In My Mother's Garden (A Thanksgiving Story)

In my mother’s garden, when the air turns cold and the morning dew becomes frost that crunches beneath my father’s footsteps as he leaves for work, the Japanese grasses begin changing colors. Bending and stretching beyond the clusters of wilting daisies, drooping lavender, the grasses fade from green to gold, blinking and shimmering as they turn their faces to the late autumn sun.

I come home for the weekend, in a car packed full of dirty laundry and clean clothing choices, different options for each different day, and find the backyard sparkling like El Dorado, the air pulsing and throbbing with a golden glow.

It is November, and the thriving grasses, dancing and willowy in the cool afternoon breeze, remind me of corn husks, of dinners at a Texas table, rolled tamales, spiced meat. The ground outside was brown and brittle, the river surface coated with fallen leaves. We wore shorts and bulky sweatshirts, played football in the yard. The dogs ran around the house, trotted over the wooden deck, paws slapping the cold wood, they barked at nothing, and we listened, their curious voices echoing over the water.

Here, in my mother’s garden, the seasons change much faster, the heavy saturated air of summer retreating, running, hiding from the brisk evening of fall. Winter creeps up in an instant, closes the door, locks us inside. We huddle beneath blankets beside the fireplace. We drink hot chocolate, warm tea turned cloudy from skim milk. We cook Thanksgiving dinner, my mother moving through the kitchen like a programmed machine: sauerkraut in the crock pot, chop the celery and onions, stuff the turkey, pumpkin pie was done the night before, don’t peel the potatoes too soon or else they’ll brown. I help by being in the way, standing in the middle of the kitchen without a task. Here, I’ll wash that spoon. Hand me that whisk, I’ll stir the gravy. Outside, the Japanese grasses cast their blinding golden glow across the yard, as the sun begins to set and dinnertime approaches.

It is warm in the basement, where my mother has pushed two tables together. Each place is set with fading china dishware, pink flowers rimming a plain white plate. The black and tan cloth napkins I’ve brought with me do not match, but this dinner is informal and my feet are cold because I’m not wearing any socks.

We fill our plates with mashed potatoes. The turkey is moist; the green beans are seasoned with lemon juice, which burns the small cut on my lip. We have forgotten to say what we are thankful for. Everyone’s mouth is full of food, and as we eat, the sun goes down and evening turns to night. The Japanese grasses in my mother’s garden no longer glow and sparkle. Huddled together, they shiver against the cold night air.

A Story With No Title

Rebecca O’Neal has taken up drinking in the morning. Her 3rd story apartment overlooks the playground of the Wolfe Street Academy and she sits out on her balcony, sipping gin and tonics while the children play kickball before the first bell. Before, she’d just smoke a few cigarettes and marvel at the little girl who always wore her hair in perfect pigtails; but after reading several articles about the harmful effects of cigarette smoking and the high likelihood of developing conditions like lung cancer or emphysema, Rebecca switched to gin and tonics. They’re better for her in the long run, she figures, and they get the day going with a sweetness that borders on tart, rather than a dismal cloud of heady grey and a stifling heat against her gums.

She watches as a young mother kneels down to hug her son, kisses him on the crown of his head. “Now you be good today,” Rebecca imagines her saying. Or, “Mommy will see you this afternoon.” The woman’s hair is long and dark, pulled back into a low ponytail that trails down her spine. She is thin and fit, probably takes kickboxing lessons while her child’s at school, or runs with a dog. Some type of lab or golden retriever. A good dog, though maybe a bit wild. A sweet animal who doesn’t know better than to jump up and put his paws on your chest, or bury his snout in your crotch, but who also licks your hand gently when you aren’t watching, or nuzzles his big head against your leg. That’s the kind of dog this woman must have. A dog that keeps you fit.

Rebecca takes another sip of her drink and fishes her fingers beneath the ice to grab the single wedge of lime trapped on the bottom of the glass. She holds it to her lips and sucks the sour mixture of gin and lime flesh onto her tongue. Two children argue over whether the ball was fair or foul. One of them is round and heavy across the middle. His stomach, folded over the edge of his belted blue jeans, reminds Rebecca of soft peanut butter sliding over the crust of sandwich bread. It just hangs there, drooping ominously, suspended in space. She watches the argument intently, waiting for the fat kid’s stomach to drip the rest of the way down his legs. The other kid, with his orangey-red hair and spotted face is a sure know-it-all. Rebecca rolls a piece of ice around in her mouth as he yells and points repeatedly at a non-exist foul line on the ground. Leaning forward over the railing of her balcony, Rebecca studies the ground for some faded yellow paint, any semblance of a demarcation, but there is none, and the argument ends unresolved, interrupted by the morning bell.

