This Could Be The Last Time, I Don't Know...

by Nancy Grossman-Samuel

             

            Margaret is looking around the room as if she doesn't recognize anything in it. She gingerly sits at her desk with its random and haphazard piles and shakes her head. “Shit.” She sighs deeply. “I might as well just give up. I’m 60 and my life is never going to change.” Glancing from pile to pile and stack to stack she says, “It’s always just going to be me, alone, with piles of shit. No friends, no purpose, just paper, books, and junk I must think holds the secrets of the universe.”

She knows she is again being overly dramatic. She has friends, and a life, but she, like Pig Pen, the character in Peanuts, is constantly trailing a cloud of stuff. She’s tried to get the stuff under control for years – since birth probably – her cross to bear. “Humph,” she says as she remembers her mother telling her college roommates not to let her have a chair because it would just disappear under debris. And she had been right. Within days, no chair, just a pile, mostly clothes, that looked like it was floating off the ground. Good thing her roommates didn't really care. No one except her mother really did. At least no one except her mother had ever said anything, and now, even though she had been dead for years, her mother's voice continued inside Margaret’s head. “I’m 60!” she shouted, “why do I still give a flying fuck about what my mother says – inside my head no less – she’s not even here!”

“Hey,” came a sleepy voice from the room down the hall. “No swearing!! And grandma is still here. I saw her ghost floating down the hall on my way to bed last night.”

“It’s not noon yet, go back to sleep!!”

She heard Sean laugh, and the sounds of Green Day, or Maroon Five, or one of those groups came drifting from the speakers in his room.

I’m going to die in this chair with piles around me. Sean and his sisters will come in with a dumpster and get rid of it all. Why am I holding on to so much crap? I will never read all these books, I will never again look at the majority of these papers even once I scan them in, and the clothes in my closet that will never touch my body, could clothe a small country – well, small city, maybe, and even the ones that do, the meager handful of things all my friends are sick of seeing me wear, will go to Goodwill when I'm gone! I really should just get rid of it all now before the kids have to. But then, I spent years cleaning up after them, maybe turn around is fair play. I just wish I could toss this stuff without feeling like I’m betraying someone! This is the familiar liturgy that goes through her mind pretty much daily, with and without the child revenge portion.
       She had done his laundry that day and found an old tee shirt of hers that her son had adopted – an old Rolling Stones tee that she had never gotten rid of, but also hadn't worn in thirty-plus years. It had been hiding in a box until her son rummaged around the garage one day and came out wearing it.

       She felt a pang that she should still have it herself until she slapped herself upside the head and remembered that it is better on his back now, then in a box in the garage until after she was dead – at least he was enjoying it. He even thought his mother a little cooler for having once worn a Rolling Stones tee shirt – and he felt that owning and wearing that shirt made him seem a little cooler too.

      So maybe the junk is okay? She allowed herself to question. Maybe it isn't the end of the world. Maybe it’s just my old stories that have no place in my life any more. “But I really don’t WANT all this shit all over the place!!” She screamed.

     “So toss it,” came Sean’s voice.

     “Mind your own business!” she called back. “I’m not talking to you, I’m talking to myself.”

     “Should I call a doctor?”

     “Ha ha. Go get your clothes. I washed them. They’re folded on the ironing board.”

     “Cool. Did you iron my shirts too?” asked his smiling face as he came around the corner to her office.

     “As if! If you want them ironed. Iron them yourself!”

     “But mom.”

     “Jeeze Sean, you’re 21, you shouldn't even be bringing your laundry here to do any more.  Well, you can keep bringing your laundry if you keep coming to visit, but I should not be doing it!”

     “I would have done it. You just don’t like it sitting by the garage door.”

     “You’re right. I didn't have to do it. Next time, you’ll do it yourself.” She called to his receding footsteps, proud of herself, but knowing in her heart that she could easily wind up doing it again, though truth be told, he did do his own laundry, sometimes. “Ugggg,” she said almost under her breath. “I am such a push over. I really need to stop doing that. I need to let him do things for himself.”

     “Did you say something, Mom? You’re mumbling!”

