BEFORE
Say my name
Sun shines through the rain
A whole life so lonely
And then come and ease the pain
"Eternal Flame"
The Bangles
March 25, 1939
Worcester, Massachusetts
Chuck trod along through the wet underbrush, his hand clasped firmly in Sarah's as she guided him. They were in the woods behind Sarah's house. Saturdays were the one day of the week they visited at her house, an agreed upon arrangement, considering the disproportionate amount of time Sarah was at Chuck's house during the week. Gertrude watched over her when she was in his home; Jack, almost always, was nowhere to be found when Chuck visited, once he had answered the door and Casey had driven away.
Today, Jack had told Sarah to stay close to the house before he disappeared. Chuck still marveled at the carelessness of Jack's parenting, compared to the stringent rules Gertrude would impose under the same set of circumstances. Currently, Chuck worried about it less, because he knew Sarah would listen and not take unnecessary risks on their adventures. He smiled internally at the word, adventures. That was always their Saturday plan. When the weather was clear, they were outside. In inclement weather, they were in Sarah's room, reading inside her blanket fort.
Today was a perfect early spring day, so of course, they were outside. The air was crisp and cool, but the sting of winter was gone. Only blotchy patches of snow remained on the ground, like tiny whitecaps upon the muddy sludge softening after the six-month-long freeze. The grass was still dead, straw-like and beige, as they stepped over and on it. Their rain boots made sucking sounds in the mud as they moved deeper into the woods. Chuck was relying on their oversized footprints to show them the way back.
As always, Sarah had been waiting for him at the door, the owl he gave to her for Christmas tucked under her arm. Familiar now was the routine: she would grab his hand without a word and lead him wherever she wanted to go. He never protested, never offered an alternative to what she had planned. Though his home life was comfortingly structured, he lived for these days, alone with her in her backyard. He felt as if anything could happen. She talked to him when they were alone, much more than in Gertrude or Casey's presence. Just being around her, near her, was a poultice for his wounds, slowly healing as time passed. From the moment she had rescued him from that hallway and the adult argument, her physical proximity had been by itself sufficient, even when she was reticent. When she did talk, especally when she shared something of her life, however small or insignificant, he regarded it as a secret treasure. He now knew so many things that she had never told anyone else–not Carina, not even her father. Nothing earth-shattering, but all important to her. Things that mattered.
"How much farther?" he asked, looking back over his shoulder, the house no longer visible from the path.
"Almost there," she breathed. He wondered at the lack of path or previous footprints, wondering how she knew where she was headed if she hadn't been this way before. Was this a distant memory? If so, how did she know that whatever she had planned on showing him was still there?
The ground sloped upward. He planted his boots deeper with each step, huffing with her as they finally reached the pinnacle, and stopped, mud and leaves leftover from the fall spongy under their feet. "There," she said, pointing her small finger into the space beyond.
Chuck followed her finger with his eyes. They had walked almost into someone else's yard, the outline of the house just visible through the dense tree branches. Remembering the neighborhood, Chuck identified the house as the first on the street past Sarah's, meaning they had walked the equivalent of an entire block through the woods. He wondered how long they had been outside, for he had lost track of time, as he almost always did, when he was with her. She wasn't pointing to the house, though, he realized. She was pointing instead at a pile of vegetation and debris, probably lawn clippings and dead leaves, raked into the woods by the homeowner. Casey did the same thing at Chuck's house.
Across the expanse of rust-colored leaves and pale dead grass, a trio of daffodils stood in delicate contrast to the damp brown, their bright yellow petals brilliant, almost defiant.
"Isn't that so funny?" Sarah asked him. He knew she didn't mean funny, like comical, rather funny, like strange.
"Daffodils?" he asked, curious why she would think them strange. To him, it was obvious. Daffodils growing in a pile of landscape debris meant only that someone had accidentally, or perhaps intentionally, dug up the daffodil bulbs and that, in the detritus, they had rooted again, and, warmer weather coming, bloomed again.
"I know they're daffodils," she said, her blue eyes flashing. "But they're here. Someone tried to get rid of them…but they couldn't." She sounded glad, proud of the flowers for defying someone else's will.
He looked at her, amazed, wishing he could see things through her eyes, know what she was thinking. Her words were plain, spoken with childlike innocence and wonder. He had seen flowers in similar circumstances before, but never in his life had he thought about it the way she did. He had always known how intelligent she was, how well she read for her age, how much she understood what he read to her. That observation wasn't just intelligence, though, it was wisdom as well. Wisdom at six, or even ten, was earned by hardship. Maybe not necessarily given in a fair exchange, either.
"They're beautiful," he said, speaking of the flowers, but looking at her golden hair, as he stood beside her.
"I like them," she told him. "They're tough. Strong and hard to kill. Determined but free. They can live through a freeze, climb up through the snow, almost wither up but never quite turn brown."
