much for hanging around, let alone hanging around with a sleepy baby boy in my arms. The minute I stepped onto the beach I wanted to leave and go back to the rocking chair, but I fought the urge and sat down in one of a line of lawn chairs, next to Ida. “Billy couldn’t make it,” she said. “Not feeling well.” The bonfire mirrored the sadness in her dark eyes.

  “That’s too bad,” I said. She reached for Travis.

  “Get some food,” she said, and I headed over to the table Ray had set up and loaded up a plate with my own potato salad, some chips, and pork. On the way back to the chair, something tapped on the door of my maternal instincts and I looked around.

  “Where’s Arlee?” I asked Bud as he tended the bonfire.

  “With Maureen,” he said.

  “Where’s Maureen?”

  Bud straightened up and yelled her name. No answer.

  I put the plate on the chair. “Maureen,” I called. “Arlee?”

  No response.

  “They might be in the house,” Ida said. “Check there.”

  “Saw them a few minutes ago,” Bert said.

  “I’m sure they’re around,” Madeline said.

  I walked up the path to Ida’s house and called out their names. No answer. The lights in the Buttses’ house were off, so I passed it by and continued to Grand’s house. No one. I headed up the hill, almost bumping into Stella as she headed down to the fire.

  “You seen Maureen and Arlee?” I asked her.

  “No,” she said. “I haven’t. They lost?”

  “No,” I said. “No, they’re around somewhere.”

  “Want me to help . . .” Stella started to say, but I waved her off.

  Calm down, I told myself. Nothing’s wrong. But every nerve twitched. Stop.

  A bubble of air stuck halfway down my throat and I struggled to take a decent breath. I stood for a few seconds, my hands on my knees. As I told myself to cool down, someone scuffed on the pebbles on the road. I straightened up to see Bud coming toward me. Before I could say anything, he put his arms around me and held me close. “Don’t go all wacky,” he said. “They’re around.”

  “Where are they? Maureen? Arlee?” I yelled.

  Bud let me go and peered up at Ray’s store. “What’s that?” he said. A cold, white light fizzed from the dark of the porch. A second light joined it, then a third. Sparklers.

  A little girl laughed and I was gone before Bud could even move. “Arlee!” I shouted and hit the porch without touching the stairs. Maureen was crouched next to her. Their faces glowed as the sparklers spat silver light.

  “Why didn’t you answer me?” I yelled at Maureen. She jumped up. “I’ve been calling and calling to you.” Arlee began to cry and I picked her up.

  “I’m sorry, baby,” I said, stroking her hair. “Mama didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “Florine, it’s okay,” Bud said. Maureen started to cry.

  “Jesus,” a man’s voice drawled from the dark of the porch. “Take five, for chrissake.” Then he lit a sparkler. Glen’s black eyes reflected two snappy stars in their pupils. “They been up here with me.”

  “Well, hell in a handbasket,” Bud said. “Welcome home, soldier!”

  “Glen!” I said, trying to regroup. “You’re back! When did you get home?”

  “Last night. Stayed at my mother’s house in town. Watched the stupid-ass parade. Hitched a ride down.” The sparkler in his hand fizzed itself out and we were all wrapped in darkness. Maureen sniffled, which made me feel awful.

  “You home for good?” Bud asked.

  “Most of me,” Glen said. He lit another sparkler and turned to the right. Where his left ear had once been was now a ragged hole in his head. We all gasped.

  “Blast took it straight off. They was calling me van Gogh over there. Hush your crying and come here,” he said to Maureen, and she burrowed against his chest for a hug. “Florine’s an old meanie,” he said.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” I said. “Maureen, I got a thing about not knowing where someone is. It scares me not to know. I just need to know where you’re going.”

  “Lighten up,” Glen said. “Everything is all right, Florine.”

  “It is now,” I snapped, hurt by Glen’s apparent lack of understanding as to why I worried. “Come on, Arlee.”

  I began to walk down the stairs, intending to go down to the beach, gather up Travis, and take both my children home. Then I decided to tell Glen what I thought about his telling me to “lighten up.” I turned back to tell him just where I thought he could stick his singsong, sneering tone.

  BOOM!

  Ray had set off something big. Glen shoved Maureen away and hit the porch deck, facedown. He covered his head. “Shit,” he said, his voice muffled by the porch boards. “Fuck the fuckers.”

  20

  So, Glen came home, minus an ear. He was also missing his old personality. On July 5, before Bud or Arlee was up, the sound of heavy footsteps thudding down the road took me to the kitchen window. As I peered through a thick fog, Glen came marching, one by one, toward the water. He caught me watching him and nodded without smiling as he headed toward the harbor. The fog swallowed him up before the sound of his footsteps faded away.

  Bud thumped downstairs shortly after that. He had come home at about two a.m., stinking of beer and beach smoke. He walked into the kitchen and croaked a hello to me. I poured his coffee and, despite the steam rolling off the top of the mug, he swallowed it in three big gulps. “Damn,” he said. “Too easy to party here. Probably be a lot better off up in Stoughton Falls.”

