June 3, 1957
Light flickered across the silver screen, faint humming flowing from a severely overused projector overhead as music filled the Rainbow Theater, the only theater within a 40-mile radius still open after that awful depression had left over half of the town bankrupt and starving; nearly 30 years later, poverty still persisted to an unsettling degree in small towns and rural areas like Highland, local farmers hardly stumbling back onto their feet years after barely surviving dust storms that had blackened the skies. Together, Cheryl Beavis and Josephine Head sat in the cheap seats in the back of the theater, the latter unable to pass as "white" after years of grueling outdoor labor that had left a telltale shade on her skin that never failed to fall prey to the uncaring conditions of segregation; although she had been born and raised in Texas, her grandparents had been immigrants from Tamaulipas with strongly indigenous physical traits that hadn't exactly been blond-haired, fair-skinned, or blue-eyed. Despite Josephine's plight, Cheryl, a refugee from France who lacked melanin and was therefore free to go those exclusive spaces for "Whites Only" though she often chose not to, went nearly everywhere with the former after having moved next door to her in 1942, the two having quickly bonded out of loneliness and indescribable familiarity despite having been strangers at first glance. Light chattering permeated the fairly full room, its air conditioning a popular attraction during those dreadful summer months, while Josephine stifled a cough as she held a handkerchief to her mouth, lungs weakened after years of exposure to those brutal dust storms. Meanwhile, tapping her foot like she always did whenever she was excited for the latest picture show, Cheryl fidgeted with the wedding ring she'd never gotten rid of, still holding onto the memory of the man she wanted to be her husband instead of the disgrace she was currently stuck with- just as was Josephine's situation- as she waited for the film to start; after living in the United States for over a decade, she had become fairly fluent in English and could keep up with the latest films without needing help from her cousins to understand. As the first film trailers began to dance across the silver screen, both women shushed their overall-clad daughters, Shirley and Judy, with the weary discipline unique to single parents; the toddlers' fathers had been locked away in unmentionable institutions rather than sitting alongside their families, the men's minds never having returned from war and only having worsened even after their daughters had been born, therefore rendering themselves disgraces to society best kept out of the public eye rather than being praised as the standard American heroes celebrated in Hollywood. Later that day, both women would leave their girls behind in the hands of strangers as the sweet embrace of death beckoned them out of this miserable life in a land that only bore the illusion of opportunity and little else, but for now, the mothers and daughters would all watch a splendid film together one last time just like a couple of happy families living the American dream they had all hoped for but would never have.
Pop!
Pop!
Pop!
Greasy kernels burst into fluffy yellow clumps inside of the popcorn machine as Shirley and Judy approached the concession stand with their ratty, homemade coin purses, their mothers having warned them to behave before sending the fidgety girls to get their treats; both children were especially excited today because they rarely ever got to have popcorn, buying something so frivolous typically out of the question since tickets to the theater were already costly enough according to their mothers, who were hardly able to make ends meet in a workforce that was still primarily designed for men. Giggling at the sound of the popping kernels, each girl paid for three small bags of popcorn, one of the bags for Josephine; Cheryl hadn't eaten popcorn ever since she had left France, nearly a decade before Shirley's birth, claiming to be disturbed by the noise of popping kernels. Although Shirley would never know why her mother couldn't stand to be around anything associated with such a silly and pleasant sound like the pop-pop-pop of buttery kernels, Josephine had learned the reason within weeks of meeting her new neighbor back in 1942. Apparently, the popping of kernels sickened Cheryl not because of some fickle idiosyncrasy she had but because the noise sounded a bit too similar to the gunshots that had deprived Shirley of an aunt. Of course, it was rather common for the citizens of Highland to occasionally practice shooting at targets in preparation for yet another sparse hunting season, but homesteads were far apart, the gunshots mercifully muffled by distance and stagnant waves of dusty heat. Used to secrecy and silence, Cheryl always pretended that she was fine and that nothing bothered her around nearly every single person she had ever met, but if she could help it, she always chose to keep her distance from anything that reminded her of the destruction she had left behind before moving to Texas. Only Josephine would ever know a few of the things that kept her up late at night and tethered to the liquor cabinet. Now that the trailers for upcoming films had ended, Cheryl fidgeted with her snuffbox as she redirected her attention from the discomforting smell of popcorn to the figures parading across the screen. Laughing as the film started, Judy and Shirley wiggled into tattered seats for second class citizens while spilling a few pieces of popcorn, gleefully unaware of how desperately their mothers were trying and failing to forget their misery.
