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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book... “the Lighthouse” Down in the Dirt, v152 (the December 2017 Issue)  You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:  |
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Heart’s Ease
Gwenellen Tarbet
Myrna knew no good was going to come out of this whole experience. She shivered on the bench in the police station in her nightgown and bathrobe and fully expected that her next stop would be the nut barn. She shifted her weight, and winced as her pink rubber boots squeaked on the grimy linoleum. A young girl wearing a red strapless prom dress was passed out on Myrna’s left shoulder. She reeked of booze and vomit. Myrna tried several times to push her away, but magnet-like, she invariably found Myrna’s shoulder again. To her right, an agitated young man moaned and shrieked in an ever increasing crescendo of pain. When his shrieking reached its apex, the uniformed policemen barked, “Settle down Murphy!” and the whole sequence would begin anew.
Myrna’s movements were hampered by the handcuffs on her wrists and she was resigned to the presence of the drunk girl on her shoulder. Her eyes followed the swirling ghosts of vomit past on the ancient floor tile in a desperate meditation.
“Breathe” she mumbled.
“Lloydd!” The cop at the desk shouted.
Myrna startled and timidly raised her hand.
She raised her hands. “Right here.”
He didn’t bother to hide his amusement as he took in the sight of her. Muddy fuzzy robe covered with purple and pink butterflies and big rubber boots. Her hair was a knotted mess. Somewhere in all the confusion of the arrest she’d lost her hair clip and now the grey curls resembled a seedy dandelion. The young cop stood up. His face was impossibly youthful. Myrna suppressed the urge to ask him if his mother knew where he was.
“This way please.” He said.
The weight of the Prom Queen on her shoulder made it difficult to stand up and her boot made a shrill RRRRREEEEEAAAAAAPPPP sound as she struggled to get her balance. The officer waited impatiently by a closed door and punched in a code as she approached.
“Fingerprints.” He said.
She watched the gun on his hip sway back and forth as she followed him down the wide hallway. She pictured herself deftly grabbing the gun and waving it around shouting, “You’ll never take me alive, Coppers!” She bit her lip against the hysterical giggling that threatened to engulf her. Her arms and legs felt like they didn’t belong to her anymore and she wondered if she was having a stroke. She wondered if it would be better than the complete mental breakdown that was now stalking her like a wolf.
“Please, can you tell me again what the charges are? I still don’t quite understand the first one.”
“Interfering with a dead body, assault, obstruction of justice, resisting arrest.” He said.
“I don’t understand the interfering with a dead body one.” She said.
The young officer smirked. “You do however understand the assault charge?”
“Yes.”
The sign on the door read “Booking.” Fingerprints were taken forms were filled out.
“Name?”
“Myrna Patricia Lloydd. Two “L’s” Two “D’s””
She added 10 pounds to her weight and subtracted an inch from her height just to be ornery.
“Marital Status?”
“Divorced.”
“Next of Kin?”
“None.”
He paused typing for a moment. “No emergency contact? No one you can call?”
“No. You can put yourself down there if you like.”
He shook his head and continued completing the paperwork. He put her in a windowless room with a table and two chairs and told her to wait. He removed the handcuffs and she accepted his offer of a cup of tea. She sat in the chair and stared at the table. The word ‘divorced’ circled her brain in big red letters, demanding attention.
“Marital Status: Divorced.”
Once, only a couple of years ago, she could have called Harold. She found lately though that she was reluctant to pay the price of asking for help. She worked hard at not thinking about Harold. She didn’t like remembering. Memory was a flat brown plain filled with unexploded mines. Or maybe more accurately, a hoard of zombies, that constantly attacked the defensive wall of Forgetting that Myrna built around her soul. Hungry memories that ate her sanity if aloud to run unchecked. The wall against them was a cobbled together thing; a gossamer web in some places. The act of will that it took to maintain that wall was exhausting and Myrna was at the end of her resources. A dead woman in her garden achieved what the living could not.
