Strings Attached

The afternoon light coming in from the window cast a buttery glow over the decades old décor of the small hotel room. It softened the lines on their skin and washed out the grey of their hair. Cora felt as if they were in a Rubens painting and through her half-closed eyes, the chipped and stained walls were made of marble and the floral duvet and carpet were a real garden.  The fading light meant that John would be expected at home soon, so she gently nudged him awake and told him she was leaving.

As Cora drove home, she looked in the mirror to catch a glimpse of the pink and orange brightening behind her and thought for the hundredth time that day that she loved being “a mistress”. A month ago, she would have been sitting on her sofa in her pyjamas eating three-day old Chinese food and watching a re-run of “Law & Order”. The same night she’d had again and again for years. What made her giddy was that she would still go home and put on her pyjamas and eat take-out but with the adrenalin rush of the rendezvous still buzzing inside her.

John, too, was driving home though with a bit more unease than his recent companion. He looked in the mirror and saw the kind of asshole he never wanted to be. But it was fun, dammit, and he wasn’t ready to stop yet. And besides, Cora said they would stop immediately when it became “cringy or boring”.

The fact that Cora worked with John’s wife did not make the situation very easy to ignore. They’d met at a work function, waiting at the bar for a drink. Cora asked him how he’d been screwed into coming to one of the infamous “booze n’ snooze fests” and when John said he’d come to keep Kathy company and get free drink, Cora replied with an “Office Space” impression that made him spit out his drink in laughter.

When John returned to Kathy with their drinks, he said he’d met her colleague Cora. Kathy said she was someone who was a bit odd and kept to herself but always had people in stitches when she made fun of the managers.

The next day, John found himself on the company’s website, looking at the contact information for the staff. When he found what he was looking for, he sat in his chair for a very long time pretending to weigh pros and cons, but knowing exactly what he was going to do.

Cora had waited until five minutes before she was due to leave work to reply that an early matinee and a drink sounded like the perfect way to spend a Tuesday afternoon. She then sent an email to her boss stating she had a dentist appointment the following day and would be leaving early. The two emails made her giggle and she wasn’t sure if she was more excited to skip work or to meet a stranger in a darkened cinema.

They spent the entirety of the film looking straight ahead, their fingers barely touching over the chasm of the drinks holder. After as they walked down winding back streets, he pulled her into doorways for a long kiss, breaking away before they started groping. Over a pint in an old man’s pub, they talked and joked easily, their lack of familiarity with one another loosening any inhibitions. He ran his fingers up and down the inside of her thigh, thankful she’d worn a dress just this side of slutty.

John got them track phones and when hers vibrated in the early afternoons, she tried not to look in the direction of his wife’s desk as she tapped out her reply, heart racing and face flushed. When she did occasionally pass Kathy in the corridor or on the way to the staff toilet, she felt a shame that gripped her intestines and stopped her breath. But as she sat on the toilet, staring at the screen of the phone she justified the disgrace by reminding herself and later John, that their meetings were temporary and only physical.

That all changed the moment Cora walked into the staff canteen and saw John sitting across from his wife, a half-eaten salad on a tray between them. Her fork was poised gracefully over the leaves as she smiled and spoke animatedly. He sat, nodding and laughing. Suddenly, Kathy paused as she noticed the strings attached to her blouse at the cuff had come undone and were dangling into the salad bowl. John immediately put down his fork and gently grabbed his wife’s arm and tied the string into a delicate and perfect bow.

Cora’s hands shook as she took out the change for her bag of popcorn and Diet Coke and didn’t stop until she was back at her desk. As she munched and scanned news headlines, she tried to ignore the thoughts of John’s tenderness towards his wife.

At their next meeting John was surprised when Cora put a foot on his lap and asked rather seductively if he’d put a plaster on the blister on her pinky toe. He wasn’t about to touch anyone’s foot, especially one that had been crammed tightly into a shoe all day. Cora continued to make odd requests—shoulder rubs, splinter removals, and zipping up her dress, which he’d seen her undo on her own just 10 minutes ago.