Since the Germans had already begun to occupy the Northern regions of France as early as 1940, as made evident by radio broadcasts that had been far from optimistic not to mention what she had witnessed firsthand, Cheryl had fled Bourges, her birthplace, by June of 1942 to take refuge next door to Josephine in a poor town near the American oil fields that a few of her cousins ran in Texas while her husband of six months stayed behind to fight what already seemed to be a losing war. Leaving the war-torn nation had been nearly impossible, even the most resourceful citizens relying on sheer luck just to see another day. Although she already had a visa to the United States of America since she and her cousins had a tendency to visit one another during holidays or vacations, escaping the air raids and public shootings had been a living nightmare. Constant vigilance around neverending dangers and meager root vegetables in place of actual meals had done little to ease the biting cold during the winter of 1941, newlywed Cheryl Beavis- who had been married for her wealth and certainly not for her looks- sleeping in sewers or barns as she made her way to the coast while her husband marched in the opposite direction and her parents rotted beneath the rubble of what was once a building that had been struck by bombs. For a while, Cheryl had traveled with her younger, unwed sister Ada with nothing but their identification and the clothes on their backs, the two focusing on the day they would get to live the American dream they'd occasionally seen in theaters together as they crept past flaming rubble and starving children. Almost there, they had been almost there, when those abhorrent gunshots had rung out a little too close for comfort. Both women had turned around, immediately searching for the source of the noise as a pair of petrified children stood stock still in the center of the abandoned plaza. Cheryl, who had always been responsible for her sister's welfare, had tried to pull Ada behind an overturned cart that had been abandoned for so long that spiders had woven cobwebs between the spokes of its wheels, but Ada had pulled free of her elder sister's grasp, clearly set on getting the children out of the way before the soldiers would make their way into the plaza. Cheryl had pleaded for her to come back and hide, about to step out from behind the cart as Ada approached the children, when the crack of a gun rang through the air again. Instinctively ducking down, Cheryl peeked out from behind one of the webbed wheels as those men in loathsome uniforms entered the plaza from one of the adjacent streets. Then, her ears rang. She couldn't hear a thing but the ringing. She could hardly see anything but the bright sparks of light as the guns fired. She could hardly feel a thing but the hot tears that ran down her cheeks as she watched her sister fall to the ground like an unwanted radish, having done absolutely nothing to help her nor the children she had tried to save. Cheryl could hardly remember anything that had happened directly after that, only how the air had reeked of gunpowder and something that wasn't quite metal. She had escaped, but she didn't remember how, just that she had run until the blisters on her feet had burst open in a bloody mess and that old hay had poked into her skin for at least a solid week no matter how vigorously she shook out her clothes. She had continued to travel to the coast all by herself, but she didn't remember the remainder of the journey except for the flames that had always accompanied her, lighting her path with a lethal beauty that would become her only friend for a long time. She had boarded a ship her cousins had talked to her about over the payphone, but she didn't remember whether the sailing was smooth or not, just how she had looked out at the sea from a smudged window while wishing that she had died instead of Ada. She had wound up all alone in a Texan house provided by her cousins, but the only thing she could remember had been meeting the single wife next door the day she had gone out to buy bread that hadn't tasted quite right. For a while, Josephine had become the only thing she could think about without immediately reaching for alcohol. For a while, Josephine had given her hope. Even when both of their husbands had stopped sending letters from the unending war that had ravaged foreign nations, Josephine's husband having been drafted to also fight in the war after an attack on a harbor in Hawaii, Cheryl had found a strong yet precarious type of hope in Josephine. The type of hope that had let her dream for a few years. The type of hope she had seen in those movies with the pretty women and rich men. The type of hope she had felt when she watched mothers hold the hands of their children as they crossed streets. The type of hope that had surfaced when she thought of the American dream she had grown to admire. The type of hope that had inspired her to go out and buy a brand new camera so she could collect pictures of her brand new life, every single photograph of the life she had once led reduced to soot and flames in a pile of rubble across the Atlantic Ocean. The type of hope that had instantly been crushed the moment she and her neighbor had finally reunited with the unrecognizably broken men who were supposed to have been their husbands. The type of hope that would never be rekindled even as Cheryl and Josephine finally held their newborn daughters in 1954 with those bright eyes that their husbands had once had before the war. Dreams had rotted to the bone, the taunting melody of hope singing a cruel song that would stab into her heart every single time she woke up from anything remotely pleasant. Only the nightmares persisted, Cheryl forever haunted by her failure to protect the one person she had been responsible for an ocean away and her complete uselessness when she could have intervened to help rescue those children in the plaza rather than just watching them die like the gaping idiot she was. Dreams never lasted in the waking day, only the nightmares did. Pinching snuff between her thumb and index finger, Cheryl brought her hand up to her nose, sniffing as a happy family pranced about on a careless adventure in the cheerful matinee. Pushing 30 and saddled with children that hurt to look at let alone love, both women had become painfully aware that dreams were just that: dreams.
