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Heres the first two and part of the third Chapter of Rubber Bands, a novel I'm working on, converting one of my screenplays. I've come across some info for literary agents, but the ones I've found only do novelist representations, so I looked at my screenplays, and screenplay ideas, and thought this story would actually work better as a novel. So here the beginning is, as always, I'm looking for some constructive criticism.
1
Mary Alice Derrick had been married for so long, she sometimes forgot her maiden name. She sat now on the bed she shared with her husband, Jim, trying to remember. Freeman. That was it. Mary Alice was seventy-five, and looked it, if not older. Every day she knew nothing but pain. Her hips hurt, her knees burned with an unending fire, nestled into the joints, searing her bones. Her fingers were curled with a cruel arthritis, making even the most simple tasks near impossible on days that in rained. The sky would turn dark, gray clouds tucking in under the Sun, and Mary Alice's knuckles would swell, two times their usual size, her fingers would groan and protest to being straightened, or on really bad days, moved at all. Some mornings, she would feel so bad, be in so much pain, that only moments after waking, she was fighting back tears, as Jim snored next to her.
She had always woken before Jim, from eighteen years old, to now. More often than not, for the last fifty – plus years, she would walk (or hobble, this last decade) down the stairs and into the kitchen, making breakfast for the two of them (or the five of them, or four of them, or three of them, depending on which kids had been with them at the time). She had done it this morning, and in her heart she knew it had been the last time. Her heart, that was what hurt her more than the arthritis, the swollen joints, the brittle and weak bones. She had made breakfast for her husband, the love of her life, this morning, they had shared a lunch outside on their front porch, and had just finished dinner, a meal that took her over an hour to prepare. Now as the Sun began it's long fall from the sky, to slide beneath the horizon like a large yellow whale that had crested the waves in the middle of the ocean, Mary Alice stood up, bracing herself with a hand on the nightstand, and moved to the closet, pulling the doors open, and groaning softly as she bent at the waist, dragging a small travel bag forth from the closet.
As she pulled a pair of pants from her dresser, Mary Alice thought about being young. She had spent the beginning of her life in Dover, Delaware, a small town in a small state, it was boring, and kids growing up there have little to do other than get in trouble, and get themselves hurt. When she was seventeen, three years removed from Delaware, she had gotten a letter from her old best friend, Mary. Sal Dinacco, Mary Alice's first ever boyfriend, who had talked her into going behind the church while their parents and the rest of the patrons met and spoke together out front after Sunday Mass, had died.
Sal was her age, and her first kiss. She was thirteen and nervous, her hole body shook with slight tremors, like after shocks of an earthquake. Sal had put his hands on her hips and pushed her softly back, up against the brick wall of the church.
“Sal” She had said, her voice trailing off, she had meant it as a warning, but a halfhearted one.
“Relax, babe.” Sal spoke in a voice a few octaves deeper than his normal one, trying to sound like his dad in his mind, knowing that his dad often kissed his mom, and supposing that kissing was probably what made you a man, and your voice deeper. He bent his head, and Mary Alice lifted hers, her hair was strawberry blonde and curly, and just as their lips touched, both of them kissing someone who wasn't related for the first time, Sal lifted his hand and touched her cheek softly with his fingertips, because he had seen his father do that as well when he kissed his wife, and that was just what you did when you kissed.
“Weird.” Mary Alice spoke after Sal had slowly pulled his head away, but she hadn't meant it in a bad way. Her whole body felt tingly, as if every hair on her body was standing after a shock, and she felt a stir in her loins, and thirteen year old Mary Alice didn't know what it meant, but she knew she liked it.
Mary Alice was in Delaware for another five months after that, and every Sunday found her and Sal back behind the church, learning things about themselves, and one another. They kissed, softly for a few weeks, and then Sal tried the thing with his tongue, and they were both floored, and frenching was the way to go for a few months. Then Sal had unbuttoned a few buttons of the beautiful white dress Mary Alice wore and slid his hand sideways into the gap, squeezing on her budding breasts, rolling her erect nipple between fingertips. That was as far as they got, kissing and breast squeezing, and then she moved, and then, a few years later he died. Sal, the letter said, had been exploring the Crichton farm house, as many teenagers in Dover Delaware did for fun back then, and the rotten roof collapsed, and a large piece of wood pierced Sal's neck, and his friends stood around him as he died.
Mary Alice had just finished packing, one outfit, and enough of her pills to get her through a day or two when she heard Jim on the stairs. She zipped the bag and bent again, placing it on the floor, sliding it under the bed with her foot, cursing how quick Jim seemed able to get up the stairs. He had always seemed five to ten years younger than he was, while she always felt ten older than she was. He had been in the Marines for five years, and was gone to the Korean War for two of them. He was broad and strong, then and now. He had always kept his hair cut short, buzzed for the Marines, it had been brown and soft, and Mary Alice relished the rare occasion it was long enough to run her fingers through, often as they made love. Jim's hair was still hanging in there, a rarity for many his age, and a source of jealousy for a lot of his friends, many who he knew from high school. It was white now of course, but it was there, and for that, he was thankful.
Mary Alice was unbuttoning her jeans by the time Jim stopped in the doorway of their bedroom. “You came up to get changed twenty minutes ago.”
Mary Alice nodded, looking at him. God she loved him. He was handsome, and he still made her feel how he did when they were young. “I know. I got to thinking.”
“About what?”
“Everything.”
“That's a lot to think about.” Jim smiled and stepped back. “You coming back down?
“I may call it a night.” She said.
“Yeah, s'posed to rain tonight, I'm sure you're feeling that.”
“Yeah.”
Jim looked at her for a moment, and she met his gaze. He thought about telling her how beautiful she was, still, especially her eyes. Her eyes were a beautiful green, and they lit up a room like a beacon from a lighthouse lit up murky night water. He opened his mouth to tell her this, but settled on, “Good-night.”
