by Helen Frost
A Rock So Heavy
Muriel
Oh, Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling …
Emma is singing, in the middle of the night,
a song we used to sing with Frank and Ollie.
I get up, put on a sweater, and follow
the sweet, sad song through the darkness
to where she is sitting on a tree stump on their side
of the creek, her voice as clear as the rippling water.
I sit down beside her. I couldn’t sleep, she tells me.
I never can, these days. (I know. I was not asleep myself.)
Nothing, she says, will ever be the same again.
I want to comfort her, but everything I think to say
sounds hollow: The war cannot go on forever?
(Yes, it can—for Emma, for her parents,
and in a different way for me, it will not end.)
We should be thankful we knew Frank?
(No amount of gratitude can make this loss less heavy.)
Emma, I finally say, thank you for walking to school
with Grace this year. She is so proud to be seen
with you—every morning she looks out the window,
waiting for you. When she catches her first glimpse
of you, she starts jumping up and down.
Emma smiles a little—Grace is a ray of light
in all our lives. It’s strange to go to school
without you, Muriel—nobody stands up
to Mr. Sander the way you did. And so many of the boys
have enlisted over the summer—it’s lonely now.
The creek is rushing past. We step to the edge
of the water and Emma tosses in a stone.
Then another, another, and another, each
larger than the one before, until she tries to lift
a rock so heavy she can’t budge it, and then she’s
crying, and all I can do is help her lift the rock,
swing it back and forth, back and forth again,
until together we can let it go, heaving it
out into the middle of the creek.
Blinding Light
Ollie
Just to check—a nightmare?
Stump of an arm? Does the pain mean
this all might be real? Pa’s letter … here it is.
“Frank was killed in action, Friday, August 31.”
That can’t be true. Frank—my closest friend! No.
I will wake up soon. Nurse, what am I doing here?
Shot just below my shoulder? Recuperating well?
Not possible. I’d remember that. Yes, it’s true—
while trying to save a wounded man. It was a
rat, not a man, I helped into a trench. No, a
tank was coming. Philip Ross—you saved
his life. Someone had a rifle. I tried to
jump into the trench. An explosion
burst. You’re lucky to be alive.
A Bullet and a Bandage
Muriel
Emma, I say, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.
What is it? She opens her mouth to speak,
but can’t, reaching out instead to give me
a sealed letter, addressed to me—in Frank’s
handwriting. It’s my turn to be speechless.
The Army sent a box of Frank’s personal effects,
Emma tells me, trembling. I found this tucked
into his Bible. My parents haven’t seen it—
I won’t mention it to them unless you ask me to.
She gives my hand a squeeze, then leaves me alone.
I open the envelope, take out the letter
(several sheets of paper). August 27, 1917.
Dear Muriel, Frank began, as if it were one
of a hundred letters he would write to me.
They’ll censor much of what I want to say,
but it might do me some good to say it anyway.
Save my letters, and when I come home I’ll fill in
the missing lines for you. The rest of the letter
may as well have passed through the censors’ hands—
I can’t read it through my tears. When I can stop
crying, I read on: I was well trained, he wrote.
I thought I understood why we were over here,
what we are being asked to do. At first, it made
some kind of sense. I even thought I’d be able
to explain it to you, and maybe change your mind
about our being here. But more often than not these days,
you are the one who changes my mind. Your words
come back to me when I have to pull a trigger, or
when I can’t sleep after killing someone. “Why
is everyone just doing what they’re told?”
you asked, that night after your graduation. Sometimes
I find that hard to answer. I blink, back up, read again:
“after killing someone.” Frank killed someone.
More than once? I take a deep breath, read on:
We’re lined up on one side of a line, other soldiers
line up facing us, and then we shoot each other.
That’s about the size of it. When you read
about the war in the papers over there, it sounds
like we spend our days moving lines around a map,
half an inch a week. It’s easier to make sense
of who’s the enemy and who is on our side.
But when you see a soldier lying facedown
in the mud and he’s been there a few days
and everyone is marching past him because
no one has the time to move him, or give him
a proper burial—maybe say a simple prayer
over his body—it barely matters what kind of
uniform he’s wearing. Dead bodies
look and smell the same, whatever side
they once were on. I know I shouldn’t question
what I’m doing; they drill it into us: “A split
second can mean the difference between
killing the enemy and being killed.”
