Once Their Was A Spider

Maddy pulled into the driveway that curved around the flowerbed where the lamppost was planted, and she turned off the car. Mrs. Henderson had not arrived yet, so she decided to sit and wait with the windows rolled down and with the chilly October breeze reaching into the front seat and making her wish she’d worn a warmer jacket.

Her mother, Marlene, knew Mrs. Henderson from the water aerobics class they both took at the Y. The two ladies were doing knee lifts in the pool one day, and Marlene mentioned that Maddy would be coming to town for a visit, that she was a writer who seemed unable to write lately, and Marlene was hoping to give her some room for inspiration. She called it “quiet time.” “I’d like to give her some space and some quiet time.”

Mrs. Henderson said that no one had used her lake house in weeks, or was it months, she couldn’t remember for sure. And she would be happy to let Maddy stay there for as long as she needed. It was as quiet as they come, she said, and it would be good for someone to be there to air out the place and run some water through the pipes. She said for Maddy to meet her there at 5:00, and she would give her the keys and give her a quick tour. Maddy was only a few minutes early.

She remembered what her mother said about this woman, that she was late to everything that was governed by a set time, and that she was usually the last one in the pool and always apologizing as if she were normally prompt. She would sidle out of the locker room looking like Tracy Lord and slip off her robe, drape it over the bleachers by the south wall, and snap on her swimming cap, careful to tuck in every loose strand of hair. Throughout the entire display, she would say how sorry she was for being late, and she just didn’t know how she could have misread the clock. The first couple of times, the other women in the class and their instructor would stop and listen and smile, but after it seemed Mrs. Henderson’s entrance was going to be a regular exhibition, they stopped paying attention and kept on with their jumping jacks while she gushed.

Having become impatient with waiting, Maddy got out of her car and decided to give herself a tour while she waited. The side yard was narrow and overhung with tree branches like a trellis, and she had to duck to get through the tunnel they made. At the other end was a wide-open back yard that extended down to the lake where there were benches and an empty dock. With the onset of fall, all the boats had been brought in for the season, and the only things still on the lake were the geese and ducks and sea gulls. The birds were taking turns circling overhead and honking, gathering the troops for the flight south.

Standing in the middle of the yard, Maddy turned back to see the house and was startled by its size. From the front, it was nothing but a simple ranch house, but from the back it had character and a rustic sense that made it blend in with the woods around it. It was built on a hill, so the back had an exposed basement that wasn’t seen from the front, revealing it to be a much bigger house than people expected when standing on the front porch.

To the right of the house was an inlet where local residents tied up their canoes during the summer months, but now there was nothing more than a ripple from the occasional duck turned upside down looking for fish. To the left, on the other side of the thick stand of trees were more and more trees growing out of a ravine too steep for hiking. Maddy stood on the edge where the ground began to slope, holding onto a slim tree trunk as she leaned forward for a better view and thinking she’d need something like a ski pole to navigate down to the bottom. It wasn’t too far of a drop, though, and she could see how the leaves on the forest floor gave way to mud from a recent rain.

Car tires crunched the gravel in the driveway, and Maddy made her way back through the wild trellis to meet Mrs. Henderson. A tall woman draped in a pashmina shawl made to look like leopard skin climbed out of a vintage Mercedes the color of steel. She flipped her shawl over her shoulder and extended a gloved hand to Maddy.

“You must be Marlene’s daughter. I’m Mrs. Henderson. Call me Janine.”

“Hi, I’m Maddy. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your letting me stay here for a few days. It’s so nice of you.” Maddy smiled as she pictured Mrs. Henderson in a one-piece and bathing cap doing water aerobics in a swimming pool at the Y.

Mrs. Henderson smiled back as she pictured herself as the benefactress of a struggling author. “My pleasure. Let’s go inside, and I’ll show you around. I see you’ve already had a look at the grounds.”

The two women stepped through the front door, and Maddy followed her host as she went from room to room. “There are just a few rooms to show you, dear,” Mrs. Henderson said as she turned the thermostat up a bit. “I’ll just show you around and leave you here to make yourself at home.”

They walked through the living room that combined with the kitchen, and they peeked in at the guest room and extra bath. There was a laundry room and door to the basement steps and an enclosed back porch with wicker chairs and rockers. On the other side of the house beside the inlet was the master suite. It was roomy but comfortable, and the bathroom was like something Maddy imagined finding in a spa, the kind of spa she could never afford.

Mrs. Henderson saw the look of delight on Maddy’s face at the sight of the round tub, a large window that opened out toward the inlet, and gold faucets that fed the marble sink. “It really is a lovely room, isn’t it?”

“It really is.” Maddy tried not to sound too eager.

“I’ll tell you a secret, though. One night I came in here to use the potty, and just as I sat down—pardon my frankness—I spotted a big, black spider on the rug right in front of the shower door. It was the kind you’d see outside in the woods and not like one I had ever seen inside before. I was so horrified that as soon as I had finished, I ran straight back to bed. And I’m ashamed to say I can hardly stand to use this bathroom anymore. I have not seen the nasty thing since, but it was enough to put me off of this gorgeous room for good, at least at night. Well, that’s my little secret. Feel free to use the master suite, dear. I just thought you should know.”

“I promise not to tell a soul,” comforted Maddy. She was trying so hard to appear cool in front of the woman with the cashmere wrap that must have cost her a month’s worth of Maddy’s rent that she didn’t have the courage to admit her own biggest fear—spiders. She was relieved to hear they were not typically found inside the house but would keep a wary eye toward the rug in front of the shower.

Mrs. Henderson left a set of keys and her phone number on the kitchen counter and left Maddy to find her inspiration in the hide-away house.

Maddy brought her small suitcase in from the car along with a few bags of groceries she had picked up on her way in from town. She unpacked her clothes and put them in the empty drawers set aside for guests. She put away the milk and juice and some things she had planned for simple meals, and she made a tuna sandwich and took it out to the back porch with a glass of bargain wine. In the morning she would attempt to write something or at least think about writing.