Harold is packing his suitcase. She is sitting on the edge of the bed watching.
“I just can’t live like this anymore Myrna.” He stacks his neatly folded his socks into the suitcase he used on their honeymoon. “Ever since your mother died, you’ve been emotionally distant.
“I’ve been emotionally distant for twenty years.” Myrna thinks. “Inconvenience has sharpened your senses.”
“We don’t talk, you act like I’m not here. Hell I can’t even touch you without you pulling back! It’s like you’ve turned to ice.”
She feels nothing as she watches her husband pack his bag. She finds that she likes the thought of being icy cold. Cold as Ice. She’s the Ice Princess. No, she’s the snow Queen. Might as well be at the top of the heap.
“I love you Myrna, but this is killing me.”
“Don’t be dramatic Harold. She says. He hears the shards of ice in her voice.
His dejected look reminds her of a hound dog. She hums the Elvis song softly and doesn’t try to hide the new spring in her step as she hurries to the kitchen to load the dishwasher. She’ll wait till he’s gone to wash the sheets.
Myrna sipped her badly brewed tea. The events of the morning were nagging at the corners of her mind, memory demanding attention and muddling her mind. She had woken up, she made coffee, she had looked out the window and there was a dead body in her garden. Okay at first she hadn’t known it was a dead body. At first she was annoyed because she thought someone had dumped a pile of their trash on her flowers. As she stared out the window, a sick feeling grew in her stomach. She recognized the coat that topped the pile of garbage. Myrna almost turned away and pretended not to see. Instead, she put on her gardening boots and walked out to the flowerbed, her heart thumping in her ears. No, it wasn’t garbage lying there on top of her Heart’s Ease. She knew this woman tenuously. She knelt in the soft earth and felt for a pulse on her neck. Nothing. It confirmed what Myrna already knew; the woman’s open eyes were opaque in death.
She called the police on the house phone, returned with a soft afghan and placed it gently over the woman. Despite the wet grass, she sat down and waited for the authorities to come. It seemed discourteous to leave her alone in the garden.
Heart’s Ease made them sisters, or at least first cousins. Heart’s Ease were the little flowers that bloomed in her garden until the first frosts of winter sent them to sleep. One of the few memories Myrna allowed to shelter inside the defensive fortress of her mind was of the day her mother told her about the flowers.
“They’re elf flowers! Myrna believes this with all her heart.
Momma laughs. “Perhaps sweetheart but humans call them Heart’s Ease, wild pansies.”
The blossoms colonized her garden, the lawn and between the cracks in the asphalt driveway with fearless yellow and purple abandon. Myrna loved their untamed spirit. She could understand why the woman would choose to lay down on this carpet of flowers and die. She couldn’t think of a more beautiful death. The final erasure of memory. Perfect past tense.
“Momma why are they called “Heart’s Ease?” Myrna is four years old and they are out in the warm sun of spring. She has her head on Momma’s stomach as they lie on the front lawn amongst the tall grass and the dandelions and the Heart’s Ease. She is staring at the clouds as they billow and wander like waves in the bright blue ocean of the sky. She inhales the smell of the sunshine and the warm green breeze makes her skin tingle. Momma’s, tangy woman’s musk mingled with the yeasty smell of bread still means love and absolute safety.
Momma is stroking Myrna’s long blonde hair. “Look at them Honey, don’t they look like they’re smiling at you?”
Myrna rolls on to her stomach to study the Heart’s Ease up close. The yellow centres have violet marks.
“They’re laughing.” Myrna giggles.
They resemble a giddy mob.
Momma grasps a flower and pulls it gently. “They ease your heart with their happiness. They grow in the loneliest most forsaken places and fill them with beauty, and that beauty makes your heart easier. They remind me of you honey.”
Myrna’s heart swells with love for her mother. She can’t imagine any day that will be as wonderful as this one. The world is a joyful place and she knows with the certainty of a small child that it will be so forever.
