by Dawn Gardner
“Joni, I’d kill to have your long blonde hair.” Patsy said, looking at Joni in the rear view mirror.
“Thanks.” Joni said. She was feeling queasy from the smoke. It was a good thing they were almost to downtown Norfolk. The plan was to go to downtown and then to Patsy’s Uncle’s house to stay the night and drive back on Sunday. Joni hoped for less smoking on the way back home.
The three girls walked down the street passing the bars, Roosevelt Tavern, The Royal Palm, and then they walked into the Neptune Tavern. From the moment they entered the bar, they were ogled. Joni didn’t know what Patsy and Glenda expected, but having sailors swarm around them like bees to flowers was not her idea of fun. Joni accepted the first beer and chatted with a cute sailor dressed in a white uniform. As he spoke about the aircraft carrier he was on, Joni noticed a light flickering across the street. The light held steady and Joni read the sign, Psychic Readings by Sister Rose, Communicating with your Deceased Loved Ones since 1948.
“Hey, thanks for the beer.” Joni guzzled it down. She found Patsy and Glenda easily in the crowd by the smoke trail. “I’m stepping outside for a few minutes.” Joni said to Patsy, who nodded.
Joni jogged across the street. She stood in front of the tall wooden door. Purple flecks of peeling paint covered the door like fish scales. Joni placed her hand on the gold knob twisted and pushed. Bells clanked against the door as she stepped in.
“Hello?” Joni said, noticing a fragrance of fruit mingled with burnt ash.
“We are closed.” A voice came from behind a purple curtain that lined the back of the long narrow rectangular space.
“Are you sure?” Joni said, hoping for a different answer.
A thin woman came out from behind the curtain in blue jeans and a black turtleneck sweater. Her grey hair was swept up in a high ponytail and her eyelashes were heavy and extra long. Her crystal dangly earrings captured bits of light. The woman studied Joni’s face.
“How long has your mother been gone?” the woman said.
Joni stumbled to get out any words, “Thirteen years.”
“Please sit,” the woman pointed to a purple chair near the front right under the window. “I’m Rose.”
Joni sat. “I thought you’d look different.”
“You mean wearing a turban and carrying a crystal ball?” Rose laughed with a deep throaty voice that seemed misplaced for such a small woman. “Normally I charge for this. But tonight, you are lucky. I’ve put all my things away. Do you have anything of your mother’s with you?”
“Yes.” Joni pulled off the silver ring she wore on her right ring finger. She handed the thin wedding band to Rose.
“This is beautiful. They were married in the summer?”
Joni nodded.
Rose closed her eyes and rubbed the ring between her thumb and index finger.
“You have her face. She tells me,” Rose said. Joni eyes filled with tears. “She is showing me a paint brush. She’s fading away.”
“No!” Joni leaned forward. “I want to ask her things, I want to tell her things. Please Mama, stay with me.” Joni cried.
Rose closed her eyes again. After what seemed to be hours to Joni, she opened her eyes and said, “She keeps repeating the same thing . ‘Go to the river and I will be there.’ Does that make any sense to you.”
Chapter 6
Ellen cracked open the door of her mother’s room. She was still sleeping, the covers up over her head. The first order of business of the day was to get the glass repaired for the front window. Ellen searched online for a local glass repair shop, she found one, but it was a few hours before the shop opened. Ellen made herself coffee and went to the window to take another look at the damage. She surveyed her haphazard repair with a plastic trash bag and duct tape. Everything was still holding. As Ellen looked out the window, she noticed snow flurries. It was early to get snow in October, but the grey skies looked heavy.
Ellen’s mind got lost in the snow, transported back to the same front yard filled with a foot of snow. Ellen, eight, and Kim, five, were making a snowman. They had completed the bottom and the middle and struggled to get the head placed on the snowman. Joni stepped outside to help and then asked the girls if they’d like to decorate their snowman with colors. Ellen answered for the both of them. Joni brought the girls around to the side of the house where plastic squirt bottles sat buried in the snow. Her mother must have prepared the colored water earlier that morning. The girls picked their colors, fighting over the blue. And Ellen, being the peacemaker, let Kim have the blue. The girls then painted their snowman, creating a mosaic frozen work of art.
