{ Diane Dupree-Dempsey }
An infinite monkey writes...
An Infinite Monkey Writes: Home Fires
After a moment of sleepy disorientation, Julianne knew it was the smell of coffee that had wakened her. She caught her breath and peered into the darkness of her room. There was nothing for her searching eyes to see, even if they could have broken through the blackness of the night, but she could not close them again. Slowly, the homey smell of frying bacon began to seep into the room. Yesterday, it had been a sausage.
As she had known it would, the gentle clatter of dishes followed the smells. Julianne clutched the blankets tighter around her chin and waited. The voices began, low and soft. It was the gentle murmur of early risers being thoughtfully quiet as they spoke. The next sound, a new one today, sent Julianne deep under her covers, quivering with terror. This new sound was perhaps the worst of all; the low-throated chuckling of her mother’s laugh. A laugh that had burned away with the rest of my family more than twenty years ago.
***
Plopping into her chair and slipping on her headphones, Julianne tried to avoid noticing the frantic gesturing of her co-worker. Melanie, however, wouldn’t be ignored. With a quick glance over her shoulder, she leaned forward and grasped Julianne’s shoulder.
“She’s been looking for you,” she said, “Man, you gotta start getting here on time! She’s pissed now! I think Donna had to take an ad from Thomas’s Lumber. I don’t think they were very happy that you hadn’t called them yet!” Melanie stopped talking and peered at her friend. “Are you still having those dreams?”
Julianne didn’t answer. She shook her head, not in denial of the question, but to cut the conversation off. Melanie watched her as she punched her phone button and greeted a waiting client, “Classified Ads, this is Julianne, may I help you?”
Melanie punched the button on her own phone and shook her own head. She didn’t want to be angry, but she was getting fed up with Julianne.
For a moment, Julianne thought about getting up and heading straight for Miss Moore’s door. She might as well get it over with. This time it was likely to be more than a warning. Before she could act, though, Miss Moore opened the door and beckoned to her.
“Close it,” Miss Moore said. Without looking up from the file on her desk she waved at a chair and added, “sit down.”
Silence settled into the room. Julianne felt the weight of it pinning her to her chair. She almost screamed into it. She might have broken down and done just that, but Miss Moore finally spoke.
“Do you want to try to explain what is going on with you? It is obvious, even to an ‘old bitch’ like me, that you are having some sort of personal problem. Not only do you come in late on a regular basis, but you are a mess when you do get here. Look at you. Have you even slept lately? How about an iron, do you own one?” Miss Moore gave her a moment to answer before she continued in a harder voice.
“Your work has also become less that adequate.” She waved a pink phone message slip at Julianne. “I got a call this morning from Carter’s Tractors. Their ad has disappeared from the paper. They are one of your customers, aren’t they? No one called them to ask if they wanted to renew or drop the ad; it simply dropped out. That is not acceptable.”
Julianne stared down. Her fingers, with their chewed-up fingernails, lay on her lap. What could she say? A broken heart? A financial mishap? A death in the family? She smiled inwardly at the irony of the last excuse. How could she tell her life was in turmoil because she was having good dreams?
Julianne tried to look up, to offer even with a look, some answer. She had no answer to give and her eyes refused to meet her supervisor’s.
Miss Moore waited, hoping without much real hope that Julianne would give her something to work with this time. She liked Julianne and more to the point; the girl had been a good employee for several years. She’d been, in fact, one of her best Ad-Visors until – until what? What had changed her?
With an exasperated sigh, Miss Moore pushed a document toward Julianne. “Sign this,” she said, “It is your last written warning. Next time this happens, you are gone.” She shook her head. Her voice softened a little. “Julianne?”
Without looking at her boss, Julianne signed the document and slid it back across the desk. For a moment, redemption had been possible, but the moment had passed. Miss Moore added the document to the file, closed it, and dropped it into her out basket. Julianne was dismissed.
Over salads and diet sodas, Julianne told Melanie about the latest dream.