•••

It was the middle of the night, or what seemed like it, when Maddy woke up to find herself in the unfamiliar room in the strange house that creaked and rattled. A fierce wind circled around the house and through the woods and lapped water onto the rocks along the shoreline. It took Maddy a minute to recognize where she was and to realize a storm had blown in while she had slept.

She needed to use the toilet, but when she turned on the light in the master bathroom, she remembered Mrs. Henderson’s secret. Had she been fully awake, Maddy might have been clear-headed enough to squelch her fear of spiders, but the image of a threatening outside creature was still fresh in her head, and she decided to use the smaller guest bath on the other side of the house.

As she washed her hands in the tiny sink, a gust of wind blew through the trees and around the house, and the wood frame and cedar siding creaked under the pressure. Just as Maddy turned off the light, CRACK, a tree overhead snapped at its base and then, BOOM, it slammed into the roof and front wall just at the corner of the house, landing with full force into the guestroom and sending splinters of wood and bits of glass in all directions.

Startled and frozen in place, Maddy stood in the doorframe of the cramped bathroom unsure of what to do next. Once she caught her breath, she flipped the switch for the bathroom light back on to see just exactly what had happened and what damage had been done. The tree must have taken an electrical line down with it because the power had gone out even to the lamppost in the driveway.

In complete darkness, Maddy reached her hands out in front of her and slowly stepped forward. With half the roof and part of the front wall missing in the guestroom, the wind was blowing leaves into the house, making them swirl on the floor at her feet, and for a moment she wasn’t sure if she was outside or in. She stepped forward again but jumped when her foot landed on a piece of broken glass, and she rolled head first over the big tree trunk that now lay across the floor. And at the other end of the somersault, Maddy found herself sitting in the wet grass.

Feeling her way toward something solid to stand on or to hold onto, Maddy tried to make her way back into the house, but she stumbled on a fallen branch. She stumbled again and and again in a groggy panic until she made contact with a tree that seemed firmly planted, and she held on with both hands.

The rain had begun lightly just a few minutes before but was now in a full downpour, which made for some slippery traction in the fallen leaves and muddy patches. So, when Maddy, now drenched in her night shirt and flannel pants, turned to get her bearings, her feet went out from under her, and she slid down that ravine she had been marveling at in daylight, the one she knew to be too steep to manage without help.

She screamed on her way down and grabbed at small tree trunks and branches as she slid past them, scratching herself from head to toe. When she reached the sludgy mud, Maddy knew she had hit the bottom. She sat still just for a moment and then screamed for help some more, and she checked herself for broken bones.

Maddy appeared to be all in one piece, but she sat in the mud in the dark and wind and rain and thought through all of her options. There might be someone nearby to rescue her, but that would be unlikely on this remote road late at night where no one heard her scream. She could wait until dawn to try climbing out, but she was already wet and cold and had no idea what time it was. Every time a leaf moved or a tree limb brushed against her skin, Maddy remembered Mrs. Henderson’s description of the big, black spider, the one that you’d normally see outside, and she would shiver and brush phantom things from her arms.

If ever there was a perfect spot for spiders to dwell, Maddy thought, it would be the bottom of this dark and damp ravine. She decided to stand up and attempt the impossible climb back up to the house right then and there.

With firm steps and determined grip, pulling on this tree and that tree and working to hoist herself up one step at a time, she dug her bare feet into the mud. She would make progress, climbing up two or three feet and then slip down again, but she dug in that much deeper and pulled that much harder until she finally made it back up to the front lawn. Leaning forward with her hands on her knees as she gasped for air, cold rain pelting her back, Maddy remembered the emergency flashlight she kept in her glove box, and she limped her way through howling wind and flying debris to fetch it from the car. Now armed with a slight source of light, she climbed back over the tree that had slammed into the guestroom, and she gathered her purse, her insufficient jacket, and her shoes.

Safely back to her car, she left her quiet hide-away house leaving a spray of gravel behind her. She escaped what was supposed to be a few days filled with the promise of peace and productivity, the possibility of renewed energy and newfound clarity. She drove through the driving rain and whipping winds breathing hard like a marathon runner and thinking out loud about the unimaginable events that had led to this moment.

If only Mrs. Henderson had seen the creature in the guest bathroom instead of in that gaudy, self-indulgent luxury spa, or if only that woman had kept her damned secret to herself, Maddy was sure she would not be weaving down the isolated road back to town soaking wet and caked with mud, shivering, scratched and bloody. If only she’d been brave enough to use the toilet in that bathroom with the Italian marble and gold fixtures instead of using the one that was more like a closet, she would not be feeling so foolish.

With both hands gripping the wheel, Maddy was beginning to form the words in her head for the story she would tell her mother when she finally reached town. Slowly beginning to relax, she began to think in paragraphs with punctuation so she could present the tale in proper form to her editor. This had all happened because once there was a spider on the rug in front of the shower door.

A Magical Christmas

My Memaw and Granddaddy didn’t bother with a Christmas tree for just the two of them. They had a potted palm in the living room, and sometimes Memaw would hang wrapped candy canes on its few stalky branches.

That palm was the one living thing in the house that served to filter the air while Granddaddy took drags from his unfiltered Pall Malls. He smoked them chainlike, lighting up one after another even though he never took more than a few puffs from any one cigarette.

He mostly smoked in the kitchen, a big room that was also a kind of family room. Besides the out-dated appliances, a metal kitchenette table, some matching chairs with red plastic seat bottoms, and some counter space stacked with old magazines and a checkerboard, there was a TV, Granddaddy’s Naugahyde recliner, and Memaw’s padded rocker with a matching footstool. After supper, my grandparents would put their feet up and watch Andy Griffith. That Gomer Pyle was a hoot.

On cold nights, they would close the two doors that led to the rest of the house and turn on the space heater. And Granddaddy would smoke, dropping ashes into an ashtray with a three-foot stand that was its own piece of furniture. You had to walk around it and respect its place in the floor plan.