As Ellen stepped deeper into the living room, she looked at all the books on the shelves that flanked the fireplace. Strange, all these years of walking by these shelves and never seeing the books that rested there for years. Her feet crunched against the plastic and she was careful not to disturb any of the paint cans. Her eyes skimmed the titles. Forgotten Kingdom, With Love and Irony, Chapters from a Floating Life, The Corpse Walker: Real Life Stories, China from the Bottom Up, Soul Mountain, The Good Earth, Hiking the Parkway and various coffee table photographic books of China, the Yangtze River and the Blue Ridge Parkway. Ellen couldn’t remember a time that her mother spoke about China. Ever. Why did she have all of these books on China?
The parkway she understood. Joni loved the parkway, the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the Peaks of Otter. Ellen flipped through one of the photo books on the parkway trails. Every summer, Joni took just the girls to hike Sharp Top. It was a girls hike, she would always say to my father if he were home on that day. In high school, the girls didn’t always make the hike, but Joni never missed a year. Ellen remembered the hike one summer, maybe she was ten. It was even more special because it was just Ellen and her mother, Kim was sick. Joni and Ellen moved fast up the trail, and the day was beautifully clear and cool. At the top of the mountain, Ellen remembered being struck by a feeling of smallness and the beauty of the blue mountains. Joni told Ellen to sit on a rock and she’d be right back. Usually, she had packed snacks and water for the girls and they would sit and eat and drink while Joni slipped away for a few minutes. Ellen never cared to know what her mother did before. But without her little sister to take care of, Ellen was curious. She waited for her mother to disappear behind a rock, and then Ellen climbed the rock keeping her body close to the rock and out of sight. Joni stood toward the edge of a long flat rock. Ellen remembered fearing that her mother may fall off into the world below. Joni spoke words into the mountains that Ellen was too far away to hear. And then Joni reached into her shirt, pulled out the jade butterfly she always wore around her neck and kissed it. Ellen could see that her mother was wiping some tears away. Ellen’s foot slipped and some bits of rocks tumbled. She scrambled back to her assigned spot and hoped her mother didn’t see her. Joni came back and sat down beside her, took a long drink of water and continued to look out over the mountains. Ellen finished her snack. Joni placed her arm around Ellen.
“Isn’t this beautiful Ellen.”
“Yes. Mama, why are you sad?”
“I’m sad because butterflies have such short lives.”
That hike was one of the fondest memories she had with her mother, even though Ellen never understood that answer. It just felt like two people sharing something sacred. Then Ellen’s mind went to her failed attempt at an anniversary present for her mother and father. It was their twentieth wedding anniversary, Ellen was nineteen. She had saved and arranged a night for them at the Peaks of Otter lodge. Ellen had hoped that with her mother’s love of that area, she would have been overjoyed at the chance to have a romantic dinner and night at the lodge. When she read Ellen’s card, her mother’s expression gave away that she was not happy with the gift. Ellen didn’t understand her reaction. Kim came behind and gave her gift as well, which Ellen couldn’t remember what it was, just that her mother liked it better. Her mother was nearly seventy years old, what did Ellen really know about her mother as a wo
man. A sadness came over Ellen, she may never know Joni because of this disease.
Her phone vibrated, it was Richard. Ellen declined the call sending it to voice mail.
Moving back to the bookshelves, she pulled off the shelf, Chapters From a Floating Life. Gazing at its orange cover with cartoonish artwork, she wondered what is a floating life. The pages were brown and tattered. She flipped to the front of the book, published 1960. Ellen sat her coffee on the end table, pulled the plastic away from the big armchair, sat and flipped the book open randomly and began to read.
The Sorrows of Misfortune.