“You know how they have been getting more detailed? First there was just coffee, then bacon or sausage, you know, just smells, then the sounds started…” Julianne’s voice caught. She was trying to explain the unexplainable. She chewed her lower lip and looked at her friend and said, “I heard my mother laugh this morning.”
Because Julianne had told her about the dreams from the beginning, Melanie could just grasp the significance of what Julianne had just said. It had been difficult at the beginning to understand the terror that had come with the dreams. It had seemed to her that the homey sounds and smells should have been comforting and nostalgic.
Eventually, Julianne had helped Melanie understand the terrifying reality of those sounds and smells.
Melanie almost asked how she’d known it was her mother laughing. Julianne’s mother, her whole family, in fact, had been dead since she was eight years old. But she didn’t ask. She supposed that a mother’s laugh would be ingrained in the memories.
Shaking her head, Melanie tried to get the inconsequential thoughts out of her mind. She was alarmed. Not alarmed by the laugh, but by the steady deterioration she saw before her. How could a dream, any dreams cause this?
“I think you need to talk to someone, Jules,” she said, “You must have a lot of buried pain or something.”
“Buried pain? A psychiatrist, you mean?” Julianne’s laugh was bitter. “I don’t think so, Mel. I mean, what could I still have buried?”
“There were years of therapy after the fire. I mean, I dealt with their deaths, I dealt with the guilt about surviving; about being at a slumber party, of all things, when the farm burned down. I dealt with all of it a long time ago! Why now? Why should I, all these years later, pop up with new guilt and ‘buried pain’?”
Julianne looked at Melanie, seeking answers that weren’t there.
“I don’t know why?” Melanie said, “But something is causing these dreams and just look what they’re doing to you. That’s why I think you should see a doctor.”
“A doctor,” Julianne laughed, “Frankly, Mel, I think I’d be better off going to a psychic.”
Melanie stared at her. “You are joking, aren’t you?”
Julianne shook her head and shrugged. What Melanie did not know, could not have grasped, was that Julianne had ceased to believe that the dreams, were dreams. She knew she was awake when she smelled the aromas and heard the sounds.
“I don’t think I am joking,” She said at last, “Who else can help me now?”
***
Madame Rosario was a pleasant surprise after some of the psychics Julianne had been to in the weeks since she’d heard her mother laugh. She greeted Julianne at the door of her tidy little house, dressed in blue jeans and a sweater. Smiling she directed Julianne into the sunny living room and offered coffee.
They sat for a while sipping coffee. Julianne felt herself relaxing despite the intense inspection Madame Rosario was giving her. Reaching out, she took Julianne’s hand and gazed down at the palm. A puzzled look slid across her face. She frowned before her face relaxed into a neutral expression.
The reading which followed, though, was disappointing. True, was none of the usual prince charming stuff, but Madame was too general. She murmured about changes for the better in career or lifestyle.
“Maybe both,” she said. Once again, she appeared puzzled. Shaking her head, she added, “I don’t know, you may relocate, but I cannot say for certain.”
She peered into Julianne’s eyes. “Is there a specific question you’d like to ask?”
Julianne shook her head. She could not bring herself to tell this woman, about the smells and sounds from twenty years ago. She had told none of the other psychics. They had not given her any useful information either.
Well, thought Julianne, score one for Madame anyway. At this point, a change in her career is almost a certainty.
“Thank you,” she said as she got up to leave. She paid the requested fee, then headed out the door. Perhaps sensing that her client was disappointed, Madame stopped her.
“There is one more thing,” she said, “it makes little sense to me, but maybe to you…” she paused, then shrugged, “Your mother wants you to join them for breakfast.”
***
It was sausage again. Julianne sat up and breathed deeply. Sausage, and was it possible to smell waffles cooking? The voices were louder this morning. She still could not understand words, but she was beginning to pick out different voices. Her fathers? Now Sam’s?
At the time they’d been spoken, Madame’s last words to her had sent a chill down her spine. An odd combination of terror and excitement had filled her. Was it possible? Could she be with her family again? Even if it was only in a dream or even if – even if, they were all ghosts?