Everything in the room was coated with a layer of yellow nicotine tar—you could use your fingernail to scratch things in the crud on the TV screen, things like your name or “wash me”—and that coating gave the room a certain glow. You know how the atmosphere outside changes colors sometimes before a storm? You look out a window or step out to get the mail from the box, and you’re startled by how yellow it all is. And you wonder what bad thing the weather is about to bring. In Memaw’s kitchen, the yellow glow wasn’t a sign of foreboding. It was just sticky residue from Granddaddy’s bad habit.

I’m not sure what year it was—I may have been eight or nine—when my mother decided we needed to make the twelve-hour drive from Indiana to Alabama as a Christmas surprise for Memaw and Granddaddy. Our annual visit was a June trip, so showing up in December would be unexpected.

We packed up the car with snacks and presents and comfort things like napping pillows and the canning jar that held some water and a washcloth. My mother prepared the jar before every trip just in case someone would become carsick on the road. You might not know it, but it’s nice to have your face and neck washed after vomiting in the ditch beside the highway. Mama kept the washcloth jar on the floorboard in front of her seat and held it upright between her feet.

We left the house at six in the morning before the sun came up, and we drove straight through to Hamburg, Kentucky. That was our planned lunch stop because we knew there was a Kentucky Fried Chicken just off the exit ramp. We stopped there for lunch on all of our June trips, and that was the only time I was allowed to have Kentucky Fried Chicken. That year, I got to have it twice, and I thought it was a sign this would certainly be a magical Christmas.

It was sometime in the early evening when we pulled into the driveway in front of the house. A stand of pine trees lined the right side of the property, and another large pine was the centerpiece of the front yard. Except for those rich, green trees, everything else had turned brown for the winter—the pastures to the left and right and the harvested cotton field out back had all lost their summer color.

There were no climbing roses on the fences or honeysuckle beside the house or grapevines on the arbor. I had never seen Alabama at Christmastime, but I ignored the sepia grass and bushes and scrambled up the front porch steps to stand behind my parents when they knocked on the door. I couldn’t wait to see Memaw’s face when she saw us there with our arms full of wrapped gifts. Memaw and Granddaddy opened the door and drawled, “Well, I’ll be!”

We all hugged one after the other, and Memaw wiped her eyes. She and Granddaddy had just been sitting in their chairs watching the Jim Nabors Christmas special, O Holy Night seeming a little jaundiced, and they were thinking they would have to spend Christmas alone.

We filed into the kitchen, shutting the doors behind us to keep in the heat. Memaw pulled leftovers from the refrigerator and dragged out pots and pans to warm things up. There was corn bread with honey and butter, green beans canned from the summer before, stewed chicken, and a chess pie just baked that afternoon.

“Cut you a piece of that pie,” Memaw sang as she stepped around us and made sure we were all fed and satisfied.

After supper, the men sighed and sat back to gnaw on toothpicks while the women cleared the table and filled the washtub to wash up the dishes. Memaw washed while Mama dried, and they talked about how we decided to make such an unexpected trip and how many days we would probably stay. They would call the aunts and uncles to try to get everybody together at least once.

I slipped out of the warm and hazy room through the side door into the living room and furrowed my brow at the potted palm by the fireplace, a handful of candy canes stuck here and there on it to make a sad Christmas tree disguise. I gathered the presents we had brought with us and arranged them around the plant. I stood the larger ones in the back, and I scattered the smaller ones toward the front in an avalanching display.

Memaw made our gifts every year because she couldn’t afford to go shopping. One year, we all got bars of soap stuck with colorful pins and artificial flowers so they looked like little baskets. She had learned to cut up dish soap bottles and crochet onto them to make purses, purses we would never use but loved for Memaw’s sake just the same. I put her gifts to us in the very front because we would open them first.

Memaw used to shred old clothes and braid them into colorful rugs to cover the cold floors in her unheated house. I scooted onto the big living room rug she had made from worn-out work shirts and house dresses. I held my legs to my chest and rested my chin on my knees, wishing I had colored lights and some gold garland to weave around the Christmas palm.

In the next room, the muted, lilting voices of my grandparents sang a song half giddy and half pitiful. First, they rose up: “We sure didn’t ever expect this. No, sir. We sure didn’t.” Then they descended: “We thought we’d spend Christmas alone, just the two of us.” And then up again: “And now look at y’all here. Have you some more pie.”

Well, I decided, tree lights or no tree lights, garland or no garland, the potted palm with the candy canes and the arrangement of presents would have to do. From my spot on the floor where I could listen to the family in the next room, full from Memaw’s cooking and warm from the big surprise, that Christmas seemed to have shaped up into something pretty magical.

On Her Way to the Square—Revised

On Her Way to the Square

Kathryn pulled the door handle toward her and shook up the bells hanging from the coffee shop’s door. The regulars at the counter turned to see who was about to join them, and the old man sitting at the corner table looked up from his book about the history of the Roman Empire. He quickly returned to his reading, but the men at the counter casually waved at Kathryn as she made her way to the empty stool beside them.

Bob walked out from the kitchen, saw Kathryn straightening the bunched up rug that had nearly tripped her, and poured a cup of his strongest blend. He snapped on the plastic lid and said, “Here you go, Kathryn. Can I get you anything else?”

Bob knew his customers by name and knew what they wanted before they even sat down, which is why Kathryn liked his place better than any of the other shops in town. She needed only to appear at the counter, and a cup of just the right kind of coffee would be set down in front of her. Bob always asked if she needed anything else because that’s what he asked everyone, but Kathryn never wanted more than that one cup. Today, though, would be different. “Actually, I need another cup like this but with some room at the top. Julia’s meeting me here in a few minutes, and she likes a little cream.”

Julia had been Kathryn’s closest friend since they met in a knitting class where they each fumbled with the awkward needles and made an irreparable mess of a skein of yarn. When Kathryn’s husband left her, Julia listened to her cry. And when Julia opened up the town’s only bridal shop, Kathryn promised never to be a customer. They laughed at each other’s jokes, and they kept each other’s secrets.

Just the night before, Julia had confided that her husband was being transferred out of state, and she would have to close down her shop or sell it. She didn’t want to make an announcement so soon, though, and had asked Kathryn to keep this one last secret until she was ready.