Perfect place to start, Ellen thought. Ellen read about the two ancient lovers and her mind drifted to why she even married Richard in the first place. They had met when she was twenty. Ellen had been lost after high school, she didn’t have a clear vision of what she wanted to do with her life. Unlike Kim who always knew she wanted to a photographer. Joni encouraged both girls to go to community college before heading into the work force or enrolling in a four-year college for a degree. Joni would tell them they needed to experience things before making a decision about the rest of their lives. Kim followed her mother’s suggestions and ended up with an art degree, and then a thriving photography business. Ellen, on the other hand, was tired of school, so she went to work for a bank as a teller. Not any thought to it, she just answered an ad. She was twenty, which meant friends, nightlife and money for rent. Not a life she planned, but a life none the less. One spring day, Richard came into the bank to cash a check. He asked her to lunch. Richard was one year away from finishing up his engineering degree at the college. She immediately was taken with his stability, his direction, because at the time, Ellen had none. Richard was safety. She was attracted to him physically, but their conversations were never about important things. In fact, most of that first month of dating was spent in the bed. And from that first month came Danny, their son. She thought about Danny and yes, she would marry Richard all over again if it meant getting Danny. She loved being his mother, raising him, being a part of his life. But when he graduated high school and went off to college, there was a nagging undercurrent in her life. She never could figure it out, she just threw herself harder into her work at the bank. But after Danny’s wedding a year ago, she could finally name the nagging undercurrent. She and Richard were strangers, hell, she didn’t even like Richard as a person. And when the officiant at Danny’s wedding said “for the rest of your days”, something cried out deep inside Ellen.
Ellen brought her attention back to the book. She skimmed the chapter. Marital fights, borrowed money, letters that were misinterpreted, this sounded like life in the present. She flipped to the back of the chapter and read the last line.
I was thrown back into the maelstrom of daily existence, a dream from which I do not know when I shall awake.
A deep pang of regret seized her, Ellen couldn’t put it into words or why she had that feeling. There must be more to a “floating life” than this. She flipped to the front of the book. The Joys of the Wedding Chamber, Ellen thought this had to be more uplifting or at least there could be an ancient sex scene. She quickly scanned the pages. And at the end of the chapter, she noticed handwriting in blue ink near the binding. She turned the book sideways to read the text.
‘Joni, I’ll always remember the lake and your fortune. All my love, Jack.’ Ellen flipped more pages and found more messages. ‘Hey, don’t forget me. I maybe far away, but I’ll be back soon. Jack’ and close to the end of the book, she found this, ‘I love you, will you marry me? Jack.’
Jack? Who the hell was Jack?
Chapter 7
Joni
I know she will be there. I pack my bags. I fly. I need to get to the river. Now I am flying over top of the river. The water sparkles, it is so bright my eyes hurt. In a boat now, I am in the small red boat drifting down the river. And I see her, she finally came to see me. All these years I have waited to talk with her, to see her again. I speak, asking her where’s she been. I am being pulled away from her, no, no, please, I move my arms to fly back to the boat, but it keeps getting smaller and smaller, no, no, no…
Joni woke. She looked around the room. Where was she? She didn’t recognize this place. She lay quietly staring at the ceiling, then gazing at the walls and items that surrounded her. Nothing looked familiar. Her eyes landed on a small framed painting that hung between her windows. The wispy trees, the rusted orange color that bathed the scene, the white herons. Yes, she remembered now, this was her bedroom.
Joni fluffed the covers up, covering the pillows and making it seem like her body was still there in the bed. The cold air tingled her naked body. She went to the window. It was snowing. Her long hair draped across her breasts and a jade butterfly pendant hung on top of her heart. A deep tingling stirred in her lower body. She rubbed her skin. Joni wanted to feel the snow fall over her.
She must be quiet. Joni carefully opened her bedroom door not going past the place where the door groaned. The house was still. No one was up. Moving through the house quickly, Joni was out the sunroom door just as she heard someone in the kitchen.
