We get all sorts of critters and beasties on our property. We’ve got a family of deer who come through in the evenings, a groundhog who loves our still-growing orchard, opossums, butterflies, cardinals and other little native birds, and the occasional black bear. And there are two spoiled animals who live *inside* the house with us.
These two really enjoy their creature comforts, and the consistent access to snuggles, soft places to sleep, and snacks.
We’re constantly looking out our back window to see who might be visiting, and back in the spring we were delighted to learn that a family of foxes – mom, dad, and kits – had made a den under our barn. They normally popped out around sunset for playtime and dinner, and we tried to snap some pictures without scaring them.
We found them to be lovely neighbors. They were very adept at controlling the field mouse population, and so fun to watch (from a distance, of course).
The kits have grown up now and I think they’ve moved on, but we still see a fox or two out back under the willow tree from time to time. I’d like to think they feel as happy and at home here as I do.
All of my stories are a bit personal, in one way or another, and all of them have at least a kernel of truth or two. This one is special, because it’s extra personal, and because there’s a lot more than just a crumb or two of real life. I couldn’t think of anything else to write for this month. This is the only story that wanted telling.
************
“You really don’t have to do that, you know.”
Sara stood in front of the sink, peeling a peach. Sticky juice dripped down her fingers and into the basin. If she’d been smart, she’d have thought to get a bowl and collect it. Wasted juice made for a dry cobbler, and she would not be taking a dry cobbler to the funeral dinner. She’d rather turn up empty-handed than risk her reputation on dry cobbler.
“Sure, I do,” she said.
“I wish you wouldn’t,” said her mother, from her perch at the breakfast bar.
Really, Sara shouldn’t be cooking anything. As family of the deceased, Sara’s obligations consisted of weeping quietly, accepting condolences and awkward hugs, and finding a place in her grandfather’s tiny kitchen for the massive collection of casserole dishes and KFC buckets friends and neighbors had been dropping off for the last three days.
“It’s what I can do,” she replied. “And it’s what I want to do. Can you grab me a bowl?”
“You’re just like him,” her mother said, and passed a green plastic bowl over from the pantry. “You always have to be busy.”
“So, you’re saying it’s genetic?”
Sara could practically hear her mother’s eyes roll. She looked over and winked.
“Just like him,” her mother said.
“I’ll miss him.”
Sara’d been living in California for the last three years. She hadn’t gotten home as often as she wanted to, and when she heard her grandfather had died, it’d felt like a punch to the gut. When she moved, he’d been as hearty as ever. He’d refused to slow down. He’d laid floor tile and worked on old trucks and split firewood, and even now, she just couldn’t imagine him as a frail old man. He’d never even lost his hair, until cancer treatments took it from him. Sara dreaded old age.
“Let’s go outside once this is ready to bake,” she told her mother. “I’d like to enjoy the view for a little while before we head to the funeral home. It might be the last time I’ll see it.” She tried her best to hide it, wiped it away as fast as she could, but a single tear trickled halfway down her cheek. “I don’t think I ever realized how special it was.”
“Your grandpa used to say this was God’s country,” her mother said. Sara heard a sniffle and the rustling of a tissue. “He was proud of you. He wanted you to come home, though.”
“I know.”
“I’m sorry this is happening on your birthday. He’d hate that.”
Sara was grateful the cobbler was ready to bake. She shoved it in the oven and went straight to the door. She just needed a minute, just a second, to pull herself together. Outside, August heat radiated off every surface, and the humidity settled around her shoulders like a weighted blanket, close and heavy. Sara sat down in the porch swing and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath, and another. She heard the screen door open and close, and then felt her mother sit beside her.
“I’m glad I get to share today with him,” Sara said, and opened her eyes, squinting against the bright morning sunlight. “I just wish none of this was even happening.”
“I know,” her mother said. “Me, too.” She took Sara’s hand and held it.
They sat like that, hand in hand, in silence, just looking out at the mountains in front of them, the fields and pastures, and the little church down in the valley.
“Do you remember when you locked your grandma out of the house?” Sara’s mother asked, and giggled.