Tom, the man beside Kathryn, folded the first section of the newspaper and set it down on the counter, picking up the sports section, which had been well read that morning but poorly reassembled. He sorted out the pages, rattling the paper and grumbling about inconsiderate readers. After a few minutes of organizing and careful creasing, he held the paper out at arms’ length and focused on the football schedule for the high school games that would be played on Friday.

“Are we gonna win this week, Don?”

Don was resting his elbows on the counter. His shoulders were hunched up around his thick neck, making him look even broader than when he stood upright with his hands in his pockets. He took a big sip of coffee, swished it around in his mouth before swallowing it hard, and ran his tongue over his teeth. After a sufficient pause, he answered, “I think we will, Tom. I think we will. I got a good bunch of boys this year, and they’ve been working pretty hard.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” Tom said. “You’re doing a great job with that team.”

Don took another mouthful of coffee, swished, swallowed, and wiped his teeth, the way Kathryn’s father used to do when she was a little girl. She wondered why Don would make such a spectacle out of drinking a cup of coffee when a simple sip and quiet swallow would do. Must be something about aging men, she decided.

The bell rang, and they all looked at the door expecting to see Julia, but it was Daryl instead.

“Hey, Daryl,” Tom waved to the postman who was dropping off the morning’s mail. In exchange, Daryl picked up a ready cup of coffee with a few packs of sugar.

“Here you go, Daryl. Got time to sit for a while?” Bob handed him a wooden stick for stirring.

“I got a few minutes. Julia's shop is next on the route, but she hasn’t opened it yet.”

“She’s stopping here, first,” Kathryn offered. “Then we’re going to walk down to the square to watch the time capsule being buried. She won’t open the store for another hour at least, I’m guessing.”

“The time capsule,” Tom shouted, slapping the sports section down on the stack of papers. “I nearly forgot about that. I got something being buried in that thing, you know. Thanks for me reminding me.”

“What are you burying, Tom?” asked Bob.

“An auto insurance policy, void of course, and a personalized pen from my office. I thought it would be interesting to see how cars change in the next fifty years. And, well, you can’t exactly bury a car. I threw the pen in just in case I’m not around when they dig the thing up.”

“Where are you planning to be?”

“You never know. I might be in Florida, or I might be dead.”

There was a slight sound of clinking glass coming from behind the counter, as if bottles were being rattled and sorted. Kathryn could hear whispering mixed with the clinking and was curious enough to lean over the counter to see who was down on the floor, out of sight and being so hushed. No one else seemed concerned, but she had to know. She could just see the top of a little girl’s head, a girl who was kneeling on the floor rearranging empty soda bottles on the shelves.

“That’s Bob’s granddaughter,” Tom said without looking up from the paper. He had picked up the want ads, which he read every day just in case he should need a new job.

“She comes in here with me sometimes when my daughter has to work.” Bob held up a pot of fresh coffee and offered to top off Kathryn’s cup. “She plays with these bottles until I take them in for the deposit.” There was a drop-off station in the grocery store parking lot, and he liked to wait until he had a trunk full before bothering with the trip.

Kathryn took the lid off her cup to allow for more coffee. She smiled down at the little girl. “What are you doing with all of those bottles?”

The girl raised her head to see Kathryn peering over the counter, looking down at her and the empty bottles. “They’re just talking.”

“To who?”

“To each other. They have to go back for the deposit today, so they’re saying good bye’ in case they get separated.”

Before Kathryn could ask another question, Bob added, “She gives them all names, and they have a little family and a school and what not, and then when it’s time to return them for the deposit, they all say “good-bye” and wish each other well. My wife says someday her imagination will either earn her a million dollars or land her in prison.”

Kathryn sat back on her stool and listened to the whispered story of friends departing and their promises to keep in touch. She had lost so many friends of her own over the last few years as people moved on to other jobs and other homes, and she took comfort in this steady group of coffee shop pals. She had the sense that even if one or two of them were to move to Florida in their old age, most of them were there for the duration.

“So, what are you burying in that capsule, Daryl?” Tom put down the paper and tried to wipe the ink off his fingers.

Daryl had to think for a minute. It was at least a month ago when he dropped off a little box of things at the city hall. “Let me see. I threw in a few stamps, because you never know what the cost of mailing a letter will be in fifty years. And I got to thinking that we might not even be using stamps then. Who knows? I copied a few FBI Most Wanted sheets. Thought it might be interesting to see if they ever catch those folks. Oh, and an old rubber stamp. Everything’s printed electronically now, so we don’t really use that old thing anymore.”

Tom thought about the FBI posters. The oldest people in town liked to say the world was worse than it ever was when they were younger, and they were glad they wouldn’t be around to see it go to ruin. He wondered if that was really true and if the FBI would be looking for the same kind of criminals in fifty years or would they be looking for worse. “I wonder,” he said. “I wonder what kind of crime we’ll have in fifty years. Do you ever wonder about that Don? Ever wonder what this place will be like then or what kind of kids will be in school?”

“Nope. People are people. People were mean a thousand years ago, and people will be mean a thousand years from now, those who want to be. They may come up with new ways to prove it, but we’re all the same. Nothing ever changes.”

The old man in the corner cleared his throat, and everyone turned to acknowledge him. He held up his book and said, “The Appian Way.”

“That’s my point exactly,” Don said. “Crucify some 6,000 slaves along a road for miles and leave them there to rot. Now that was a rough time to live in. You can’t tell me we’re worse off now than those poor fools were way back then.”

“Huh.” Tom wasn’t sure. He would have to think about that for a while. He hoped he would be around when the time capsule was pulled out of the ground and opened up, and he would be the same old Tom, but he wasn’t sure what the rest of the world would look like. “I wonder,” he said, picking the paper back up and looking it over to see if he had missed a page. “How about you Kathryn? Did you give anything to the capsule?”

Kathryn was listening to the saga of the bottles, the departing sorrows and hopes for the future, and she was lost in sound of glass touching glass and plastic crates scooting on wooden shelves. She was suddenly aware that Tom was looking at her, as was Bob, waiting for an answer, but she hadn’t heard the question. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I asked if you gave anything to be buried in the capsule.”