Fingers slightly blackened by years of drinking questionable well water twitched subtly as Josephine picked out a piece of popcorn, eyes on the screen but mind distant as she savored the salt caught between huge, crooked teeth reminiscent of an equine's. Horse-Mouth, that's what she'd been called her whole life. Horse-Mouth. Far from affectionate, that name had always left a bitter feeling in her heart. For a long time, she had believed that she would never be loved, not by anybody; her own parents certainly never had. Though she had grown up in a house with two parents and plenty of siblings, she had always felt all alone and worth less than nothing; she never had enough of the right things, but always happened to have too much of the wrong things. Not enough manners. Too stupid. Not enough docility. Too impulsive. Not enough humility. Too poor. Not enough discipline. Too ugly. All she had ever been good for was helping around the barren family farm though she apparently wasn't any good at it, subject to grueling manual labor in dry heat when the national depression had left nearly everybody dirt poor and dreaming of meals that would actually satisfy; Josephine had never felt more of a burden than when she'd ended up bedridden for an entire week in 1935 after the persistent dust storms had nearly destroyed her lungs, her parents' disapproving faces haunting her for months afterward and encouraging her to hide any sign of weakness whatsoever, no matter how badly she hurt. Then, sometime in 1939, she had met a man on the very day the first rain had fallen upon Highland after years of brutal drought, a man who didn't call her Horse-Mouth or treat her lesser just because her skin wasn't paper-white; his face hadn't been anything special, his skin had been mottled by the sun, and he had a body odor that could kill rats at high noon, but he'd been one of the first people who had actually treated her like a person. Hardly a year later, they'd gotten married and moved into their very own house on the outskirts of town not far from the oil fields, Josephine more than excited to finally be with somebody who didn't berate her attitude or complain about her lack of talent; it had nearly been too good to be true. Then, her devoted husband had gone off to war shortly after a radio broadcast announced the attack on Pearl Harbor and the entry of the United States into the war, promising to write as much as he could until they could see each other again. Ever since their marriage, Josephine had dared to hope, and hope she did as he bade her farewell before the bed would grow cold and the armchair empty. For the first few weeks, she had fared fairly well despite the general difficulties and harassment unchaperoned women faced in public, but the months had quickly slowed to a standstill as the silence of the house that not even radio could remedy bore into her ears. She always wrote to him dutifully, but the letters she received became fewer and more far apart the longer time dragged on, that despair she had silently fought back for most of her life slowly resurfacing with a draining intensity. Alone. She was all alone. Just like she had always feared, she had ended up alone, and not even those handwritten words inked onto creased paper could ease her distress late at night. Hope had brought her nothing but loneliness, and it had begun to eat her alive until the summer of 1941. For the past couple of years, the house next door had been empty, owned by men with foreign accents and condescending attitudes for some sort of investment thing she had never understood on the few occasions she had asked, having had nothing better to do in her free time aside from eyeing the gin in the cupboard. Then, a lone woman who could hardly speak English had moved in next door, not exactly a beauty but definitely white enough to get slightly less harassment as an unattended woman in public. Maybe it was because they had both been left to fend for themselves, maybe it was because they were both ugly, maybe it was because they were lonely and desperate for somebody to care, or maybe it was just because they didn't quite fit in with this desolate town, but they'd both grown attached to each other surprisingly quickly with an unusually natural chemistry. The hope Josephine had felt after her marriage could have paled in comparison to what she had felt when she had met Cheryl, finding a newfound will to get out of bed every morning. Even as the letters that had once arrived in the mail had completely stopped by 1945, Cheryl had brought such liveliness back to Josephine's life that the latter had dared to look forward to the future, dreaming of a home full of children and her husband's love just like she'd always hoped for, a classic dream she had finally began to accept as a possible reality even for somebody as dumb and ugly as her. She had hoped so fiercely that she had sought out alcohol with an increasing frequency on difficult nights before anything that would derail her hope could come to fruition in the depths of her mind. After a life of hunger and hardship, she should've known better. She really should have. She'd just been so desperate for anything good to happen that she'd thrown caution to the wind, allowing herself to believe that she could finally have a life just like in the picture shows. That hope she had so tenderly cradled within had burned so fiercely that when the broken pieces of what had once been her husband had finally returned from war, her heart had burned into ash. An absolute wreck of a man who hadn't improved even when their first and only child Judy had finally been