When her mother laughed this time, Julianne did not dive under the covers. This time she threw them back and stood up.
As she moved toward the kitchen, she was aware of the fuzzy-wavery appearance of the surrounding room. The dreamlike quality bothered Julianne. She didn’t want this to be a dream.
When she reached the door of her kitchen, she gasped. Standing in the doorway, she saw, not the small utilitarian kitchen of her apartment, but the large farm kitchen that had burned down when she was eight years old.
Her mother smiled at her from the stove and scooped some sausage onto a plate. “Good morning Sleepy-head,” she said. “A couple more late mornings like this and you’ll be caught up from your slumber party.” She held the plate out toward Julianne.
Just beyond her Mother, sitting at the kitchen table, her father was just lifting the lid on the waffle maker. “Got a nice hot one for you here, Peanut,” he said, grinning at her.
Sam, her older brother, waved a fork at her, his mouth too full to say “Good Morning.” The others were there too, her older sister Bobbie and the little boys, Tim and Davy. They were all there smiling at her. Even the dog was there, under the table, eating the scraps he wasn’t supposed to have.
Julianne was frozen. She stared at this impossible scene, unable to move forward.
“Aren’t you hungry, Sweetie?” Her mother asked.
Julianne stumbled forward into the kitchen. As she did so, the dreamlike aura vanished. The world snapped into crystal focus.
She reached for the plate her Mother was holding out to her.
“Thanks, Mom,” she said.
***
Miss Moore was more resigned than angry as she walked past Julianne’s empty desk. Closing the door to her office, she pulled out Julianne’s file and reached for the termination paperwork.
She was just finishing with it when the newsroom called.
“Becky, this is Stan,” Stan said. There was a pause before Stan cleared his throat and went on, “Have you heard about the fire? My god, talk about coincidences.”
It had been a fatal fire.
An Infinite Monkey Writes: Legacy of a Summer Storm
Nebraska, sometime in the 1960’s
The child was dancing through the dimly lighted dining room, up on her naked toes, twisting and spinning, her long brown pig tails flying. She spread her skinny arms, and in her mind the scruffy blue shorts were a ball gown held out stiffly by petticoats. The long sweeping skirt hiding skinned knees and mosquito bitten legs. As she moved, her thin voice rose and fell with a sing-song story of princesses, princes and journeys over the sea.
A sudden sound abruptly stopped the dance and the child stood, hands clasped dramatically in front of her. She cocked her head, eyes bright, listening as the lightening ran down the lightening rod which was attached to the big old farm house. She laughed and ran to the picture window in the living room.
“Tommy, Tommy, come and see!” She called out, glancing toward her older brother, before turning back to the window to watch the trees flailing under charcoal skies.
Tommy, with only a little reluctance, put down the book about dinosaurs and went to stand beside his little sister. He was an indulgent brother, who adored his sister, and if he took her hero-worship as his simple due, he also knew her to be his best friend.
“You shouldn’t stand by the window during a lightning storm,” Barbara said, in her older sister voice-of-command. She was frowning at them from where she sat reading. She didn’t expect them to listen to her, but she wanted to make sure the little boys didn’t stop playing with their cars to join their foolish siblings.
Tommy glanced at Barbara, and shrugged a little. He knew Diane would stand and watch as long as she could. She was always like this during a storm. Her eyes would shine and she would smile or laugh as the thunder broke or lightning ripped the sky open. It seemed to Tommy that Diane absorbed some of the energy from the storm, and because he was smart, and knew about things, he thought it had to do with positive ions.
In another time and another place, a man spoke with his sister. She was nervous, excited, he could see it in the brightness of her eyes and the almost giddy laughter. He knew at least part of her nervousness had to do with his presence. This was the first, and unknown to them then, the only time, he had would share this part of her life. He smiled at her. He was proud of this sister, sometimes he was a little in awe of her. She was nuts, but nuts in a way he loved.
“Stick with Peg,” she was saying, and as she spoke, she reached out and rested her hand on his arm. “Peg will get you back down and I will see you in a little while.” She gave his arm a reassuring squeeze, flashed him one more bright smile and turned away.
