I'm writing a story, and have the rough draft for the first 8 chapters written. Currently, my story is on hiatus while I care for my mother-in-law. That new thing is going well, so far. If you are a care-giver, you have my respect and empathy. If your Loved One is difficult or you care for more than one, my heart goes out to you. In the mean time, here's a "fluffy fiction" (the term is borrowed from a friend) for you to peruse at your leisure. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.
Dorothy walked around the outside of the garage and lifted
the lid of a large wooden box, attached to the garage. Inside was a garden
hose. I lifted it out and she took the end and twisted it onto the spigot. Then
she lifted out a bucket with sponges and a bottle of “Wash and Wax” in it. She looked pleased with her stash and said “It
helps to keep things in here, out of the sun, but near the spigot. The sun just
ruins plastic.” While she ran water into the bucket, she began:
“I grew up in Kansas. After my folks
died, I left there and went to a college. That’s where I met Alice. I took her cartography and geography
classes, and she took me under her wing, and let me stay at her apartment. Every summer, we would go exploring together.
Neither of us had any family to question where we were going, or what we were
doing or when. And Alice
certainly didn’t care what any one would think. Back then, women’s travelling
alone was unusual. We eventually decided
it would be fun to have our own car. One day Alice drove a new car to our apartment. Alice loved mechanical
things, and I loved learning from her. And she had a very clever friend, and
between the three of us, we were able to keep Rabbit in fine shape”.
Dorothy twisted the brass nozzle and the water stopped. I
stood for a moment, not aware that she was waiting for me to pick up the
bucket. Dorothy saw the bewilderment in my face and explained; “Well, Rabbit
was new to me. I just thought he was a Model T, until I met Alice’s friend. He was so intrigued with
mechanical things, and took care to keep Rabbit in working order. He eventually
gave up on hat-making altogether. Any
way, Hatter was able to figure out how to incorporate Rabbit into
something…well, sturdier.
I still stood, puzzled, waiting for Dorothy to make sense of
what I was hearing. Dorothy stood waiting for me to pick up the water, and
expecting me to understand what she had said. Then I was able to put words to
my question.
“So, are you talking about Alice
from “Alice in
Wonderland”? And THAT Rabbit, and THAT
Hatter?”
Dorothy beamed and said “Yes, that’s right! So, but, you see…
the book is just a story. It didn’t all happen, it’s just ABOUT them. You know?
Fiction.” Dorothy held the bucket up for me, and I took it. She pulled the hose
along the side of the garage, giving it an expert twist to keep it from kinking
as we walked toward the cars. I stumbled along after her, partly from the weight
of the water sloshing in the bucket, and partly from the weight of the
questions sloshing in my head.
Then Dorothy spoke again; “Here. Why don’t you back your car
toward the house just a little, and I’ll drive Rabbit forward, so we have room
to give him a proper bath?” I smirked at Dorothy’s manner of speaking, as if
Rabbit were a person. While we moved our cars, another question formed in my
mind, and I decided to ask it; “How do you incorporate a rabbit into a car?”
Dorothy grinned and explained; “Rabbit was all watch works;
an automaton. He was designed to keep things on schedule. I mean, that’s the
short version. It just seemed natural, then, that when Volkswagen introduced
their Rabbit, that he should like it. So he’s been content with this form ever
since. Oh, but I’m getting ahead of myself! But remember, you asked! So I
answered. Now, where was I?”
Dorothy twisted the brass nozzle open until a jet stream
turned to a strong shower, and she blasted the dust of a decade from the
Rabbit. “Oh, yes! So we would go on
trips, exploring and having adventures. We drove every where, exploring places
we’d never been before, and some times going back to places that were peculiar
and interesting. There were places even locals didn’t know about, because those
places weren’t as interesting to them as they were to us. Every year, we would
return to the college; she would teach her classes and I would return as a
student.
“Eventually I married an accountant named Leo, and we’ve had
two children; Toby and Katy. Alice
went on travelling. She took a sabbatical, in fact, and I had not seen her for
a few years. I did get post cards from her, often. I eventually had to keep
them in shoe boxes, there were so many.
She always signed them “Aunt Alice”. And then one day, she came back. It
was in June, the week before our annual visit to see my in-laws”.
Dorothy walked around
the car, methodically blasting the dust first from the roof of the car, then
the windows, and then she began walking the other way, being careful to bring
the hose back behind her, as she blasted away the dust from the lower half of
the car. She continued talking as we worked, each of us washing one side of the
car. “Alice had
so many fantastic stories. Our children just loved listening to them. Leo didn’t
mind how fantastic her stories were, for they kept the children occupied, and
he was able to do his accounting in his study, undisturbed. One morning after breakfast, Alice and I were
alone on a walk and Alice
asked me if I would like to go on a short trip; just the two of us, for old
time’s sake.