born in 1954, he had become an extremely far cry from the person she had once married. Like Cheryl's husband, he had wound up in an unspeakable institution that would only bring shame rather than pride to this joke of a land that claimed to espouse freedom and fairness, both men devolving into violent messes that could hardly speak under the inhumane care of their taboo psychiatric units while their wives and daughters had been left on their own in a world that still revolved around Caucasian men with money. Needless to say, neither Josephine nor Cheryl had dared to dream since then, not even when Shirley and Judy had been born for the sake of preserving some semblance of a family that would never be whole. Dreams would never become reality and dwelling on them would only be a waste of time. They were stuck in the real world where not even alcohol could cure emptiness, and in the real world, there was simply no room for something as fickle as a dream.
"Ready?" Josephine asked, her lips turning up in that subtle smile only Cheryl ever got to see as the latter shook her head adamantly, her irrational fear of heights still prevalent even at a time like this; poised on the edge of the same bridge where their grandsons would overcome a suicide attempt on a winter night as well as share their first kiss during a game of Truth Or Dare a little under 50 years later, the two women stared down at the gushing river below as they prepared to jump. After the matinee had ended earlier that afternoon, the mothers had left Shirley and Judy in the care of a couple registered in the local foster system, knowing full well that Cheryl's cousins and Josephine's siblings would be too ashamed to raise the children of women who had committed suicide and men who had become incoherent disgraces to society. Shirley had been surprised but excited about the "sleepover" she and Judy were going to have since neither girl had been warned about the impending custody change, asking a million questions as she clutched a sack fashioned from her mother's old shawl that held a coin purse, stuffed rabbit, a change of clothes, and her mother's camera. Judy, on the other hand, had been slightly more anxious as she had noticed that neither of their mothers would directly answer any of their questions, those green eyes she'd inherited from her father a little too wide as she looked up at the women while clutching her own sack of clothes and only doll, sensing that something was off but far too young to fully understand the situation. Gently kicking Shirley in the shin to get her to stop talking as their mothers ushered them into the arms of strangers, Judy had made up her mind to push those questions away and focus on having fun, because sleepovers were supposed to be fun; neither toddler had any idea that those hugs they had just been given would be the last ones to ever come from their mothers. Far too quickly, those little girls had turned and dashed into the unfamiliar house, eager to distract themselves with the magic of sleepovers that only children could fully appreciate as their mothers had stood in the doorway for a few seconds after the door had shut, its lock clicking into place as the women reassured themselves that their daughters would have better lives this way. Then, Josephine had nudged Cheryl's shoulder with her own and they had walked, walked, walked to the outskirts of Highland until they had finally set foot on that bridge. Now, they stood together as the dull orange of the setting sun lit up the water below, Cheryl's light curls and Josephine's dark strands snaking out of their simple ponytails, dancing in the light breeze. Extending her left hand, Josephine gently tucked a stray curl behind Cheryl's right ear with those rough, slightly blackened fingertips, the nervous tension in the blond's shoulders easing slightly. They both knew they had to do this. There was nothing else left in this world for them but pain. They just had to do this. Looking into each other's eyes, they knew that they could never have what they truly wanted. From the day they had met, a hope had settled into their lives for something that just could never come true. Two sets of husbands and daughters later, the women knew far too well what they had really needed, but it was too late. They couldn't just start over, not like this, not when they had already brought two lives into the world that they couldn't care for and most certainly not when strange men tried to flirt with them in the most uncouth ways if either dared set foot in public unattended; single women weren't allowed to stay single in a small town like Highland, and everybody knew that a woman could only be complete with another man as well as a few children, nothing else nearly as important as that. Neither Josephine nor Cheryl had ever courted other men after they had met, not even when both of their husbands had returned from a war with minds that had been left overseas. Even when the local gossips commented on their queer dispositions and unbecoming backgrounds, neither of the women had ever even considered parting ways to make more suitable lives for themselves in accordance with societal standards that would have improved their social standing and general treatment. No, these two women had become nearly inseparable, bound by something they had no acceptable answer for. Now, standing on the edge of the bridge as their hair whipped about their faces and their hearts beat rapidly but in unison as death loomed below, they knew that what they saw in the other's eyes was more than just a neighbor's courteousness, just as it always had been.