The woman who died in her garden, atop Myrna’s pansies always dressed in black. Black cloth coat, black long skirt and a black scarf. Mourning every morning. Myrna noticed her as she stopped to look at the flowers. She looked up and saw Myrna in her kitchen window, pointed at the flowers and smiled. Her lined face lit up and she looked happy and glowing. Then with her cane in her knotted hand, she continued her daily journey.
Momma is in the nursing home. Myrna visits her every day.
“Why can’t I go home?” Momma asks again.
Myrna is used to the question.
“You can go home tomorrow Momma.” She says in a soothing voice like one would use with a cranky child. This answer satisfies Momma for now.
“I have a surprise for you Momma.” She goes out into the hallway and comes back with a long rectangular planter. It is full of violet and yellow pansies.
“I got these from your garden. I’m going to put these by your window.”
Momma’s eyes widen with delight. “Oh I love those flowers. My daughter Myrna and I used to lay with them in the grass all summer long.”
Momma claps her hands. “I wouldn’t let Geoff cut the lawn all summer long because of those flowers. It used to make him so mad!” Momma laughs.
“Heart’s Ease.” Myrna says.
She makes room on the window sill for the flowers and gives them a little water from the jug on the table. She turns back to Momma in the bed. Harold is always complaining that she spends too much time here. He said so again this morning as she was gathering her things for the day.
“You’re exhausted when you come home. You haven’t made a decent dinner in months. He points to the shirt he is wearing. I’ve been ironing my own clothes.”
He flops on the bed, and looks at her with the big puppy dog eyes that once melted her heart. “I thought the nursing home was supposed to make things easier.”
Myrna stares at him and wonders who this man in her bedroom thinks he is.
It is a month later, and Momma is disappearing further into the shadows of her mind. Most days, Myrna sits by her in the chair by the bed, knitting mittens. Blue, orange, yellow and purple, she has spent an eternity in this chair. The room is lit by the grey light of winter and the florescent bulbs ping and buzz overhead.
Her mother’s voice, unusually loud cracks the silence and Myrna jumps, startled.
“Jessica, do you know what Myrna told me when she was nine?” Jessica was Myrna’s Aunt, her mother’s sister. Myrna looks like Jessica at forty-five.
“Do you know what she said?” The voice is now whisper thin, old newspapers rubbing together and crumbling at a touch. Myrna’s heart stops. She knows that she doesn’t want to know, but she does nothing to stop her mother from speaking.
“Myrna said Ralph comes into her room at night and does things to her.”
Ralph was Momma’s brother. Happy, jocular, he used to come over and drink beer with Myrna’s father on Saturday nights. She remembers listening to their booming laughter through the door of her bedroom. Laughter at jokes Momma didn’t approve of.
Myrna stops knitting. She is unable to move. She is made of glass and the slightest vibration threatens to shatter her.
“I told her to never tell anyone. I told her it would never happen again, but she needed to forget about it or it would kill our family.”
Myrna is pressing the knitting needle into the palm of her left hand. Pressing further and further into the flesh.
“I know she kept the secret, but oh Jessica, she’s never been the same since. She used to be so happy and trusting, and now.” Momma frowns, “Now it’s like she doesn’t see us at all. She’s here but she’s gone. I know she’s unhappy and it’s all my fault. I didn’t protect her.”
The remembered scent of the monster who came in the darkness stinking of beer and cigarettes and old spice invades her nostrils. The fear-filled memory of listening for Ralph’s footfall at the door, the slow turning of the knob, makes her mouth dry. She remembers concentrating on the warm yellow slit of light shining under the door where safety and love were only a few feet away but completely unreachable.
“You be quiet Myrna, you don’t want to cause trouble do you? Your Uncle Ralph is just showing you how special you are. It’s our little secret.”
Pleasure and shame served from the same cup.
When she told Momma, Momma cried so hard. Myrna knew then that she should have kept silent. It was all her fault. She was a bad girl. so she never told anyone again. She kept the secret. She forgot about everything.