     “Not talking to you,” she said in a sing-song.

     “You really need to get married again. You’re talking to yourself too much!”

     “Thanks for the advice. I happen to like my company, and you keep coming back, so I must not be so horrible to be around.”

     “Nope,” said Sean heading back up stairs. “I got my laundry! Brought it up myself!”

     “Gold star for you bud."

     “Hey Mom, you ever going to clear off that desk?”

     “No. I’m going to let you do it when I die. Make you go through every piece just in case there is something important.”

     “There isn't,” he called from his room.

     He’s probably right, she thought. There’s nothing on this desk that is going to bring forward world peace or a cure for cancer, or even a small or medium sized windfall. So maybe I should just dump it all. But she knew she would not.

     So, once again, she clears a small space in front of her to which she can drag a few pieces of paper or random items at a time, and ever the hopeful optimist thinks this could be the last time. She starts to sing the lyrics, “This could be the last time/This could be the last time/May be the last time/I don’t know/Don’t know…," and turns to her Apple computer, opens Pandora and creates a new station – The Rolling Stones. But it isn't “The Last Time,” playing – it’s The Beatles – “Come Together.”

     “Yes!” she shouts and then sings matching the Beatles staccato, “One thing I can tell you is/You got to be free/Come together, right now/Over me.”

     She sighs, picked up a receipt, and says “Oh look – I was free to buy a dozen greeting cards I’ll probably never send. At least they were on sale!”

     The sounds came wailing from the Goal Zero speaker she’d gotten at Costco and for which there was a receipt around here somewhere. “’Got to be good looking cause she so hard to see…’

     Sean comes walking back down the hall wearing the Rolling Stones tee shirt and holey jeans. “Oh yeah Mom! Rock out!”

     And she did.

Turning Point

by Susan Matthewson

Eve still listened for the sound of his car, the sound of the garage door going up every afternoon at 6, even though Michael had been dead for six months now. It didn’t seem to matter where she was or what she was doing, she somehow ended up at home before 6 p.m. every day, sitting at the kitchen table, staring at the mudroom door, believing that this time the garage door would go up and he would walk through that door and life would pick up where it left off six months ago. She’d even moved the kitchen wall clock over beside the entrance door from the garage so she could watch the door and the clock at the same time.

She stared at the clock, watching the minute hand tick past the 12 to 6:01, then 6:05, then 6:15, and still nobody came through that door. She pushed herself up from the table as though she needed the leverage to lift off the chair like some old lady with creaky joints and arthritis who needed a boost. She was only 55, too young to feel so weary and lethargic, too young, she thought, to be a widow, too young to feel so hopeless, so lonely, so alone.

           

She started to prepare dinner, dinner alone now, so it was always soup or a sandwich, something simple that took no time or fuss. She no longer had the ability to plan a meal, even to think what to cook. She opened a can of tuna fish and walked to the sink to drain the liquid. She stared over the sink to the backyard at the neglected flowerbeds, the leaf-strewn patio, the yellowing potted plants placed here and there. Everything was straggly and overgrown. She sighed, thinking, I must do something about that…prune, cut back, and sweep. I must, I must, I must…the musts just went on and on.

“Ugh,” she said out loud. “I hate this. I hate this so much,” and then she picked up the dishrag folded neatly across the faucet, turned around, and threw it at the door to the garage, that door that was firmly shut, that simply was not going to open, that no one was going to walk through.

She opened the fridge to get the jar of mayonnaise out and then remembered that she was out. Great, she thought no mayo, no mustard, so no tuna fish salad. But she’d gone to the grocery store yesterday, hadn’t she? Isn’t that what she’d gone for—to stock up on mayo, mustard, other staples? What had happened? Where was the mayo? What had she done?

It was starting to scare her how often this happened--how she couldn’t remember from one day to the next what she’d done. She sat down at the table. Remember she demanded and rapped on the table. Remember what you did yesterday. She rubbed her forehead. What had happened between yesterday and today, right now, this minute?