“No, you know, I couldn’t think of anything I thought would be significant. I looked around the house but just couldn’t think of anything the town might care about.”

“Not a single thing?”

“I’m afraid not. I guess I should have put some more thought into it.”

The girl behind the counter stood up and brushed her hair away from her face. She reached down to the shelf below and pulled out a soda bottle, empty and rinsed and ready for recycling. She handed it to Kathryn and said, “You can take this if you want to. You can bury this.” She looked at her grandfather to see if it was OK to offer a bottle. Bob nodded.

Kathryn took it and thanked the girl. “Are you sure? You won’t miss this one?”

“No, it’s OK. I got a hundred of ’em.’”

“Well, then thank you. I’ll take this down to the square and hand it to the mayor. I’m sure he’ll be happy to add it to the collection.”

The brass bell rang, and everyone looked at the door in time to see Julia rush through. “I’m so sorry I’m late,” she hurried to the counter and gave Kathryn a quick hug. I got caught up with something at home and just couldn’t get away.”

“That’s OK.” Kathryn held up the bottle. “We should hurry down to the square so we can make sure this gets put in the capsule before they seal it up.”

Julia looked puzzled, wondering why Kathryn would want to bury an old soda bottle.

“I’ll tell you about it on the way down,” Kathryn said as she grabbed her purse from the floor beneath her stool. Bob dumped out the cup he had set aside for Julia and poured her a fresh, hot cup, remembering to leave room for cream.

Julia handed Bob enough cash to cover her order and Kathryn’s and fixed her brew up just the way she liked it. Daryl pulled a bundle of mail from his heavy shoulder bag and handed it to her. “You might want this,” he said. “Mostly junk, I bet, but you never know.”

“Wait,” Don picked up the sports page and ripped out the article about the football team winning their most recent game. It was full of names of the boys he had worked with and had seen grow up to become young men. He thought that when that capsule would be opened up in fifty years, who ever lived in this town would need proof that not everyone was like a criminal on a poster from the post office. He handed the article to Kathryn. “Would you mind?”

She took the article and rolled it up carefully, sliding it into the bottle. “I’d be happy to include it, Don.”

She and Julia waved to the men at the counter and to the old man at the corner table. They walked out onto the street, letting the bell ring and the door shut behind them.

A minute or so later, they could hear the brass bell ringing as Don and Tom stepped out to go hear the mayor’s speech and to watch the commissioners bury a sealed box of what most of them thought was important and what they all hoped would represent them well for the next generation.

“Now, tell me about this bottle and why it’s so important we put it in a time capsule,” Julie asked as the two women started the three-block walk to the town square. They could see a small crowd gathered in the park on the corner where the flag pole stood surrounded by nearly a dozen trees that had been planted during the town’s centennial celebration a hundred years before.

Kathryn knew nothing could stay the same, with or without a time capsule or a few friends in a coffee shop or commemorative trees. She slipped her hand through the crook of Julia’s elbow and said, “It’s just a way to pretend something is permanent even when you know very little ever is.”

On Her Way to the Square--Short Story

Kathryn pulled the door handle toward her; the movement of the hinges waking the brass bell of the coffee shop. The old man at the corner table and the regulars at the counter all turned in her direction. They couldn’t help themselves—the ringing bell signaled a new customer, and they all wanted to see who was about to join them for the first cup of the day.

Bob walked out from the kitchen, saw Kathryn straightening the bunched up rug that had nearly tripped her, and poured a cup of his strongest blend. Before she could get situated on a stool, Bob snapped on the plastic lid. “Here you go, Kathryn. Can I get you anything else?”

Bob knew his customers by name and knew what they liked, and that’s why Kathryn liked his place better than any of the others in town. She needed only to appear at the counter, and a cup of coffee would be set down in front of her. Bob always asked if she needed anything else because that’s what he asked everyone, but Kathryn never wanted more than that one cup. Today, though, would be different. “Actually, I need another cup like this but with a little room at the top. Julia’s meeting me here in a few minutes, and she likes a little cream.”

Bob poured another cup, and everyone in the shop waited for Julia to ring the bell.

Tom, the man beside Kathryn, folded the first section of the newspaper and set it down on the counter, picking up the sports section, which had been well-read that morning but poorly reassembled. He sorted out the pages, rattling the paper and grumbling about inconsiderate readers. After a few minutes of organizing and careful creasing, he held the paper out at arms’ length and focused on the football schedule for the high school games that would be played on Friday.

“Are we gonna win this week, Don?”

Don was resting his upper body on his elbows on the counter. His shoulders were hunched up around his thick neck, making him look even broader than when he stood upright with his hands in his pockets. He took a big sip of coffee, swished it around in his mouth before swallowing it hard, and ran his tongue over his teeth. After a sufficient pause, he answered, “I think we will, Tom. I think we will. I got a good bunch of boys this year, and they’ve been working pretty hard.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” Tom said. “You’re doing a great job with that team.”

Don took another mouthful of coffee, swished, swallowed, and wiped his teeth, the way Kathryn’s father used to do when she was a little girl. She wondered why Don would make such a spectacle out of drinking a cup of coffee when a simple sip and quiet swallow would do. Must be something about aging men, she decided.

The bell rang, and they all looked at the door expecting to see Julia, but it was Daryl instead.

“Hey, Daryl,” Tom waved to the postman who was dropping off the morning’s mail. In exchange, Daryl picked up a ready cup of coffee with a few packs of sugar.

“Here you go, Daryl. Got time to sit for a while?” Bob handed him a wooden stick for stirring.

“I got a few minutes. Julia's shop is next on the route, but she hasn’t opened it yet.”

“She’s stopping here first,” Kathryn offered. “Then we’re going to walk down to the square to watch the time capsule being buried. She won’t open the store for another hour at least, I’m guessing.”

“The time capsule,” Tom shouted, slapping the sports section down on the stack of papers. “I nearly forgot about that. I got something being buried in that thing, you know. Thanks for reminding me.”

