THE SIMULACRUM

by Marianne Carlson

"Ok can you look at each other as you if you actually like each other? Remember, this is a happy time."

"Like each other? We LOVE each other," Adele gushes as her invisible tentacles wrap themselves around the hapless male standing next to her, a mere boy, taking grown up steps into a future he can only imagine.

Unable to look each other in the eye, the couple stand awkwardly in front of the garden backdrop in my photography studio, posing for their engagement announcement photo, they barely hold hands. As if caught in a  trap, uncertain whether to struggle or lay low, Clark does neither, but assumes an attitude of tortured acquiescence. My camera clicks unceasingly.  He looks  as if he would rather be anywhere else, as if he is drowning.

Adele could be a spokesperson for a Weight Watchers commercial, strutting her newfound thinness in front of him seductively, more in love with her new svelte body than in love with her fiancé. Within a year those 40 pounds will return and then some, and Clark will be  constantly on her case about her weight, her "enormous butt." He abhors fat and will beleaguer her with insults. 

I give this marriage five years at best. I wish I could tell them.  If I could do my work without the necessity of interacting with people I’d be fine because the truth is I really don’t like them very much, the messes they make of their lives. The strange thing is, they so often want to tell me everything, to confide.  A hair dresser once told me that her clients often want to reveal their deepest secrets to her. She thinks it has something to do with the fact that she is touching their heads. Maybe on some level my clients believe they are talking to my camera?

I  am surprised to find Clark take a keen interest in the shots, and even more surprised to discover that his taste is impeccable. I have him pegged all wrong. Adele's interest is superficial at best, she scans the shots with annoying insouciance and gravitates towards the worst of the worst, leaving the choice to Clark. Focused, he is a different person than the boy in front of my camera, it is as if he has matured in a matter of minutes. 

“Let me know when you decide which shot you want to use.”

“I have already decided. It’s this one.” He chooses a shot which is off balance, not very complimentary of either one of them. In the shot Clark appears to be crowding Adele out of camera range, a diaphanous shadow partially covers her face. You can’t see her eyes. I love the shot, I love Clark for choosing it and look at him in new a light.

I want to ask him why. Why the rush, why are you doing this, why are you marrying her at all, but I don’t. Instead I write up the order, process his credit card.

“I know what you are thinking.” Adele has excused herself to go to the bathroom. Clark and I are alone. 

“You do. Well, tell me then, what am I thinking?”

“Why am I marrying this foolish girl, that’s what you are thinking.”

“You said it, not I.” He is on the verge of unraveling into that insecure boy who stood in front of my camera, but through some strange inner process known only to him he again transforms in front of my eyes. His tenacity frightens me.

“Adele’s father is my nemesis. I hate him. For as long as I can remember I have wanted to be a cinematographer. I want to shoot movies. It is all I have ever wanted.”

“Good for you, I can understand that. You’re a bit young for such grandiose ideas, though.”

“Adele’s father is one of the top guns in Hollywood. I interviewed him, way before I ever met Adele, and he turned me down flat. He not only rejected me, he humiliated me in the process. In essence he told me not to let the door hit me on the way out.”

Clark’s rage was palpable.  “Does Adele know this?”

“No.”

“Does she know you want to follow in her father’s footsteps?”

“I don’t want to follow in her father’s footsteps.”

“It’s a mean industry.  You need to have very thick skin.” 

“I know. But being married to the boss’s daughter helps, doesn’t it?”

“It doesn’t hurt.”

I wish them well as they make their way to the door thinking that five years is a long shot. He will drop her like a hot potato as soon as he lands his first movie. Sitting in my den watching The Academy Awards ten years later, the camera zooms in on the nominees for best cinematographer. There sits Clark and Adele and as his name is mentioned he kisses her lightly on the cheek. Just as I imagined, she has packed on a few pounds. He still looks young and resolute, that iron determination written all over his face. He didn’t win, but he will sometime in the future. They have three children, a boy and twin girls. Adele isn’t going anywhere. Good for her.

It's All Temporary

DEEP CALLS TO DEEP

by Marianne Carlson

"Keva? Is it really you?" I looked at her in stupefied amazement. I had not seen her in at least five years, it might as well have been a lifetime, so much has changed for me since last we met. Potent emotions swept over me rendering me powerless to react in any but a superficial manner. For a moment I thought I might faint.