“Our reasoning would be that the children and their
grandparents loved each other, so much, and there were so many fun things to do
at the grandparent’s house, with the farm animals, a place to swim, trees to
climb, and Leo was on vacation, and the grandparents could help Leo with the
children. We discussed this with Leo, and we all thought that since the timing
was just right, why not?
“We decided that Alice
should come with us, and meet my in-laws. Alice
drove her car, and the children took turns with each other between riding in Alice’s car to listen to
more of her stories, and riding in ours. My in-laws were happy to meet my “Aunt
Alice”, and enjoyed hearing her stories of adventure just about as much as our
children did.
“Leo mentioned to them that Aunt Alice and I were intending
to go on a short trip alone. The in-laws insisted that Aunt Alice stay for a
day or two before we left, but Alice
insisted that we leave the next morning.
She told every one we’d be back in three days. They made her promise it
would be only three days, and it was settled. Aunt Alice and I left the next
morning.
“After we left, Alice
told me that she had been revisiting all of our favorite places, and catching
up with all of our old friends. That’s when Alice told me that something had gone wrong. Let’s
just call it “deferred maintenance”, for now, and that it was getting out of
hand.
“You see, when Alice was telling my
family her stories, I knew she was holding back some things that no one else
should know. And in her post cards, I could see by how she wrote, compared to
the pictures on the post cards, where she really was and whom she was actually
visiting. She asked me if I had kept the post cards. When I told her that I
had, she said we had to go get them.
“When we arrived at our house, Alice parked her car right next to our
garage. I went into the house to bring out the boxes of post cards. There were two
of them and the second one was almost half full. When I came downstairs, Alice was in the kitchen.
She took half of the cards from the half empty box and laid them out on the
kitchen table. When she finished, it was a map. That was something I had missed;
I didn’t realize until then that she had been sending a map to me one piece at
a time.”
“A map to where?” I asked Dorothy. She paused before she
answered; “Oh, one of the places we had been”. Dorothy picked up the hose and
rinsed the top and front of the Rabbit.
We continued washing the car. I found myself feeling as if
Dorothy was side stepping my question, but I didn’t want to press too hard for
answers. I was enjoying the story and wanted to hear as much of it as Dorothy
would tell me. I asked her what happened next, and Dorothy resumed her story.
“So, Alice and I
visited some of our favorite old haunts, and visited with some old friends, and
ran a few errands, you know, finding things that had been misplaced and getting
them back to where they belonged,, straightening out a few details here and
there, catching up on all the news.
“Any way, true to her word, we were back to my in-laws on
the third day. Every one was glad to see us back, and wanted to hear about our
trip, and the children were eager to tell us all about their visit with their
grandparents. And it was good to see Leo and the children again. I teased Toby
and Katy about growing while I was gone. I wasn’t sure if they realized that it
was only a tease, they both protested rather noisily about it, until Leo and
his parents all laughed. When Alice and I laughed, the children began to laugh,
as well. “
The Rabbit was finally rid of the brown coat, and was a
gleaming white, as if newly painted.
Dorothy stood back and appraised our work. She smiled and said “Yes!
Much better!” Dorothy put both sponges back into the bucket and handed it to
me. I followed her back around the garage and she said “Just squeeze the
sponges out here and dump the bucket” Then Dorothy pulled the hose back into the
big wooden box, coiling it as she pulled. She took the bucket and sponges from
me, put them and the “Wash
and Wax” back into the box and gently dropped the lid shut. “I think we should
go in and get out of this heat, don’t you?” She turned to me and I agreed that
it was getting rather hot. She opened the passenger door of the Rabbit and
reached under the floor mat, then stood up with a key in her hand.
“Do you want to bring the rest of our picnic with us? I hope
they didn’t clear out the entire pantry before they closed it all up”, Dorothy
said as she stepped into the garage. When she returned, she held up a crow bar
and a hammer, one in each hand, and I took them. We walked up the stairs and
Dorothy gestured to the right of the front door. I gently tapped the crow bar
under the sheet of plywood and pried it away. After working my way from the
middle to the top, it took less effort to pry the bottom of the sheet away from
the door. Who ever had boarded the door shut had only nailed the sides and not
the top or bottom.