She daydreamed about moments where he tucked a lock of hair behind her ear or kissed the tip of her nose. But they continued as usual---sneaky pints and hotel rooms that felt dingier as the sun began to set sooner. She began thinking about what to get for dinner before he even finished. They put their clothes on in silence, ignoring the creak of old springs. They didn’t kiss good-bye.

When she ended it, he was relieved, but had to know why.

“I guess I want strings attached after all.”

 

 

Tale of the Coveted Shoes

Beth wanted more than anything to hate Whitney. Whitney with her shiny blonde hair, two missing front teeth, a pack of older brothers and sisters who adored her, and two parents who were still happily together. But mostly she hated that Whitney had a perfect pair of black and white saddle shoes.  

What Beth didn’t realise was that they were Whitney’s only pair of shoes—in fact, only piece of clothing—that wasn’t handed down from an older sibling. She’d saved money from her paper route every day for three months during the summer so she’d have the shoes when school started in the fall. After school, she cleaned and buffed the shoes until they looked new again.

When Beth begged and whined for a pair of her own saddle shoes, her mother reminded her that she already had a perfectly good pair of sneakers that she had picked out just two weeks ago. Besides, she’d have them ruined in a week or would get tired of them.

“Remember the jean jacket you had to have? Remember when you used it as a rope to climb a tree and ripped the arm off?  Go play outside and leave me alone. I don’t want to hear another word. Got it?”

Beth stormed out of the house, making sure to slam the door and giving an “I hate you” as a parting farewell.  She then went and jumped in every mud puddle she could find and rubbed grass all over the sides of her sneakers. But her mother didn’t budge.

In late October, Whitney’s family hosted a Halloween party for all the neighbourhood kids. Though Beth and Whitney didn’t talk much at school, they rode bikes around the block and played gymnastics on an old mattress in Whitney’s backyard. Beth always felt out of place with Whitney’s funny friends, but she was too bored not to go.

The night of the party, the house was decorated with fake cobwebs, candles, posters of witches and skeletons, and scary noises were coming from a scratchy boom box somewhere in the kitchen. Whitney’s mom made the kids put on blindfolds and touch eyeballs, brains, and teeth which turned out to be grapes, spaghetti, and chiclets.

The boys were dressed as pirates, cowboys, and vampires, and the girls, princesses, black cats, and witches. Beth was covered in a white sheet that had two holes cut out for eyes. Her mother had made two large circles around the holes, using her liquid eyeliner. She liked that nobody could see her face and she didn’t have a mouth cut out, so she didn’t need to talk.

At one point, they were herded up to go out to the “haunted garage” which involved Whitney’s dad and older brothers jumping out from behind stuff and scaring the living bejesus out of everyone. The kids squealed and ran out to run and hide behind trees, which as it turned out, sheltered more scary brothers. They ran around and around, laughing and dizzy on their own fear until Whitney’s mom told them to come back inside.

“And take off your shoes this time! There’s a lot of mud out back”

Beth was one of the last to add her shoes to the growing pile near the backdoor. As she threw hers down, she noticed the saddle shoes sitting neatly and pristinely apart from the others. The kids all went into a large family room that had two worn sofas and several pillows on the floor. Whitney’s mother had made popcorn balls and was setting up the VCR to watch “It’s A Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”.  Beth wanted to plop down with the others but there was something she wanted even more.

Heart pounding, she quietly went out of the room and towards the back entrance. She grabbed the white and black prizes and stuffed them down her pants under the white sheet. As she put on her own shoes, Whitney’s dad came in and said, “What you up to, Kiddo?” She said that her tummy hurt, politely refusing the Dad’s offer of escorting her the half-block to her house.

Once outside, she started running, feeling the soles of the shoes scraping her skin, the dangling laces tickling her thighs. The air was colder and the trees much taller and more menacing than before. She felt if she turned around, she would see Whitney chasing her.