The grocery store. Yes, she had gone to the grocery store. She’d been wandering down the cereal aisle and had automatically reached for the box of shredded wheat that Michael loved. She’d looked at the box in her hand and then time seemed to drop away. She’d stood there, lost in memory, hearing Michael teasing about her less than healthy eating habits--she who would grab a cup of coffee in the morning and then maybe a cookie or two while he sat at the table eating his shredded wheat and orange juice while reading the paper. He’d glance up with an amused smile as she grabbed a cookie and shake his head, so she’d dramatically take a huge bite of cookie and wink at him.

She might be still standing at the grocery store with that cereal box in her hand, lost memory  had not Tina Denovo come around the corner and nearly run her down.

“Eve, my goodness,” Tina said. “I haven’t seen you in such a long time. You haven’t been in yoga class for months now. How are you? How are you getting along?  I know it’s a tough time for you right now.”

Eve had blinked, put the box back on the shelf, and tried to clear her head.

 “Oh, Tina,” she said, “I, uh, I’m great, really great. I’ve just been busy, so busy. I’m coming back to class soon now, just as soon as…” and then she hadn’t been able to think of how to complete that thought. Just as soon as what…what was it she was so busy doing. She had stared back at Tina, shrugged her shoulders, and said, “Well, soon anyway, very soon.”

 Then Eve had stood there, smiling with not a single thought in her head as to what to say next.

           

Tina patted her on the arm. “It’s good to see you Eve. Do come back. It’ll be good for you to see friends. Come this week and we’ll all go out to lunch afterwards.”

           

“Yes, yes I will,” Eve said and then watched Tina move away down the aisle. And then what? Eve rubbed her eyes. What had she done then? Oh, yes, she could see it now...she’d just left the cart with only a bar of soap and a package of cookies in it right there in the aisle, turned around, and walked out.

But what did I do after that? What did I do from yesterday afternoon at the grocery store until right now, this very minute? She hadn’t a clue.

Okay, she thought, slow down and retrace your steps. She’d left the grocery store, she could remember that now, but she didn’t remember getting in the car. She gasped and ran to the door to the garage and opened it, convinced she must have left the car in the parking lot, wondering how she’d gotten home. But the car was there, her old reliable Ford Explorer, hunkered down like an old gray bear, sitting right beside Michael’s sturdy little red Toyota Camry.

But something else had happened, something just flitting around the edges of her memory now. She’d done something awful, something completely out of character, something that shocked her.

“Oh, my God,” she said with a disgusted shake of her head as the memory hit her. She’d been walking to the car in a daze, not really knowing what she was doing, just compelled to leave the store, to get out of there. A young couple had been walking toward her, smiling and laughing, holding hands, looking at each other. They were so wrapped up in each other they didn't notice her. She’d suddenly been furious and without thinking she purposefully, blindly, just walked right between them, making them break their handhold and part so she could get by.

Well, excuuuuse me,” the man had said, as the woman’s mouth fell open in dismay. Eve had paid no attention, didn’t apologize, didn't flinch, didn't turn around, just kept walking.

            

She started to sob and then choked it back. She had to leave.She had to get out of this house, away from the weight of memory. She ran to the bedroom, grabbed a suitcase, and started cramming clothes into it.

           

An hour later after a stop at the bank and the gas station, Eve was on the highway heading north with no idea where she was going. She could see the mountains on the horizon, faintly blue and shimmering in the sunshine. They seemed to beckon to her so she kept driving toward them without any clear idea of where she was going. She didn’t want to stop for a map because she worried that if she stopped, she’d turn around and go home. She felt rattled, anxious, sweaty, and on the verge of tears but having to concentrate on her driving was the only thing keeping her together at the moment. If she stopped, she feared she’d begin to think, and she didn’t want to think right now, she just wanted to keep driving.

           

She came to a conjunction of highways and several green directional signs, one with an arrow pointing to the west that said Five Lakes Basin. She took the exit. Five lakes. That’s where she’d go. Lakes had cabins. She’d find a cabin. Cabins don’t have garages with automatic door openers, there’d be no ticking clock on the wall. That’s all she wanted right now…a place with no garage door opener and no ticking clock.