Mary Alice watched Jim turn and leave, back to stairs, and she listened as he went down, and she couldn't help but smile when she heard the familiar creek of the stair third from the bottom. She loved this house, and she loved Jim, but she just had to leave both of them. This was the only house she had ever lived in beside the two her parents had owned in her lifetime. It was big, two stories and four bedrooms, with a bath and a half. It had been gray when they had bought it, but was a light blue now, and had been for many years. Mary Alice buttoned her pants back up and turned off the bedside light, and slid under the covers, pulling them tight beside her body. She lay in the inky twilight, blue and purple danced through the window beside her, splashing across the ceiling. She watched their slow dance as she laid in the same bed she had lost her virginity in.
Jim and Mary Alice were married three months after Mary Alice graduated high school. They couldn't afford to go on an expensive honeymoon, since Jim had just used their money to buy and furnish their new house, but they were planning on leaving the morning after their wedding and spending some time in Jim's fathers old cabin in Michigan, deep in the woods on a beautiful silver lake. After the reception, still in her wedding dress, Mary Alice sat in the passenger seat of Jim's car, silent. She knew sex was next, and she was nervous. Jim reached over with one hand, and rest it on her thigh. His strong fingers squeezed a bit, and Mary Alice could feel the excitement radiating from him. She was excited too, but she was scared. They were both virgins, like good Catholics, but they had slipped up once, like most Catholics. A year or so before they were married, Jim had come down with the flu, and was feeling awful. Mary Alice had visited after she got out of school, and had sat on the side of the bed, and listened as Jim had complained. He was a tough man, twenty at the time, working at a garage down on Reading road, saving up money to get out of his parents place, to marry Mary Alice and live on their own, though they would end up three blocks over. He had been in fights, and won them all. But the flu had conquered him, and Mary Alice remembers him being a real baby about it. But he was charming, and cute, and somehow, despite being sick, he had battered her guard and celibacy down enough to get her to use her hand on him. It had been the first time she had seen his, or anyone's penis. It had intrigued her, but scared her, it had looked angry, throbbing against her sweaty palm, spewing semen out after ten minutes or so. Jim had been leaning up, resting on his elbows and watching her when he came, and he collapsed back after he finished breathing heavily. Mary Alice had wiped herself off with a shirt of his, and had left shortly after, feeling flushed and excited.
Jim had carried her over the threshold in her wedding dress, and had even carried her upstairs. He lay her on the bed, and she kept her wedding dress on as he undressed and held himself over her. He pulled the front of her dress down to expose one of her breasts, and his mouth clamped onto it. Then he pushed up the dress past her hips and pulled her pantyhose off, and then her panties. Mary Alice felt a jolt as Jim ran a finger along her and suddenly she wasn't scared, just excited.
“I'll be gentle.” Jim said.
“Okay.” Mary Alice replied, looking down to him.
“You're beautiful.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.” Jim said, and moved back over her, his erection sticking down between her legs, looking momentarily absurd as Mary Alice looked down, and then he was parting her, and pushing inside her, and there was a stab of pain, but it lessened with each pump of his hips. His hand found her bare breast, her nipple was pinched between his fingers and for a second she though of Sal Dinacco, and then she was back, and Jim was grunting as he sped his hips, his head was down, his lips pressed against her neck, and Mary Alice wrapped her arms around her husband and looked up to the ceiling, watching the colors of twilight dance across her new ceiling. It was over quickly, and Jim pulled out of her and scooted to the side and laid down on his back beside her.
“Oh God, that is great.” Jim said, looking over.
“Yeah.” Mary Alice agreed.
Although she had tried to stay awake, Mary Alice dozed in her bed, and woke up, and could see nothing but inky blackness, the familiar shapes of her dresser and nightstand dark shapes in the dark. She had to turn her whole body to it's side to look at the clock. IT was One Thirty in the morning. “Darn it.” She whispered. Slowly, as quietly as she could, Mary Alice slid out of bed, careful not to wake Jim, who slept beside her. She Managed to bend with no sound and grab the small bag from under the bed, and even managed to skip that squeaky step on her way downstairs. Mary Alice sat in the family room and pulled a pair of sneakers on, with the help of a long orange shoe horn. She took a break then, sitting in the dark, the moon offering a perfect light, it's rays sliding in a window and illuminating a row of pictures on the wall. Mary Alice sat and looked at those pictures, pictures of her girls, their kids, their spouses, and one picture at the beginning of the row, of Jim and herself, back when they were newly weds.
Mary Alice stood and stepped into the kitchen, and sat again, at the small island in the middle of the kitchen. A pad of paper and a pen sat there, used for grocery lists, and on this, Mary Alice wrote her goodbye note to her husband. It was short, and she wrote it quickly, and then she was up, shoes on, bag in hand, and out the door. In her car, she shut the door as quietly as possible, and even willed the engine to turn quietly as she started it, and backed out the driveway.
2
“You've got to be kidding me.” Judy Harrington said right after being jerked from sleep by the doorbell. “If Simon has forgotten his keys again.”
“No, I heard him come home hours ago.” mumbled Tony, Judy's husband, laying with his face down into his pillow.
“Well, to see who it is.” Judy said.
“Why me?” Tony asked.
“You're the man.”
“Dammit, you're right.” Tony sighed and rolled out of bed, pulling his robe from the hook on the back of the door as he passed. He pulled it on as he made his way down the steps, and into the front hall. Tony pulled the door open, his face one of shock when he saw his Mother in Law. “Mom?”
“Tony.” Mary Alice replied, stepping in and setting her bag on the floor.
“What's wrong? Is Jim okay?” Tony shut the front door, twisting the deadbolt locked.
“Yeah, yeah, it's nothing like that.”
“Mom?” Judy made their way towards her mother and husband. “Is everything okay?”
“I left your father.”
“What do you mean, left?” Judy asked.
“Just that, Judith. I left him.”
“Why?” Tony chimed in.
Mary Alice sighed. “Because I'm unhappy.”