Her mother wasn’t surprised to see her home early. Beth often had enough of social events before other children. She was glad that Beth had gone at all.

Beth shoved the shoes in between the box spring and the mattress and didn’t sleep at all for fear they would somehow walk out into plain sight. When her mother was in the shower the next morning, Beth was horrified to find that they were too small. It hadn’t occurred to her that Whitney’s feet would be so much smaller than her own even though she was about three inches shorter.

She thought about bringing them back to Whitney’s and saying she put them on by mistake, but realised they would ask about her own shoes, which she hadn’t left behind. She thought about just putting them on their porch but was terrified someone would see her. With the kind of logic that only comes from childhood panic, Beth decided to throw them in the gutter on the corner.

The next Monday, Whitney arrived at school, wearing grey canvas shoes that were probably once white. After school, they rode bikes around the block and Whitney didn’t say a word about the shoes.

At night, whenever the phone rang, Beth’s heart nearly exploded, so convinced was she that the shoes with her fingerprints were discovered in the gutter. Each day she crouched down and peeked into the dark hole and saw the white tip of a lone shoe. The stab of guilt and fear became a part of her daily routine, even after the spring rains washed the evidence away.

 

Crushed

Lora couldn’t quite bring herself to call Nanthap a stalker. Though he brought her mangoes and langoustines each day before class and added a heart as his only comment to her facebook statuses, he never actually spoke to her or seemed to want anything from her. In class, he sat apart from the others, dutifully copying words whose sounds he couldn’t form and whose meaning might as well have been Greek philosophy. Yet he copied and attempted repetitions and smiled blankly when called upon.

“Hello, Nanaphat. How are you?”

“19.”

“Nanaphat, what do you do?”

“How do you do, Teacher.”

“Thank you so much for everything you’re given me. I really like that part of you.”

The other students fell over themselves not because they had mastered these basic greetings themselves, but because Nanaphat replied in the same breathless tone of wonder usually reserved for rendezvous on balconies.

Lora had initially assumed Nanaphat was taking the piss. After all, she was 15 years older, 5 inches taller, and likely 50 pounds heavier than the boy. She sweat profusely in the sauna called a classroom, making her made up eyes rather clownish by 11:00 am. She felt awkward in this room of 35 engineering students, 32 of whom were males, which made her act all the more school-marmish. Yet there he was day after day, a young man earnestly admiring her.

As the semester wore on and the students finally started to grasp a few coherent sentences, Nanaphat’s advances became more verbal. Upon her desk where ripe fruit was once presented as a token of adoration, now were short notes written in a shaky scrawl.

“Teacher you like garden person. I am vegetable. Thank you.”

“Song meets bird then bird fall earth world. You are song.”

“Please give good score.”

After class he carried her books from one building to another and gave her rides to the teacher flats after school, she sitting side-saddle and he beaming at the front. Lora found she began to like the attention and assured herself she was not on the path of Mary Letourneau and wasn’t doing anything to encourage the young boy’s passion. 

One of the teachers, delighted to know the slang phrase, always made jokes about “Teacher’s Pet,” suggesting that she demand more of the student such as lunch for the staff and collecting all the photocopying for the day. Lora just smiled and said that she liked all her students equally and only wanted them to learn to not be afraid of English.

But in reality, Nanaphat was her favourite student. It was a strange existence being the only white female in a town of 50,000 people. 50,000 pairs of eyes watching her every move, laughing at her attempts to buy shoes and trousers that fit, laughing at her freckles that seemed to multiply every day, laughing at her inability to remove chicken from the bone with a spoon. They shouted to her in the street, “You you!!! USA!! Hollywood!! Jack and Rose!! My heart go on!” and there was no point explaining how she was just an ordinary woman from an ordinary Midwestern town.

Though the students were generally respectful to all teachers, Nanaphat seemed to regard her as more than an exotic foreigner. He treated her like a human.