The Scent of Long-Gone Lilacs

Susan Cameron, copyright 2013


Shut your eyes the next time you smell freshly-cut grass -- shut them and let that scent take you back in time and space. Where does your memory take you?

As for me -- there I was, pushing the rusty old lawnmower through the ankle-high grass on a warm, humid summer's day in Detroit. We didn't own the fancy kind with an engine. Who would waste good money on an expensive thing like that when there was a healthy twelve year old girl to push the old one? It was my job to mow the lawn, and I (sometimes) liked it. The front lawn was pretty basic, just two patches of grass flanking the front walkway to the stoop, but the garage-less back yard was a different thing entirely. I'd push the mower down the skinny walkway alongside the house and enter a world of scent and color.

I had to be careful not to mow too close to the border of lilies of the valley, so aromatic, their waxy creamy blossoms arching over the edge too near my whirring blades. I'd mow around the sun-dappled Rose of Sharon tree just as carefully; I didn't want to bump into it and disturb the bees humming deep in the pinky-purple trumpet-shaped flowers. There was a patch of wild violets hiding in a hollow next to the Rose of Sharon, beautiful tiny visitors my grandmother forced me to evict from the premises (I'd asked for special dispensation for them, but the judge said no). Further back, the snowball bush was in full bloom too; each snowball was comprised of hundreds of tiny white flowers, and every snowball was bigger than my fist. The bush had been there so long, it wasn't a bush any more. It was gigantic, so big you could barely see past it to the lilac bush in the corner.

The lilac bush was old too, and huge -- it had become a lilac tree. The dowager lilac tree draped her purple robes over the rickety wood-and-wire fence that separated the yard from the alley and hid the telephone pole that secretly propped her up. The individual blossoms were every color from almost blue to lavender pink to deepest purple, and the scent of the lilacs in bloom was so strong it could make you woozy. I'd cut the grass around her, then come back with shears, and fill one aromatic vase that would scent our entire small house.

I was thinking of those lilacs when I looked up the old house on Google. Detroit's bankruptcy is big news at the moment -- a million people have left, and so has hope. They say one picture is worth a thousand words:

https://www.google.com/maps?q=&layer=c&z=17&iwloc=A&sll=42.424350,-82.981418&cbp=13,182.0,0,0,0&cbll=42.424581,-82.981407&sa=X&ei=B1L3UYXwE8XgiwKi6oG4Dg&ved=0CC4QxB0wAA

I wonder if the ghosts of flowers haunt the ghetto?  Do the gangbangers and block bosses ever lift up their heads and sniff the air, confused by the scent of lilacs?

Love Street - Marcy Miller

by Liz Zuercher


The Millers live down the street from Little Chad, backing up to the hill.

Marcy Miller pulled into her driveway after taking the three big kids to school.  The baby had fallen asleep in the car seat and she was so preoccupied she grabbed the bag of stuff she’d picked up at the drug store and was in the kitchen unloading it before she realized she’d left him in the car.  That made her start to tear up and she shook her head hard to make it stop.

“Don’t do that,” she told herself out loud.  “Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry,” she said, willing herself to get a grip.  She went back out to the garage and opened the back door of the black Chevy Suburban and looked at her son.  So sweet.  So peaceful.  He was a really good baby.  She had nothing to feel sad about.  It’s what she’d wanted – a passel of children and a beautiful home and a great husband who would do anything for her – why didn’t she feel happy?  What was wrong with her?

Marcy unhooked the clasp on the baby’s seat harness and lifted his dead weight, feeling a twinge in her lower back.  At almost a year old he was getting to be a chunk of a baby.  Her other three had been slight like her, willowy and light, but Jack was going to be more like his dad.  Tall.  Solid.  Substantial.  Jack’s head fell to her shoulder and he whimpered like a kitten and then lifted his head, looked around and started to cry.

“Shh, shh, it’s okay, Jack,” she said quietly.  “We’re home now.”  She ran her hand over the top of his head, smoothing down the tufts of thick brown hair that stood on end, making him look like a little ragamuffin.  He was still in his footed jammies, the ones with Superman flying around, red and blue and yellow on a white background that had turned a little dingy no matter how much color safe bleach she put in the washing machine.  He quieted and laid his head back down on her shoulder, putting his thumb in his mouth.

