Same Old -- #fridayflash

*****

When Amanda was a baby, Carrie yearned for routine, for knowing when to wake and when to sleep. In the chaos of new motherhood, she longed for a slot to cook dinner, to exercise, to breathe, to make love.

The routine came all too soon, the daily activities that varied little from week to week: Mondays, the park; Tuesday, play at home; Wednesday, story hour; Thursday, lunch at Grandma’s; Friday, playdate. And in each of those days, their own aching subroutines, the three meals a day with the handful of tolerated menus, the same three movies, two books, one cry.

Mommy.

She returned: to her friends, her hobbies, her work, to some semblance of the girl she’d been before Amanda, but always with the understanding that everything must fit, no matter how large and unwieldy, inside the tight buckets of routine—a time to play blocks, a time to read books, and even a tiny golden sliver to remember her freedom.

*****

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story appears in the 30 Days, 30 Writes 2009 chapbook, to be released at the end of October. The chapbook features more stories by Greta Igl, as well as stories by Jane Banning, Stephen Book and JC Towler. Please check the 30 Days, 30 Writes blog for more details and an invitation to participate in next year's writing challenge.

#fridayflash: Getting Ready

*****

Monday, it had been the flat sheet with faded yellow cabbage roses, the old one washed until it felt like flannel.

At first, Ruth thought she’d forgotten to wash it. But then she remembered how it had hung up in the wringer. She’d shut the infernal old machine off and wriggled that sheet out like a reluctant calf.

On Wednesday, she knew something was afoot. Two raggedy bath towels went missing—towels she’d washed to get ready for Trixie’s puppies. The old hound’s belly was big as a watermelon, her time coming soon. The towels had hung in the middle of the stretched lines, between Virgil’s work pants, not on the end where they’d be easily grabbed. The discriminating thievery made Ruth stop and think.

This morning, she baited the trap, hanging an old tablecloth Virgil spilled ham gravy on. Even after washing, it still smelled meaty. She sat behind the sheers overlooking the clothesline, her day’s work done, but for the dinner that needed starting. The house bore the clean stamp of settled quiet, beds long made, dishes drying in the drainboard, kids long grown.

She sat in the filtered sun and soaked in the silence. It wasn’t long before the old thief showed up, belly swaying. She waddled ponderously, back swayed from so many litters. Gray hairs grizzled her snout as she tugged the tablecloth gently from the line.

Ruth ticked the curtain aside, watched Trix drag the tablecloth off between bowed legs. Ruth’s heart twisted remembering the hard work ahead. The old girl would struggle, but she knew what to do. Soon, they’d have one last wriggling batch of velvety puppies.

#FridayFlash: Recording

*****

I press play and the past slides into the present, his voice light like a needle on a record. Hey sweet thing what’s it been--ten years? Then he clears his throat and laughs like I remember. I’ll be in town this weekend, yeah … something something …yeah, I’m getting married. And he jumps into chitchat about who’d have imagined, but it’s just static at the end of an old LP. My memory skips, hung up on all those nights we sat talking behind Meg’s house, the stars in multitudes like the years before us. Kids that we were, we didn’t plan. We didn’t act. We thought we had all the time in the world to find each other.

#fridayflash -- For Love of Vater

******


“This the place?” the cabbie grumbled over one shoulder.

Peter looked out the rain smeared window. The streaming water made the house seem to melt into the lawn. For Peter, it felt all too real.

“Yes.” Dread wove into Peter’s voice. He cleared his throat. “Yes. This is it.”

The cabbie fiddled with a clipboard like Peter hadn’t spoken.

Yes, it was the same place that burned in his memory. The lannon stone bungalow with the sloping entryway. The semicircle cement front stoop with the wrought iron railing. Back when he was a kid with a choppy home haircut, Peter used to bound down those steps two at a time. How many times had he taken a spill on that sidewalk and scraped his knee?

It was always Mother who came with the hugs and band aids.

Even in the rain, even now, he could see that Vater still kept the place the same; each blade of grass evenly trimmed, the edges of the lawn beveled to make a smooth angle toward the sidewalk. That lawn had been the pinnacle of Peter’s misery. Vater hadn’t trusted him to cut it unsupervised. The old man had sat on his old man lawn chair in his undershirt and baggy plaid shorts and watched Peter, his eyes following him back and forth as Peter pushed the mower. Every so often, he’d stand and wave his wiry, white arms to point out Peter’s numerous mistakes.

“You’re sloppy!” he’d say in his phlegmy German accent, a hand cupped around his mouth as he yelled over the mower. “Straight lines, Peter! Can’t you get anything right?”

Peter would look up at him and swallow the anger knotting his throat. It had never occurred to him to talk back. Even as a kid, he knew Vater was immutable. Fighting Vater was like fighting a wall.

“Well, go on!” Vater would say, eyebrows fierce.

Anger would burn like fire in Peter’s gut. Vater never seemed to notice. He’d put a hand to his lumbar and stretch back with a low grunt. Then he’d notice Peter still there, and scowl. “That lawn isn’t going to cut itself!”