That is, until he saw her with Mark, a retiree from Canada, who spent his days drinking and fishing or drinking and reading, depending on the weather. Lora had met him when a sudden downpour forced her to take shelter in a beachside cafe.

“I love Inspector Moltalbano! A witty man with an appreciation of good food.”

“Not to mention good at solving crimes.”

“That too. I’m Lora. Do you mind if I sit here for a while? It’s raining buckets out there.”

Lora was never this forward with a man and especially not a white man in Thailand, as they were certainly not there to meet tall, pudgy white women pushing 40. But there was something about the graceful way his legs were crossed and the slight furrow of his brow as he read that were instantly endearing. As the rain continued to fall in sheets, they sat and shared big bottles of Leo beer. Like most ex-pats who found themselves in the tired southern town, they glossed over some chapters of their history while spinning wild tales from others. Though he never said it, regret was his catalyst and lack of purpose hers.

As with many stormy afternoon trysts, theirs ended in a small non-descript room, in this case one that also had a kettle and a hot plate. He explained that he was living as cheaply as possible to stretch the retirement money to its fullest but lamented not being able to cook. He smiled sadly as he recounted afternoons spent getting the gnocchi just so.

“Now, it’s instant noodles and coffee.”

“Just like a college student.”

“You make me feel like a college student.”

She didn’t mind nor really notice the age gap and he didn’t seem to mind nor notice that she wasn’t a young, slim Thai girl.

On the way home the next morning, she forgot to tell him to take a route that would avoid the roads used by the students. She saw several familiar faces and hoped her mascara wasn’t too smeared or hair too mussed. She wondered if they knew the expression, “the walk of shame” and how she could ever possibly explain it.

When she arrived in the teachers’ office, she saw the teachers look from her to her desk, expressions giving away nothing. She heard a buzzing noise and saw a basket of rotten fruit.

Under it a note, the last English words ever written or spoken by the young Thai man. Words that made Lora turn crimson; words that led to whispers, laughter, and eventually banishment.

“You were lady of day but now lady of evening. You were bird in sky but now fallen lady. You are true American.”

 

The Waterfall

By the second night, Anne was sprawled out in the middle of the bed, limbs bending and stretching in every direction. It was the best sleep she’d ever had. Delicious and luscious, like being nestled in a noiseless, weightless cocoon. The feeling of not wanting to ever move disturbed only by a throbbing bladder.

Anne was supposed to be in this huge bed in the cosy bungalow with her partner of eight years. But as she’d expected for a long time, he’d found another big bed, belonging to someone not younger or prettier, just not her. “More present” as he had put it.

Her personality had swallowed itself in the last few years. Each day a vat of wet cement to be trudged through. The listening, smiling, nodding, and replying required hollowed her to the core. Anne sometimes glimpsed at him as she watched soaps in silence, wondering when he’d put the withering thing out of its misery. She couldn’t be bothered to do it herself.

Anne went to the rooftop for the complimentary breakfast and as she drank her coffee and stared out to the sea, she thought about when she and Mike had last eaten breakfast together. They usually spent Saturday morning at a greasy spoon called Heartland Café, where they watched couples in various stages of decay, newspapers as buffers. They’d wondered if the silence was companionable. Was everything already said? They’d vowed in those first years to never be like those couples. But on that last morning the only sounds between them were the scraping of knives on toast and the slurping of coffee. She thought about asking him what he thought these people were going to do after they paid their bills. He would have answered animatedly, making her laugh with his turn of phrase and unpredictable ideas. But she said nothing and neither did he and after they paid, she went to the library and he went for a ramble through the city.

After breakfast, Anne went to the appointed spot for a trip she booked to a waterfall. As she awkwardly climbed into the songthaew, she saw that she was the only customer and felt a stab of fear and loneliness. Then she remembered the last trip she had taken with Mike, each of them in different seats on the train so they could “both have a window view” and feeling lonelier when they were forced to sit together on the way back.