The phone was ringing as she and Jack walked into the kitchen.  She put Jack into the high chair and picked up the receiver, but by that time the caller had given up.  She didn’t much care if they’d left a message.  She wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone anyway. 

Jack was starting to fuss, pounding on the high chair tray, so she grabbed the box of Cheerios from the pantry and poured a few onto the tray.  She filled up a sippy cup with apple juice, handed it to him and hoped he wouldn’t fling it across the room the way he’d just discovered was lots of fun.  Thank God today he just wanted to drink his juice and play with the Cheerios.  She couldn’t deal with a feisty kid today, not this morning.

She was making a slow cooker beef stew for dinner, so she started cutting up vegetables and getting the meat browned.  The onions made tears come to her eyes again and this time there was no stopping them.  Her period was late.  She looked at the drug store bag on the counter.  She was afraid to use the early pregnancy test.  She was afraid of what it would tell her.  God couldn’t be doing this to her again.  Please God, I just can’t do it again.  Isn’t four enough?  She put the butcher knife on the cutting board, pulled out one of the bar stools and sank into it, burying her head in her arms on the counter, tears flowing strong now. 

She prayed for forgiveness from God and her husband and their evangelical parents and her pastor for not wanting another child.  She prayed for it not to be true.  She prayed for guidance. 

“Jesus, help me,” she cried out loud.

Just then Jack let out a joyful squeal and threw the sippy cup across the room, where it hit the tile floor, popping the lid off and sending sticky apple juice all over the floor and the cabinets.  Jack laughed like a wild animal, so pleased with what he’d been able to do, and he looked at her with a big grin and sang out, “Mama!  Mama!  Cup!” 

Marcy couldn’t help herself.  She let out her own wild animal scream at the top of her lungs, and Jack’s face turned from delight to fear to clouds of concern.  His laughter stopped and he started to cry along with his mother.

* * * * *

Marcy didn’t listen to her phone messages until after she’d picked the kids from school, dropped Charlie off at soccer practice and took Tiffany to her dance class.  Carl would pick them up on his way home.  Ashleigh had a big project for school that involved looking through magazines and cutting out geometric shapes that occurred in nature, so Marcy had set her up at the kitchen table with a stack of magazines, blunt scissors, a glue stick and construction paper. 

She put Jack down for a nap and wished she could lie down herself, or fill the bathtub with hot soapy water for a long soak.  Or walk out the door and never come back, she thought.  The idea stopped her in her tracks halfway down the stairs.  She didn’t mean that, she told herself.  Yes you do, came into her head.  You certainly do want to run away, get as far away as you can.  But what good would it do?  Her family still needed her.  She had responsibilities, huge responsibilities that couldn’t be ignored.  She loved them all, but she was so tired.  It all felt so overwhelming.

She thought about the pregnancy test.  She hadn’t been able to bring herself to use it yet.  Instead, she had hidden it under her bathroom vanity, deep in the back of the cabinet behind a Costco-sized box of tampons that she hadn’t needed for at least six weeks by her calculations.  Maybe tomorrow she’d do the test.  Maybe she’d get her period tonight and wouldn’t have to take the test.

“Mom?” Ashleigh was calling her.  “Mom, I need help.”

“Just a minute,” Marcy replied.  “I’m coming.”

After she showed Ashleigh what a diamond shape was, she checked on her crock-pot stew and started putting together a salad, which she figured the kids wouldn’t eat.  She’d try anyway.  Maybe she’d get lucky.  Right.  Lucky would be not having another baby so soon, or ever again. 

She thought about calling her mother, and picked up the phone.  That’s when she remembered someone had called in the morning and she hadn’t picked up in time.  The line was beeping, so she listened to the message.  It was Kristen.  Something about a meeting of the moms tomorrow morning.  Something about Eddie Petrocelli’s fake animals.  Who cares, Marcy thought.  Who cares what he puts in his front yard?  What business was it of hers?  Of theirs?  But she erased the message and dialed Kristen’s number anyway.  Maybe it would be a distraction.