"Fancy meeting you here." Keva had changed.  Once pencil slim, she had put on weight giving her a solidity I found somewhat off-putting. When slim, she had a chimerical quality, I often thought of her as Tinkerbell but Tinkerbell has been lifting weights. Her eyes had not changed though, that unrelenting stare, her refusal to look away. She was a chameleon, but a chameleon with a mean underbelly. 

"I'm fat." 

"No, you look good Keva. How's life been treating you?"

"Not so good. I have been away."

"Oh?"  She had always been laconic, her way of dropping innuendos, then carrying on as if I was a mind reader.  It was one of the things I had loved about Keva, her quietness. I grew up with a mother who never stopped talking, and it drove me crazy. Then along came Keva. When we first met, when we were in the throes of first love, I thought it compelling.  Now I find it rather sinister.

"Away?"

"Shipped upstate."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"The Springdale Women's House of Correction. The food was starchy."

"Are you telling me you were incarcerated?" For reasons that were unclear to me, I wasn't surprised. Our relationship had always included some act of sedition or another, usually minor. We both had QUESTION AUTHORITY bumper stickers on our cars but Keva was far more rebellious than I. 

"You always told me I would bite off more than I could chew, well I did."

"It must have been a hell of a big bite."

"It was stupid. Basically I was set up."

"What did you do?" I felt like I was pulling teeth, trying to get information out of her, and suddenly I recalled  how this person had almost destroyed me. I thought I was over her, but I was not. It was as if she pulled a switch and the deep recesses of her personality were once again hidden while at the same time her irresistible  nature dominated.  It had always been this way, a lethal game of hide and seek. I, always the seeker, trying to peel through the layers of Keva’s psyche.

"I got caught up with some not very nice people, they were into drugs, and used me as a mule."

"You are too smart for that, Keva."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Tell me about prison."

Much to my surprise, she radiated, a subtle inner glow crept into her usually opaque eyes. "I met some wonderful women. Believe it or not, I was sorry to leave."

"Really?"

"I'll never look at life in the same way again. I'm an X running around in a world of O's. 

"But you always were, Keva. 

"Remember you used to tell me, "deep calls to deep," Keva said, and I always told you I had no idea what it meant?"

"I remember."

"Well, now I know. My cell mate taught me, but I'm not sure I have the depth to answer her. It was nice seeing you again." Keva turned abruptly as if to leave,  she had revealed more than she felt comfortable in doing. 

Nice? Is that what she calls it? Nice, when in five short minutes she managed to reduce me to a shell of my former self again. Stronger now, I will be able to replace the pieces of my shattered ego, but it will take a strength of character I am not certain I possess. Deep calls to deep.

It's All Temporary

THE CHINA DOLL

By Marianne Carlson

Sarah had it all. A few months after her birth the small town where she lived with her family (two older brothers, her parents, and Angelo, the Maine Coon cat)  had a Cutest Baby Contest.  Sarah won. The prizes consisted of a year's supply of Pampers, assorted jars of Gerber's baby food, a mobile for her crib and a 529K.  Tom and Terese, a handsome, annoyingly righteous couple, were thrilled. They were careful not to boast, but it sealed the deal for them. Sarah was preternaturally special in every way.

It was impossible to carry on a normal conversation with Sarah's execrable parents.   Any subject not involving the welfare of Sarah was of no consequence, conversely, anything even remotely concerning Sarah was monumental.  Both parents were child psychologists. Tom, a professor at a prestigious university, has been published often. His specialty, the gifted child, has been cited as beyond reproach. The fact that Sarah may or may not be gifted was never questioned.

Her two brothers, Hank and Tom Jr., were well aware that Sarah was the favorite child, and it did not sit well with them, there seemed to be an omnipresent tension in the air. With the passage of time, their dislike turned to hatred. They called her “The China Doll.”  If the boys needed new hockey equipment it was given reluctantly, if at all, because Sarah needed new figure skates, if the boys needed money for Little League, it came only if there was enough money for Sarah’s gymnastic lessons, if the boys wanted to join the swim team, they had to work to come up with the money, although money was readily available for Sarah’s diving lessons. 