  After the previous night’s shambles, I was almost ready to agree with him. Bud had coaxed Glen up off the porch deck, and had pointed out to him that these were fireworks, for chrissake, nothing more, and that there was food waiting to be eaten on the beach. Arlee and I had followed behind my husband and our shaky friend, while Maureen brought up the rear. I could tell by the distance between us that I had roughed up her feelings, but I wasn’t ready to say something comforting. When I reached Grand’s house, I ordered Bud to bring Travis home, which he did before leaving again.

  Arlee and I watched Ray’s fireworks from the porch as she sat on my lap in the rocker. She must have sensed the rawness in my heart because she stayed quiet, except for the oohs and aahs we made when fire-sparked emerald, blue, red, and yellow flowers made their brief ta-das before melting away into the night. Travis wasn’t impressed. He whimpered and whined in his bassinet until they were through and I put them both to bed.

  “More coffee,” Bud muttered. “I need more. Now.”

  “Arlee still sleeping?” I said as I poured him a cup.

  “Yup.”

  “Glen’s down at the Florine.”

  “Said he was going to get going early.”

  “When’s she going in the water?”

  “I don’t know. Up to him.”

  “He going to be okay, you think?”

  Arlee called from the top of the stairs, “Daddy?” He headed that
way, ignoring my question. I knew the answer anyway. It would take a while, if ever, for Glen to get back to the friend we had known. Still, he was one of us, no matter what.

  I sat at the kitchen table and fed Travis as I listened to Bud and Arlee wrestle over what she wanted to wear for the day.

  We finished packing for Stoughton Falls over the next couple of days. So many times I wanted to blurt out to Bud that he could go to hell, we were staying, but after I played how that might go over a few times through my head, I kept quiet. It was hard to get everything done without giving myself over to the sight of the come-hither water beckoning me closer. At one point, I went down and walked the beach alone, letting the little waves stroke the arches of my feet. You’ll be back, they whispered before the pebbles on the beach swallowed them up.

  The last thing I did was to wash, dry, and put the red ruby glass collection back in the polished cabinet. Memories of Grand floated through my mind as I worked. I smelled her in the dish soap and in the lemon oil I used to buff up the shelves. But I hadn’t traveled too far down memory lane when Dottie called, “Knock, knock,” and let herself into the house.

  “Looking good,” she said.

  “I don’t want to go,” I said.

  “You’ll be back.”

  “Won’t be the same. Can’t settle my heart in a place I’m always going to leave.”

  “’Course you can,” Dottie said. “Click your heels three times and say, ‘There’s no place like home.’”

  “Okay, Glinda.”

  Dottie snorted. “Never liked her. Couldn’t figure out why she didn’t tell Dorothy to click her heels before she left Munchkin Land. Would’ve saved ’em all a shitload of trouble. ’Least the wicked witch didn’t pussyfoot around about what she was up to.”

  “I liked Glinda’s dress, though,” I said. “And that bubble she rode around in.”

  “I’d rather ride around on a broomstick, writing things in the sky. Not to change the subject, but what the hell is wrong with Glen?”

  “Bud says he’s not okay.”

  “Better figure it out,” Dottie said. “Else I’ll knock him sideways.”

  “I think he’s already been knocked sideways and a few other ways,” I said.

  “Well, we’ll see about that,” Dottie said. We walked over to the kitchen window and looked down at Glen, Bud, and Bert standing around the Florine, talking. If I thought about it long enough, I could swear Daddy’s ghost stood with them.

  “Leeman will be happy she’s going back out on the water,” Dottie said.

  “Dammit, stop reading my mind,” I said.

  “You have any cookies in that jar?” she asked.

  “Fresh batch for you,” I said. “Eat them slow. Last ones this summer.”

  The day before we left, I went down to Ida’s house to pick up my kids, and I made my peace with Maureen. I found her and Arlee sitting on the living room floor, coloring in a book. Arlee scribbled thick blocks of lavender over the outline of a fairy. Maureen’s fairy, on the page next to Arlee’s, wore bright oranges, yellows, and reds, all within the lines. Neither looked up until I tapped on Maureen’s back. “Come with me,” I said. She trailed me through the kitchen and into the dooryard.

  She shaded her eyes against the summer sun. “I’m sorry I made you worry,” she said.

  “I’m sorry I hurt your feelings,” I said. “I get nutty when I can’t find someone. It doesn’t have to do with you. I’ve just had some bad luck in that department. You know how Dottie is the queen of bowling, and your mother is the queen of Jesus and Madeline might be the queen of painting and Evie is the queen of trouble? Well, I’m the queen of lost things.”

  “Because of your mother,” Maureen said.

  “Yes, and Grand, and Daddy,” I said. “But anyways, I’m sorry. You’ve been so good with Arlee. And with me. With all of us.”

  “I’m going to miss her,” Maureen said, “and you.” Her face crumpled and tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes. “I love you all, so much.”

  “We love you too. Keep our secret place special for us while I’m gone,” I said.

  “I will,” she said. She smiled her brother’s crooked smile. “What am I the queen of?”