Tony and Judy met each others glance. Mary Alice had a history of depression, and strange behavior. Once, when their oldest son Michael was seven, they had gone on a date night, dinner and a movie. Jim had been away at the time, visiting his dying brother. Mary Alice had baby sat, and they had dropped by to pick Michael up to find him asleep in his highchair in the kitchen, and Mary Alice crying upstairs in her room. Tony had been furious, and while he and Mary Alice eventually patched things up, it was the last time she had watched Michael. She never got a chance to baby sit their youngest son, Simon.
Twenty minutes later, Tony and Judy lay back in bed, having decided to wait until morning to straighten everything out. Mary Alice was downstairs, in the guest bedroom. Judy lay on her side, looking at her husband. Tony was four years younger than her, in his early fifties. He studied him, thinking it was weird how someone could change so much over the years, but still look exactly the same. His hair was still brown, but a lot thinner. He was tall and lanky, but she saw a small rise of a gut underneath the covers. His face was angular and handsome, but with more, and deeper lines crisscrossing it. She thought his face looked a little like the boys old sandbox, with lines from their toy trucks running through it.
“You look old.” She said, softly. He looked at her.
“If I'm old, what's that make you? He laughed quietly.
“I'm old too.” Judy said, and she knew she looked it, as well. She had her mothers Strawberry Blonde hair, though it was dyed a simple blonde now, to cover the gray. Her breasts were sagging, and her butt was getting wider.
“I don't feel old.” Tony said.
“I do.” She said.
Tony turned on his side, holding his head up with a hand. “What are we going to do about your mother?
“I don't know.” Judy sighed.
“She can't live here, Jude.”
“I know.”
“Okay.”
“I'm sure tomorrow she'll be a different person, and be itching to get back.” Judy said.
“They've been married a long time.”
“Yeah.”
“Kiss me, I'm going back to sleep. You know I can't handle those kids on anything less than six hours.”
Judy smiled, leaning forward and kissing her husband. “Love you.
“Love you too.” Tony replied.
“Grandma's here.” It wasn't a question the next morning, Simon was making a statement. He had seen her shutting the door to the guestroom after a trip to the bathroom on his way down to the dining room.
“Yes, she is.” Judy replied, sitting at the dining room table, sipping from a mug of coffee, the steam rising into the air. Simon sat across from her, watching the steam swirl and flow from the mug. When he was little, he always assumed the smoke rising from factories was steam from giant cups of coffee, like the ones he saw his parents with each morning.
“Did Grandpa die?”
“No, of course not, what a horrible thing for your brain to jump right to.
“It's natural! He's like, a hundred years old!” Simon shrugged. How come your not at work?”
“I couldn't leave mom here alone all day, I need to figure out what's going on.”
“What is going on?”
“Supposedly she's left your grandfather.”
“Like, left, left? Broken up with?”
“I guess so.” Judy sipped at her coffee.
“Uh, you making breakfast?” Simon grinned.
“I wasn't planning on it.”
“I'm hungry.”
“Make something.”
“I'm lazy.”
“No kidding.”
Simon sighed dramatically, standing up. Judy thought he looked a lot like her husband, tall and thin, while Michael looked just like her dad, broad and strong.
“You got class today?” Judy asked her son.
“yeah, a couple, first one is at one.” Simon answered before disappearing into the kitchen.
Jim woke up later than usual. The sun was high in the sky, the room bright. He sat up in bed, holding a closed fist to his mouth as he coughed, a throaty hack that expelled phlegm onto his fist. He grabbed a tissue from the night stand next to his side of the bed, and threw the covers back. Jim slept naked, had always slept naked, from the time he was fourteen. He set his bare feet on the hardwood floor of the bedroom, feeling a pull and pain in his back as he stood. He grabbed the pajama pants that lay over the back of the small chair that Mary Alice had in front of the little desk she sat at to do her makeup, and sat back on the bed. He pulled his pants on, taking longer than he would have liked.
“Face it, you're old.” The words hung unanswered in the air. Jim looked down to his bare chest, white spiraled chest hair covering a tattoo over his heart. The tattoo was his wife's name, written in an elegant script, in black ink. He had gotten it done right before he shipped out, so long ago, and the tattoo was faded and slightly warped, but it was there, and it always would be.
Jim made his way downstairs, expecting his nose to be assaulted by the strong coffee Mary Alice made every morning. But this morning, there wasn't the smell of roasting coffee, or the sound of bacon, sizzling and popping in a pan on the stove. The stairs let out into the family room, which one could then take down a short hallway to the sun porch, or go into the dining room to the right. Jim went right, calling out as he walked.
“Mary Alice, what are you doing?” Jim continued through the dining room, and into the kitchen. No one was there. Jim took a left, into the short hallway and out onto the sun porch. It was empty, as was the backyard. “What in the hell?” Jim spoke, to himself, it was weird being alone, he couldn't remember the last time he had been.
Back in the kitchen, Jim noticed the shopping list, and the hurried scrawl. Even from the door way, he could tell it was his wife's hand writing, and he had a sense of dread as he approached. He sat at the island, lifting the pad of paper up, but it was no use, he couldn't read a thing without his glasses. He set the pad down, and took a couple seconds to remember where his glasses were. Out in the living room, on his arm chair, he had been reading last night while listening to the news. He took the pad of paper with him.
Sitting in his chair, glasses on, Jim read the note.
Jim, I'm sorry, but I have to leave.
I love you, always have and will,
but I'm old, and unhappy,
and there just aint a use to dying unhappy.
Love,
Mary alice
The phone rang at The Harrington's. Simon was up first, chewing on a pop tart as he answered the cordless installed on the wall next to the kitchen doorway. “Hello?”
“Is my wife there?” The voice was gruff, impatient, and annoyed sounding.
“Hang on Grandpa.” Simon turned, a look of bewilderment on his face. He mouthed 'what do I do?' Judy stood, and grabbed the phone, waving Simon away.
“Dad, Mom is here.”
“Well, put her on.”
“I'm not sure if she's up.”
“She's up. Put her on.”
“What happened Dad?” Judy asked, moving back to the table in the dining room and sitting.
“I don't know. I woke up to a note.”
“Well, did you guys fight?”
“No, we never fight.”
“Yeah, well I don't know Dad.” Judy said “Maybe now isn't the best time. Let me talk to her, and I'll figure out what's going on, and when she'll be coming home.”