Then Vater would creak into his chair and sip his beer.

All these years later, Peter still hated that lawn. He wouldn’t be here, but Mother had insisted.

“There’s so little time, Peter,” she’d said. “Please don’t let this chance slip away.”

But Peter knew chances had run out long ago, in all the times he’d looked to Vater for approval. How many hollow nights had he spent, curled in his bed under the eaves, wondering what it would be like to have one of those TV fathers? The kind who put arms around shoulders and called their boys “son.” The kind who tossed the ball or helped build model airplanes.

Mother held out hope long after Peter abandoned it.

“He loves you, Peter,” she’d tell him. “You must believe that. It’s not his way to let such feelings show.”

Now, their clock ticked toward an agonizing end.

The knowing about Vater didn’t make the past softer. His mother wanted him here, but Vater wouldn’t appreciate it. He’d hide the truth, pretend there was no grim diagnosis. The fact that it was a “private” cancer made it more unmentionable. Decent folk didn’t discuss such things.

Now Peter had to tell Vater he knew.

“You about done looking?” the cabbie asked.

Peter turned to see him still scribbling on the clipboard. Another stranger who didn’t care. Not that he should. But it got old, having the world populated by the dismissive.

Peter watched the rain and ached with the need to be real. To speak words and to have them heard. To have eyes land on him and see him standing there.

Not just any eyes, but Vater’s eyes.

“Yeah.” Peter grabbed the door handle, paused, then pushed the door open.

Maybe Mother was right; it was time. Time, while he had the chance. One day soon, the old man would be gone, his stinging words silenced with him. If he didn’t fight now, he’d be left alone, fighting himself. It was time to stand up, to tell Vater the truth: Vater was dying and Peter cared to the core of him. Vater would try to dismiss him, but Peter wouldn’t allow it. He was Vater’s son. He had something to say.

He stepped out of the cab, into the rain.

#FridayFlash -- "To the Lake"

*****
I follow Troy to the lake, just like every week. First, Troy and Mindy read the paper, then Troy says, “Come on, girl” and we go. Troy gets the box from the garage, the sweet smelling one with the hooks and doodads. He pulls the pole from the wall. The lake isn’t far, just on the other side of the yard, behind the pines Troy planted last summer to break the wind.

When we get there, Troy pulls a hook from the box. I lay in the grass and watch him. If it’s warm, I lay in the shade. If it’s cool, I lay in the sun. We just finished the cool time, the damp grass, way down in the earth time. Things are drier now. The sun has more presence, so I lay in the shade. Troy does something magic with his hands and the hook hangs from the string. It’s a shiny hook with a big feathery thing wrapped around it.

Once it’s on, Troy pats my head. I lean into it. His touch is firm and comforting, like my old blanket in front of the window doors when it snows.

“What do you think, girl? Are we going to get lucky?” he asks.

I like to stare at him. I like how he looks, the way he smells, like the sweet stuff from the box and his happy excitement. His voice resonates in my ears, not too high or too low, but just him.

He stands up from his crouch and arcs back an arm, the pole bending behind him with it. A string streams out with a whir, then the hook plops. Troy waits, then reels it in with a tick-tick-tick.

The grass feels good. It’s quiet this time of day, only Troy and I and the ducks with their babies. The houses around the shore are quiet, but for the black car pulling out of the driveway just across the lake. It’s a small lake, new, made just last summer. The men with the machines built it when they built the new houses. Troy says it’s just for show, but they put fish in it, big ones that glub at the surface. I can see in the houses across the way.

Troy arcs his arm back, sends the hook out again. “We should get a nibble soon, girl,” he tells me with a smile.

Just then Mindy leans out the window. “Troy? I’m leaving for class!”

Troy raises a hand and waves. Mindy disappears. A minute later, I hear the garage door open and her car back out. I roll over on my back, expose my belly, and wait. It’s just Troy and me now. I know what’s coming.

Just like always, the thing in his pocket sings.

Troy reels the line in quick and puts the pole on the grass. He pulls the thing from his pocket and looks at it. He presses something, then puts it to his ear.

“Hey.”

He turns his back to me. He always turns his back to me. I don’t mind. I wait. It will be worth it.

The duck family approaches, the mother closest to the shore. The father swims a body length ahead, the ducklings trailing behind. There are only four now. I wonder what happened to the fifth. Maybe that fish got it, the trophy one Troy says nibbles his line.

“Yeah, she just left. Let me put this stuff away. Say, five minutes?” He listens to the thing a minute, then says, his voice growly, “Yeah, me, too.” Then he presses something and puts the thing back in his pocket.

I wait.

He looks out at the lake, toward the house with the black car. Something moves behind the window. Troy watches, his hands still in his pockets.

He takes the hook off the line and puts it back in the box. Before he clips the box shut, he notices me.

“Sorry, girl,” he says. “I’ve got bigger fish to fry today.”

My tongue lolls out and flops against the grass. I look up at Troy and the white puff clouds and the sky behind him. He smiles down at me, then bends over and rubs my belly. He’s my everything. This is our moment.