“What an endearing child,” strangers would say when Sarah walked along the sidewalk hand-in-hand between Tom and Terese. Dangling her feet in the supermarket cart, she attracted attention in every aisle. When too big for the cart, she pushed it behind her mother, giving an accusatory glance if she was not pleased with the choice that went into the basket. A convoluted relationship between mother and daughter developed as Sarah matured, a juxtaposition where Sarah called all the shots. Terese appeared to be scared to death of her, and for good reason. Sarah was a scary child, and as a teenager, she was worse. Her straight A’s, her beauty, her seemingly effortless ability to excel in almost everything did not make her complete. She had no friends, and there was something off, something wrong when you looked at her. Most people were blinded by her beauty, but that beauty did not disguise the haunted look in her eyes. 

Angelo was a lap cat and liked nothing more than to sit on a lap and purr but he would have nothing to do with Sarah. He did not like her. Since there were coyotes in the neighborhood, the family agreed that it was not safe for him to go outside but he didn’t mind. He sat on the love seat in the sun all day long and purred, waiting for Hank, his favorite, to come home. Like a dog, he ran to Hank as soon as he walked through the door, and they would snuggle.

“Hay Tom, did you clean Angelo’s box?” The boys took turns cleaning the cat’s box, Sarah was exempt from the chore, God forbid her precious nose may have to smell Angelo’s prolific poop.

“No, it’s your turn this week.”

“I know, I just went to clean it but there is hardly anything in it.”

“That’s strange.  Where is Ang? I haven’t seen him all day.  Come to think of it, he didn’t sleep with me last night.” Hank looked troubled.

“Sarah, what did you do to Angelo? Did you let him out last night?”

“No, you creep, why would I do that?”

“Because you hate him.”

“No I don’t.”

“Cats hide in the strangest places.” Terese said. “He’ll come out from some shelf sooner or later.” Terese wasn’t worried, she had a parent/teacher conference later in the morning and she planned to give Sarah’s teacher a piece of her mind. Sarah had been moody and disrespectful recently and it had to be her teacher’s fault since Sarah was incapable of wrongdoing.  And then there was this boy, Kevin. Tall, gangly and pimply, Terese didn’t like him at all, but he was always hanging around Sarah - like an over anxious puppy.

“I don’t like him, Sarah,” Terese had told her yesterday. He is declasse. He is not good enough for you. He needs to stop hanging around.”

“Declasse? Declasse? Oh mother, give me a break, what makes you so high and mighty,  the be all and end all?”

“I’m not the be all and end all, it’s just that I want the best for you.”

“Well, maybe I don’t want the best.  Maybe I don’t deserve the best. Maybe I LIKE the fact that he’s not snobby.” Sarah stuffed her books into her knapsack, slamming the door behind her.

The parent/teacher conference did not go well. Sarah’s grades were falling, she was skipping school, and Kevin was more of a factor than Terese had realized. Her teacher said they were inseparable. Shaken, Terese called Tom and began to relate the particulars of the conference. While she talked Angelo sauntered across the kitchen as if he owned the place, ate his dinner, took his usual place on the love seat and quickly fell asleep.

“Oh, Tom, at least there is one piece of good news. Angelo just reappeared, none the worse for wear. Hank will be happy.”

Angelo slept, oblivious to the initial concern, fear, and then horror that occurred under his roof. Hours, days, weeks, months passed and still there was no word from Sarah. She disappeared without a trace, as did Kevin. Tom Jr. and Hank feigned concern, but soon their life went on as before. Shattered, Terese and Tom never fully recovered.  

It's All Temporary

MONICA

by Marianne Carlson

“I’m worried about her, I’m no child psychiatrist, but there is something wrong.”

“She’s fine, she is just experiencing growing pains.” 

“Growing pains?” Evelyn was incredulous. A handsome man, it was important to Mark, husband of Evelyn, father of Monica, the subject of discussion,  to keep his emotions in check, and when he felt the slightest indication that he may  loose his cool, he had a habit of biting his lower lip. The bite, more like a  nibble, was a reminder to him to pull himself together. Since things were not good between Mark and Evelyn, that lower lip was being mangled daily.   Tall and muscular with thinning brown hair,  his brown eyes were often troubled.  It was as if there were many unresolved issues which he pondered frequently, and these issues gave him sleepless nights. 

“Plus the fact she doesn’t like school, she told me she hates Miss Lilly, her teacher. Miss Lilly told me she has to put Monica in a time out at least once a day and when I asked her why she said it is because Monica often hits the other kids with shovels from the sandbox. She threw a little dump truck at Peter from down the street and he needed stitches over his eye. If it had hit him in the eye, it might have blinded him. According to Miss Lilly, Monica has disturbing tendencies towards violent behavior.”