 The palm trees were unnaturally tall, like redwoods and the layers of green suggested untameable places with snakes, spiders, and all types of horrifying insects. When Anne was a child, her father brought the family out on Sunday drives out in the country. She would project herself out the window and watch herself run in the tall grasses and fields, her arms held out, face turned slightly towards the sun. On this ride in the jungle, Anne feared any projection of herself would be strangled and consumed by all that green. But she imagined it anyway.

She heard it before she saw it. Louder than any thunderstorm and strangely calming. She laughed at the enormity of it, a wall of white that stretched as far up as she could see. In the sun the droplets of water shone like diamonds.

The driver slid out of the truck and lit a smoke. He looked at Anne and then seemed to scold his young companion, who shyly beckoned with a skinny arm for her to follow. He didn’t smile or look at her and she imagined that he’d much rather be hanging out with his pals in an internet café than schlepping a middle-aged white lady through the jungle.

As the climb became more difficult, she noticed how deftly the barefoot boy jumped from rock to rock, spotting the easiest route for her to take. The boy frequently held out his hand to help her over steep and slippery spots. At first she felt weak and reluctant to feel his small, slender almost bird-like grip on her but as the energy drained from her legs, she welcomed the boy’s strong and gentle hand and found herself not wanting to let go.

In the beginning, she and Mike had always had their fingers laced or at the very least, touching. Walking down the street, sitting on the old broken sofa in their favourite pub, at night when falling asleep. She had known every line, vein, and callous of his hands by touch. Why had she started burying her hands deep in her pockets and sleeping with them curled under her chest?

As Anne struggled to breathe in the thick air of the jungle, she gasped at the realization that the simple act of withdrawing her hands had been the first act of sabotage. The gradual silence had followed.

Anne and the boy were now at a relatively flat area of the mountain, a giant bench that had been carved out and covered with a soft layer of grass. The water was shallow and there were large smooth stones shining in the sunlight. Anne slowly trudged up and over stones and climbed onto a large rock. She felt the spray of the waterfall behind her and could see the sheer drop before her. She let herself be surrounded by the noise before beginning to sob into her hands.

She suddenly felt two hands covering her own as the boy hugged her from behind. He rested his head between her shoulder blades and she could feel his mouth on her skin whispering kind words in a language she didn’t understand.

As Anne walked back to her hotel hours later, the boy ran to her. She immediately thought she should give him a tip and began digging in her bag. He put his hand on her arm and with a smile thrust a small, smooth stone into her hand. He said something, which could have been anything, really, but for her was always, “Don’t let go.”

 

 

 

Rushed

Denise couldn’t seem to help the fact that she did everything quickly. In the morning, rather than let her coffee cool or take the moment to temper it with milk, she downed the scalding liquid, becoming addicted over time to the burning in the back of her throat. She was the same with booze, easily knocking back three gin and tonics in the time it took her companions, if she had any, to have one, and getting drunk as a result. She spoke quickly and succinctly and even in the bedroom rather than relish the rise of the oncoming pleasure, employed all manners of tricks to get off and then rushing her partner to do the same.

But where her rushing caused the most problems was on the city streets. Her long legs meant she could easily outwalk her fellow denizens and she was quite graceful in weaving in and out and between them, careful to avoid the inner city moms pushing prams at a crawl as they chain-smoked and gossiped in packs. She avoided running into the pocket-sized grannies who walked with canes that reached their temples. But occasionally someone would bump her shoulder or her bag and she would hear them shouting at her to “slow the fuck down”.

From the moment she awoke at 6:00, the day consisted of a series of tasks that had to be completed and ticked off a neatly constructed mental list (writing the list would be a waste of time). While doing one task as quickly and efficiently as possible, she was simultaneously thinking of the next. Get to work, make the copies, do the lesson, prepare for the next. She had tried to linger over a coffee at the break, chatting with colleagues but found the upcoming tasks too distracting. She secretly envied and admonished their lazy but relaxed approach to the days. After fleeing out the door, she had to do the shopping, put in the wash, cut the vegetables, wash the rice, do the dishes, hang the wash, grade the papers. And finally at 10:00, she could unfold herself into the bed and feel the mattress absorb the day.