But do I want to lose that part of myself
that insists on taking stock of what I’m doing
every time I do it? That’s hard to answer, Muriel.
I’ll put this letter away for a few days,
and then decide if I should mail it.
If you’re reading it at all, no matter what
they’ve crossed out before it comes to you,
at least you’ll know that I was thinking of you.
Your friendship gives me comfort
through long nights in the trenches.
I hope this finds you well, my dear.
With love, Frank.
A bullet and a bandage for the wound
it causes, all in one small envelope.
My questions may have caused a hesitation
that cost Frank his … his certainty.
His life? However long I live, it won’t
be long enough to silence that suggestion.
I stuff the letter deep into my pocket
(“my dear” … “with love”)
and walk to Reuben Lake. A harsh wind
whips up the water’s surface; somewhere
among the whitecaps’ tumult, a loon
cries out. Hard as I listen for an answer,
there is none.
Applesauce
Muriel
Bushels of red apples,
knife against my thumb,
peelings curling in a pile
on the floor. Grace’s chatter.
Mama’s admonitions and advice.
You’re awfully quiet, Muriel.
What’s wrong with you today?
Emma and her mother
stir the apples, keep
the pot from boiling over.
(Thank you, Emma,
for the question y
ou
refrain from asking.)
I have burned
the letter. I will never
tell a soul what it contained.
White Shirt Crumpled in the Mud
October 1917
Her Careful Signature
Muriel
Another letter from Aunt Vera—disappointing,
and peculiar. My dear ones, it begins,
As you may know, We are still here: you
Have probably finished your canning by now.
Has the pastor Stopped by to see you lately?
I hope to be Eating Thanksgiving dinner with you
next month. And then her careful signature.
Papa puzzles over it—why doesn’t she tell us
what is happening in prison? She must know we’re worried.
Mama pulls her lips into a tight line.
Papa hands me the letter, and I read it four times.
It’s not like Aunt Vera, I point out, to make errors
in capitalization. That’s her job, as a secretary,
to correct the errors other people make.
We analyze the words she has mis-capitalized:
We … Have … Stopped … Eating. A hunger strike?
It’s the only power they have—to refuse
what their jailers try to feed them.
Papa runs his hands through his hair, leans against
the door, and lets out a long, low whistle.
These women mean what they say, he says.
This could go on awhile. It could get worse.
What is Papa saying? They can’t refuse
to eat forever—can they? If they could,
no one would let them die of starvation—would they?
Either the president will issue an order
to release them, or the women will start eating.
I can’t imagine (though I can’t stop trying)
how it could get worse.
I Know Instantly
Muriel
Ollie! I’m hanging out the clothes,
pinning Papa’s church shirt to the line,
and I look up to see the merest speck
off in the distance, coming closer. I know
instantly it’s Ollie—I recognize him by
the rhythm of his walk. I drop the white shirt
in the mud and run so hard I’m barely breathing
by the time I’m close enough to see his smile.
I throw my arms around his neck and he
sets down his duffel bag and puts …
one arm … around me …
Across my left shoulder and around my back,
the absence of Ollie’s right arm spreads
icy fingers over me. I pull away and stare—
not at my brother’s face (all I saw
when I ran to him)—no, not at Ollie’s face,
but at the sleeve pinned to his shirt. I blurt
out my question, Where’s your arm? and he
draws in a breath, as if to answer quickly
before the question finds a way to push
the two of us apart. But then there’s Mama.
She’s been running, too, her hands white
with flour, and before Ollie has a chance to answer,
Mama sweeps my words away: Muriel, she gasps,
what kind of question is that?
It’s the same kind of question as the look
on her face—joy and horror, pride and
anger, all rolled into one. She looks at Ollie’s
empty sleeve, and at his face. She doesn’t give
the smallest glance in my direction
even as she shushes me. Oliver, she says,
we praise the good Lord you’ve returned.
She puts her arm through the elbow he still has,
and turns with him toward home.
I hope Ollie doesn’t notice, when I reach
for his other hand, how my hand flutters
back down to my side like a sparrow
shot out of the sky. I pick up Ollie’s duffel bag
and walk along beside him. Mama chatters
all the way home—so that I won’t, I suppose.
Or—so that Ollie doesn’t have to?