“She's my wife, I'll talk to her.”
“Okay, hold on.” Judy stood, and carried the phone to the guest bedroom. The door was shut, and Judy knocked softly. “Mom?” There was no answer. She knocked again. “Mom, dad is on the phone.” Again, nothing, and Judy tried the handle. It was unlocked, and she pushed the door open. Her mother lay on the bed, in the same clothes as last night, awake, staring at the ceiling.
“I don't want to talk to him now.”
Judy lifted the phone to her ear. “Dad, she said-”
Jim interjected. “I heard her.” He hung up, and the line went dead. Judy turned the phone off, and stepped forward.
“Mom, what happened?”
“Judith, I don't have to explain myself to you.”
“You do too, Mom. You came here, I deserve some sort of explanation.”
“Fine. I don't want to be with your father any more.” Mary Alice sat up, folding her arms.
“Mom, come on. You guys are...” Judy trailed off.
“Old?” Mary Alice asked. “I know. Believe me, I know. That's the whole reason.” She held her hands out. “I don't have much longer.”
Judy rolled her eyes a bit. “Mom...”
“It's true. I don't. And I want to have a chance at being happy.”
“So you were never happy?”
“I don't know. Never as happy as I could have been.”
“I don't understand how you spend so many years being sad.”
“They weren't bad years. And I loved your father, I do love him. I always will. It's just, he's cold, and uncaring.”
“He loves you mom. He loves all of us.”
“I know.”
“So what do you need?”
Mary Alice felt a tear sting her eye. “To be told.”
3
It was almost summer in Reading, and it was hot. Southern Ohio is particularly bad on the sinuses, and within minutes of sitting down on the sun porch, Jim's eyes were itchy. As he sat, he could watch bits of white dandelion float by on the soft breeze. He thought of his wife, and what his neighbors would say. Reading was the kind of town where there was no place to hide, and everyone knew each other, and each others business. It had always been like that, and as Jim chased down this line of thought, his mind turned to when his youngest daughter, Susanne had died. It seemed that everyone in the town had found out within minutes. Casseroles were left on his doorstep, cards choked the mailbox with condolences.
Suzy died when she was fourteen, in 1974. Jim remembered it like it was yesterday. He got the call at work, it was early evening, and he had to work late. It was Mary Alice crying, saying over and over again, Jim, come home. Jim came home, not knowing exactly what was wrong, but having, the whole car ride, a feeling in his gut that one of his daughters was dead. Two police cars were parked in the street in front of his house. A small section of the side of the street and the sidewalk were roped off by yellow tape. A large crowd of his neighbors, his friends, had to part to let him pull into the drive. He opened the door, and silence greeted him. No one spoke, they were just a sea of eyes, the womens were wet and shining with tears, as were a few of the mens eyes.
“What happened?” The question was bitter in his throat. A few people in the crowd shook their heads. Then, rushing through the crowd, there was Mary Alice. She threw herself into his arms, and he closed them around her. Up on the porch, he saw his daughters. Judy, the oldest, then Cathy, in the middle. But not Suzy.
“No.” He said it, more quietly than he had ever said anything. His baby girl, was gone. Run down by Ed Thomas, drunk again, and behind the wheel. Mary Alice filled him in, in front of all of his friends and neighbors. In front of the two daughters he had left, who cried and held each other on the porch. Something red was on the sidewalk that was surrounded by that yellow tape, something red and drying, looking sticky in the soft blue of evening. Next to the red, Suzy's bike, one she just had gotten last Christmas. It was fall now, as he stared at the bike, twisted and sick looking. A leaf, brown with rot and decay, fall from the Oak tree in his neighbors yard, and fell into the sticky red puddle, the splash of blood that used to fill his daughters veins, a splash of blood that was good for nothing but trapping dead leaves in it now.
Jim jerked back to reality, his stomach grumbling, and he realized he must have been sitting there on his sun porch for a while, because the Sun was high, leaving no shadows beside anything in his yard, and he was hungry. He stood, and made his way inside.
In the kitchen, Jim pulled a paper plate from the cupboard, Mary Alice had gotten tired of washing dishes that didn't need to be used a long time ago. He grabbed two slices of bread from the loaf and stooped in front of the open fridge, pulling out sliced Ham, the Miracle Whip, and a piece of cellophane wrapped cheese. He thought he was doing pretty well, as he sat down in his chair in the living room, paper plate on his lap, a can of beer on the table beside him. He could take care of himself for the afternoon, and Mary Alice would be back to make dinner.
Jim popped open the beer, smiling as he raised it to his lips. When Michael was four, he had asked what grandpa was drinking, at a barbeque in the backyard. Kool-Aide, Jim had replied. Michael lifted his sippy cup in the air, a look of surprise and excitement on his face.
“Me too!” The child yelled.
Judy was glad to have the day off, since tonight was Michael's birthday, and he and his wife, and their two young sons were coming over for dinner. Simon was bringing along his girlfriend, and her parents were supposed to come, though she wasn't sure about her father being there now. Judy always made her kids (and now, grand-kids) cakes from scratch, and she had just slipped Michael's into the oven, and was on her way to the living room to relax with the latest issue of People. She was surprised to find her mother sitting on the couch. She had been in the guest room all morning.
“Mom. Hi.” Judy said, standing in the doorway.
“Hi.” Mary Alice replied.
“Are you hungry? I can make you a sandwich.”
“No, no, I'm fine.”
“You have to eat, mom.”
“I need things, from home.” Mary Alice said, looking to her daughter.
“You need to go back home.”
“If I can't stay here, I'll find a hotel, but I won't go back there.”
“No, you can stay here. It's just, I don't get it.”
“You don't have to, Judith, but I need your help. I need you to go get my clothes and things.”
“Mom. You go.”
“Please, I just can't.”
Judy looked to her mom, saw the pain in her face, the fear, shining across her eyes. “Mom, did Dad hit you?”
“Heavens, no. How could you think such a thing?”
“You just, look scared.”