“What are you burying, Tom?” asked Bob.

“An auto insurance policy, void of course, and a personalized pen from my office. I thought it would be interesting to see how cars change in the next fifty years. And, well, you can’t exactly bury a car. I threw the pen in just in case I’m not around when they dig the thing up.”

“Where are you planning to be?”

“You never know. I might be in Florida, or I might be dead.”

There was a slight sound of clinking glass coming from behind the counter, as if bottles were being rattled and sorted. Kathryn could hear whispering mixed with the clinking and was curious enough to lean over the counter to see who was down on the floor, playing with bottles. No one else seemed concerned, but she had to know. She could just see the top of the little girl’s head, a girl who was kneeling on the floor rearranging empty soda bottles on the shelves.

“That’s Bob’s granddaughter,” Tom said without looking up from the paper. He had picked up the want ads, which he read every day just in case he should need a new job.

“She comes in here with me sometimes when my daughter has to work,” Bob held up a pot of fresh coffee and offered to top off Kathryn’s cup. “She plays with these bottles until it’s time to take them in for the deposit.”

Kathryn took the lid off her cup to allow for more coffee. She smiled down at the little girl. “What are all those bottles doing, hon?”

The girl raised her head to see Kathryn peering over the counter, looking down at her and the empty bottles. “They’re saying ‘good-bye.’”

“To who?”

“To each other. They have to go back today for the deposit.”

Before Kathryn could ask another question, Bob added, “She gives them all names, and they have a little family and a school and what not, and then when it’s time to return them for the deposit, they all say “good-bye” and wish each other well. My wife says someday her imagination will either earn her a million dollars or land her in prison.”

Kathryn sat back on her stool and listened to the whispered story of friends departing and their promises to keep in touch. She had lost so many friends of her own over the last few years as people moved on to other jobs and other homes, and she took comfort in this steady group of coffee shop pals. The bottles would go back for a deposit, but these people that surrounded her would remain.

“So, what are you burying in that capsule, Daryl?” Tom put down the paper and tried to wipe the ink off his fingers.

Daryl had to think for a minute. It was at least a month ago when he dropped off a little box of things at the city hall. “Let me see. I think I threw in a few stamps, because you never know what the cost of mailing a letter will be in fifty years. I copied a few FBI Most Wanted sheets. Thought it might be interesting to see if they ever catch those folks. Oh, and an old rubber stamp. Everything’s printed electronically now, so we don’t really use that old thing anymore.”

Tom thought about the FBI posters. The oldest people in town liked to say the world was worse than it ever was when they were younger, and they were glad they wouldn’t be around to see it go to ruin. He wondered if that was really true and if the FBI would be looking for the same kind of criminals in fifty years or would they be looking for worse. “I wonder,” he said. “I wonder what kind of crime we’ll have in fifty years. Do you ever wonder about that Don? Ever wonder what this place will be like then or what kind of kids will be in school?”

“Nope. People are people. People were mean a thousand years ago, and people will be mean a thousand years from now, those who want to be. They may come up with new ways to prove it, but we’re all the same. Nothing ever changes.”

“Huh.” Tom wasn’t sure. He would have to think about that for a while. He hoped he would be around when the time capsule was pulled out of the ground and opened up, and he would be the same old Tom, but he wasn’t sure what the rest of the world would look like. “I wonder,” he said, picking the paper back up and looking it over to see if he had missed a page. “How about you Kathryn? Did you give anything to the capsule?”

Kathryn was listening to the saga of the bottles, the departing sorrows and hopes for the future, and she was lost in sound of glass touching glass, plastic crates scooting on wooden shelves. She was suddenly aware that Tom was looking at her, as was Bob, waiting for an answer, but she hadn’t heard the question. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I asked if you gave anything to be buried in the capsule.”

“No, you know, I couldn’t think of anything I thought would be significant. I looked around the house but just couldn’t think of anything the town might care about.”

“Not a single thing?”

“I’m afraid not. I guess I should have put some more thought into it.”

The girl behind the counter stood up and brushed her hair away from her face. She reached down to the shelf below and pulled out a soda bottle, empty and rinsed and ready for recycling. She handed it to Kathryn and said, “You can take this if you want to. You can bury this.” She looked at her grandfather to see if it was OK to offer a bottle. Bob nodded.

Kathryn took it and thanked the girl. “Are you sure? You won’t miss this one?”

“No, it’s OK. They’ve already said ‘good-bye.’”

“Well, then thank you. I’ll take this down to the square and hand it to the mayor. I’m sure he’ll be happy to add it to the collection.”

The brass bell rang. Everyone looked at the door in time to see Julia rush through. “I’m so sorry I’m late,” she hurried to the counter and gave Kathryn a quick hug. I got caught up with something at home and just couldn’t get away.”

“That’s OK.” Kathryn held up the bottle. “We should hurry down to the square so we can make sure this gets put in the capsule before they seal it up.”

Julia looked puzzled, wondering why Kathryn would want to bury an old soda bottle.

“I’ll tell you about it on the way down,” Kathryn said as she gathered up her purse and handed Julia her coffee.

“Wait,” Don picked up the sports page and ripped out the article about football team winning their most recent game. It was full of names of the boys he had worked with and had seen grow up to become young men. He thought that when that capsule would be opened up in fifty years, who ever lived in this town would need proof that not everyone was like a criminal on a poster from the post office. He handed the article to Kathryn. “Would you mind?”

She took the article and rolled it up carefully, sliding it into the bottle. “I’d be happy to include it, Don.”

She and Julia waved to the men at the counter and to the old man at the corner table. They walked out onto the street, letting the bell ring and the door shut behind them. As they headed down the sidewalk toward the square, Julia took Kathryn’s arm in hers.

Kathryn knew nothing could stay the same, with or without a time capsule. Eventually even this friend might move to start a new life in another town. But for now, she would hold tightly to the empty bottle in her hand and hope for something lasting.

I Am Template

Fill in the blanks with your personal descriptives. My example follows the template:

I am from _______ (specific ordinary item), from _______ (product name) and _______.