“I don’t! I don’t think I ever did that. I wasn’t that mean when I was little.”
“Oh, you did,” her mother said. “And you told her she was old and you were new.”
“Oh, God, I did not!”
“You most definitely did, Miss Meanness,” her mother replied.
“I was a terrible child,” Sara admitted. “Do you remember the little girl who used to stay in the old house down the hill?”
“Who?”
“I used to go down and play with her. I can’t remember her name.” Sara thought about it, and couldn’t remember much, except, “the bats! There were bats in the attic and she used to talk about how she’d hear them in the middle of the night. They kept her awake.”
Sara’s mother didn’t reply.
“She had long dark hair and freckles,” Sara added.
“Sara,” her mother said, “no one’s lived in that house since I was in school.”
“Well, she didn’t live there all the time. She just visited family.”
“That house has been empty for years.”
“No,” Sara insisted. “No, I remember playing with her.”
“You must be thinking of something else,” her mother said.
“No,” Sara said. She thought of it again, the little girl and her pink bedroom, her tattered white curtains, how she laughed when Sara didn’t know how to braid. “No, I remember.”
The oven timer buzzed, pulling Sara out of the moment. She went inside. She had things to do. No matter what else might happen today, no matter how faulty her memory might or might not be, she would not let that beautiful biscuit crust burn.
************
After the funeral and the dinner that followed, Sara went back to her grandfather’s house with the rest of her family. The sun hung low on the horizon now, almost invisible behind the ridge line. She sat on the porch swing alone, rocking gently back and forth. The high heat of the day had broken, but she could still feel the dewy, warm air through her itchy funeral clothes.
She hated funerals. She hated everything about them. She hoped no one would ever plan a funeral for her.
“Just put me in the ground and drink some wine,” she said, out loud for no particular reason.
“You know this family doesn’t drink, right?”
Sara’s uncle walked out onto the porch and sat beside her.
“Sure they do,” she answered. “Just not in public.”
“Like all good Baptists,” her uncle added. “I’m sorry about your birthday.”
“Everyone’s said that,” Sara said. “It’s fine. I’m actually kind of honored to share the day with him.”
“When are you heading back?”
“A couple of days, I think.” Sara hadn’t checked her work phone since coming home. She didn’t know what kind of mess she’d walk back into. “I’m not sure.”
“We’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss y’all, too.”
“You can always come back. They’ve got newspapers here.”
Sara wouldn’t be coming back here to live, not ever. But she said, “I know. Maybe someday.”
Her uncle nodded and stood up.
“Hey,” she said, “before you go, can I ask you something weird?”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Do you remember the family that used to live down the hill?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“There was a little girl, right? About my age?”
Her uncle thought for a moment. “Yeah, they had a little girl.”
“Oh, thank God. I thought I was crazy.”
Her uncle nodded. “I’m surprised you know that, though.”
“Why?” Sara felt a pang in her stomach, doubt or fear or something deeper.
“You never met her. They were gone before you were born.”
“What?”
“Yeah, they lost her. She died in a car accident. They moved not long after it happened. Not sure where they went.”
Her uncle went inside, leaving Sara alone again, in the deepening dark. She looked down the hill, at the white steeple and the gray ruin of a house just visible in the last light of the day. And she remembered being down in the pasture, playing with a dark-haired little girl, spinning in dizzying circles and giggling so hard she got hiccups. She remembered her grandfather calling down to her, his gruff voice beckoning her back home.
“Sara,” he’d said, “get back up here! It’s not safe down there by yourself.”
Now he was gone, and Sara knew her family would sell the house.
“If we keep it, every time we walk in, we’ll just be expecting to see them and they won’t be there,” her mother had said.
Sara wouldn’t be back here again. This view, the porch swing, the mystery girl. None of it would belong to her anymore. She’d only have the memories. She supposed death was always like that, leaving you with questions and no one to answer them, with memories and no place to ground them. What a birthday present.
Sara stood up and stretched her arms. After one last, long look, she walked inside.