Hearty. A word of Casey's, spoken to Chuck when he had helped Casey with his work in the yard, explaining early spring flowers. They had to be hearty, tough, to bloom in March in Massachusetts. They had to break through frozen ground to bloom, survive hard freezes at night, sometimes even heavy snowfall.
He and Sarah were like that, he thought. Daffodils. Hearty. Better off together, bulbs nearly fused for protection from the weather or scavengers. Transplanted and beaten down, but still beautiful, almost in spite of the ugliness all around them.
"Are they your favorite flower?" he asked her, attempting to accumulate more knowledge about her, whatever he could at any opportunity.
She thought about it, not answering him right away. She chewed on her bottom lip, a habit he found adorable, something he saw only when she was deep in thought. "No, I think my absolute favorite are gardenias."
Chuck was unfamiliar. "What do they look like?" he asked.
"They're white, sort of like a flat rose. They smell so pretty. We had an indoor plant. My mommy lived in California before she met my daddy and she had them growing outside at her house there. You can't grow gardenias outside in Massachusetts. They die in the winter," she explained.
"Is the gardenia still in your house?" he asked, not remembering any indoor plants at all.
"It died…once my mommy wasn't there to tend it," Sarah added sadly. She paused only for a second, as if sensing his dismay for upsetting her by asking. "She loved lilacs, too. Purple and white. They grow outside here…in May. We have lots of them in our front yard."
"We have lots of those, too," Chuck replied. "My mother loved those, too."
She looked at him, smiling softly, absorbing information about him as readily, and maybe as greedily, as he did about her. "I wish we had daffodils, though. We have tulips that come up along the walkway, red and yellow. They don't bloom until the very end of April."
He thought about conversations she might have had with her mother, perhaps about plants and flowers, just as she'd had conversations about the animals that Sarah seemed to know so much about. He wished she had daffodils in her yard, for she sounded disappointed that she was leaving them here, alone on the edge of the woods.
"You could pick them, you know," Chuck offered. They were growing in a pile of discarded scraps, no one's property.
She scowled. "When you pick flowers, they die," she told him. "It's doesn't seem fair…surviving all that, being thrown away…and freezing…and snow…just to sit in a glass for a few days so I can look at them…does it?"
He smiled, warmed by her words, encouraged by her spirit. "No, I guess not. Pretty smart thinking," he added.
She blushed, the lightest of pinks coloring her cheeks as she smiled softly, accepting his praise.
He waited a few more moments. "We should head back. We're far from the house, you know," he mentioned.
Reluctantly, she agreed, circling around, still holding his hand, and reversing their direction on the trail. "What were my daddy and Mr. Casey talking about when you got here?" she asked him, continuing to face forward.
"The news. Europe," Chuck answered quickly. Chuck had a rudimentary understanding of the information he heard in the evening when Casey and Gertrude listened to the radio in the living room.
"Why is war…good for business?" Sarah asked him. He hadn't known she had heard as much as she had, wondering if she overheard her father listening to the radio, or if all of it came from the times she heard the radio in Chuck's home. She was quoting her father, Chuck knew, having heard the end of that discussion as Sarah had pulled him away.
He simply answered, never explaining how broad his knowledge was, or explaining that he was paraphrasing or making inferences. "The army needs tools. The more the army fights, the more tools they need. When there's a war, then we sell a lot more tools." He said we, like he was part of his father's business, though he wouldn't be at all until he was an adult.
"War with America?" she asked. "I thought there wasn't supposed to be any more…after The Great War."
He had heard similar claims over the years, as exposed to the news as he was, living with Casey and Gertrude. "There's been war as long as there's been people." He felt her, squeeze his hand, twitchy, like she was nervous. He felt the urge to assure her that she was safe, not to worry about something so abstract. "It's Europe, though. A long way away. We sell tools all over the world, not just in America. We're pretty safe over here."
He said the words, but he wasn't totally sure he believed what he said. Casey grunted a lot when the news was on. About a year ago, the Germans had annexed Austria. Casey's commentary had been negative, worried…something about giving an inch and taking a mile, the Germans, anyway. As if Casey had been clairvoyant, just a few weeks ago, Czechoslovakia had been annexed as well, something the Germans had agreed not to do. Just the other night, listening to the report of a speech given by the British Prime Minister, Chamberlain, Casey had grumbled that the Germans were attempting to take over the world. Again.
It seemed ominous, when Chuck took Casey's words at face value. He was young, and he didn't remember the previous attempt, whatever that had looked like. The Munich Agreement, something mentioned often on the news in the past few weeks, had been issued only a week after The Storm, and losing his family. Most of New England had paid little attention to the world at the time. For a child, the news of the world was abstract, not affecting his life or his days. The weather was his greatest concern, and it had been for a while.
Sarah's distracting thoughts about war and Europe, and Chuck's subsequent thoughts about it as well, kept him occupied until they were near Sarah's house. They trudged inside, removing their muddy boots and setting them in the boot tray. Chuck followed Sarah down the hallway and through several turns until they were in her room again.