Myrna wonders why her hand hasn’t started bleeding. Surely the needle has pierced her flesh.
“I was wrong Jessica. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to make it better.”
The needle has indeed pierced the flesh. Myrna drops it and uses the yellow mitten to staunch the flow of blood. Despite the vibration in her soul and her body; she does not shatter.
Myrna takes a deep, deep breath. She becomes Jessica for her mother. “Put it out of your mind. Myrna’s fine. Look, she’s married. She’s alright. Forget about it.”
She looks up at Momma’s face, but she is gone back into the shadows. Myrna goes into the bathroom to run her hand under cold water. She throws the mitten into the garbage and never knits anything again. Surprisingly the wound heals without a scar. No stigmata. Even her skin knows how to forget.
The past is a Presence.
Myrna waited in the silence. She wished they would hurry up. The cop she assaulted was cruel. She should have known better. Cruel people didn’t like their assumptions challenged. They didn’t like resistance. Punishment was always certain, swift and severe. There was no use in fighting. She should have just gone back into the house instead of having a one-sided conversation with a dead woman while the wet grass soaked her underwear through the fuzzy housecoat.
“I wonder why you wore black.” She said to the corpse. What were you mourning? I wish I would have asked you.”
She imagined herself coming across the lawn one morning with a cup of tea, because the woman in black looked like a tea drinking kind of woman. She imagined bringing her into the house and hearing her story. Maybe a much-loved husband taken too soon. Maybe the tragedy of a child gone before the parent. Maybe the death of an unforgiven parent. What were the threads of hurt and loss woven into that garment of grief?
The dead woman offered no insight.
Myrna tried to breathe while Memory continued its assault her carefully constructed defenses. Regret with its poisoned litany of ‘what ifs’ rode in its wake. She was drowning.
“I’m wondering a lot of things.” She hesitated and took a deep breath. “Can you see from where you are I wonder? Do you know what I did to her?”
The nursing home calls. I’m afraid your mother has passed.” The Administrator tells her with just the right note of sympathy in her smooth practiced voice. Myrna wonders if she has a card with the words on it. Does she prepare her voice before making the phone call? Myrna supposes she gets plenty of practice delivering this one line. She bites her tongue to suppress a giggle.
She goes into the Home and signs papers and is told by the Administrator that Momma’s effects need to be gathered up. She enters the room, and is greeted by the familiar sounds of the lights buzzing. There are a few pictures, bottles of medication, a robe, and several nightgowns. She stands numbly fingering the old crochet throw. She waits for tears but nothing comes.
The planter with the Heart’s Ease is still on the window sill. The flowers are dry and crumble between her fingers. The planter is the only thing she takes with her. Once home, she dumps the soil from the planter in the garden between the aloof rose bushes and throws the planter in the big grey garbage can. She sits up all that night waiting for tears that never come. Her heart is icy cold. Everyone in the remaining family is furious with her because there is no funeral, no memorial. She’s given her mother’s body to science. Signed the papers without even blinking. Wham bam, you’re a cadaver ma’am.
Who, if not the woman in black, could she tell?
“I wonder if I would have married Harold if Uncle Ralph hadn’t done what he did.” Her throat closed and she was choking. The malignant words hung in the air between her and the dead woman and she cowered against the wave upon wave of Memories that poured over her now defenseless mind. Compelled to finish what she had begun, she moved to her hands and knees beside the dead woman and clutched the cloth of her black skirt desperately in one hand.
The killing words tore at her throat as she uttered them, “I wonder if I’ll ever be able to forgive my mother.”
In the silence that followed, the bloated poisonous words began to lose their power and were carried away on the breeze. She could breathe again. Her hand loosened its desperate grip and after a moment she rubbed the silky cloth between her finger and her thumb.
“I think black is a good idea. I might start wearing it myself. It’s more honest. Here I am world, sad as shit, so leave me alone.”
She picked a handful of flowers and laid them on the woman’s chest. “Can you give these to Momma for me?” Myrna said.