Mark took a deep breath, God, what a headache, would she ever stop talking.  A prosecuting attorney, he was masterful at his job, a raising star, but his days were full of perpetrators whose lawyers were always looking for a plea. A nasty business, this plea bargaining, and it gnawed at him. Thugs who should be facing time in the slammer released on community service, a travesty. Mark’s court room persona  was perfected to a fine tune - an orator weaving a tale, his face a blank slate, until he went in for the kill. This was one reason why he was so good at his job, but his insomnia was making things much harder, and the last thing he needed was to come home to an irate Evelyn, overwhelmed by Monica’s foibles.  That lower lip was getting raw. 

“I’m serious, Mark something has to be done.”

“Where is she now?” Mark hung his coat in the closet and started for the stairs.

“In her room. I told her she needed to stay there until she was ready to apologize.”

“Apologize? To who?”

“To Peter. To Miss Lilly. To me.  I don’t know, Mark. She is beginning to scare me. She has no remorse whatsoever.”

“I’m not sure a four year old even knows the meaning of remorse, Evelyn.”

Mark climbed the stairs, reluctant to enter Monica’s small bedroom. She sat on her pink bedspread, too young to be so crestfallen.  It was as if the weight of the world was on her tiny shoulders.  The quintessential bedroom for a four-year old girl, everything was pink, but for the first time it struck Mark how incongruous all that pink was, pink did not suit her.

“Hi Monica, tough day at school?”

“Not bad.” Monica was so still she almost appeared drugged, a strange lassitude for a four year old. 

“But not good either?”

“Yeah, not good. 

“What happened?”

“Peter hit me with a toy truck.” 

She was lying. Peter knew that she was lying, and as he listened, an ineffable horror almost overwhelmed him. His work had brought him face-to-face with too many career criminals, some (for whatever the reason) came out of the womb warped beyond repair from the beginning. He knew all these time-outs were a harbinger of things to come, and for the first time he faced the future with Monica with great apprehension because he knew with every fiber of his being that this future was not going to be pretty.

“Miss Lilly tells us that it was you that hit Peter.” Without realizing it, Mark had assumed his nonchalance mode, a signal that he was preparing for the attack.  He thoughtfully nibbled his lower lip as he watched his daughter’s body language, always a dead giveaway.

“Miss Lilly hates me. She always chooses Peter to stand at the head of the line.” Monica’s unflinching stare was unnerving, a face-off between two adversaries.  As he watched her, he realized to his horror that it wasn’t his daughter, but himself that he was trying to stare down. Years of education, college, law school, none of it held a candle to what Monica taught him at that moment. Looking at her was like looking into a mirror, but it was worse than that, it was as if he was stripping them both bare. Suddenly the realization that years of polished performances in front of a judge had removed his ability to know himself at all, he was an actor unable to remove his mask.

“Stay in your room until dinner,” he told her as he abruptly turned and left the room. Shaken, he went into his bedroom, kicked off his shoes and sat on the bed. Evelyn came in and confronted him with her usual sledge hammer approach.

“Well, what did she say?”

“She said Peter hit her.”

“Did she really? And you let her get away with that?”

“No. She knows that we know she is lying.”

“How will we punish her?”

“I don’t know, Evelyn, I don’t know, but I need to lie down now. I have a terrible headache.”

It's All Temporary

HE SHALL COVER THEE WITH HIS FEATHERS

                  

by Marianne Carlson

When I was in the second grade I started sleeping at my grandmother's most nights. My parents never even knew or cared where I was but her kitchen always smelled like bread baking in the oven, and it was warm there. Our house was always cold. I slept in a spare bedroom under one of her handmade quilts. I remember the sun used to shine first thing in the morning on a framed Bible quote hanging on the wall. The room was white, and there was an old oak bureau under the window.  I  put my treasures in the top drawer: my Hello Kitty knapsack, lip gloss, toys from MacDonald's happy meals.  As I grew older,  my treasures changed to bags of weed, pipes, needles.  