It was on a particularly crowded Saturday at the mall that she tripped over an unseen small boy and tumbled down the concrete stairs. Stunned, she looked up at the faces peering down at her, angry at the boy because she should be in Tesco by now, basket over arm, strategically zigzagging through the aisles. In the ambulance, rude and impatient from fear and pain, Denise asked the man who was in charge of jabbing and pinching, when she’d be done and could go home.

“This looks like a bad break. You’re going to be with us for a while.”

For the first time in years, Denise called in sick for the next day and was quite miffed when her boss insisted on a full week so she could get a jump start on the healing and learn to use the crutches.

On her first day “off”, she was bored after 36 minutes and decided that she’d finally go to the outdoor café in Sergeant Square, which she’d passed nearly every day of her life for six years. As she hobbled to a small table, two men jumped up from a nearby bench and tried to help her ease into her wobbly metal chair. They smelled of cider and cigarettes but were full of smiles and “there you go loves”. She sipped her coffee to stretch the time and watched the activity in the small square. People stopped on the benches for spontaneous picnics, and an endless parade of homeless and junkies met, bantered, laughed, argued and went on. There was a repeating ballet of men feeding the pigeons and the children chasing them away, and all the while people rushing through the square were oblivious to it all.

Denise eventually finished her coffee and decided to walk to the supermarket for the week’s provisions. Walking at a much slower pace, every few steps she heard muffled words of sympathy and encouragement as people passed her by. She noticed that children were not as empty-headed as she previously thought—everything seemed to fascinate them, which is why they seemed to wander aimlessly but were actually moving from one interesting spot to the next. Old people, too, were not wishy-washy wanderers out for a stroll. There was a hard, gritty determination in their grunts and shuffles.

The groups of friends who always annoyed her by taking up the “whole fucking sidewalk” were clueless about their surroundings because they were so focused on one another, commiserating, giving advice, and making jokes at one another’s expense. She’d never walked down the street with a friend, knowing that the pace of it, the stress of listening and trying to get to Point B as quickly as possible would be a nightmare. Better to kill the two birds of socialising and shutting off her brain while at the pub.

By the third week, she was back to work and feeling quite calm despite the hassles of doors, stairs, and writing on whiteboards. There was more than ever a long list of tasks to be finished but she found she didn’t mind if some were pushed to the next day. Yet she yearned to be free of the monstrosity encasing her leg. When it was finally cut off, the first thing she noticed was how foreign her slightly shrunken leg appeared. She walked outside, arms feeling light without the crutches, center of gravity restored. She stood motionless outside the hospital for so long, someone asked if she needed to go inside.

She could see a long mental list of things she was unable to do for the last two months: clean the fridge, restock the pantry, flip the mattress. But she felt no pull towards them, which unsettled her greatly. Disoriented, she walked slowly west, noticing for the first time it felt, the sky turning pink.

 

 

Swimming Lessons

They’ve been at the deserted lake for hours. It’s a muggy day at the edge of summer with a slight chill in the air when the clouds cover the sun. Little Sister is getting bored with making sandcastles with the single plastic bucket and shovel. She likes digging a moat around the castle but hates the way the green slime keeps getting in the way. She’s trying to get the attention of Big Sister, who keeps looking at the empty gravel road. “Watch this!” She spins, does cartwheels, feels sand land in her hair. She jumps and twirls like a ballerina, but Big Sister won’t stop frowning and biting her nails.

Suddenly they see the dust and hear the crunch-crunch-crunch of an approaching car. Little Sister is scared, thinking of the movie she saw with the Big Kids when Babysitter was snoring in her reclining chair. The teenagers were running in the countryside from a madman in a mask. He kept finding them and stabbing them with a big knife. The boy in the car doesn’t have a mask. He’s wearing a jean jacket and has long hair. The music blaring from the car makes her ears hurt.