The air rushed her body. Joni drank in the cold air. She walked to where the backyard and the woods met each other. Standing still, she threw her head back and the snow fell on her face. Spreading her arms wide, she watched the snowflakes melt on her flesh. Her feet ached from the cold, but she quickly pushed that feeling away and went deeper into the tingling of her lower body. She was free. Joni spun around, her hair flying from her head like the wings of the heron. A snowflake landed on her nipple, she laughed. She began to skip. Moving her way deeper into the woods. She spun around to see the house again, the roof painted with snow, looked much better Joni thought. As she turned to walk deeper into the woods, a bright light dancing across the roof caught her attention. The light jumped to the bird feeder and then to the roof again.
Joni ran out of the woods back to the house to catch the light. It was gone. Then it tickled the row of boxwoods on the side of the house. As Joni stared at the light on the boxwoods, it became like a watercolor painting. The bushes dissolved into paint and she saw a woman step out of the watercolor painting. She walked toward the bush to touch her, but then the woman disappeared into the light again. Joni ran to catch it again. Now she was in the front yard. She looked at the bay window and saw Ellen standing there gazing out. Joni clung to the backside of a large oak tree until Ellen moved away. Needles stabbed her feet, Joni looked down, no needles just bright red feet. The color made her laugh.
The flakes were larger now. Joni danced and spun her hair again.
A charcoal grey car slowed as it passed in front of Joni. She waved and spun again. Another car was approaching, Joni waved to be polite, but didn’t keep her gaze on the car. She kicked up her red feet and rubbed her breasts. She closed her eyes. The tingling was exploding inside her.
“Ma’am, Ma’am, are you okay?”
Joni opened her eyes to the buttery voice. He was beautiful, Joni thought. His eyes were kind. Peacock blue with mustard yellow flecks, Joni had to get closer to him. She was sure she knew him. As she stepped toward him, her foot slipped and she fell onto the ground.
The man helped Joni to her feet and wrapped his wool coat around her. Why was she here? Who was this man? Why was she naked? Her feet ached.
“Is this your house?” the man asked.
Joni looked at the colonial blue paint. “Yes, this is where I live. Who are you?”
“My name is Ted. I’m your neighbor. I just moved in a few months ago. I don’t know why you are here in your front yard, but let’s get you in the house and get you warmed up.”
Joni knocked at the front door, which led into the living room where Ellen sat reading.
Ellen opened the door. She looked at her mother’s naked, reddened body draped with a large wool coat.
“Oh my god Mom! You’re naked! I thought you were sleeping. What the hell are you doing? ”
Joni stepped
in the foyer, and pulled Ted into the house. “Ellen, I met my neighbor. Jack, come in and meet my daughter Ellen.”
Chapter 8
“My name is Ted. Your mother was out in the front yard. I was on my way to school and I didn’t want to leave her out there. I don’t believe I’ve seen you before. I live a couple of houses down the street. Just moved in over the summer.”
“Thank you so much for bringing her in. Mom, are you nuts? It’s freezing out there. I hate to be rude, but I need to get her warm and dressed. I can’t thank you enough.”
“Don’t worry about it, I have to get to school.” Ted turned and closed the door.
Ellen shuffled her mother back to her room, pulled out her mother’s warmest sweatshirt and fuzzy socks and handed them to Joni. Ellen looked over at the bed and realized she had been tricked. The lumps in the bed were perfectly arranged to look like someone sleeping.
Joni pulled the sweatshirt over her head and tucked the jade butterfly back into the shirt. Ellen grabbed her mother’s hand and the comforter and made her way to sunroom. Ellen motioned for her mother to sit in the big papasan chair. Joni obeyed and curled her legs up into the seat. Ellen tucked the comforter around her mother.
“Mom, what were you doing?”
“When?” Joni answered.
Ellen couldn’t tell if she really didn’t remember or if she just wasn’t going to tell her why she was naked outside. “Are you feeling warmer?”
“Yes.” Joni laid her head against the back of the chair and closed her eyes.
Ellen looked at her mother. She looked like a child curled up in the chair. “Who’s Jack?”
Joni answered without even opening her eyes, “My Jack. He was so beautiful. He is in the box in my bedroom. And…and.” Her voice trailed off into light snores.