It’s ended up being a rainy day today. Here’s the view out of my back window:
Normally, there’s a mountain back there. Today, just clouds and downpours. I think we’re getting what’s left of Hurricane Laura.
I’ve spent the day procrastinating writing a short story for August. I made cacio e pepe for lunch and banana and oatmeal cookies for breakfast tomorrow. I watched Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, and I gave myself a manicure. I’ve already had two Diet Cokes.
All of this not working got me thinking, and I think it would be fun to write some short posts featuring the various odds, ends, and interesting items my husband and I find in and around our 200-year-old farmhouse. Trust me, it’s a lot. Like, right after we moved in, we found a machete hidden above an air duct in our basement. Not sure what that was about, or how long it was there before we found it.
Anyway, I’ll try to make this a weekly thing, and we’ll call it “Found Friday.”
************
Back in the spring, we planted some apple trees in our back garden, to accompany some cherry trees we’d planted the year before. One of these days, I’ll make all the pies, if I can manage to keep the trees alive long enough to produce fruit.
As we were digging, we started to find fragments of pottery and bone china. The bone china seems to have grown legs and walked off, but I’ve still got a pretty sizable chunk of the pottery (which I found, again, when I was doing some cleaning over the weekend).
I wonder what this looked like, when it was whole. And I wonder how old it is. It’s interesting, living in a house that so many people have called home before us. I’m sure we’ll leave something behind, too.
Normally, I would be spending time with my parents – my dad’s birthday is on the 17th and we like to celebrate together – but today I’m home, eating cake and being lazy.
When I was 10, 13, 16, 20, etc., 34 seemed very far away, and women in their thirties seemed so wise and sophisticated and put together.
Most days, I can’t remember if I’ve brushed my teeth. I think I may have been wrong about women in their thirties. I think we’re all just trying to figure out how to do this adulting thing.
But I do think I’ve learned a few good lessons, so I’ll share, because why not? And because I have very little else to do, given the pandemic and that it’s a Tuesday. And at the end, I’ll share 34 fun facts about me and a picture that will probably make you laugh, because…I can, I guess.
It doesn’t matter what other people think.
It’s old advice, sure, but it’s true, and I wish I’d understood it years ago. The only person responsible for my happiness is me, and so I’m the only one who gets an opinion.
When I left a full-time, well-paid office job to pursue writing, lots of people had nothing but kind and encouraging words. But lots of people also told me I was crazy and that I was throwing away opportunities I’d never be able to get back. A few people actually suggested I was lying, and that I just didn’t want to say what I’d actually be doing.
Whatever.
When I was younger and I wanted to be an opera singer, people made fun of me. I guess no one’s allowed to like opera before the age of 50.
Whatever.
When my husband and I bought a 200-year-old house, several people wondered, out loud, why we would take on that kind of burden, and if we would regret it, because old houses have old house problems and old house problems take time and money. And wouldn’t it be more convenient to just buy a new house in the suburbs and decorate it like an old farmhouse?
So. Much. Whatever.
I get to decide what makes me happy. No one else gets to do that. It’s like my own personal superpower.
And I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.
No one is as hard on me as…me.
I used to spend a lot of time trying to live up to expectations. I was always so worried about how other people thought of me, and what they saw in me, and if I was making a good impression.
I realize now that other people don’t think much about me at all. They’ve got their own stuff going on.
Now, when I do something stupid or say the wrong thing or trip and fall in public (which happens a lot), I remember that no one judges me as harshly as I judge myself. And I remind myself to be kind to me, because…
“Perfection doesn’t exist in this universe.”
Neil Gaiman said that once, in a MasterClass I took. I like it.
It doesn’t do any good to hold yourself to perfection, because it just doesn’t exist. Mistakes are part of living. We can contextualize them, learn from them, and put them where they belong – in the past, behind us – or we can dwell on them, and let them rule what we do in the future.
Don’t do that. Perfect isn’t real. Everyone screws up. Be kind, to yourself and to others.
I know nothing.
Yep, John Snow and me.