Back in Nebraska, Tommy and Diane were giggling and pointing out the funny ways the trees danced in the wind. Their father, coffee cup in one hand, came to stand at the window with them. Diane, whose head barely reached his waist, leaned up against him. He placed a hand lightly on her head.
“Hey there little peanut,” he said.
“Are we going to go down in the basement, Daddy?”
“Maybe.” Turning a bit to address everyone in the room, he went on, “You kids better get ready just in case.” Then he turned back to the window.
“If we go down in the basement, Daddy, can I stand and watch the storm with you?”
She asked this question every time, and every time he said, “Not tonight, maybe when you get older.”
She accepted his answer, because arguing with Daddy just wasn’t done, but she always wanted so very badly, to stand with him at the top of the basement steps, just her head and shoulders outside the door. He always watched the progress of the storm, but she just wanted to let the wildness of it fill her.
“Go on now,” Dad said, “get your stuff ready just in case.”
“Come on kids,” Mom said, getting off the couch, “let’s find a game to take down with us.”
As much as Diane loved the fierce Nebraska storms, going upstairs to her bedroom was always scary. The house was old, and it shook with the wind. Downstairs, she didn’t feel the shaking, but up in her room she remembered that storms were dangerous. She gathered stuffed animals and a baby doll, quickly securing them in her bandana in a “hobo bundle”.
Frightening as being upstairs was, she couldn’t go back down without stopping for moment to look out the window.
When the lightning struck this time, the entire sky and room lighted up like a brief moment of borrowed daytime. Her breath sucked in and she ran out of the room and down the stairs, the booming of the thunder following as she went.
And once again, in that other time and that other place, the man watched his sister as she moved away and went through, what he would have called a ritual. He didn’t know if she would use that word, but her movements were precise, rehearsed and seemed to him to have overtones of ceremony. He smiled to himself, but it was an uneasy smile. He believed in her, or so he told himself, but it was so much easier to believe in her from a distance, when all he had to believe in were stories. This reality, watching her now as she prepared, was scary to him. He took a deep breath, stepped back, out of her line of sight and crossed himself as she began to run.
Once more in Nebraska, Diane reached the bottom of the stairs, bundle clutched tightly in her hand, just as Daddy scooped up Jimmy. Barbara had Billy in her arms and they were heading out the dining room door. Tommy was waiting for Diane and Mommy was just coming back from the kitchen.
“Shoes, Diane.” Mom said, taking the hobo bundle out of her hands. “Go get your shoes on and hurry up. Tommy, you go ahead and get down to the basement. Here, please take your sister’s stuff.”
Diane paused for a moment, trying to remember where the shoes might be. Shoes seemed to Diane to have a life of their own. They were seldom on her feet and always lost when she needed them.
“Come on Di!” Tommy called still waiting by the door, “hurry up!”
“They’re in the living room Diane.” Mom’s voice was calm, but she moved quickly as she stuck the last of the supplies into a picnic basket.
Diane went quickly to the living room and found the hot pink tennis shoes tucked under the coffee table. She hastily stuffed her feet into them and ran back to the door.
Mommy was waiting. Together they stepped out just as Tommy was just jumping off the far end of the porch and heading around the corner to the front of the house and the basement door.
After a brief struggle Mom got the door closed. She grabbed Diane’s hand.
“Come on,” she yell, her voice barely audible above the wind. They couldn’t really feel the full force of the wind yet, as they were still on the porch, but it was blowing fiercely and loud.
Dad was waiting at the top of the basement stairs when Tommy got to him. He was reaching out to help Tommy through the door, when the scream came. It was faint but compelling as it pierced the wind.
They turned to stare with helpless horror. The wind had snatched up their little girl, lifting her off her feet and into its currents. Only Mommy’s firm grip kept her from flying away. Diane flailed wildly, reaching out with her free hand to grab the pillar of the porch, while Mom dropped the picnic basket and grabbed her daughter with both hands. It was over in an instant, but an instant that lasted forever. Mommy held Diane tightly and carried her to the basement, her frightened eyes meeting the equally frightened eyes of her husband. Without a word, she carried the girl down into the safety of the basement, while Daddy went to retrieve the picnic basket.
