Nonfiction

Missing: part two

/ sweetsaraline

My parents are friends with a couple who have two daughters. Amelia* is a year older than me and Carol is a year younger than me.

I am walking to their house to go to Sunday school with Carol. It’s a sunny day and I’m happy that I get to go see my friends. I am almost at their house when I run into Amelia, who is standing on the sidewalk with some other kids.

“Oh, hi,” she says, surprised. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m going to your house,” I tell her.

“Oh. I’m going to Sunday school.”

“I’m going to Sunday school. That’s why I’m going to your house.”

“I guess you should just come with me then,” she says.

“Okay.”

A large, white van driven by a man that I’ve never seen before pulls up and we all climb in. Amelia explains to the man that she’s bringing me to Sunday school with her. He turns to look at the back of the van to smile at me. He has short, thin, dark grey hair and a gold tooth. He is wearing an old leather jacket. He turns back around and the van pulls away from the curb.

As the van rattles through town, I lean over and say, “Hey Amelia, where’s Carol?”

“Oh, she goes to a different Sunday school,” Amelia says.

*Not their real names

Missing: part one

/ sweetsaraline

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, kids are still enjoying a certain level of freedom. We can walk to the store by ourselves. We can knock on the door of a stranger who everyone calls “the candy man” to get free treats. We can toboggan down a hill that has a fence on the bottom of it, even though we’ve been told not to. Nobody will even know until one of us comes home with a black eye.

If there’s an article in the newspaper about an attempted kidnapping a block away, our mothers and fathers won’t lock us inside. They’ll just say, “If you see a tan van with a maroon stripe, make sure you stay away from it.”

When friends of my parents call to ask if I can go to Sunday school with their younger daughter, my mother asks if they can give me a ride. The adults come to an agreement, and that Sunday, I walk over to their house. It’s only a block away. My mother watches me leave.

Half an hour later, the telephone rings. My mother answers. It is the mother of the friend who I am supposed to be going to Sunday school with. She asks my mother if I’m on my way and informs her that I never showed up at their house.

Panicking, my parents retrace my route, looking for me. I’m not there. They run back home and I’m still not there.

When the police arrive, my parents give them a picture of me. In the picture, I’m wearing a mint green dress with a wide lace collar that has a pink ribbon threaded through it. My hair softly branches away from my face like the needles of an undecorated Christmas tree. My two front teeth are shorter than all of my other teeth, but they have ambitions of becoming bigger than them all.

The police go door to door with my picture asking if anyone has seen me. My friends in the neighborhood stare at the cops and the picture with wide-eyed astonishment. I’m famous now. They know a famous person!

One by one, every single neighbour shakes their head. None of them have seen me.

Tradesies?

/ sweetsaraline

One year ago

Freddie Purrcury sits in the hard, plastic carrier that is strapped into the passenger seat next to me. He gives a worried meow, and I rest my hand on the carrier reassuringly, and then realize that it’s probably actually not that reassuring.

We are on the way home from the vet’s office, where he charmed everyone with his handsome features and his friendly demeanour. We haven’t had him for very long yet. He’s still afraid to sit on the furniture and he still watches us while he eats, surprised that we’re feeding him and also worried that we’re going to take his food away. He eats his food too fast and then he throws up. He wanders around the house at night meowing loudly and sounding distressed. His gritty, sandpaper-like coat is starting to get softer with daily brushing, but now he has a bald spot.

I wonder, Is this cat just stressed out being in a new place, or is he sick?

The vet thinks that he’s going to be okay. She gives us some food for cats with upset stomachs, a canned and meaty version of mashed potatoes.

Freddie seems relieved when I bring the cat carrier into the house and open the door. His new brother, Sirius, is happy that I brought Freddie back, too.

I prepare their dinner for them. I set the food for sick kitties down in front of Freddie and the regular cat food in front of Sirius. Each cat looks at their bowl of food, and then at the other cat’s bowl of food. Without any hesitation, they switch spots.

Garden Star of the week: Beans

/ sweetsaraline

Perhaps you know it as the musical fruit, despite the fact that it is a vegetable, but the bean also enriches your soil by adding nitrogen to it. Because of this magical ability, it is an excellent growing companion for almost every plant. Just try to avoid anything in the onion family. Since they have a short growing period, you can plant beans two or three times in a growing season and have beans all summer and into the autumn.

Beans make an excellent snack or side dish, and they even make delicious pickles. Try planting purple ones so you can enjoy the pretty purple flowers near the start of the growing season.

There are just so many reasons why beans are the Garden Star 🌟 of the week. You did it, beans!

Haunted

/ sweetsaraline

My mother is sad that I don’t have more memories of her grandfather.

“Don’t you remember that he had a crow?” she asks. “And it would untie your shoelaces?”

I shake my head. I wish I remembered that. Was I upset that the crow kept untying my shoelaces, or did I think it was funny? I guess the crow that that I was funny if it wanted to play with me. I picture the glossy, black feathers and the big beak as shiny as a new record. It cocks its head side to side, watching me, and as soon as I let my guard down, it dives to my feet and pulls the string out of the loop again before making a dramatic escape.

I can picture my great-grandfather’s crow, but I don’t remember it.

I do, however, remember his haunted piano. He’s sitting on the bench smiling while the keys move up and down on their own. His hands rests on his knees while the piano plays its own jaunty tune without his assistance. He watches to see my reaction, and when I stare at the piano in wonder, he slaps his knee and laughs.