The older I get, the less I know. I keep learning, every single day. I read, I write, I try to pick up new skills, I take a voice lesson every week, and I talk to people, because there is always more to learn. But every time I learn something new, I feel like it opens the door to 1,000 other new things I should also learn. I like this, because I get bored easily and I was always good at studying anyway.
Learning is beautiful, and it’s fun, and it’s valuable.
I am enough.
Just as I am.
And you are, too.
And because I said I would:
34 Fun Facts About Me
I drink too much Diet Coke.
I read at least one book per week. Usually more. Any genre.
My favorite cake is Red Velvet.
I forgot the words to the National Anthem while I was performing it once. It was embarrassing.
I like winter better than summer.
My favorite place I’ve ever traveled to is Wales (specifically, North Wales).
Iceland is a pretty close second.
I hate flying.
But I love airports. The best people watching ever. And usually there’s wine.
I am listed as “Katie Wineries” in the contacts list of one of my best friends.
I have always wanted to learn to paint.
I think ketchup is trash.
I love mayonnaise, though. (Everyone tells me this is gross.)
I am afraid of snakes, ticks, and ladybugs. (Don’t look at me like that. I don’t know, either.)
My favorite gemstone is a ruby.
I am a cat person.
I don’t hold my pencil correctly, and I never have.
I used to get pulled out of class in elementary school so they could teach me how to hold a pencil. Priorities, I guess.
I will not wear shorts.
I read palms for fun.
I majored in English.
I am a coloratura. Or, I was, when I was training to sing opera a lifetime ago.
My favorite opera is Don Giovanni.
My favorite composer changes every day. So does my favorite writer. (That’s two things, I know.)
I played Shelby in a production of Steel Magnolias once. It’s been my favorite role to date.
I love Mitch Hedberg.
My go-to karaoke song is Gives You Hell by The All-American Rejects. It has been for years.
Sometimes I’ll sing Desperado instead.
I cannot play an instrument. (It makes me sad. I should learn.)
I like pie.
I prefer the mountains to the beach, but both are lovely.
I bought tap shoes on Amazon once when I was drunk.
I have OCD and anxiety.
I love trivia, and I’m super competitive about it.
And the picture. I don’t know what possessed my mom to place that little bow where she did, but it was genius.
Somewhere in some universe, Joey still exists. I know, because I’ve seen him.
*************
We always argued over where to go on vacation. I like exploring, adventures, and cold places. Joey always wanted to just relax, wind down, sit on a beach somewhere and do nothing. It drove me crazy. Every year, we’d take two weeks off and make a plan. Every year, we’d have a fight about the plan.
This year, I rented a beach house.
My therapist told me I never give myself time to slow down, that I hold myself to impossible standards, that I let other people do it, too, and I should be kind to my mind and my heart. My mother told me I’d lost too much weight. My friends needled me, every minute, to take some time for myself, to breathe and open myself up to my feelings, as if I needed a reminder of the aching, empty, endless, hollow void in my chest. And none of them offered to come with me, of course. Summer is family time, after all.
But I caved anyway, and I rented the beach house, because I missed Joey. And because I wanted to prove I could like it. And because screw him. And because it seemed like the best thing to do at the time.
The day I arrived, the cleaners were still there, finishing up.
“It’s a great house,” said an old woman with impossibly purple-gray hair.
“Looks like it,” I replied, because I’d only gotten one foot into the door.
“I hope you enjoy your vacation. I wish I could get away for a whole two weeks by myself!” She winked at me.
I didn’t tell her it wasn’t a choice.
When Joey and I had gone on our annual vacations before, we’d always looked for the smallest places we could find. We wanted to be close to each other, even though we weren’t very good at it. There was always conflict, by the end. There were tears and hateful words and, though we were both ashamed of it, sometimes a bruise or two. But we wanted to love each other.
I booked a six-bedroom monster with two kitchens and seven bathrooms at the end of an island, on an acre-wide plot of windswept sand dunes. I needed the space. My grief needed a mansion. It could expand to fill oceans. I wanted it to, and then I wanted to dry it up, burn it to ash, cast it out into the universe and finally be free. I wanted to wallow, and then I wanted to rise.