Dorothy stopped me from pulling the plywood entirely away
from the door frame, and said “Let’s leave the impression that this is still in
tact. What do you say?” I stepped aside and Dorothy took the key from her
pocket and unlocked the door. She took a deep breath, and opened it. She looked
around as the door swung wide, and smiled. “Every thing is just the way I
remember it”, she said. I followed her into the house. We took our time as she
looked around. The sunlight came in through the tops of the windows, where the
plywood had stopped short of completely covering them. She worked her way
through the front room and into the kitchen.
On the kitchen table was a stack of post cards, and an empty shoe box.
Dorothy picked up the postcards and put them in the shoe
box. I couldn’t see her face, as she turned and walked through a door around
the corner, and returned with a broom. She raised the broom to sweep away the
webs that were strung from the light to the table, and then dusted the chairs
briefly with the broom.
“There! That should be sufficient. The rest can wait till
later. Go ahead and have a seat! I’ll be right back”. I set the remains of the
picnic lunch on the table, and sat down facing the in direction that Dorothy
had gone. She returned with a jar of pickles in each hand. She held each one up
for my appraisal and said “Carrots and green beans for the rest of our lunch,
and pickled apples for dessert. Oh! Don’t worry! They really are sweet”. I had
wrinkled my nose, but Dorothy smiled and set them in the middle of the table.
The apples had a label on them that said “Eat me”, in neat calligraphy. I read
the label out loud and she said “It’s a joke that Alice and I have”.
She turned to open a cupboard and took some dishes down for
the lunch, and took some silverware from a drawer, and a clean dish cloth from
the drawer next to it. She wrapped the
cloth around the lid of the jar to open the carrots and green beans, and set a
fork into the jar. I was still looking around at the kitchen, which had windows
on two walls. The cupboards were pale yellow, and were built between the
windows. There was a hand pump on the side of the sink, which was under one of
the windows. The pantry was around the corner of the far left of that wall. The
wood fired kitchen oven was on the next wall, to my left. The white enamel
gleamed in spite of the dust of nearly a decade.
Dorothy set a plate of pickles, salami and bread gently in
front of me. I looked up and thanked her, and asked “So, what happened next? You
got back to the in-laws, and every thing was fine, then what happened?”
Dorothy sat down and opened a strawberry soda pop. She took
a sip from the bottle and smiled. “Oh, that’s delicious, every time. This has
been such a treat! Well, any way, we went home after our visit, and Aunt Alice
stayed for a little while. She always parked her car right next to our garage.
Then one morning, she announced that she was retiring from the college, to
continue her travels. We all thought it would be nice if she would return to
visit us the following year, which she promised she would do.
Aunt Alice came back every summer, and we would all go to
see my in-laws. Leo asked me if I thought Alice
would appreciate a garage for her car built this garage for her car.
I asked Aunt Alice
what she thought, and she said “If you would please. And could it be just
exactly where I have been parking my car?” She said it just like that. It was
almost an awkward moment, but Leo said that would be just fine. She marked the
exact spot, herself. By the time she returned for the third summer, the garage
was built.
That summer she took me aside and told me that she wanted me
to have the car. She explained every thing to me. Then, the evening of the day
we arrived at the in-laws, she told every one that she was going to an island
to live. They were all so disappointed. Leo wondered out loud what island that
would be. Alice
didn’t say, but I knew the truth, and kept her secret, right up to this day.
The next morning, the two of us drove out to see our old friends, and she
stayed with them. I brought the car back, alone.
I interrupted; “What island would that be? What was her
secret?”
Dorothy grinned and promised that she would get to that
part, eventually. Then she said Oh! Look at the time! I need to back to the
home! I need to get changed!” I offered to go out to my car and get her
clothes, and in a moment, I was back.
Dorothy had opened the apples and set some in a small bowl between us,
and asked “Dessert?” I picked one up
with my fork and nibbled on it while she ducked around the corner and changed.
She continued her story, calling out around the corner;
“After that summer, I
would go for a drive, on my own, just for a day or so, to visit Alice.” (“On a not-an-island, after all”, I offered.
Dorothy said “yes”.) “I would eventually go more frequently, while Toby and
Katy were at school. I didn’t think any one suspected as much, since Rabbit
always got me home again just on time. One day, Leo confided in me that his
parents were not too keen on my travelling alone. Every one still thought I’d
only go once each year. Gradually, Leo made it known that he wasn’t too keen on
it, himself. The children, as they grew older, either had forgotten how much
they had enjoyed Aunt Alice’s stories, or had simply adopted their
grandparents’ attitude, and maybe they had out grown her stories. All the same,
after Leo died, Toby and Katy began to protest my travels, themselves. They had
families of their own and had gone to live at their grandparent’s place, which
they had inherited. They had converted part of the barn into a house for Katy
and her family to live in”.