Whale watching

/ sweetsaraline / 1 Comment

The boat jumps up and down on the waves like a volleyball leaping over a net. Even without the connection to my least favourite sport, I’m not feeling super amazing. I try to concentrate on the tour guide’s fun whale facts and the soft weight of my son’s head on my shoulder and not on my stomach.

“I don’t feel good,” my son says. I look down at him. His arms are hugging his stomach and he is staring at the bottom of the boat.

“I’ll go get a barf bag,” I tell him. I give him a gentle pat on his shoulder and walk up to the tour guide to ask her for one the bags that she waved around in the air and stuffed into the pocket of her fleece jacket at the start of the tour.

She is still reciting her whale facts, and she puts a finger up, indicating that I should wait. When she finishes her sentence, I ask her for one of the bags, but when I have it in my hand and I turn around, it is already too late.

My son’s vomit is all over the bottom of the boat. Another mom is sitting next to him and rubbing his back with concern. As I watch the scene with the empty barf bag in my hand, I feel that I have failed him.

I clean my son up with tiny, brown, ineffective paper towels. The smell and the rocking boat make my stomach want to empty itself as well, but I manage to hold it together.

When we get home from our trip a few days later, my son tells me that his favourite part was the whale watching tour.

It’s just for a minute

/ sweetsaraline / 1 Comment

I’m twenty-one years old and I’ve recently moved in with my boyfriend. One weekend, I go back home to visit my family, but nobody is able to give me a ride back to the train station when my visit is over. My mother suggests that I ask my paternal grandparents. I call my grandma and she agrees to help me out.

The day before I leave, my grandmother calls me and says that they’re going to pick me up early so we can go out for breakfast first. I’m a little surprised by the early time she gives me, but I am still not suspicious.

Morning arrives. The sky brightens while the mist floats a few inches off of the ground. A blue heron stands like an old tree in the pond next to the house. My grandparents arrive, too. I climb into their van with my backpack.

My grandpa is relaxed in the driver’s seat as the van slowly makes its way through the country side. My grandmother is relaxed, too, and she sits up tall. The radio filters through the van quietly. We pull up in front of a Catholic church.

It wasn’t this specific church. This is just another church that I happen to have a picture of.

“We just have to go in here for something first,” my grandma says evasively. “It’s just for a minute.”

While we’re sitting through the hour-long mass, I think, Are we still going out for breakfast, though? Because I didn’t eat anything.

Coffin

/ sweetsaraline

Papa knows that his cat will die soon and that there is nothing he can do. This cat has lived with him for sixteen years, so this situation is not unexpected. Papa will show his appreciation for his friend by building him his own custom-made coffin.

The cat lifts his head briefly when Papa brings his measuring tape. He is too old and sick to be overly curious. The fur around his nose and eyes has become frosted and dull over the years and his body is thin and frail. He patiently allows Papa to measure him.

With the measurements in hand, Papa goes out to his workshop. He loudly builds a box that the cat will quietly rest in for eternity. After all the sawing and the hammering, he inspects it. It’s a good and sturdy coffin, perfect for a good and sturdy friend, but when the cat dies, it turns out that he no longer fits in the box.

Papa tells me this story in my mother’s kitchen after Christmas dinner. Nobody knows it yet, but this will be his last Christmas.

My mother walks in as Papa is saying, “And he knew that I was measuring him for his coffin, too. Anyway, he died that night, and his whole body swelled up and wouldn’t fit in the coffin. I had to shove him in there, and I was banging down on the lid—”

My mother is so shocked that she has to interrupt. “Who are you talking about?” she demands to know.

In which my son strongly dislikes some guy we don’t even know

/ sweetsaraline

It’s 2016, my son is seven years old, and we are boarding an airplane. We arrive at our row and the young man in the window seat greets us politely.

My son is angry that this guy has the window seat.

I am surprised by this reaction because my son hates flying. The last time he had a window seat on a plane , he cried out, “Oh no, we’re all going to die!” while we were landing at the airport. He wasn’t trying to scare the other passengers to be mean, he just thought that what he was saying was accurate.

When you’re not afraid of flying, it is difficult to know what will help someone who is afraid to feel better. Apparently, specifically choosing non-window seats while booking the flight is not helpful.

My son is telling me that he wants the window seat and asking me why he can’t sit in the window seat. I explain to him that I chose to not have window seats and I explain why. He is not satisfied with my answer, so I explain that the passenger in the window seat probably also specifically chose his seat, and he chose the window, and it wouldn’t be fair to ask him to switch seats when he specifically chose a window seat and we specifically chose non-window seats. I also explain that we should probably just leave the guy alone because we don’t want to be rude jerks.

“Okay, fine,” my son grumbles. I give him a comic book and he settles down, but his face still looks slightly sulky.

The plane turns on. The engines make all of the voices of all of the passengers sound muffled and hushed. The flight attendants do their safety pantomime in the aisles as the plane crawls slowly around the airport.

Finally, it’s time for the airplane to shoot up into the sky in a diagonal line. My son tries to look out of our neighbour’s window. He stretches his neck back and forth before saying, “Ugh, his head’s in the way!” and collapsing back into his seat in frustration.

We run into the guy from the airplane the next day when we’re returning from a tour. His face brightens when he sees us.

“Oh, hey!” he says, waving and smiling.

“Ugh, it’s him again,” my son says in disgust.