I'm not sure why I am telling you this, maybe because I have sat through too many group therapy sessions where anything goes as long as you keep talking.  A lot of what is said in those groups is just plain bullshit. I can spot a bullshitter a mile away.  I never said much in those groups. Confessing all was never a catharsis for me, and the older I get, the less I talk. There are too many talkers as it is, and I don't think I could ever hear anything ever again that would surprise me. 

My grandmother practically raised me. She was a tiny, fragile looking lady, but cantankerous.   I remember once some cretin tried to swindle her at a convenience store, and she knocked him over the head with her cane. Damn near killed him. It is hard for me to talk about my grandmother now because I broke her heart, not once, but over and over again. We lived down the street from her, my mother and father and six kids. I was the youngest, a most unwelcome surprise. I figured that out as soon as I learned about the birds and bees. Our house was a real pig pen all the time, but my grandmother's cottage was a safe haven, and my grandmother didn’t drink. My father was drunk all the time, a mean drunk.

On the wall in the room where I slept next to the Bible quote was this framed picture of an owl sheltering all these little owls under his wings. My grandmother told me that the owl was supposed to be the Lord, He will always protect me if I believe in Him.

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High 

shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

He shall cover thee with his feathers, 

and under his wings shalt thou trust:

For he shall give his angels charge over thee, 

to keep thee in all thy ways.

Yeah right. What I saw in that picture was that there were five little owls under those wings, but the sixth one was left out in the cold to fend for herself, and that sixth one was me. There wasn’t gonna be any angels watching over me, that’s for sure.

It was in middle school when my life began to go down hill. The only time I ever went home was to see if I could swipe some money from one of my siblings so that I could buy weed. I smoked pot every day. My grandmother could sniff out a bad actor in a New York minute, and she hated my friends.  

“You’re known by the company you keep,” she would say to me when she caught one of the shifty high school boys hanging around. 

“Keep them away from this house.  Boys shouldn’t be wearing earrings.”

“Birds of a feather flock together.” More birds, more feathers, this was the worst thing she could have said to me.

One of the “walking wounded,” I dressed like a freak, wore black, dyed my hair a different color every week, pierced every possible area of my anatomy.  I dropped out of school in the 10th grade, got a job washing dishes for a local restaurant, had an abortion and fell in love with heroin. The trajectory of my life seemed to be set, and in that path the owl was nowhere to be seen. In retrospect, I am amazed I survived at all, but I am beginning to entertain the notion that perhaps that owl was operating behind the scenes. I was spiteful. I pummeled  my grandmother with cruel behavior,  taunting her, the last person in the world to deserve it.

“Where were those angels when that piece of shit killed the people in that movie theatre in Colorado? I guess those angels weren’t into Batman.” 

“Why didn’t those angels show up at Columbine?”

“Are the angels on vacation when a plane crashes or some poor bozo crossing the street gets hit by a drunk driver?”

She always had the same unsatisfactory answer. “You have to learn to love the mystery of it all.”

“Fat chance,” I would answer. 

After too many years of chasing some elusive dream, I overdosed on a combination of pills and heroin, the medics told me that I was more dead than alive when I was wheeled into the ER. From the hospital I spent a month in rehab and another six months in a halfway house, I learned that angels come in all shapes and sizes and that I better listen to them if I wanted to stay around awhile longer.

My grandmother died when I was in rehab. No one in my family told me, I guess they were afraid it would set me off. She left me her house so I am back in the same bed I slept in when I was in the second grade. The owl is still on the wall, the little owls still under his wing. I don’t sleep well, most recovering addicts don’t, insomnia is something you  learn to live with.  The funny thing is I could swear I can hear that owl hooting at me sometimes, and when I do, I think it’s my grandmother’s way of telling me that she was right all along.

It's All Temporary

EXQUISITE PAIN

by Marianne Carlson

Everything I needed to know about her was encapsulated in one glance. Or so I thought.  From her well worn, dirty white Converse high tops, her skinny jeans, low at the hip, her faded gray hoody, she was an interesting combination of class and grunge, an uptown girl who spent time downtown. She didn't wear the hoody,  instead she wore a tweed golf cap with a little visor that partially covered her dark hair and shaded her eyes so you couldn't tell if she was looking back. The effect she had on me was not pleasant. As I watched her, she made me feel as if I was stealing things from her. Little did I know that in the long run, she would be the thief. 