I am from the _______ (home description... adjective, adjective, sensory detail).

I am from the _______ (plant, flower, natural item), the _______ (plant, flower, natural detail)

I am from _______ (family tradition) and _______ (family trait), from _______ (name of family member) and _______ (another family name) and _______ (family name).

I am from the _______ (description of family tendency) and _______ (another one).
From _______ (something you were told as a child) and _______ (another).

I am from (representation of religion, or lack of it). Further description.

I'm from _______ (place of birth and family ancestry), _______ (two food items representing your family).

From the _______ (specific family story about a specific person and detail), the _______ (another detail, and the _______ (another detail about another family member).

I am from _______ (location of family pictures, mementos, archives and several more lines indicating their worth).

I AM

I am from Singer, from Butterick, and from bolts of fabric with spools of coordinating thread, bias tape, and 9-inch zippers. My mother sewed all of my clothes because they were cheaper than store bought. It was also a source of pride because the dresses and jumpers and skirts and pants were well made. She always said, “there’s a big difference between homemade and handmade, and your clothes are handmade.” They were quality.

I am from 17th Street and ranch houses with one-car garages attached at the sides. Our lots were freckled with crabgrass but were always trimmed close and tidy, and our yards were full of full-grown trees, the kind you could climb and swing from and hide things in when you needed a secret place to stash your treasures.

I am from the petunias that were brought home by the flat and planted in the flower beds that were sectioned off with old rail road ties. And I am from the redbud tree that bloomed in the spring in a way that made our yard look like something more than a quarter acre on a blue-collar street, like something more than the gravel driveway would lead you to expect.

I am from singing old gospel tunes around the piano in four-part harmony (I am an alto), and dice games on Sunday night when we bet with a jar full of pennies. And I am from Guiles Onie and Ruth Ola who gave the family Rook. “We’re set for sure.”

I am from deep-fried shrimp (pronounced “srimp”) and oysters every summer, and inviting the Southern folk over to share. The house smelled like hot oil and fried batter for days, and I would sniff the sleeve of my shirt to make sure I didn't smell, too.

I am from fear of the unknown and unusual, and from mistrust of the one who signs the paycheck.

I am from the First Baptist Church, where we claimed our own pew in the back on the right side. It was where we were baptized and where we sang and where we wished we went somewhere else for church. It was where our father’s initials were carved in the basement cement because he helped to pour the foundation.

I am from the American South and from fried corn and fried okra and fried chicken and sweet tea. My sisters were from squirrel, but I am from government cheese.

I am from a mother who passed a typing test and was invited to work in Washington D.C. as a secretary. She stayed home in Alabama instead because “I honored my father and mother. Not like it is today.” And she regretted it for years and years and years. I am from a father who fought extra-long in WW2 and drove a tank in North Africa. He made it back home to the States because his number came up while he was stationed in Tunisia. Kind of like winning the lottery only better.

I am from my mother’s cedar chest that stands at the foot of her bed. It’s a treasure trove full of old pictures and autographs and broken eye glasses. It’s full of a scratchy gray and maroon blanket I used to touch when I was a kid, and I wondered why anyone would knit something out of yarn so uncomfortable. And it's full of baby shoes and pink beaded hospital bracelets because I was born a girl.

The Book

I filled out the order form at amazon.com, confirming the shipping address and making sure I had ordered the right book, A Painted House.

“If you like A Painted House you might also like Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway,” the site suggested in its masterful marketing ploy.

Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers, Ph.D. What does that have to do with a John Grisham novel? Why would I automatically like one because I like the other? And, how did they know I was paralyzed with fear in every part of my daily life? I quickly scanned the screen to see if I’d filled out a questionnaire at some point and had answered the questions too thoroughly.
Are you between the ages of 35-50?
Do you own your own home?
Do you have a computer?
Does your stomach quake when you’re asked to speak in front of more than three people?
Does your husband have to pry your white-knuckled fingers off of the kitchen counter before every band performance, just to get you in the car?

There was no such questionnaire, so I shrugged and ordered the suggested self-help book. It had been my opinion that self-help books were usually filled with a few bits of helpful information sandwiched between paragraph after paragraph of unnecessary anecdotes and verbiage. Blah. Blah. Blah. If they were edited for efficiency, most of them would make fine magazine articles. I would see if Dr. Jeffers book was fluff or worthwhile.

Within a couple of days, my shipment arrived. I set the Grisham novel aside and went for the Fear book. I didn’t even bother to read up on Susan Jeffers, Ph.D.’s credentials. I decided to take her word for it.

Right there on the first page:

“We fear beginnings; we fear endings. We fear changing; we fear ‘staying stuck.’ We fear success; we fear failure. We fear living; we fear dying.”

Like Lucy’s diagnosis of Charlie Brown at the 5¢ psychiatrist stand, I yelled, “That’s it. I’m afraid of everything.” The doctor went on to promise that her book would give me the tools to harness my fears and use them for good. I was about to learn how to let go of negative programming, how to say “yes,” how to raise my self-esteem, how to see myself as having purpose, how to. . . .

I wasn’t sure how the doctor was going help me help myself to erase decades of negative programming. My formative years were punctuated with key phrases: you’ll never amount to anything. You’re not worth a dime. You’re not worth a plug nickel. Don’t be stupid. Why do you want to look like that when you could look pretty? All of those choice words were being catapulted from the outside, but I kept them going throughout my adult years from within. The doctor called it negative chatter. Chatter? I had my own internal ticker tape of self-deprecating phrases.

“For the love of God, you can’t do that? You didn’t go to school for that? You’re too old to start that now? Almost anybody could do that better than you could. You’re just average at everything.”