When Dad reached the bottom of the basement steps, he saw Mom sitting on the old mattress. She still held onto Diane as if the wind might try to sneak in and grab her again, but Diane was beginning to squirm.
As she wiggled free of her Mother’s grasp, Diane looked up at her older brother, her eyes shining.
“Tommy, did you see me, did you? Tommy, I was FLYING!”
And finally, in the other time and that other place, the man watched as his sister’s feet left the ground. Even though he knew what to expect, he still felt amazement as she went up. He stared as she flew, the colorful wings of her hang glider carrying her further up and away from him. In his mind he heard an echo from twenty years in the past, “Tommy, did you see me, did you? Tommy, I was FLYING!”
An Infinite Monkey Writes: Family Reunion
Rounding the curve just twenty miles over its posted speed, the tail end of my car slid. Grinding my teeth, I sped up going out of the turn. Okay, I was driving too fast for the mountain roads, not, mind you, out of any need or even desire to hurry but because there’s a grim satisfaction in taking stupid risks, and grim-anything matched my present mood. I was a cranky big time and there was only the road to take it out on.
Family reunion time again. I’d tried to convince myself that I should be grateful the damn things only came once every five years now. Then too, I had talked my way out of the last one – hell, that’s ten years seeing no one more related than Mom. But, God, I was still OD’d on all those summers at the lake when I was a kid!
I suppose that’s a funny thing to say. I mean, it would thrill most kids to spend their summers in a cabin at a lake with lots of cousins around to play with. Somehow, with my family though, it was like being in the Twilight Zone.
Maybe that’s not fair, it wasn’t always big bad stuff. There were a lot of times when it was just regular bad stuff; you know, being teased by my rotten cousin Ronny and having to spend all that time outside with the bugs and junk. But when the big bad stuff happened, it really was the big bad stuff.
Like the summer Dad drowned and the next year when cousin Ronny disappeared.
Maybe that wasn’t all bad. I’ve always wondered if anyone, but Aunt Dora was sorry Ronny was gone. I sure wasn’t. Ronny had always been a pain. He’d teased me and chased me with snakes. He’d even tried to kiss me once, which was too gross. Then he’d read my diary.
Aunt Dora was always convinced that he’d run off to join the circus or something. Everyone else thought he’d gotten lost in the woods and died. For years afterwards, Aunt Dora was certain he would show up and tell us he’d had amnesia or something. I felt sorry for Aunt Dora, but she was kind of a silly woman.
Anyway, here it is, twenty-five years later; Aunt Dora finally knows the truth I guess, since she died about ten years ago, and I am on my way to yet another family reunion.
I managed not to kill myself on the rest of the drive to the lake. I got there far earlier than I’d have preferred, but I guess that’s my price for speeding.
Mom was there and in full swing. She sort of lives for these things. You’d have thought having her husband drowned at this lake would have put a damper on it for her, but Mom’s nothing, if not a trooper.
I got out of the car, dug out my sleeping bag and backpack and headed toward the large kitchen/dining room which is always designated as the “Culver Clan HQ”.
That’s where Mom greeted me. She swept me inside and introduced or re-introduced me to a dozen aunts, uncles, cousins and great-great-whatevers. They all greeted me with enthusiasm and “of course they remember me, and hadn’t I grown up beautiful, and smart too, why your mother tells me you program computers, those things are just beyond me…Yada, Yada, Yada.”
I plastered on a smile and tried not to let on how “ thrilled” I was to see them.
A couple of hours later I finally had a chance to pee and stow my junk in my assigned cabin. I’d also had talked a reluctant uncle into fixing me a gin and tonic. After a few swigs, I was thinking maybe I would get through the next week unscathed.
About that time, I heard a ruckus outside and one of the aunties said, “Oh good, the kids are back from their hike.”