Sarah brought him to the table in her room and pulled the chair out. He watched her as she moved to her dresser, opened the top drawer, and pulled out what looked like a wooden jewelry box, plain and unadorned. She set it on the table in front of him, then opened the lid. Inside, Chuck saw jewelry, adult jewelry, realizing with a start that he was looking at Sarah's mother's jewelry, saved for her.
Nothing extravagant was visible, no diamonds or precious gems, at least from what Chuck could tell, but it still looked expensive. A wedgewood blue cameo brooch, a small black cameo pendant on a golden chain, a pearl and gold ring, and a pair of silver earrings, shaped like owls, with red gems for eyes. There were gold and silver bracelets, one each. He studied the contents in silence.
"These were my mommy's," she said, just a whisper, close to his ear. "My daddy said I can wear them when I grow up." She reached inside, lifting the black cameo and holding it in her hand. "My uncle, my mother's brother, gave this to her before he left for the war. He never came back."
Why was everything shot through with hidden sadness, no matter what, no matter how positive things seemed on the surface? He had been in her room once a week for almost four months, but she had never shown the box to him before. Was it the conversation about the flowers that had triggered something? Or the war? He didn't need to know the reason to appreciate the gesture; the more he learned, the closer he felt to her. Sometimes he thought of her as part of his family, the way that the other boys at school talked about their cousins, but at other times, he knew, even if unclearly, that she was more. Being bound by blood was important; being bound by experience, by choice, was rare, special. Like the treasures she was showing him.
His mind returned to her previous words. Why would Jack have given all of this to Sarah? Now? At her age? For the same reason she ran wild in the woods and had been staying alone in her house. Jack was kind, even funny sometimes…but he didn't…care enough. Chuck hated feeling judgmental–he had no place, no understanding from where he could pronounce such judgment. Except Chuck knew that he himself cared about Sarah, his new friend. Shouldn't her own father care at least that much?
It made him feel sorry for her, achingly sorry, but he knew she didn't want any pity. She just wanted to be with him, talk to him, share her things and her experiences with him. He wanted only the same. He didn't care if no one else understood, the boys at school or the older girls on the bus. He was tenderhearted at times, soft-shelled, and teasing could hurt; Sarah, though, was fearless, unflappable. She made him feel stronger, made him want to be stronger still.
"You should always keep these safe, in your drawer, so they don't get lost," he instructed her.
"I only look at them when I'm in my room. Never when Carina is here. I know she would take them out and break them," Sarah explained in a hush, like she was telling him a secret.
He didn't doubt that, from what he knew of Carina and what he had heard. Chuck had been at Sarah's house a handful of times while Carina had been there as well. According to Sarah, Carina was tamer when he was there than when it was just the two girls alone. More than once, he had been subjected to a sing-song tirade about how boring reading was and how stupid comic books were, only to have Sarah tell her friend to be quiet or she was not allowed to come back. Sarah had no authority to enforce that, and as long as Jack was entertaining Roxanne, it was bound to continue, but Sarah's fierceness most times was enough to quiet the redhead.
His kindness was just a part of him, so Chuck had reached out to Carina when she behaved that way, thinking it was maybe her own neglect that made her act as she did. Chuck had noticed that the more he had included Carina in what they did, the less disruptive she proved to be. It made for a much more peaceful time together. That was, until Chuck noticed that Sarah had seemed jealous of the interactions. When he visited last Saturday, Carina had been visiting too, and Sarah had pouted away the rest of the day after Chuck had read one of his comic books to Carina, one Sarah had already read with him. Her bringing up Carina's name reminded him.
He wanted to say it, without saying it so blatantly. Rather than shame her, his goal was to put her at ease. "Sarah, you know, Carina wants to be here with you, even when she acts like you're boring her. She doesn't like showing it. She tries to act older than she is, more independent."
Sarah looked at him, silently thinking. It was several minutes more before she replied. "Her mommy says that sometimes. That she wishes Carina was older, so she was easier to take care of. She says it to Carina."
He wasn't glad that he was right, knowledge of that lack in Carina's life was hurtful, but he hoped that Sarah saw that he was. That she understood. "You make her feel like she can be herself, her own age, if she wants to be. I just want to be her friend, like I'm your friend." Her eyes narrowed, more of the jealousy on display.
"You're my best friend, though. You know that, right?" she said, looking up at him hopefully.
His heart bloomed like a spring flower at her words. "Of course I do. You're mine, too. My best friend."
The smile she returned was more brilliant than the daffodils.
A/N: Thank you to Zettel for pre-reading. Historical notes. World War I was called The Great War...until World War II. The hurricane, simultaneous with Hitler's early transgressions did delay public sentiment in New England for a while, during recovery. A fascination of mine...and more to come...the juxtaposition of facts in history happening at the same time. Life to those who lived it, but strange upon review. Thanks for reading. Let me know your thoughts!