It was the golf cap that gave her class.  She  entered the supermarket, disentangled a shopping cart by ramming it back and forth several times into the long line of carts,  and took off like The Little Engine That Could to the dairy section. The golf cap rose above the rest of the shoppers, she was very tall and she walked with great purpose. I had never seen anyone shop with such determination, without a list.

I was in hot pursuit, an average man, not very tall. One percent milk went into her cart and therefore into mine. Six large eggs in a thick plastic carton (guaranteed to harm the environment) followed the one percent milk. I could tell she was hesitant about buying those eggs, perhaps she was an environmentalist, but if she was, so be it. I could learn to kneel at the alter of Al Gore, although she would be pushing her luck with that. Six large eggs landed in my cart next to the milk.

The market was quite crowded and so well lit that it became difficult for me to follow her. I thought I had succeeded until we waited in the checkout line. The cute young cashier with curly red hair and purple nail polish was in training, (aren't they all?) She didn't know the difference between a cantaloup and a honeydew, the scanner refused to scan, it was an endless wait, but she was rather endearing, like a puppy eager to please.  While waiting, the golf cap spoke.

"You have been following me."

"You noticed?

"Of course I noticed. You're not very subtle." Unfazed, she said nothing more, then looked in my cart, looked in her cart, back in my cart. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, the way a naughty boy feels who has been caught red-handed doing something untoward. Then she laughed.

“How vexing.”

It was silly of me, and childish, but at the very least it opened the door a crack to a conversation.  In retrospect, it was idle chitchat, but it was all I had.

“Vexing? I love that!”

“Love what?”

“That you use the word vex, what a great word. Are you an English major?”

“No, English is my second language.”

“Let me guess! German?”

“Right.”

“I knew it!”

“How did you know? My accent?”

“I knew it before you said a word. I can always pick out a German.  Germans have a look.”

“A look?” 

Yeah, I can’t describe it. But the Converse high tops are a dead giveaway.”

Our novice cashier had managed to bungle her way through three or four people in front of the golf cap. She was next. I had to act fast or all would be lost. Beep, beep, beep went the scanner, the cashier was on a roll, soon the golf cap would be out the door.  Covers from THE NATIONAL ENQUIRER, PEOPLE MAGAZINE, a potpourri of celebrities, faces frozen by too many face lifts, were almost blinding me. I suddenly realized that the golf cap was one of the most authentic females I had ever seen and I would probably never see her again. 

“Aufweidershen,” she said. “Enjoy your quark.” She smiled as she exited through the automatic door.

That smile haunts me, I have searched for it ever since. The French have an expression, “La Douleur Exquise.” It means the heart-wrenching pain of wanting someone you can’t have. That says it all. Ten years have gone by and in those ten years, I married and have two children, a boy, Thomas, and a girl, Bette. The marriage has been on again, off again, it probably wasn’t a good idea. My wife, Candice, is well named because her nickname is Candy and I find the sweetness in her nature to be nauseating at times. Those times are increasing, as is the botox, fillers, manicures and pedicures. I fight her tendency to steer Bette in that direction by buying her books about Pipi Longstocking and young girl detectives, but I don’t hold much influence over her. 

The software company I work for sent me to Berlin to attend a conference on innovative software for the construction industry. One day I had had just about enough of German construction workers and ducked out for a quick lunch. While buying a sausage from a vendor on Alexanderplatz, I saw her. It’s strange, I never knew her name, somehow it added to the allure not to know, but I know it was her. She walked arm in arm with a handsome German, held the hand of a little blue eyed blonde girl, the golf cap sailing above the crowd. Our eyes met briefly. I will never know if there was a slight twinge of recognition on her part.  It doesn’t matter because in that brief moment, she once again gave me what I needed, only this time I did not feel as if I was stealing, I had earned the right to it.

“Ihre Änderung, Herr, Ihre Änderung.” The vendor called me back to reality as he handed me my euros. I momentarily wondered if he was cheating me, but it really didn’t matter.

It's All Temporary

A SENSE OF URGENCY

by Marianne Carlson

The cottage has seen better days, but it was all Rosie had and she loved it. Half a block from the beach, half a block from the golf course, it was an ideal location for a summer rental property. When Rosie’s mother was alive renting was out of the question. Her mother painted water colors, soothing scenes depicting the coast of Maine, for every room. “Like a miniature museum” friends said as they walked through the house, stopping to admire the dollhouse in the stairwell. “Look! In every room a tiny painting! How like her, the most creative person I know.” 