Big Sister now looks straight out to the lake. Her face is frozen like when Mom tells her she isn’t living up to her potential, that she’ll be barefoot and pregnant for the rest of her life if she keeps this up.

The boy turns off the car and runs his hand through his hair. He gets out of the car and sits down next to Big Sister and kisses her on the cheek.

“You’re late.”

“I’m sorry, Babe. I had stuff to do for my mom.”

“You’re a liar. I know you were with her.”

“Don’t be like this. You know you’re the only one for me. I swear!”

Big Sister gets up and in one fluid motion, takes off her shirt, revealing a hot pink bikini, held together by strings. Little Sister has never seen her Big Sister’s body like this. It is beautiful and terrifying.

Without saying a word, Big Sister dives into the water and begins swimming towards a wooden pier far off in the middle of the lake. Soon, Little Sister can’t see the pink straps, just white arms cutting through the still black water.

The boy watches for a moment and without a word, lights a cigarette and gets into his car. The sound of the wheels spinning on the gravel and the angry music jar the stillness of the lakeside. Little Sister feels like she isn’t in a real place, that it’s a movie and something bad is going to happen.

The dust of the car is gone and she can’t see Big Sister’s arms anymore. She screams her name and begins to shake. She wraps herself in a towel and sits at the edge of the lake. Big Sister has never left her alone, has never ignored her.  They always go on adventures and build couch forts and make plays. And when she is afraid at night, Big Sister always lets her in and they tell secrets until they fall asleep.

The pain in her heart makes her think she is going to die. She is crying so hard she can’t breathe. She buries her head in her hands just like when she watched the movie.

It feels like hours have passed when she hears a splashing sound and Big Sister is crawling towards her, heaving and gasping. Her arms are covered in goosebumps and saliva falls from her mouth in long strings. She clutches Little Sister and her bony arms feel like popsicles and she smells like the slime. She cries when she sees Little Sister’s wet face and red eyes.

“I’m so sorry I shouldn’t have left you. I thought he would follow me. Did he say anything?

“You almost drown-ded! You left me alone. I hate you. I HATE YOU!!!”

Little Sister wants to squeeze herself into a ball or inside one of the many shells that are scattered on the beach and make noise if she holds them to her ear. She wants to be inside the sandcastle protected by the moat. She can’t stop crying.

Big Sister sits and pulls her close to her chest like she has done since she was a baby. They used to sit like that for hours, reading in front of the fireplace. She rocks her and hums and soon she feels calm. Under the towel, their skin begins to warm and there’s a tiny bit of release from the fist clutching her heart.

The car ride is silent save the occasional piece of gravel hitting the car and the steady whoosh of the heater. At dinner Mom knows something is up. But when Big Sister looks at her and crosses her eyes and sticks her finger in her nose, Little Sister forgets the heaviness in her chest and laughs. The laughing is an unexpected treat, like eating Cool-whip from the tub or licking the chocolate off the beaters. She can’t get enough and eventually Mom yells at her to knock it off.

That night Big Sister reads her a book in bed and acts out all the characters with such funny voices, Little Sister can’t get sleepy. But she knows already that she won’t sleep.

“I’m so sorry, Little Sister. I will never do something like that again. I will never leave you. You are my bestest sister. I will never care about a boy more than you.” After a pause, she whispers, “And I will never trust a boy again.”

Later in the dark, the words soothe Little Sister, especially the bestest sister part, but something broke apart from her, like a twig on a tree, and was left on the beach. She hears the words Big Sister said and one phrase bounces around her head. She knows she will have to be careful now. She understands she must never trust again.

The Man Named Ben

Rachel was 10 when she first met a homeless person. It was a muggy Midwestern afternoon that was so hot even the flies hovered ever so slowly in the thick air. But she didn’t notice the heat as she twirled down the street, flanked by her two cousins who never told her to shut up when she started singing or humming. They were 12 and 13 and at that stage when they were trying on the hardened expressions of men. They didn’t make eye contact with anyone they passed but their gait suggested that trouble would ensue if anyone looked twice at the skinny and slightly unkempt girl between them.