Dorothy came back into the kitchen, wearing her flannel
night gown and terrycloth bathrobe, and had her slippers in her hand. She paused;
her eyes misted over for a moment, and then she continued; “Those two were so
clever and so creative. With the barn converted like that, Katy’s family could
live in the barn and Toby’s family could live in the house. I didn’t want to go
with them. I wanted to live here. And I suppose they couldn’t fathom the idea
of letting me live here alone, and go travelling without them knowing where I
was, so they did what they thought was going to work the best.”
I had finished an apple, and quietly asked “Should we clean
up, before we go?” Dorothy handed the wash cloth she’d gotten from the drawer
earlier, and I dusted the crumbs and wiped the pickle juice from the dishes. As
I did, Dorothy took the dishes from me and stacked them neatly in the center of
the table. Dorothy smiled and quietly said “That’s good enough for now. Maybe we
could come back tomorrow. We should go”. Dorothy’s voice and manner were
subdued, compared to her bright spirit earlier. As I packed what was left of
our picnic into the cooler, Dorothy poured the apples that were left in the
bowl back into the jar and put the lid back on. She handed the jar to me and I
set it in the bottom of the cooler “The dishes will be fine here, until
tomorrow” she said. We walked to the front door. The afternoon sun was turning
the kitchen golden as Dorothy pulled the door closed, to lock it. I lightly
tapped nails in the plywood back against the door jamb, to give the illusion
that it was still nailed shut. It stayed.
We walked out to the cars, and Dorothy took the tools from
me. She backed the Rabbit back into the garage, and closed the doors. When she
got into my car, she took off the socks and shoes and handed them to me. I put
her clothes in the trunk next to the cooler. She had her slippers on by the
time I got into the car.
As we drove away, I admitted to Dorothy that I would need
her to guide me back the way we came. Then I told her how much I had enjoyed
the day and how much I had enjoyed listening to her story. She smiled and said
“I’ve had a wonderful day, too!. I’m glad you wanted to come. Thank you for
getting me out of that place. I’ve wanted to see Rabbit again, and I’ve wanted
to see our house again. And such a lovely picnic!”
I was glad to see Dorothy’s spirit return, and I said “Well,
it was even better after we added the pickles to the menu. And I am glad you
enjoyed the day.” After that, except for Dorothy reminding me which turns to
take, Dorothy chatted with me, pointing out the larger trees and the
landscaping at the few houses that dotted the country side. When we entered
town, she fell silent. Before long, we were at the home. On our arrival, they
came out and helped Dorothy into the wheel chair, and said asked me how our day
went. I said that we had a nice drive. Dorothy of course, said nothing. They
wheeled her into the home, talking about how good dinner was going to be. I
tried to follow them in, but they said “It’s after visiting hours. You can come
back tomorrow”.
I said good night to them and drove home. I took the cooler
and clothes out of the trunk, and set every thing on the kitchen counter. I
pulled the jar of apples out of the cooler and set them on the table. I put the
cold packs in the freezer. I did a load of laundry and put Dorothy’s “vacation
clothes” in with every thing else. I unpacked the rest of the picnic, including
the bananas (“We hadn’t even touched them,” I mused).
I nibbled on the pickled apples while looking through
Dorothy’s composition book. I was trying to understand the maps. I began
reading the parts that I thought I understood. I read her notes pointing out the larger trees
and the landscaping of the few houses that dotted the country side. At the
bottom of the last page, Dorothy had written “We need to go for a drive. You
ask them for permission before you come to my room. Bring clothes for me and leave
them in the car. I wear size 8 shoes.”
The washer stopped and I put every thing into the dryer.
While I waited for the dryer to finish, I looked through Dorothy’s book again.
I nibbled on some more pickled apples (they really were sweet), and I read the
parts that made the most sense, and some parts that made no sense. When the
dryer finished, I folded Dorothy’s clothes separately, and set them on the
counter next to a pair of size 8 shoes. I went to bed, still thinking about the
writing and the sketches in the composition book.
The next morning was Sunday. I was excited to go see
Dorothy. I went down stairs and made a fried egg sandwich while my coffee
brewed. Then I pulled two hoagie rolls out of the cupboard and made two big
sandwiches, and decided to pack the bananas. I added the cold packs and two bottles
of sparkling apple cider. I put the cooler and Dorothy’s composition book and
her “vacation clothes” into the back of the car.
When I got to the home, I asked
at the desk if I could take Dorothy for a drive. I was puzzled by the look on
their faces. The same orderly that I had seen every morning that I visited,
walked over to me. She said “Dorothy isn’t here”. I asked where she was, and she
answered “That’s what we’re trying to find out. It seems she slipped out in the
middle of the night.”