“I am scared! Terrified! I've never been on my own before. Please, I need your help.”
“Okay mom. I'll go.”
1
Mary Alice Derrick had been married for so long, she sometimes forgot her maiden name. She sat now on the bed she shared with her husband, Jim, trying to remember. Freeman. That was it. Mary Alice was seventy-five, and looked it, if not older. Every day she knew nothing but pain. Her hips hurt, her knees burned with an unending fire, nestled into the joints, searing her bones. Her fingers were curled with a cruel arthritis, making even the most simple tasks near impossible on days that in rained. The sky would turn dark, gray clouds tucking in under the Sun, and Mary Alice's knuckles would swell, two times their usual size, her fingers would groan and protest to being straightened, or on really bad days, moved at all. Some mornings, she would feel so bad, be in so much pain, that only moments after waking, she was fighting back tears, as Jim snored next to her.
She had always woken before Jim, from eighteen years old, to now. More often than not, for the last fifty – plus years, she would walk (or hobble, this last decade) down the stairs and into the kitchen, making breakfast for the two of them (or the five of them, or four of them, or three of them, depending on which kids had been with them at the time). She had done it this morning, and in her heart she knew it had been the last time. Her heart, that was what hurt her more than the arthritis, the swollen joints, the brittle and weak bones. She had made breakfast for her husband, the love of her life, this morning, they had shared a lunch outside on their front porch, and had just finished dinner, a meal that took her over an hour to prepare. Now as the Sun began it's long fall from the sky, to slide beneath the horizon like a large yellow whale that had crested the waves in the middle of the ocean, Mary Alice stood up, bracing herself with a hand on the nightstand, and moved to the closet, pulling the doors open, and groaning softly as she bent at the waist, dragging a small travel bag forth from the closet.
As she pulled a pair of pants from her dresser, Mary Alice thought about being young. She had spent the beginning of her life in Dover, Delaware, a small town in a small state, it was boring, and kids growing up there have little to do other than get in trouble, and get themselves hurt. When she was seventeen, three years removed from Delaware, she had gotten a letter from her old best friend, Mary. Sal Dinacco, Mary Alice's first ever boyfriend, who had talked her into going behind the church while their parents and the rest of the patrons met and spoke together out front after Sunday Mass, had died.
Sal was her age, and her first kiss. She was thirteen and nervous, her hole body shook with slight tremors, like after shocks of an earthquake. Sal had put his hands on her hips and pushed her softly back, up against the brick wall of the church.
“Sal” She had said, her voice trailing off, she had meant it as a warning, but a halfhearted one.
“Relax, babe.” Sal spoke in a voice a few octaves deeper than his normal one, trying to sound like his dad in his mind, knowing that his dad often kissed his mom, and supposing that kissing was probably what made you a man, and your voice deeper. He bent his head, and Mary Alice lifted hers, her hair was strawberry blonde and curly, and just as their lips touched, both of them kissing someone who wasn't related for the first time, Sal lifted his hand and touched her cheek softly with his fingertips, because he had seen his father do that as well when he kissed his wife, and that was just what you did when you kissed.
“Weird.” Mary Alice spoke after Sal had slowly pulled his head away, but she hadn't meant it in a bad way. Her whole body felt tingly, as if every hair on her body was standing after a shock, and she felt a stir in her loins, and thirteen year old Mary Alice didn't know what it meant, but she knew she liked it.
Mary Alice was in Delaware for another five months after that, and every Sunday found her and Sal back behind the church, learning things about themselves, and one another. They kissed, softly for a few weeks, and then Sal tried the thing with his tongue, and they were both floored, and frenching was the way to go for a few months. Then Sal had unbuttoned a few buttons of the beautiful white dress Mary Alice wore and slid his hand sideways into the gap, squeezing on her budding breasts, rolling her erect nipple between fingertips. That was as far as they got, kissing and breast squeezing, and then she moved, and then, a few years later he died. Sal, the letter said, had been exploring the Crichton farm house, as many teenagers in Dover Delaware did for fun back then, and the rotten roof collapsed, and a large piece of wood pierced Sal's neck, and his friends stood around him as he died.
Mary Alice had just finished packing, one outfit, and enough of her pills to get her through a day or two when she heard Jim on the stairs. She zipped the bag and bent again, placing it on the floor, sliding it under the bed with her foot, cursing how quick Jim seemed able to get up the stairs. He had always seemed five to ten years younger than he was, while she always felt ten older than she was. He had been in the Marines for five years, and was gone to the Korean War for two of them. He was broad and strong, then and now. He had always kept his hair cut short, buzzed for the Marines, it had been brown and soft, and Mary Alice relished the rare occasion it was long enough to run her fingers through, often as they made love. Jim's hair was still hanging in there, a rarity for many his age, and a source of jealousy for a lot of his friends, many who he knew from high school. It was white now of course, but it was there, and for that, he was thankful.
Mary Alice was unbuttoning her jeans by the time Jim stopped in the doorway of their bedroom. “You came up to get changed twenty minutes ago.”
Mary Alice nodded, looking at him. God she loved him. He was handsome, and he still made her feel how he did when they were young. “I know. I got to thinking.”
“About what?”
“Everything.”
“That's a lot to think about.” Jim smiled and stepped back. “You coming back down?
“I may call it a night.” She said.
“Yeah, s'posed to rain tonight, I'm sure you're feeling that.”
“Yeah.”
Jim looked at her for a moment, and she met his gaze. He thought about telling her how beautiful she was, still, especially her eyes. Her eyes were a beautiful green, and they lit up a room like a beacon from a lighthouse lit up murky night water. He opened his mouth to tell her this, but settled on, “Good-night.”
Mary Alice watched Jim turn and leave, back to stairs, and she listened as he went down, and she couldn't help but smile when she heard the familiar creek of the stair third from the bottom. She loved this house, and she loved Jim, but she just had to leave both of them. This was the only house she had ever lived in beside the two her parents had owned in her lifetime. It was big, two stories and four bedrooms, with a bath and a half. It had been gray when they had bought it, but was a light blue now, and had been for many years. Mary Alice buttoned her pants back up and turned off the bedside light, and slid under the covers, pulling them tight beside her body. She lay in the inky twilight, blue and purple danced through the window beside her, splashing across the ceiling. She watched their slow dance as she laid in the same bed she had lost her virginity in.