I turned toward the door as it opened, curious as to the makings of the latest Culver generation. I drew in a sharp breath and nearly dropped my drink. The troop of nieces, nephews, and second-cousins pouring through the door, demanding food and soda, was being led by no other than cousin Ronny himself. Cousin Ronny, impossibly here, and just as impossibly looking exactly like the twelve-year-old boy I remembered.
Mom heard my gasped and laughed. “Oh Christy, I forget, you haven’t met Ronny, your cousin Alice’s boy. Amazing isn’t it.” Mom smiled a little sadly. “It’s almost like having our own Ronny back after all these years.”
Ronny turned to look at me as if he had heard us from across the room. His eyebrows raised slightly. Grinning impishly, he sauntered toward us.
“You must be cousin Christy.” He said, extending his hand to shake mine. Turning to Mom he added, “We’re all here now, right Auntie?” He smiled charmingly at her. She beamed back at him. I thought I might be sick. It was creepy looking at him. He really looked like his uncle.
I searched his profile for some marked difference, but there was none. I tried to tell myself it had been a long time, that I’d forgotten what Ronny looked like, but I knew that wasn’t it either. The resemblance was complete.
After refusing Ronny’s offer of help, Mom went off to organize the dinner, leaving me alone with this kid. He looked at me as if I were some strange insect he was thinking about collecting. Finally, he spoke again.
“So, you’re the black sheep of the family.” He seemed a little skeptical about my deserving that title.
I laughed. “You’ve been talking to Aunt Velma. She doesn’t approve of me, I’m afraid.”
“None of ’em do.” He gestured with his head toward the crowd of adults. “But I can never get ’em to tell me why you’re the black sheep. What d’ya do, get pregnant?”
“I was rude to someone,” I said curtly. “Think about it.” He laughed.
“I’ll bet it’s that,” he said, pointing to my drink. “You’re a boozer, ain’t ya?”
“Yeah, kid, now go away, I’ve got some serious boozing to do.”
He wandered off, disappointed to find that the family black sheep was just an ordinary drunk. I raised my glass in a salute and called after him, “Nice to meet you too, cousin.”
Mom, on her way back to recruit me for dinner duty, saw my gesture. She smiled at me. “Isn’t he a nice boy,” she said, “so polite, don’t you think?” She turned her fond smile on Ronny’s back.
“Yeah Mom, he’s a real charmer. Reminds me of another Ronny I’ve known.”
Mom, who never recognizes sarcasm, looked at me and smiled. “You are right, Honey. He is Just like our Ronny. Our Ronny was the sweetest boy; he had wonderful manners too.” Shaking her head slowly, she murmured, “So sad really, I wonder…” Her voice trailed off, or I stopped listening.
Polite? Sweet? I had to wonder for a moment if Mom was getting senile. Sweet? I guess I could have been wrong, maybe someone besides Aunt Dora really had been sorry when Ronny disappeared.
The week progressed as well as could be expected. I spent as much time as possible drinking gin, lazing on the beach and taking long solitary hikes. It wasn’t too difficult to wander away from the crowd with no one noticing; they were all so busy catching up on who married, divorced and gave birth to who. There was a lot of baby talk. Three of my cousins were pregnant, and the rest were giving them a crash course in parenting.
Not, mind you, that any of them seemed to do any parenting. I never got an even count on the number of off-spring in this generation of Culvers, but there were at least a thousand. They ran free and very untamed. Every few minutes someone was crying or fighting or chasing someone with a snake.
The kids shouted one name more often than the others, usually in dismay or anger, you guessed it, “Ronny!” The resemblance wasn’t just physical!
Oddly enough, I found myself watching the kids more and more as the week went on. They were sure as hell more interesting than the adults. Their interactions were full of contradictions. Like I said, at least one of them was almost always upset with Ronny, but was clear from watching he was the leader of the pack. He said jump, and all they did was to complained about how high.
Thinking back on it, I had to admit that my cousin Ronny had been the same way. I mean, all of us kids: my two brothers, my cousins Alice, Stephanie, Travis and a few others, hated Ronny most of the time, but, he was also our hero too. Funny thing how I had forgotten that.