I stayed in bed for the first two days, in the cavernous master suite with the curtains drawn. I didn’t even turn on the TV. I just laid there, in the silence, in the dark. The blankets stayed crisp and straight, settled over me like a shroud. I was immovable, still as a dead body.
And then I pulled myself up, that third day, and ate a fried egg sandwich with extra hot sauce. Joey hated hot sauce. I dressed in a bathing suit that probably looked a little too young for me, and slathered on SPF house-paint sunscreen, and went to the beach. I was on auto-pilot, really, robotic, going through the motions. But I got myself out, and I set up my chair and my umbrella and I sat there, even though I hate sand and I hate hot weather and I hate the acrid smell of saltwater.
Eventually, with the sun low on the horizon, warm on my back, I fell asleep.
I thought it was a dream, at first. I woke up to a neon pink sunset and saw him there, in front of me. Standing near the water’s edge, in the ridiculous bright green swim trunks he always insisted on wearing, Joey waded into the surf up to his ankles, and turned around and smiled.
“It doesn’t get better than this,” he said, his voice as familiar, and flippant, as always.
I didn’t have time to reply. I blinked once, twice, and then the world around him seemed to ripple, almost flicker, and he was gone, like he’d never been there to begin with.
“What the hell?” I said out loud, to no one in particular. The moon was rising, and I was the only one left on the beach.
I think a weaker person might have cracked. You just never know how you’re going to react to something impossible, right? But this is what I did. I packed up my chair and my umbrella, I took myself back to the house, and I had a glass of wine and went to bed. I woke up the next morning, and went to the beach again, and this time, I brought a camera.
I don’t know what had possessed me to bring Joey’s giant Nikon camera with me in the first place. I’d just felt like I needed to, because he would have. I’m not even sure how it ended up in my closet, but I found it and packed it. He’d have been proud I remembered, and then would have begged me to please be careful with it, because it was expensive and I was clumsy, and there was no way I’d be able to afford to replace it.
I sat out there all day, sweating, itching all over from sand and sunscreen, listening to the incessant, thunderous, irritating roar of the ocean, until the moon sat high above the water. Nothing happened. Nothing. I don’t even know what I was expecting to see.
I threw Joey’s stupid, massive camera into the breakers.
The days passed in a boring haze. I did all the things you’re supposed to do on a solo vacation as a single woman. I sat by the water, I swam in the waves, and lost my favorite bracelet for my trouble. I shopped. I went out and had a few drinks at a local dive and shucked oysters with a fun group of drunk strangers. I even managed a one night stand. In his bed. Not mine. But it all felt worthless. I just kept coming back to that moment, at sunset, Joey looking back at me and smiling.
I’d spent so much time, in those first few months, trying to build my life back up, trying not to focus on Joey and the beautiful mess we’d had and what I’d lost. And here he was, invading my head, not letting me go, again, over and over.
My last day, I headed out to the water’s edge. I watched the gulls fly overhead and waited. I have spent countless moments of my life just waiting. How many of them, I thought, for Joey? He’d never waited for me.
I eventually drifted off, and woke at sunset, again. I looked ahead at the water, and he wasn’t there. I felt relief. Just a huge surge of relief.
But then fingers brushed mine, and I turned and saw him, reclining in a chair beside me, bathed in that same late evening light, gold and pink and almost too perfect to be real.
“We should go in soon,” he said.
“Why?”
“It’ll get cold once the sun’s down.”
“I’m not cold,” I said, just before he flickered and vanished.
“Fine,” I said, to the empty space by my side.
************
I still see him, every now and again. I can feel him. I can feel him breathing. I can feel the air move around him. I can feel the weight of him, the mass of him, the difference it makes in the world. I wish I couldn’t. I’d make it stop, if I could. I’d break free of it. It’s worse than losing him in the first place, and worse than living with him before that.
I never know when he’ll turn up. It’s always quick, at sunset, always just when the last light of the day glows bright and then fades. I heard someone call that magic hour, once. I thought it had something to do with photography. I wonder, now, if there’s more to it than that, and if that time between day and night, when the world shimmers, really is just a little bit magic.