The police and the ambulance arrived. They confirmed the woman’s death, took pictures and disposed of the remains. The ambulance attendant was very kind. When the flowers on the woman’s chest fell off, he carefully picked them up and put them in her pocket. He gave Myrna a shy smile. The zipping of the body bag still echoed in Myrna’s ears when a detective began to interview her. She described how she found the body. No, she didn’t know the woman’s name, but she came by every morning to look at the flowers. The detective was a polite young man.
His partner wasn’t. His partner was a big man with a beer belly and a wrinkled suit jacket 20 years out of fashion. The partner began to stomp over the Heart’s Ease grinding his heels into the small flowers and killing them. The flowers remembered the woman in black and the horrible man was destroying that memory with careless arrogance.
Excuse me, Myrna called to him. “Do you really have to do that?”
The horrible man took a sip from his travel mug. “Looking for evidence.”
“I understand, but please can you be careful of the flowers?”
He strode over to her, nudging the younger detective out of the way.
“I’m Detective McCannon.” He said. The words flowed over her face in a waft of stale beer and garlic. Up close she could see the broken veins in his nose. His voice was jocular, easy going, a veneer covering bullish violence.
“Now if you’ll just be quiet,” He said. I’ll be done in a minute.”
She felt dizzy.
The past becomes the present.
Uncle Ralph in the darkness. The smell of beer mixes with the copper smell of blood. “Just lay still Myrna, he pants. “It’ll be over in a minute.”
Momma says, “Honey, Dad works for Uncle Ralph and we can’t afford to make trouble. You need to forget about it and it will be like it never happened. You can do it sweetheart, you can forget. Please don’t tell anyone. I’ll make sure it never happens again.” The desperate plea in her voice scares Myrna most of all.
Harold whining, “I don’t want you to work. A woman’s job is to take care of her man. Why would you want to do anything else?” The reproof in his voice still carries the power to wound.
Minutes last forever.
Memory is happening in the moment of remembering.
McCannon turns away from her and walks deliberately on the flowers. She sees how he gives each step a little extra twist on the ball of his foot. The yellow and violet petals separate from their stems and are pushed into the moist dark earth, delicate roots exposed. The Heart’s Ease’ memory of the woman’s body is wiped out with each careful destructive step.
“Stop!” Myrna shouts.
She moves swiftly. She goes after McCannon at a run, shoulder low. Each running step dug into the soil for maximum leverage. Her father had shown her how on warm spring afternoons before being a good quiet girl became more important than having fun. Her legs remember their former swiftness and power and she glories in McCannon’s look of stunned surprise as she hits him mid-torso. Memory became/becomes a blur. She remembers satisfaction at his bellow of pain as her knee connects with his testicles. She is flat on the ground, her arms behind her being handcuffed. Her fuzzy butterfly robe is covered with dirt and there is shouting. A crowd has formed on the sidewalk, and she vaguely remembers applause.
In the room alone with Memory, she picks the dry dirt off her robe and carefully piles it on the cold metal of the table. A woman with a huge briefcase comes into the room and introduces herself as duty council. She reads Myrna’s file. Myrna tries to control the trembling in her arms and legs and concentrates on her breathing.
“There’s some pretty serious charges here.” The woman says. “Although, I think I can have the interfering with a dead body one dropped. “There’s really no evidence.”
She looks at Myrna over her glasses.
“I’m not sorry about assaulting McCannon.” Myrna says.
The woman smirks. “Knowing him, you shouldn’t be. However ....” She pulls out a pen. “You’d better tell me what happened and for God’s sake tell me the truth, it makes it so much easier that way.”
Myrna stares at the lawyer. She sits on her hands to hide the shaking and the woman frowns in concern.
“Are you all right?” she asks.
Myrna giggles. “No.” she says. “I’m not all right. I’m in mourning.”
She begins to cry. She wets her finger with her tongue and picks up the fragments of dirt from the little pile and rubs them on her face so they can mix with her tears.