"Eh-heh, my sister, Ada," Cheryl said as her eyes shone in the waning sunlight, fidgeting with the bridge of her nose as she subconsciously reached for Josephine's hand, grasping onto the calloused but tender skin tightly; Josephine tilted her head slightly at the unusual topic, Cheryl's sister typically best left out of conversations if cheerfulness was a concern. "My sister, she, eh-hem, always had fantasies about the most inconceivable things. She, eh, liked to talk about faeries, and trolls, and past lives, and love at first sight, all of that nonsense. Heh, I always teased her for it, I always did." Josephine nodded, another subtle smile surfacing at that look in Cheryl's eyes, a look only she understood. "I never believed her, of course. Never. But sometimes, when I think about all those times I made fun of her or told her how she was wrong, always picking a fight and arguing with her, well, frankly, I know, I know, I'm talking too much again, but really, sometimes I do wish I had believed her. I really do." Slipping off her wedding ring, Cheryl dropped it into the river below without so much as a glance. Naturally, Josephine followed suit, both women's hands now bare and free. Though she did tend to nudge or kick Cheryl for rambling, Josephine never did mind hearing her voice, not in the slightest; the former would never be a singer, that was certain, but the sound of her voice had always felt warm and comforting to the latter, almost like what home should have felt like. "I know it's too late now, but I want to pretend. Eh-heh, us, I mean. I want to pretend what it could have been like, just us two." Laughing, Josephine nodded, knowing just what she meant. Really, even if they had never had husbands or children, they would never have been able to have each other, not in the way they had wanted from the day they had met. Besides, what harm could it do since they were going to die shortly after? Corpses didn't care about gossip. For a fleeting moment, they leaned together and pretended, closing their eyes as they imagined a fantasy world where this feeling on their lips would never have to end. Then, shrill cries from a bird overhead sliced through the balmy evening air as their mouths parted, eyes opening and finding solace in one another. Again, Cheryl glanced down at the river, fear resurfacing in the set of her narrow shoulders as her eyes took in the dizzying height she would have to fall just to have some semblance of peace in her maelstrom of a life once and for all.
"Okay, okay, hold onto me and close your eyes," Josephine instructed, taking Cheryl into her arms. "We're going to fly, okay? We're going to fly. We're going to fly, and then it'll all be over. Just hold onto me. We're going to fly." Immediately latching onto the taller woman, Cheryl buried her face into the familiar fabric, shutting her eyes tight as thin but strong arms held her closely. Breathing in that unique smell, some odd combination of sweat, clay soil, and motor oil, Cheryl clung as tightly as she could as a stray curl got caught in the corner of her mouth, feeling the world beginning to tilt in the unyielding embrace of familiar arms. Two hearts beat together, hope flowing through their veins as they slipped through the air together just like how a bride and groom would dance. For a beautiful moment, just before the two women both hit the water waiting below, they had both flown, nearly as if they had been birds released after years of living in cages. As they fell together, never once letting go of each other, hope had been the very last thing they had ever felt. Hope did not have feathers, but hope did have wings.