Blackberry Jam
Emma
Stirring jam in a cast-iron pot,
I see, through the window, Muriel run
up the hill. She slows to a walk, then, barely
moving, approaches our door. I have never known
Muriel to hesitate when she comes into our house. I
open the door. Is something wrong? (Though there is
also a deep joy in her eyes.) Muriel … what is it? Has
something happened? She starts to answer me just as,
behind us on the stove, the sugar and blackberries
boil over. Mother comes rushing in: Emma, why
did you stop stirring? Then she has her own
reaction to Muriel’s expression. She stares
as Muriel answers: Ollie is home. One
arm is … She can’t finish. What?
Mud
Muriel
Late afternoon, bitter wind,
eight pairs of socks half frozen
on the line, Papa’s white shirt
crumpled in the mud where I
dropped it when I ran to Ollie—
yes, I have to wash it out again.
I have to rinse it, wring it out,
and hang it on the line to dry.
I am not complaining—
look what I can do—I hold the shirt
with one hand while I reach
for a clothespin with the other!
Oh, Ollie …
Changes
Ollie
Raspberries have come and gone.
Rows of cornstalks stand like soldiers:
one strong wind could blow them all down.
I was in the war for three weeks, not counting
the time in the hospital, and everything is different
now. Muriel and Grace ask if I want to join them in a
card game. Sure, I say, I’ll shuffle. Oh … um, let’s play
partners. Here, Muriel—you can shuffle. I keep looking
down at my sleeve and thinking of things I won’t ever
be able to do again: tie a fishing fly, hammer in a nail.
Why me? I ask Pa. He looks at me long and hard.
Son, that question leads nowhere. These old
crows around here still know you. The
past is past. You’re home now.
This Changes Everything
Muriel
At least you have your brother home,
Emma says, which means I can’t talk
to her about my horror. I keep picturing
the moment Ollie’s arm was torn from him …
What did it look like? How close did he
come to dying? He says he can’t remember,
but maybe he remembers in some awful,
wordless way. He’s sleeping all the time—
Mama says he’s healing, and we should
let him be. Beyond that, she doesn’t say
a word about the way this changes
everything for all of us. What does Mama do
with rage she thinks she shouldn’t feel?
If God knows what he’s doing, and
the president is worthy of our trust,
where does Mama look for reasons
to explain why she is cutting Ollie’s food
the way she used to do when he
was two years old?
Take This Bread
Emma
Everything that used to be easy is hard.
We’ve always run so freely across the creek and back.
Now when I say, Let’s go over to welcome Ollie home, Mother
answers, I’m sorry, Emma, I can’t, just yet. You go. Take this bread.
I would give my
own right arm, she says, to have Fra—I’ll go when …
Well, I don’t know when, exactly. Mother simply can’t, so I go alone, and
find: Ollie asleep, Muriel scolding her hens as she throws them their grain,
Grace clutching her doll in her playhouse, and Mrs. Jorgensen cleaning a rain
gutter, scrubbing at it with such ferocity she slices the palm of her left hand
on the sharp edge, shakes off the blood, but doesn’t stop to wash it. Then
she goes right back to work, oblivious. I offer the bread: Mother said
to give you this. She’d have come, but she had to … do some other
things. Mrs. Jorgensen stares at me. Shouldn’t you wash that
cut? I ask. Oh … yes. Her blood drips across the yard.
Phantom Pain
Ollie
Pain in a missing limb is common,
Pa tells me. They call it phantom pain. An itch I
can’t scratch. I try to imagine some way a mosquito could
bite an arm that isn’t there, but it’s so obviously not possible.
None of this makes sense. And another thing—or the same thing?
Why does the sight of our pigs wallowing in mud behind the barn
send me running into the house for shelter like we’re coming to the
end of the world? I’ve never been afraid of pigs! I see them in their
sty after a rain, and I start to shudder so hard I can barely stand up.
One image—pigs in mud—immediately brings another: dark
night, heavy rain, a muddy boot. And then my mind goes
blank. Pa says, It’s hard not to think about such things.
Ma says, Leave the war behind now. Rest your
brain. But my brain won’t rest.
What Kind of Luck?
Muriel
Everyone is telling Ollie not to think
the things he can’t help thinking.
Mama cautions me: Don’t mention anything
that will remind him of the war. But what if
Ollie wants to tell someone what happened,
like Frank tried to tell me those hard
things he couldn’t say to anyone in France
or in letters to his family? Let’s go out
for a walk, I suggest to Ollie, after supper.
We walk in near silence for an hour—a few
small comments about the calves, the land,
the weather. When we come to the pigsty