Page 14
Story: Melody (Logan 1)
I returned from school that afternoon with an
emptiness that made my chest feel hollow. One foot followed the other mechanically, the soles of my shoes barely leaving the road. A group of grade school children ran past. Their laughter had the tinkling sound of china, crisp and musical in the clear, sharp air. Children, I realized, don't really have to contend with deep sadness. They are wooed out of it with the presentation of a toy or a promise. But being mature means realizing life is filled with dark days, too. Tragedy had sent me headlong into reality. All the things I had seen before now looked different, even nature.
The snow had melted. The white oaks, with their powerful broad branches, the beech trees and poplar trees, all had leaves turning a rich shade of green. I was vaguely aware of the birds flitting from branch to branch around me. Above me, the lazy, milk-white clouds seemed pasted against the soft blue sky, but they looked like nothing more than blobs of white. Their shapes no longer resembled camels or whales. My imagination was imprisoned in some dark closet.
Usually, the first warm kiss of sunshine filled me with excitement. Things that normally made me depressed or unhappy looked small and insignificant against the promise of budding flowers or the laughter of young children rippling through the air.
But all the spring glory in the world wouldn't bring my daddy back. I missed his voice and his laughter more every passing day. Mama Arlene was wrong: time wasn't healing the wound. It made the emptiness wider, longer, deeper.
As I plodded along, I carried my school books in the dark blue cloth bag Daddy had bought me long ago. I had two tests to study for and lots of
homework, so the bag was full and heavy. Alice had remained after school for Current Events Club. There was also a rehearsal for the school talent show, and I was supposed to play my fiddle in it. I had
volunteered months ago, but since Daddy's death, I hadn't picked up my fiddle once. I no longer had the desire or the confidence.
Everyone else seemed to have something to do, friends to be with, activities to join. Once or twice I tried to muster some enthusiasm about something I had done before Daddy's death, but an important part of me had died with Daddy. I knew my friends at school, even Alice, were losing patience with me. After a while, they stopped pleading, begging, and encouraging me to do things with them, and I began to feel like a shadow of myself. Even my teachers had begun to treat me like a window pane, gazing through me at someone else, hardly calling on me in class, whether I raised my hand or not.
My smiles were few and far between. I couldn't recall the sound of my own laughter. Even before she had lost her job, Mommy had been complaining about my moods. Now, it was a constant grievance.
"If I can let go, you can," she lectured. Then she declared, "Maybe, he's happier where he is. At least he doesn't have to fight getting old. You won't remember him as anything but young. And where he is, he doesn't have to worry about money."
I told her that was a horrible thing to say, but she just laughed. "Suit yourself. If you want to walk around with a sad-sack face all the time, do it. You won't have any friends and you certainly won't attract any handsome boys."
"I don't care!" I shouted back. Boys and parties, long conversations on the telephone, scribbling some boy's name in my notebook--none of that mattered to me anymore. Why couldn't Mommy realize that?
I didn't want to have an argument with her today, but since she had lost her job at Francine's and not found another yet, I expected she would be home when I arrived. She said I was so depressing to be around, I made her lose her appetite. It always sounded like just another excuse to go off with Archie Marlin. Today would be no different. I braced myself for another lecture.
But when I opened the trailer's front door, I wasn't greeted with her criticisms. Instead, I saw suitcases spread open on the floor. Mommy rushed about, folding clothes and dropping them into the luggage.
"Good!" she said when she saw me. "You're home early. I was afraid the one time I wanted you here, you'd find something silly to do."
"What are you doing, Mommy? Why are you packing these suitcases?"
"We're leaving," she said smiling. "Now, these two suitcases are yours," she instructed, pointing to the smaller ones near the sofa. "I'm sorry that's all you can take, but that's all that we'll have room for in the car right now. Pick out your most important things and pack them."
My mouth dropped open. "Leaving? Where are we going? I don't understand."
"I don't have a lot of time to explain, Melody." She put her hands together and looked up at the ceiling as if giving thanks. "The opportunity has come and we're taking it," she declared. "Hurry! Get your best things packed, and remember, we don't have room for anything else right now."
"I don't understand." I stood in the doorway and shook my head.
"What's to understand? We're leaving," she cried. "Finally leaving Mineral Acres! Be thankful. Be gloriously thankful, sweetheart," she pleaded.
"But why are we leaving?"
She held out her arms, turning her eyes from her right hand to her left, as if the answer were right before us. "Why?" She laughed thinly. "Why would I want to leave this Godforsaken place, this town of busybodies, of people who have no imagination, no dreams? Why would I want to leave a two-by-four trailer in a retirement park filled with people inches away from their own graves? Why?" She laughed again, then lost her smile.
"You're supposed to be a smart student. You get all those hundreds on your school tests and you ask why?"
"But Mommy, where will we go?"
"Any place else," she said. She stared at me for a moment and then her eyes grew small. "We're going to explore, look for a nice place to live where I can have an opportunity to do something more with my life and not be smothered and stifled. Now that your father is dead, we have no reason to continue living in a coal mining town, do we?"
She smiled again, but something about that smile seemed false.
"We've always lived in Mineral Acres." I said weakly.
"Because your father was working in the mines! Really, Melody. Besides," she went on, "I've spent more money than we have in the bank trying to cheer myself up after your father's death. The life insurance is gone and you know what our bills are, how close we are to not paying them every month. You're always warning me. I can't even pay for this trailer without a job and I'm not going to beg for my job back at Francine's. There just aren't any other jobs here for me. I'm not going to become a waitress. Look at me!" she said throwing wide her arms. "Do I look like I can make a living for us in this town? I can't type and if I could, I would hate to be caged in some mine company office. We have no choice. I have to get to where there are opportunities before it's too late!"
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14 (Reading here)
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 145
- Page 146
- Page 147
- Page 148
- Page 149
- Page 150
- Page 151
- Page 152
- Page 153
- Page 154
- Page 155
- Page 156
- Page 157
- Page 158
- Page 159
- Page 160
- Page 161
- Page 162
- Page 163
- Page 164
- Page 165
- Page 166
- Page 167
- Page 168
- Page 169
- Page 170
- Page 171
- Page 172
- Page 173
- Page 174
- Page 175
- Page 176
- Page 177
- Page 178
- Page 179
- Page 180
- Page 181
- Page 182
- Page 183
- Page 184
- Page 185
- Page 186
- Page 187
- Page 188
- Page 189
- Page 190
- Page 191
- Page 192
- Page 193
- Page 194
- Page 195