Something else I noticed about the new Ronny, his politeness to Mom on the first day had not been a onetime thing. He was always polite to the other adults. I watched him make a point of stopping to talk with great-aunt Sophie who can’t hear and won’t get a hearing aid. No one, not even Mom, can stand talking to her for long because all the conversations consist of, “What?” and “I SAID…”
Ronny also made a point to help with the cooking or dishes and usually rounded up the other kids for meals or bedtime. That amazed me. A responsible twelve-year-old. It had to be a fluke of nature.
When I commented on it to his mother Alice, she shook her head. “I don’t know what I did Chris. I mean, I’d like to take credit for great mothering, but frankly, I can’t remember doing anything different than I did with Rachel and Amber. And I won’t even pretend they’re responsible!”
She looked thoughtful for a moment. “But you know, Chris, when you think about it, my brother Ronny was the same way before…before he disappeared.” I looked at her dubiously, but she went on, “No, think about it. Ron was a pain in the butt to us, we were kids, but if you really think back on it, he was always nice to the grownups.”
“Seems to me,” she added slyly “Ronny was pretty nice to you sometimes too.” She cut off my protest with a gesture and a laugh. “Anyway, I remember Mom and Dad talking about how helpful he was with us girls. Maybe it’s ‘cause he was the oldest. He was mature for his age.” Her eyes followed her son, “It’s kind of eerie, really.”
After dinner, that same evening, I think it was Wednesday by then, Ronny came and sat down next to me.
“Hey cousin,” he said, “How’s it going?” He leaned back in his chair and looked at me. The look on his face made me want to slap him. “Been enjoying the reunion?”
“Up ’til now,” I said. He laughed.
“What is it you want?”
“Nothin’,” He said crossing his arms behind his head, looking as if he were settling in for a while. “I thought maybe you’d like to know, you ain’t making yourself any more popular with the fogey crowd.”
“Oh?” I couldn’t say that came as a shock. I was curious though about what he’d heard. “Any complaint in particular I should know about?”
“You mean besides setting a bad example for us kids?”
“Yeah, beside that.” I said, thinking this kid probably wouldn’t need any bad examples.
“Well, you smoke too much, drink too much.” He leered a twelve-year-old leer at me, “You don’t wear enough clothes and you’re always going off alone to do “god knows what”.”
I laughed. “Oh, nothing new.”
He grinned. “Sorry, they shut up about the good dirt when one of us kids is around.” Looking at me curiously, he asked, “So where do you go all the time?”
That was none his business. I couldn’t see any reason to tell this rude little kid anything, but when I looked at him, Ronny, the old Ronny seemed to look back at me.
“I go walking. There’s a place I like to sit and think sometimes. It’s been my thinking spot for years, since I was a kid.”
“The same spot you and my Uncle Ronny used to go to?”
Startled, I looked at him. “How did you know about that?”
“Oh, my Mom tells me lots of stuff about Uncle Ronny. I mean, he was her brother, and she still misses him.”
“She still misses him? Ronny was always teasing her and Steph, well, all of us really.”
Ronny gave me a funny look. “Hey of course he teased you guys, you were all little kids, it was his job, but that don’t mean Mom and Steph didn’t love him.” He grinned slyly. “Mom told me you and Uncle Ronny sort of had a thing going too. What did she say? Oh yeah, she said, “you were sweet on each other”.”
I stared at him. Ronny and me? No way. Suddenly a long-forgotten memory came back like a physical blow: Ronny and I at my – our secret spot. Ronny was reaching out to touch me. He stroked my cheek gently and asked me why I was crying.
I sucked in my breath and held it for a moment. I released it slowly and took a deep drink from my glass. “Ronny was a pain, but he was my cousin,” I said shortly, “any “sweetness” I felt for him was just that.”
All he said was “Yeah right.”
I wanted to tell him to go away and leave me alone. There was too much Ronny-overlap, and I was feeling uneasy. Fortunately, Alice called him to go to bed then.