Most of the kids rush off in a hurry, grabbing their book bags, lunch boxes, discarded jackets. They race off to class, hoping to avoid tardiness, as Rebecca tilts her head back and finishes the last of her gin and tonic. But other kids—older, cooler, unashamed—take their time. They kick at the loose stones on the schoolyard’s asphalt. One or two bend down to slowly, carefully retie their shoes. Two boys take turns punching each other back and forth, as they walk to the corner where they’ve stashed their backpacks. A pretty girl, with blonde hair and a ponytail hovers over the right shoulder of what is perhaps a would-be first boyfriend. She laughs cautiously as the boy jokes with his friends, follows close behind when he finally makes his way across the playground towards the school’s doors. She hangs on every word, glances down periodically to check that her just-forming breasts are obvious to those around her, her back arched into a half moon, her chest pressed up and out. She forgets about her neon pink jacket. Leaves it lying in the corner of the schoolyard, soft and bright against the dark asphalt.

When the playground is empty, and Rebecca hears the heavy, metal school doors close behind the last of the children with a dull thud, she gets up from the balcony and goes inside. Finding her shoes, a pair of black flip-flops with a red cloth flower attached to the thong that runs between her large and second toes, she grabs a light jacket and takes the stairs down from her apartment two at a time.

Looking both ways, Rebecca crosses the street and walks toward the schoolyard’s gate. It creaks slightly as she pushes it open, and Rebecca brings her finger to her lips, as if to silence the rusty metal. She walks softly across the asphalt, careful not to kick up too many loose stones, until she reaches the corner of the playground. Kneeling down, Rebecca picks up the neon pink jacket, runs her thumb and forefinger across the collar. She holds the jacket up in the air and shakes it slightly, listens as the zipper lightly jingles.

Back inside, Rebecca O’Neal drops the neon pink jacket on her counter and pours herself another gin and tonic, nearly cutting her finger when she slices a wedge of lime. Walking through the kitchen and living room, stooping down to pick up the sofa pillow that has fallen to the floor and returning it to its rightful place, she makes her way to the bedroom and pulls open the closet door. She places the neon pink jacket on the shelf next to all her other poached treasures: a half-deflated red kickball, a trapper-keeper binder with Dora the Explorer on the front, a pencil kit, a hair bow, a tin lunch box complete with thermos, a red winter hat, a blue mitten for a right hand.

She goes back out onto her balcony and looks out over the empty schoolyard, the sound of children laughing, fat kid and know-it-all kid’s argument still hanging in the air. She takes a sip of her gin and tonic and thinks to herself, “I really ought not drink in the morning. It’s a terrible habit.” She lets the liquor linger on her tongue. Closing her eyes, she turns her face into the sun and swirls the glass in her hand, listening as the ice cubes clack together.

A Thing Or Two About Haiku

It’s not haiku if the poem has fifteen lines. I tried telling him this time and again, but he didn’t want to hear it.

“I think I’d know a thing or two about haiku,” he’d say, his voice above the acceptable volume for the reception lobby. “I’m the one writing the haiku, so I think I know a little something about haiku.”

“Okay, okay,” I’d always reply. “You know all about haiku.” But he didn’t.

“It’s a form of Chinese poetry,” he’d tell me.
“Japanese,” I’d reply.
“Each word has to have five or seven syllables.”
“You mean each line.”
“It goes seven, five, seven.”
“Five, seven, five.”
“And you have to have at least 10 lines.”
“Nope, only three.”
“And every line has to rhyme.”
“Actually, there’s no rhyming at all.”

It was always the same with him. “I got a new haiku for you to read.” And I’d have to push 99 on the phone to keep it from ringing, or tell him to hold on for just one second so I could finish dealing with a call. Then I’d just sit and listen as he’d go on and on: 10 lines, 12 lines, 15. One haiku about waking up a new man, feeling sorry for all the mistakes of the past. Another haiku about what one “young punk” said to him that made him yell and curse.

“All these young guys think they’re so tough. Those damn punks make my life rough,” he’d read.

“You know, none of those words have five or seven syllables,” I’d tell him.

“So what?” he’d reply.

“Well you said each word in a haiku is supposed to have five or seven syllables.”

“Yeah, seven syllables. Those-damn-punks-make-my-life-rough. Seven,” he’d count off on his fingers. “I think I know a thing or two about writing haiku.”

“Right, of course. Sorry. I’m just saying.”

“Well you go ahead and try it then,” he’d challenge me, anger mounting in his voice. And then softer, “Will you write me a haiku?”

“Give me ten minutes,” I’d tell him. “I have to take care of a couple things first.”

In precisely ten minutes, he’d be back. “Let me hear the haiku,” he’d say. “I want to see if it is better than mine.”

“Okay,” I’d reply. “Here you go.”

Haiku are short poems
They come to us from Japan
Lines: five, seven, five.

“That’s terrible,” he would say when I was finished. “You really don’t know anything about haiku.”

And I’d just smile and nod my head. “I have to take this call,” I’d tell him, answering the phone.