When I was ten or so, I went to church camp for a week. The camp was situated on the banks of Crystal Lake, but the camp maintained a sewage ditch that ran right into it. Not very Crystal. One afternoon, the counselors divided all of the kids into two groups and separated us in a big field. They went down the row and wrote a letter on the bottom of each right foot. They took stock of the campers and gave each of us a descriptive letter. If a kid had freckles, his letter was F. If a kid had pigtails, her letter was P. When the counselor came to me with her marker, she stood back, looked me up and down, and said, “Hmmm. A for average.” When the whistle blew, we all ran down the hill toward the other group, looking for someone with our matching letter. I charged, looking for the other unremarkable camper, someone with no distinguishing features and no immediately recognizable character traits. The other lumpy Average kid. I don’t recall who my match was, except that he was somebody I hadn’t noticed before.

That afternoon would serve to define me for years to come, but here I was on the threshold of help—self-help. I would learn to stop “the chatter” that was making me a victim, according to Susan Jeffers, Ph.D., and replace it with “a loving voice.” It was a daunting task but not as difficult as it would be if I hadn’t been able to wash off that big, red A from the bottom of my right foot.

Wishful Thinking

Sam and Bob headed home with a tired, good-day's-work feeling. It had snowed earlier, and freezing rain coated the roads with a sheet of ice. Skidding and fish-tailing through a stop sign and red light, Sam hit a camouflaged pot hole dead center. He heard his right fender jar loose with a thump.

"Shoot," he mumbled.

"Well, Sam," Bob said. "Your old car has about had it, don't you think? You're gonna have to get a new one pretty soon."

"What? Old Blue? Why, she could take you home without me drivin'. She never misses a day, and she'd beat any foreign piece of shit you drive."

Bob knew better than to push it any further. Sam had an attachment to that car as if they had grown up together. He'd put thousands of miles on Old Blue without any trouble and had no intentions of trading her in for some car with no sense of loyalty.

He tried to drive more carefully, slowing down just a little and pumping the brake instead of stomping it. He was thinking more of Old Blue's safety than of his own or his passenger's because Old Blue had to be driven with care. It had been through a lot--the frame was rusted, and chunks of it fell off with each car wash. Sam's daughter had sprayed the interior with cheap perfume that had settled into the upholstery. And the body was repainted a beaming blue that gave the car notoriety throughout Hebron.

As they turned onto Bob's street, Bob gathered up his tool box and thermos. "Well, Sam, I thank you for the ride. It's been a pleasure, and maybe tomorrow the weather will be more obliging."

Sam stopped in front of a small square house, similar to those around it. Bob stepped out of Old blue and said "good-bye" to Sam.

"Yeah, good-bye."

"Well, Old Blue," Sam said as he fish-tailed away from Bob's house. "I guess as long as you're mine and you get me where I need to go, I don't have to stick up for you. You maybe look a little beat up on the outside, but you got the best engine in this whole derned country. And that's good enough for me."

Sam pulled onto the highway that led to his town. Squinting through the slush that speeding trucks tossed onto his windshield, he wished he lived someplace where it never snowed. He remembered a stone house he and his wife once had in Tennessee. It was in the hills of Sequatchie Valley where the Women's Missionary Fellowship of the Baptist church had quilting circles, and all the men fished on Saturdays from just before dawn until noon.

"Sure, they had snow in Tennessee," he mumbled to himself, "but never like this. I could fish pretty much anytime I wanted, except when it got too cold. It did get cold down there, but it didn't snow, not like this. Nope, not like this." His voice trailed off as he held both hands on the wheel to keep his car from skidding.

It had begun to snow again--big flakes that hit like raindrops. Sam passed the sign that read "Hebron, 3 Miles." He eased into the right-hand lane to make the exit just ahead. He passed the sign reading "Hebron, This Exit," and when he saw the exit ramp and flipped on his turn signal out of habit, he passed the ramp, too.

"Oh, shoot," he said patting Old Blue's steering wheel. "I missed my turn-off all because I was thinkin' about fishin' in Tennessee. You know, though, there's a fishin' hole not too far from here. Could be that it's just off that crumbling road past that bridge up there."

As he drove under the bridge, Sam eased the wheel to the right onto the next exit ramp, and with one more turn, he put Old Blue on a rough and curving gravel road. They bounced from bump to rut and back to bump, slowly making their way to Sam's remembered fishing hole.

Sam steered the wheel with the control of a master driver, making every slight curve and sharp twist in the seldom-traveled road. He found where the pond should have been, but blowing snow and growing drifts kept him from seeing clearly.

He thought better of staying on that deserted road and turned back toward the highway. The Mrs. would have last night's leftovers warming in the oven with some corn bread, so he had to stop day-dreaming and head home.

Once he entered the highway, he thought again about Tennessee. He saw himself standing on the grassy bank of a smooth and quiet pond. A few trees grew behind him, and more shaded the banks of the other side. He had his strongest pole and line anticipating a struggle with some 12-pound wiggling trout. Chirping crickets and chunks of cheddar cheese were his bait, and a can of worms lay nearby in case the fish weren't biting for his regular bait.

Securing a piece of the cheese on his hook, Sam held his pole out to the side and flicked it toward the middle of the pond. The line hummed as it grew, and the red and white bobber hit with a plop, rippling the water's surface all the way back to Sam's rubber boots.

Cast after cast, cheese after cricket, Sam reeled in shining trout. With each catch he ran the stringer through the fish's gills and tied it to a dangling branch, letting it flop and splash in the water as a warning to the other fish.

As Sam drove down his street, he grinned, steering Old Blue into his driveway. He picked up his lunchbox in one hand, and kept the other behind his back as he walked through the back door and into the kitchen. He greeted his wife with a kiss on the cheek and a pat on the bottom, and she giggled softly and told him that dinner was warming in the oven. She'd made a fresh pan of corn bread to go with the leftovers.

"What you got in your hand there?" she furrowed her brow as she wiped her hands on her apron. Sam brought his hidden hand out in plain sight, and in it he held a stringer full of fish. "Where in God's name did you get those in the middle of winter, in the middle of this snow storm?" She cautiously took the fish and put them in the sink, watching Sam as he walked toward the bathroom to clean up for dinner.

Old blue sat resting in the driveway, popping as her over-worked engine cooled with the wind and snow. She wished she could see the Mrs.' face, but she would wait for Sam to tell her all about it in the morning.