  “Kindness,” I said without missing a beat. “And legs. You have great legs.” Maureen giggled and turned red.

  I held out my arms and we hugged for a few seconds, and then we went back inside.

  We left on Sunday night at about nine o’clock because Bud had to work on Monday. We’d planned to leave earlier, but goodbyes and supper, cooked by Ida, had kept us too late. As it was, we would be reaching Stoughton Falls sometime around midnight. We put pajamas on Arlee and set her in the backseat. Travis slept in his car seat beside her. Bud and I didn’t talk until we reached Stoughton Falls. I put the kids to bed and we opened windows and doors to make it less stuffy. We went into our bedroom and I lay there, listening to cars zipping to and from Portland.

  Through closed eyes, I took a trip around Grand’s side yard and its gardens, stopping at the wall of orange day lilies, which had just bloomed a few days earlier. Well, they would do it without me admiring them. I hoped that Dottie would take the time to say hello to them in her comings and goings.

  “Thank you,” Bud whispered next to me. He took me in his arms and we became each other’s homes for a while.

  21

  It was good to wake up next to Bud every day. And I could focus more on the kids, get to know them better. For instance, I found out how much fun Arlee could be. Down at The Point, she had spent the best part of who she was with Maureen and Ida. I only got her back when she was tired and ready to show me her bad side. But during the long summer days at the trailer, she and I danced and sang to the radio in the backyard. She didn’t care that I sounded like a crow with sawdust stuck in its craw.

  Travis was sweet beyond words. He smiled and kicked and cooed for hours. Arlee and I loved singing to him. I whispered goofy things into his ear and called him “my sunny, funny boy.”

  The three of us went out into the front yard during the early afternoons when it was shady, or we had a picnic in the backyard. Bud bought an umbrella for the picnic table and a wading pool for the kids, and that’s where we went when August sweated drops of hot sun onto the Earth.

  We learned to trip trap over the bridges spanning the bad days, when Arlee couldn’t figure out if she was coming or going. On those days, her moods were like the crayons she loved, indigos and lavenders. On those days, my colors had to be pale and neutral, grays and browns. Once in a while, hot orange-reds, yellows, and bright magentas surfaced and whirled around the both of us like mad sparks. When that happened, I breathed and remembered Grand’s patience with me.

  One late afternoon, I knuckled down to the task of digging out a couple of flowerbeds while Bud and Travis watched a baseball game on TV. Arlee carried around a plastic watering can and talked to the grass. I planned to plant groups of tulip and daffodil bulbs and I hoped beach roses would grow. “They’ll grow anywhere,” Grand had once told me. “Rain, sun, sandy dirt, and they’ll be happy.”

  Bud knocked on the picture window and when I looked up, he mouthed, “Phone.” I scooped up Arlee. “Wahwah,” she whined.

  “Jeeza Arlee,” I said, and she laughed as I carried her upside down into the trailer.

  “It’s Dottie,” Bud said from his chair.

  “Where’s Travis?” I asked.

  “Said he had to go see a man about a horse,” he said.

  I put Arlee down. “Could you get her ready for bed now?”

  Bud groaned, but when Arlee clapped her hands at him and laughed, he melted. He carried her toward the bathroom.

  “What?” I said. “Did I get more letters?”

  “Nice,” Dottie said. “What happened to hello? And no, I ain’t seen any strange letters.”

&nb
sp; “That’s a comfort. How’s tricks?”

  “Good,” Dottie said. “Place is haunted, though.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I sit down after supper, and someone tells me to get off my ass and do them friggin’ dishes if I know what’s good for me. Only she don’t say friggin’ and she don’t say ass.”

  “I know that ghost,” I said.

  “Kind of weird being here without you.”

  “I miss it.”

  “I bet. Things okay up there?”

  “Better than I thought they would be,” I said. “I’m making a garden. Love having the kids to myself. Good seeing Bud every day. It’s okay.”

  “Speaking of kids,” Dottie said. “Guess who’s pregnant?”

  “You?”

  “That’d have to be a virgin birth,” she said. “Evie. Madeline’s fit to be tied.”

  “What’s going to happen?”

  “Evie thinks she’s going to quit school and raise it. Bert and Madeline tell her that’s not going to happen. When this summer ends, she’s going to have to get through school for a couple of months, no matter what. She ain’t showing much, yet. But she says, ‘Florine quit school and she’s okay.’”

  “Glad I could set such a nice example,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Dottie said.

  “What did Bert and Madeline say about that?”

  “Took ’em back, for a few seconds. Then they said, ‘Well, you just call her and ask her about quitting school. She’ll tell you what’s what.’”

  “You think I’m the one to talk to her?”

  “Hell, no. I told ’em not to get you into this. I said, ‘She’s got her own damn story.’”

  “I do. I got my own damn story. When she due? Who’s the father?”

  “Mid-December. She’s not saying.”

  “Not Glen?”

  “No, Christ, no. I asked him. ‘Why the fuck would you think that?’ he said. Got real mad at me. ‘How come everyone thinks it might be me? You all think I’m a fuck-up?’ he said. Went on and on. Had to back up, he was spitting on me so much.”