“Good night cousin Chrissy.” he said as he left.
He left before I could react. His last word had sent me spinning again. His uncle Ronny was the only one who had ever called me Chrissy and Ronny had only used that name when, well, when he was being nice.
How could I have forgotten that last summer so completely? All I ever remembered before now was the teasing and the “disappearing”.
I was up and off early, leaving Mom and her protests behind. She was getting fed up with my anti-social behavior. I told her it was okay because I was pretty fed up with everyone else’s too social behavior. I knew I’d pay for that one. Mom cut me a lot of slack, but I always had to push it.
The secret spot was in a tiny clearing high above the river which fed the lake. Trees surrounded it and it was very hard to find if you didn’t know exactly where to look. Within the clearing was a grassy area and a small pool. In the wet season, the pool was a good size, but most of the time, it was just a tiny stagnant puddle. The real attraction was the deep pit which Ronny and I had always believed to be an abandon gold mine.
The mine and the privacy were the reasons we came here as kids.
Back in those days it seemed sort of glamorous to play near an old gold mine. It was dangerous, which for a couple of kids, was part of its appeal.
I settled in, leaning against a tree, determine to remember more of Ronny’s last summer. It bothered me to realize how much I had forgotten about my cousin. Perhaps it had been easier to remember him as nothing more than a trouble-maker.
I had been there about an hour when he showed up.
“Hi Chrissy.”
“Ronny?” For a moment, I wasn’t certain which Ronny I was seeing. I knew it couldn’t be my Ronny, but for another one of those split-time moments, he was my Ronny.
“Who else?”
It took an effort, but I got control of my voice and said casually, “Have you been following me cousin?”
“No need, I knew where this place was.”
My heart froze. He walked toward me slowly and sat down.
“Did you…did you ask your Mom?” I knew the answer. Alice had never known about this place. No one knew about this place.
“Nope. I told Mom I was walking to the general store to buy some candy. Mom would not have let me go walking in the woods alone, you know.”
“No,” I mumbled, “of course not.”
My heart was beating, and my mouth was dry. I looked at Ronny and Ronny looked back at me.
“Cousin Chrissy,” he asked, “do you believe in reincarnation?”
Several weeks later, sitting at home, pasting newspaper clippings into my scrapbook, I thought about his question. I still wasn’t sure I believed, but I wasn’t sure I didn’t believe it either.
I might not be certain, but Ronny had been. Ronny had seemed so positive he was his Uncle come back. He was remembering things, things that only my Ronny had known. No, I wasn’t certain, but I couldn’t take chances.
Besides, there was a bonus, no more family reunions. Mom had said no one would have the heart for it now. That was something.
Hopefully, the third time’s the charm, I thought as I smoothed my newest clipping in next to the older ones.
I felt badly for Alice. The newspaper clipping under my fingers had a picture of her. She looked like hell. The caption read, “Frantic mother relives her own mother’s nightmare.” She really was upset. Everyone had been.
Well hell, I’d been upset too. If Ronny, my Ronny had not been such a pain and read my diary, and if he hadn’t found out what my Daddy’d done to me, and what I’d had to do to him… Most of all, I thought angrily, if he hadn’t looked at me like I was some kind of damn monster…
Review – Anne McCaffrey’s “The Ship Who Sang”
Review of: The Ship Who Sang
By: Anne McCaffrey
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I adored The Ship Who Sang when I read it twenty or thirty years ago. I have a paperback copy that is pretty warn out. It has been so long ago I can’t give a detailed review of the book. I will say there was something very unique and special about the book. It charmed me. I am a fan of Anne McCaffrey’s, though I will admit to not preferring some of her books. For every book I was meh-ish on, there were at least one and a half I loved. I would recommend this book. The book was not a Brainship #1 when I read it so I don’t know the rest of the series. The e-book price is too high though. I’m just sayin’…
Any Day Now …
Any day now, I will begin blogging. Any day now, I will start writing flash fiction to put on my website. Any day now, I will get my website up and running.
Any day now…