Joey used to talk about all the things we’ll never learn, and all the things we can’t understand. Once, when we were together camping in Patagonia, he snuggled up beside me near the fire and looked up at the stars.
“Do you think we’ll ever really know everything that’s out there?”
“I think people smarter than me have tried and failed to answer that question,” I said.
“Yeah, but if you could have the answers, wouldn’t you want them?”
As of last year, I’d never entered any of my creative writing into any contest, ever. Not even in college, when I sat on the editorial board of a literary magazine and could have easily, albeit not entirely fairly, included one of my pieces in the publication. (I wouldn’t have done that. I promise.) I’ve always been timid about my own work.
I realize that I have major impostor syndrome. I’ve never published anything, and I’m terrified to submit my writing to agents and publishers. I’m always far more impressed with what I read from others than with what I write myself. I feel, often, like my creative work is clunky, dull, trite, and uninspired. Not always, but often. It can be discouraging, maddening, and sometimes, debilitating.
To be clear, I’m not looking for sympathy. I think this is a battle many creative people fight every day. Some days, I win. Some days, I…stare at a blank screen and procrastinate and (not infrequently) cry, and I definitely don’t win. But on the good days, when everything comes together, I feel like I’ve made magic, and that keeps me working – through the fear, through the doubt, through the impostor syndrome. And I see that you can’t be an impostor in your own life.
The Short Form Contest requires a submission of 250 characters or less. That’s characters, not words. It can be a poem on its own, or an excerpt from a larger piece. When I discovered the contest last year, I felt…I don’t know, compelled to enter. 250 characters? I wouldn’t feel that bad being rejected over 250 characters. Very few people can do something amazing with 250 characters, right? And so, I entered the contest, knowing my poem wouldn’t be selected, and I felt good. It felt amazing just to put something out there.
So, I entered again this year, with a poem inspired by one of my mom’s favorite books, Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach. (I’m helping my mom start her own business, and she was on my mind.)
I like my poem less than last year’s, but I put it out there, because why not? And I feel good. Maybe I’ll enter some other contests this year, or even submit work to some publications or agents. Maybe this is the year. We’ll see, and until then, I’ll keep writing. I hope, if you’re struggling, you keep writing (or creating whatever you create), too.
Oh, and if you want to read the poem I submitted this year, here it is. Enjoy!
He was crouching low over the water just like we were, looking for crawdads. It was June, the hottest, longest day of the year, and he was just there, like he’d been there the whole time, only he hadn’t. Not five minutes ago. Not one minute ago. We were certain we hadn’t seen him, and all of us agreed. Just this little boy. Dusty blonde hair, lots of freckles, striped red shirt, white shorts. He wasn’t wearing any shoes. We weren’t, either, so that didn’t feel too weird, but the fact that none of us had seen him there earlier, we just couldn’t shake how strange that was.
He said his name was Thomas Leonard, and that he lived in the big house on Morrison Street. We told him the only big house on Morrison Street was torn down two years ago to build condos. He said his mom would be missing him, and he was already late for dinner, and he should get along home before Marcus Welby. We didn’t know who that was. We let him walk away. What else were we supposed to do?
We didn’t realize this kid was THE Thomas Leonard. Every kid in our town knows the name Thomas Leonard. He’s the biggest, saddest secret, the scariest bedtime story. Or, he was. Thomas Leonard disappeared fifty years ago.
It happened like this.
One day, Thomas Leonard tells his mom that he wants to go to the creek and try to catch crawdads with his friend. His imaginary friend. He hasn’t had an imaginary friend all that long, and his mom thinks it’s weird that he’d make one up at his age, but apparently he’s always been a lonely kid. She’d hear him in his room all the time, by himself, but not acting like he was by himself.
“You can’t be G.I. Joe ‘cause I’m G.I. Joe. You gotta be Mickey Mouse.”
And then silence.
“Fine. I’ll be Mickey Mouse this time, but next time, I’m G.I. Joe. You’re awful mean sometimes.”