These same friends were nowhere to be found when senility robbed her blind. First her eyesight, then her mind slowly drifted away, like a low tide slowly washing away from the shore. Rosie and Chloe, her pug, cared for her. Chloe never left her side, she told her stories about life as a puppy on the farm, about her seven brothers and sisters, her mother, Hilde, and how hard it was to leave her pug family. “The Law of Attraction was at work,” said Chloe, and that is why she had to leave Hilde and her favorite sister, Barbara, to come and live with Rosie.  Rosie’s mother drank up every word, begging for more. “Tell me more about Hilde, about Barbara,” she would say to Chloe, her eyes misting over, happy in her own world that protected her from the bruising that life often brought to the rest of us. 

When she inherited the cottage, well meaning people told Rosie to sell it, but her heart wouldn't let her so her uncle, a financial planner, told her to rent it out. "Run it like a business," he said.  Running anything like a business was foreign to Rosie whose only previous business interactions consisted of negotiating some pretty savvy drug deals with shady Portland dealers. It was while in her second rehab that Rosie realized if she didn't shape up, she would surely die. Used to being surrounded by beautiful things, the florescent lights and white-washed stucco walls of A New Beginning Rehabilitation wounded her soul. Completely hollow when she entered, she left three weeks later, drug free, but filled with regrets, remorse and resentments. Chloe  was no longer alive, she was with her mother “in a better place.” Almost any place was better than the shaky ground Rosie found herself navigating without so much as a joint to mellow her out, but she was determined to stay clean. 

Tall, thin with beautiful posture, she floated, rather than walked. This is what you first notice about Rosie, then you begin to take in the rest: black framed glasses behind sad blue eyes that could surprise you with an unexpected twinkle, long blonde hair,  tattoos, a great sense of style coupled with a sense of urgency.  One of those rare young women who looked good in anything, she could grab a dress off the thrift shop shelf that was ready for the rag bag and look great in it.

The cottage was rented, the new tenant was to move in later in the day. Rosie floated through the cottage, scanning her check list on a clipboard, looking for cobwebs, crooked lampshades, memories. If she squinted, she could see Chloe and her mother huddled together over the kitchen table, whispering. Rosie wished that she could be with them, she yearned to die but suicide was not an option.  Gone were the paintings, the dollhouse, the antiques - anything that had made the cottage home. What remained was all generic, generic furniture, generic dishes, generic quilts from Walmart. 

“Hello, you must be Rosie.”

“Who are you? How did you get in?

“Walked right in. The door was unlocked.”

“You should have waited. The lease says arrival no earlier than 10:00 a.m.”

“I apologize.”

“Apology accepted.”

This self possessed, strange little man sat in Rosie’s mothers chair. Oddly enough, he looked perfectly comfortable, as if he belonged there. Even more odd was the feeling that her mother would have liked him there. He had a rather endearing quality about him, an ingenuous aspect to his nature. Everything about him was somewhat faded, his white hair, white beard, pale gray eyes, flannel shirt, blue jeans. He looked as if he had been through the wash with a bit of Clorox thrown in.  

“Would you like me to show you the house?”

“No need, I took a walk through, it’s perfect.”

“Would you like to sit on the screen porch? My mother loved the porch.”

“I would.” 

They sat on the old white wicker furniture with the floral seat cushions, slowly rocking back and forth, saying nothing. The bell on the chapel across the street rang, calling parishioners to Sunday service, a mild reminder to Rosie that life goes on.

“My wife and I were married in a little chapel similar to this one,” he said softly.

“Where is she? Your wife?” Rosie wished she hadn’t asked, she felt as if she was intruding, but he lit up like a Christmas tree adorned with gentle white lights.

“Oh, she died many years ago. I still miss her, I think about her every day.”

“You never remarried?”

“No. I would have always been comparing my new wife with my first one. It would have been unfair. 

“Oh.” Rosie could see he was not listening, he was far away.

“And it’s a funny thing. I know my memory is distorted. She wasn’t as perfect as my mind likes to tell me, but I don’t pay attention, I like to allow her to be perfect in my head.”

“I think that is what I am doing with my mother,” said Rosie, her eyes beginning to tear.

“Nothing wrong with that, no one can take your memories from you. You have a long life ahead of you, just remember, slow but steady wins the race. No sense of urgency, just one day at a time. 

It's All Temporary