Rachel had been sent to live with them when she was 6 and through the hushed mutterings between their mother and grandmother, they figured out Rachel had been living with bad people and had somehow been rescued. She was a quiet, odd girl with permanently stringy hair and a dirty face. She sat at the back of class at school, looking out the window and pinching herself when she started to hum. But because her two cousins who were rough enough to be considered bullies took her on, the other kids ignored her.

She had two qualities that for her cousins, bordered on the supernatural and made her even more valuable to protect. Though she was often oblivious to what was going on around her, she had an uncanny ability to know when something was in distress. Countless times, she had led them blocks away to a small kitten stuck in a fence or sewer grate and she could always spot a tiny chic that had fallen from its nest. Many a robin she nursed back to health but more than a few were laid to rest in a tiny patch of dirt in the backyard, their short lives marked by a single plastic pinwheel.

Her other talent, of slightly more interest to the two young boys, was her ability to steal from the corner shop and never get caught. She would shyly go the counter and buy a pack of grape gum or a pencil or a bag of chips, slowly and carefully counting out the exact change in pennies and nickels and the occasional quarter, meanwhile chocolate bars and magazines were securely tucked in various places under her clothes. It didn’t occur to them until years later that the rather gruff Mr. Schmidt may have known she was stealing and just let it go.

So it was on this hot, steamy day that after going to the shop that Rachel knew they had to go to Herman Park a few blocks away. The boys didn’t mind as the park was small but had a few old and therefore more dangerous slides and even boasted a barrel that you stood inside of and made spin like a hamster wheel.

When they arrived they saw a youngish man sitting on one of the benches, wearing all camouflage, two giant army green bags next to him. He had a huge reddish beard and long, wavy hair. When the boys raced to go into the barrel, Rachel sat down next to the man and offered him candy. He smiled and introduced himself as Ben. He asked her if they were in Albion and she said they were. He then explained that the town was completely different, that they’d moved all the buildings to confuse him.  If he went to the places he knew like the newspaper where his uncle worked, the school where his mom was a teacher, or even the factory where his Dad worked and told everyone what he knew, what was really happening in the war, he’d start a revolution. What he knew would change the world.

“Maybe the buildings are different now but we got a school and a factory. You could still go there.”

“No, they don’t know me so they won’t believe me. And they probably hired actors to pretend they don’t know me or believe me. Like on the Truman Show.”

What Rachel didn’t realize was that Ben and she were in Albion, but Ben was in the wrong Albion. His was miles and miles away in a different state.

When her cousins saw that she was talking to a strange man, they came and told her more sternly than necessary that it was time to go home. They didn’t even look at Ben but looked at one another, slightly scrunching up their noses and trying not to laugh.

That night Rachel begged her aunt to let Ben come and live with them. Her aunt, accustomed to her niece bringing home strays  they had no place for in a two-bedroom house, told her he was homeless and homeless people were sometimes dangerous and crazy.

“But I was homeless and you kept me.”

“You’re family, honey. A little crazy, but that’s ok.” And she gave her a big hug and gently wiped her tears away.

Rachel hatched a plan that involved taking a bus to a town an hour away and stealing a minivan for Ben to live in somewhere out in the country. The cousins were immediately on board and the three discussed the details well past the time the lightning bugs came out and the air cooled.

The next day, Rachel brought Ben a sandwich and chips but wasn’t allowed to stay and chat. On the third day he was gone. Rachel went to the police station, sandwich in hand, and said, "Have you seen the homeless guy named Ben. I need to give him this” They told her not to talk to strangers and to go home. They then proceeded to do their own search of the town.

The boys never stole a van or any other vehicle and the police never found a man wandering their tiny, safe town. And Rachel, instead of twirling in a state of oblivion, never stopped searching the faces of strangers looking for a man name Ben.