Jim and Mary Alice were married three months after Mary Alice graduated high school. They couldn't afford to go on an expensive honeymoon, since Jim had just used their money to buy and furnish their new house, but they were planning on leaving the morning after their wedding and spending some time in Jim's fathers old cabin in Michigan, deep in the woods on a beautiful silver lake. After the reception, still in her wedding dress, Mary Alice sat in the passenger seat of Jim's car, silent. She knew sex was next, and she was nervous. Jim reached over with one hand, and rest it on her thigh. His strong fingers squeezed a bit, and Mary Alice could feel the excitement radiating from him. She was excited too, but she was scared. They were both virgins, like good Catholics, but they had slipped up once, like most Catholics. A year or so before they were married, Jim had come down with the flu, and was feeling awful. Mary Alice had visited after she got out of school, and had sat on the side of the bed, and listened as Jim had complained. He was a tough man, twenty at the time, working at a garage down on Reading road, saving up money to get out of his parents place, to marry Mary Alice and live on their own, though they would end up three blocks over. He had been in fights, and won them all. But the flu had conquered him, and Mary Alice remembers him being a real baby about it. But he was charming, and cute, and somehow, despite being sick, he had battered her guard and celibacy down enough to get her to use her hand on him. It had been the first time she had seen his, or anyone's penis. It had intrigued her, but scared her, it had looked angry, throbbing against her sweaty palm, spewing semen out after ten minutes or so. Jim had been leaning up, resting on his elbows and watching her when he came, and he collapsed back after he finished breathing heavily. Mary Alice had wiped herself off with a shirt of his, and had left shortly after, feeling flushed and excited.
Jim had carried her over the threshold in her wedding dress, and had even carried her upstairs. He lay her on the bed, and she kept her wedding dress on as he undressed and held himself over her. He pulled the front of her dress down to expose one of her breasts, and his mouth clamped onto it. Then he pushed up the dress past her hips and pulled her pantyhose off, and then her panties. Mary Alice felt a jolt as Jim ran a finger along her and suddenly she wasn't scared, just excited.
“I'll be gentle.” Jim said.
“Okay.” Mary Alice replied, looking down to him.
“You're beautiful.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.” Jim said, and moved back over her, his erection sticking down between her legs, looking momentarily absurd as Mary Alice looked down, and then he was parting her, and pushing inside her, and there was a stab of pain, but it lessened with each pump of his hips. His hand found her bare breast, her nipple was pinched between his fingers and for a second she though of Sal Dinacco, and then she was back, and Jim was grunting as he sped his hips, his head was down, his lips pressed against her neck, and Mary Alice wrapped her arms around her husband and looked up to the ceiling, watching the colors of twilight dance across her new ceiling. It was over quickly, and Jim pulled out of her and scooted to the side and laid down on his back beside her.
“Oh God, that is great.” Jim said, looking over.
“Yeah.” Mary Alice agreed.
Although she had tried to stay awake, Mary Alice dozed in her bed, and woke up, and could see nothing but inky blackness, the familiar shapes of her dresser and nightstand dark shapes in the dark. She had to turn her whole body to it's side to look at the clock. IT was One Thirty in the morning. “Darn it.” She whispered. Slowly, as quietly as she could, Mary Alice slid out of bed, careful not to wake Jim, who slept beside her. She Managed to bend with no sound and grab the small bag from under the bed, and even managed to skip that squeaky step on her way downstairs. Mary Alice sat in the family room and pulled a pair of sneakers on, with the help of a long orange shoe horn. She took a break then, sitting in the dark, the moon offering a perfect light, it's rays sliding in a window and illuminating a row of pictures on the wall. Mary Alice sat and looked at those pictures, pictures of her girls, their kids, their spouses, and one picture at the beginning of the row, of Jim and herself, back when they were newly weds.
Mary Alice stood and stepped into the kitchen, and sat again, at the small island in the middle of the kitchen. A pad of paper and a pen sat there, used for grocery lists, and on this, Mary Alice wrote her goodbye note to her husband. It was short, and she wrote it quickly, and then she was up, shoes on, bag in hand, and out the door. In her car, she shut the door as quietly as possible, and even willed the engine to turn quietly as she started it, and backed out the driveway.
2
“You've got to be kidding me.” Judy Harrington said right after being jerked from sleep by the doorbell. “If Simon has forgotten his keys again.”
“No, I heard him come home hours ago.” mumbled Tony, Judy's husband, laying with his face down into his pillow.
“Well, to see who it is.” Judy said.
“Why me?” Tony asked.
“You're the man.”
“Dammit, you're right.” Tony sighed and rolled out of bed, pulling his robe from the hook on the back of the door as he passed. He pulled it on as he made his way down the steps, and into the front hall. Tony pulled the door open, his face one of shock when he saw his Mother in Law. “Mom?”
“Tony.” Mary Alice replied, stepping in and setting her bag on the floor.
“What's wrong? Is Jim okay?” Tony shut the front door, twisting the deadbolt locked.
“Yeah, yeah, it's nothing like that.”
“Mom?” Judy made their way towards her mother and husband. “Is everything okay?”
“I left your father.”
“What do you mean, left?” Judy asked.
“Just that, Judith. I left him.”
“Why?” Tony chimed in.
Mary Alice sighed. “Because I'm unhappy.”
Tony and Judy met each others glance. Mary Alice had a history of depression, and strange behavior. Once, when their oldest son Michael was seven, they had gone on a date night, dinner and a movie. Jim had been away at the time, visiting his dying brother. Mary Alice had baby sat, and they had dropped by to pick Michael up to find him asleep in his highchair in the kitchen, and Mary Alice crying upstairs in her room. Tony had been furious, and while he and Mary Alice eventually patched things up, it was the last time she had watched Michael. She never got a chance to baby sit their youngest son, Simon.