Stuff like that. See? He was a weird, lonely kid.
Anyway, he asks his mom if he can go play in the creek, and she says fine, go, but be home before dinner, and please remember to wear your shoes back this time. He says okay, and leaves the house at about 3:00 in the afternoon. He never comes home.
They only ever found his shoes.
Everything changed after Thomas Leonard disappeared. The town installed street lights, for one. And they built this huge bridge over the creek, just in case Thomas drowned in three inches of water. And no parent ever let their kid go to the creek alone, not even fifty years later. People remember things forever in this town.
We all thought it was silly, how we had to follow rules just because some dumb kid probably got lost in the woods, like, almost 40 years before we were even born. It’s not like they found any evidence that Thomas was kidnapped or murdered or something. But every time we saw a missing kid on the news, some parent in some house would say, “It reminds me of Thomas Leonard.”
No one ever talked about him out in the open, but this was the town that Thomas Leonard made. The street lights, the bridge, the rules. We heard this rumor once that his mother paid for all of it, out of some family inheritance or something.
She goes up to the mayor one day, after Thomas disappears, and she looks terrible. She looks like she hasn’t slept in a year, which would probably be about right, actually, and she says, “As long as I live, this will never, ever happen again.”
And the mayor looks at her and says we’ll try our best, and about a month later the street lights go up.
Thomas Leonard’s mother lived in this town until the day she died. She sold her house and moved into a little apartment above the antique shop. She stopped going out in public. And about a month before the evening we found him in the creek, she died.
“So sad,” everyone said. “But at least she’s with Thomas now.”
We saw the procession for her funeral. It was only, like, three cars.
But everything she paid for must have made a difference, because there hadn’t been so much as a sprained ankle at the creek in fifty years.
The day we found Thomas Leonard, we’d decided to go out one last time, before we got too old. Kind of like trick-or-treating. No one went to the creek after they turned fourteen. It was considered childish, something you only did if you weren’t cool enough to do something else. We weren’t really sure what that something else was, because hanging out in the grocery store parking lot smoking cigarettes and listening to music from your car radio just didn’t seem all that cool.
So we walked down to the town square, and around the corner to the picnic pavilion, past the swings and down the hill, over the train tracks and across the bridge. We’d only been there for an hour or so when we saw him, and we talked to him for less than five minutes before he walked away. Sure, we thought it was strange, but it wasn’t until about fifteen minutes later that we made the connection.
We got ourselves together as fast as we could and went in the direction we’d last seem him walking. We made our way back up the hill and into town, and we didn’t see him anywhere. And nothing seemed wrong. Like, we asked everybody we saw, and nobody had seen him. A couple of people actually yelled at us for playing such a terrible joke. We started to wonder if we were crazy, because it was impossible. No one disappears for fifty years and comes back looking exactly the same. No one disappears for fifty years and comes back, period. But we knew we’d seen him. We didn’t make it up.
We started to wonder, though, if someone had played a prank on us. So when we got home, we Googled his name. And there was his picture, clear as day. The boy we saw was definitely Thomas Leonard. Without a doubt. Same hair, same freckles. We tried to tell people, but no one would listen. We went to bed thinking we’d seen a ghost, and that it was probably the weirdest thing that would ever happen to us, and that maybe we didn’t want to go to the creek ever again.
And then, the next morning when we woke up, we saw the news. We couldn’t believe it. Who would believe it?
See, on the same evening that we found Thomas Leonard, on the longest day of the year, at the creek down the hill from town, Rebecca Bishop disappeared. She’d ridden her bike down there alone right after we left. We’d just missed her.
It’s been about three months, and they’ve only ever found her shoes. She’s the new biggest, saddest, scariest bedtime story.
Maybe fifty years from now we’ll go back. We might be crazy, but maybe we’ll do it. Maybe we’ll all still be here, in fifty years. We’ll be old. It’s so long, and we make promises to each other all the time we know we won’t really keep. But maybe we’ll keep this one, and we’ll be there, at the creek, waiting for her.
A Virginia Writer's Diary 