* * * * *

Marcy sat at the kitchen table by herself, lost in thought.  The kids had been fed and tucked into bed.  For the third night in a row Carl was working late.  She looked over at the empty place setting where he should have sat and eaten dinner with them, the stew that was his favorite and had been cooking all day.  She had set a pretty table with the slate blue woven place mats, the cloth napkins he preferred with a swirly pattern of blue and white and beige and the silverware they had gotten as a wedding gift from Carl’s grandmother.  Slate blue candles sat in pewter holders waiting to be lit, and the potted ivy in the center of the table reached out arms of green toward the edges of the table.  Carl liked the dinner table to be a calm, soothing place for the family to gather at the end of the day, which was hard for Marcy to manage with four children under the age of ten.  Still, she tried to make things nice for the family, for Carl. 

The stoneware soup bowl waited on the placemat for the stew to be ladled into it, but by this time, ten o’clock, Marcy was pretty sure Carl wouldn’t want stew when he got home.  He had called at four in the afternoon to let her know he’d be late again.  He wouldn’t be able to pick up the kids from their activities, so Marcy had had to wake up Jack from his nap and load him and Ashleigh into the Suburban to make the rounds for the other kids.  The three bigger kids were all starving when they got home, so Marcy scooped up some stew for them and sat them down at the kitchen counter to eat while she fed Jack and nibbled at a piece of sourdough bread she’d buttered and put under the broiler to go with the stew.  She didn’t bother with the salad for the kids – they wouldn’t eat it anyway and she didn’t feel like listening to the whining that would definitely follow the setting out of anything green and leafy.  Even though they didn’t finish all their stew, she let them have ice cream bars for dessert so she wouldn’t have to deal with the please, please Moms.  She didn’t have the will to be a diligent mother tonight, except when it was bedtime.   Tonight she was desperate to get all the kids to bed.

By eight o’clock the kids had all been either sent or put to bed, and Marcy curled up on the sofa to wait for her husband.  She watched a mindless show on television until nine o’clock, when she decided she’d better eat something and grabbed the salad from the fridge, poured some ranch dressing over it and picked at the bits of chopped tomato and lettuce.  Nothing tasted good.  She dumped the rest of the salad down the disposal, turned on the water and flipped the switch, welcoming the loud grinding sound that drowned out the noise of the thoughts in her head.  She tried to imagine another baby.  The thought of physically having another baby in the first place made her shudder.  And then taking care of it.  That was a whole other thing.  She stared down at the disposal.  She wished it were as easy as shoving the salad down the drain – not having a baby.  She was horrified that such a thought would pop into her head and she flipped off the disposal to stop the grinding.

“Forgive me, Lord,” she whispered. 

Standing at the sink, she looked out the window at her back yard.  She couldn’t make out much in the dark, but she thought she saw something moving beyond the rear fence.  She blinked her eyes to try and focus, but it didn’t help.  She couldn’t make out anything and figured she was imagining things.

By ten o’clock as she sat alone at the kitchen table, she knew what she would have to do.  Carl would never understand, but he would have to respect her decision, wouldn’t he?  She sat waiting to tell him that she thought she was pregnant again, and that she just couldn’t have another baby.

At eleven, she put the stew away and washed out the crock-pot.  She put away her husband’s soup bowl and set the silverware back in the drawer.  Picking up Carl’s placemat and pretty cloth napkin, she carried them to the dining room buffet and smoothed them into the top drawer.  The unlit candles and ivy plant stayed on the kitchen table like they always did.  Leaving the light on above the cooktop for Carl, Marcy climbed the stairs to the master bedroom and went to bed.  Her morning would start early, so she couldn’t afford not to sleep.  Sleep was elusive, though.

At midnight she heard the garage door open.  She heard Carl stumble over something downstairs and make his way up the stairs and into the bedroom.  She didn’t move from her side, her back to him, when he got into bed smelling like garlic and jasmine, rolled away from her and went to sleep. Marcy stared into the darkness.