Twenty minutes later, Tony and Judy lay back in bed, having decided to wait until morning to straighten everything out. Mary Alice was downstairs, in the guest bedroom. Judy lay on her side, looking at her husband. Tony was four years younger than her, in his early fifties. He studied him, thinking it was weird how someone could change so much over the years, but still look exactly the same. His hair was still brown, but a lot thinner. He was tall and lanky, but she saw a small rise of a gut underneath the covers. His face was angular and handsome, but with more, and deeper lines crisscrossing it. She thought his face looked a little like the boys old sandbox, with lines from their toy trucks running through it.
“You look old.” She said, softly. He looked at her.
“If I'm old, what's that make you? He laughed quietly.
“I'm old too.” Judy said, and she knew she looked it, as well. She had her mothers Strawberry Blonde hair, though it was dyed a simple blonde now, to cover the gray. Her breasts were sagging, and her butt was getting wider.
“I don't feel old.” Tony said.
“I do.” She said.
Tony turned on his side, holding his head up with a hand. “What are we going to do about your mother?
“I don't know.” Judy sighed.
“She can't live here, Jude.”
“I know.”
“Okay.”
“I'm sure tomorrow she'll be a different person, and be itching to get back.” Judy said.
“They've been married a long time.”
“Yeah.”
“Kiss me, I'm going back to sleep. You know I can't handle those kids on anything less than six hours.”
Judy smiled, leaning forward and kissing her husband. “Love you.
“Love you too.” Tony replied.
“Grandma's here.” It wasn't a question the next morning, Simon was making a statement. He had seen her shutting the door to the guestroom after a trip to the bathroom on his way down to the dining room.
“Yes, she is.” Judy replied, sitting at the dining room table, sipping from a mug of coffee, the steam rising into the air. Simon sat across from her, watching the steam swirl and flow from the mug. When he was little, he always assumed the smoke rising from factories was steam from giant cups of coffee, like the ones he saw his parents with each morning.
“Did Grandpa die?”
“No, of course not, what a horrible thing for your brain to jump right to.
“It's natural! He's like, a hundred years old!” Simon shrugged. How come your not at work?”
“I couldn't leave mom here alone all day, I need to figure out what's going on.”
“What is going on?”
“Supposedly she's left your grandfather.”
“Like, left, left? Broken up with?”
“I guess so.” Judy sipped at her coffee.
“Uh, you making breakfast?” Simon grinned.
“I wasn't planning on it.”
“I'm hungry.”
“Make something.”
“I'm lazy.”
“No kidding.”
Simon sighed dramatically, standing up. Judy thought he looked a lot like her husband, tall and thin, while Michael looked just like her dad, broad and strong.
“You got class today?” Judy asked her son.
“yeah, a couple, first one is at one.” Simon answered before disappearing into the kitchen.
Jim woke up later than usual. The sun was high in the sky, the room bright. He sat up in bed, holding a closed fist to his mouth as he coughed, a throaty hack that expelled phlegm onto his fist. He grabbed a tissue from the night stand next to his side of the bed, and threw the covers back. Jim slept naked, had always slept naked, from the time he was fourteen. He set his bare feet on the hardwood floor of the bedroom, feeling a pull and pain in his back as he stood. He grabbed the pajama pants that lay over the back of the small chair that Mary Alice had in front of the little desk she sat at to do her makeup, and sat back on the bed. He pulled his pants on, taking longer than he would have liked.
“Face it, you're old.” The words hung unanswered in the air. Jim looked down to his bare chest, white spiraled chest hair covering a tattoo over his heart. The tattoo was his wife's name, written in an elegant script, in black ink. He had gotten it done right before he shipped out, so long ago, and the tattoo was faded and slightly warped, but it was there, and it always would be.
Jim made his way downstairs, expecting his nose to be assaulted by the strong coffee Mary Alice made every morning. But this morning, there wasn't the smell of roasting coffee, or the sound of bacon, sizzling and popping in a pan on the stove. The stairs let out into the family room, which one could then take down a short hallway to the sun porch, or go into the dining room to the right. Jim went right, calling out as he walked.
“Mary Alice, what are you doing?” Jim continued through the dining room, and into the kitchen. No one was there. Jim took a left, into the short hallway and out onto the sun porch. It was empty, as was the backyard. “What in the hell?” Jim spoke, to himself, it was weird being alone, he couldn't remember the last time he had been.
Back in the kitchen, Jim noticed the shopping list, and the hurried scrawl. Even from the door way, he could tell it was his wife's hand writing, and he had a sense of dread as he approached. He sat at the island, lifting the pad of paper up, but it was no use, he couldn't read a thing without his glasses. He set the pad down, and took a couple seconds to remember where his glasses were. Out in the living room, on his arm chair, he had been reading last night while listening to the news. He took the pad of paper with him.
Sitting in his chair, glasses on, Jim read the note.
Jim, I'm sorry, but I have to leave.
I love you, always have and will,
but I'm old, and unhappy,
and there just aint a use to dying unhappy.
Love,
Mary alice
The phone rang at The Harrington's. Simon was up first, chewing on a pop tart as he answered the cordless installed on the wall next to the kitchen doorway. “Hello?”
“Is my wife there?” The voice was gruff, impatient, and annoyed sounding.
“Hang on Grandpa.” Simon turned, a look of bewilderment on his face. He mouthed 'what do I do?' Judy stood, and grabbed the phone, waving Simon away.
“Dad, Mom is here.”
“Well, put her on.”
“I'm not sure if she's up.”
“She's up. Put her on.”
“What happened Dad?” Judy asked, moving back to the table in the dining room and sitting.
“I don't know. I woke up to a note.”
“Well, did you guys fight?”
“No, we never fight.”
“Yeah, well I don't know Dad.” Judy said “Maybe now isn't the best time. Let me talk to her, and I'll figure out what's going on, and when she'll be coming home.”
“She's my wife, I'll talk to her.”
“Okay, hold on.” Judy stood, and carried the phone to the guest bedroom. The door was shut, and Judy knocked softly. “Mom?” There was no answer. She knocked again. “Mom, dad is on the phone.” Again, nothing, and Judy tried the handle. It was unlocked, and she pushed the door open. Her mother lay on the bed, in the same clothes as last night, awake, staring at the ceiling.
“I don't want to talk to him now.”
Judy lifted the phone to her ear. “Dad, she said-”
Jim interjected. “I heard her.” He hung up, and the line went dead. Judy turned the phone off, and stepped forward.
“Mom, what happened?”
“Judith, I don't have to explain myself to you.”
“You do too, Mom. You came here, I deserve some sort of explanation.”
“Fine. I don't want to be with your father any more.” Mary Alice sat up, folding her arms.
“Mom, come on. You guys are...” Judy trailed off.
“Old?” Mary Alice asked. “I know. Believe me, I know. That's the whole reason.” She held her hands out. “I don't have much longer.”
Judy rolled her eyes a bit. “Mom...”
“It's true. I don't. And I want to have a chance at being happy.”
“So you were never happy?”
“I don't know. Never as happy as I could have been.”
“I don't understand how you spend so many years being sad.”
“They weren't bad years. And I loved your father, I do love him. I always will. It's just, he's cold, and uncaring.”
“He loves you mom. He loves all of us.”
“I know.”
“So what do you need?”
Mary Alice felt a tear sting her eye. “To be told.”
3
It was almost summer in Reading, and it was hot. Southern Ohio is particularly bad on the sinuses, and within minutes of sitting down on the sun porch, Jim's eyes were itchy. As he sat, he could watch bits of white dandelion float by on the soft breeze. He thought of his wife, and what his neighbors would say. Reading was the kind of town where there was no place to hide, and everyone knew each other, and each others business. It had always been like that, and as Jim chased down this line of thought, his mind turned to when his youngest daughter, Susanne had died. It seemed that everyone in the town had found out within minutes. Casseroles were left on his doorstep, cards choked the mailbox with condolences.
Suzy died when she was fourteen, in 1974. Jim remembered it like it was yesterday. He got the call at work, it was early evening, and he had to work late. It was Mary Alice crying, saying over and over again, Jim, come home. Jim came home, not knowing exactly what was wrong, but having, the whole car ride, a feeling in his gut that one of his daughters was dead. Two police cars were parked in the street in front of his house. A small section of the side of the street and the sidewalk were roped off by yellow tape. A large crowd of his neighbors, his friends, had to part to let him pull into the drive. He opened the door, and silence greeted him. No one spoke, they were just a sea of eyes, the womens were wet and shining with tears, as were a few of the mens eyes.
“What happened?” The question was bitter in his throat. A few people in the crowd shook their heads. Then, rushing through the crowd, there was Mary Alice. She threw herself into his arms, and he closed them around her. Up on the porch, he saw his daughters. Judy, the oldest, then Cathy, in the middle. But not Suzy.
“No.” He said it, more quietly than he had ever said anything. His baby girl, was gone. Run down by Ed Thomas, drunk again, and behind the wheel. Mary Alice filled him in, in front of all of his friends and neighbors. In front of the two daughters he had left, who cried and held each other on the porch. Something red was on the sidewalk that was surrounded by that yellow tape, something red and drying, looking sticky in the soft blue of evening. Next to the red, Suzy's bike, one she just had gotten last Christmas. It was fall now, as he stared at the bike, twisted and sick looking. A leaf, brown with rot and decay, fall from the Oak tree in his neighbors yard, and fell into the sticky red puddle, the splash of blood that used to fill his daughters veins, a splash of blood that was good for nothing but trapping dead leaves in it now.
Jim jerked back to reality, his stomach grumbling, and he realized he must have been sitting there on his sun porch for a while, because the Sun was high, leaving no shadows beside anything in his yard, and he was hungry. He stood, and made his way inside.
In the kitchen, Jim pulled a paper plate from the cupboard, Mary Alice had gotten tired of washing dishes that didn't need to be used a long time ago. He grabbed two slices of bread from the loaf and stooped in front of the open fridge, pulling out sliced Ham, the Miracle Whip, and a piece of cellophane wrapped cheese. He thought he was doing pretty well, as he sat down in his chair in the living room, paper plate on his lap, a can of beer on the table beside him. He could take care of himself for the afternoon, and Mary Alice would be back to make dinner.
Jim popped open the beer, smiling as he raised it to his lips. When Michael was four, he had asked what grandpa was drinking, at a barbeque in the backyard. Kool-Aide, Jim had replied. Michael lifted his sippy cup in the air, a look of surprise and excitement on his face.
“Me too!” The child yelled.
Judy was glad to have the day off, since tonight was Michael's birthday, and he and his wife, and their two young sons were coming over for dinner. Simon was bringing along his girlfriend, and her parents were supposed to come, though she wasn't sure about her father being there now. Judy always made her kids (and now, grand-kids) cakes from scratch, and she had just slipped Michael's into the oven, and was on her way to the living room to relax with the latest issue of People. She was surprised to find her mother sitting on the couch. She had been in the guest room all morning.
“Mom. Hi.” Judy said, standing in the doorway.
“Hi.” Mary Alice replied.
“Are you hungry? I can make you a sandwich.”
“No, no, I'm fine.”
“You have to eat, mom.”
“I need things, from home.” Mary Alice said, looking to her daughter.
“You need to go back home.”
“If I can't stay here, I'll find a hotel, but I won't go back there.”
“No, you can stay here. It's just, I don't get it.”
“You don't have to, Judith, but I need your help. I need you to go get my clothes and things.”
“Mom. You go.”
“Please, I just can't.”
Judy looked to her mom, saw the pain in her face, the fear, shining across her eyes. “Mom, did Dad hit you?”
“Heavens, no. How could you think such a thing?”
“You just, look scared.”
“I am scared! Terrified! I've never been on my own before. Please, I need your help.”
“Okay mom. I'll go.”
Last edited by Thundermatts on Sat May 29, 2010 12:58 am; edited 1 time in total (Reason for editing : one passage was too adult.)
