LaRose(67)

The Green Chair




THE BOREDOM OF late summer covered Maggie like an itchy swoon. Thirteen, but living in her girl body. No breasts. No period. Too old to act like a child, too underformed to feel like a teenager, she wandered. She packed herself a sandwich, a can of pop, and took off. There were old paths through the woods, made long ago when people still walked places, visited one another, or hiked to town, church, school. There were new paths made by kids with trail bikes and ATVs. If there was no path, Maggie crept in and out of tangled bush, slipping into places of peace or unrest. When she went off the paths, anything could happen but nothing bad ever did. Nobody noticed. LaRose was sometimes with his other family, and Peter was at work.

When had her mother stopped looking after her? Stopped checking? Stopped spying?

Maggie sat in a tree and watched what she decided was a drug house, black muscular dogs chained to the porch. She watched for a week to see if any drug freaks went in or out. Finally a car drove up. A woman she recognized got out. It was her kindergarten teacher, the only teacher she’d loved. Kindergarten was the one year she had been good in school. The muscular dogs tossed themselves over on their backs for Mrs. Sweit to scratch their bellies. When she went inside, the dogs followed her like children. Maggie keenly wished she could tag along with them, but she had to turn away knowing that inside the house Mrs. Sweit was feeding the dogs milk and cookies. She was reading them stories. She and the dogs were cutting lanterns from construction paper. Maggie went home.

The next day she saw a bear digging up some kind of roots beside a slough. Another time a fox arched-leaped high in the grass, trotted off with a mouse. Deer stepped along with their senses bared, stopping to twitch ears and nose-feel scents, before moving from cover. She watched the dirt fly behind a badger digging a den. White-footed mice with adorable eyes, blue swallows slicing air, hawks in a mystical hang-glide, crows tumbling on currents of air strong as invisible balance beams. She began to feel more at home outside than inside.

One day she was sitting high in a tree, pulling apart a wood tick. Something large flowed at her, ghost-silent. She flattened against the bark. Hung on. She felt fingers rake her hair lightly and the thing rushed up, soundlessly sucked into the leaves. She didn’t scare easy, but her breath squeezed off. She scrambled halfway down and huddled against the trunk. It was coming at her again, she could feel it. An owl with great golden eyes lighted on the branch before her, clacked its beak, fixed her with supernatural hunger. She looked straight back. At that moment her heart flung wide and she allowed the owl into her body. Then it sprang. She threw her arms up and it left razor cuts on the backs of her wrists. Her screams impressed it, though. It kept a distance while she climbed the rest of the way down. It swooped her once again, raising the hair on her scalp as she barged through the scrub.

She slowed to a walk as she neared the house. When she came out of the woods, she saw that her mother’s car was in the driveway. She went through the house, but there was nobody home. Outside, in the backyard, she saw the dog sitting alertly outside the barn, staring at the door. The dog felt her gaze and turned. It ran to her, whined, then ran back to stare anxiously at the door again.

Maggie didn’t call her mother’s name or make noise—the owl inside her now. On a pathless path leading to a place of peace or unrest, Maggie went to the barn. Her soundlessness probably saved things. Sensing with bared senses, she pulled open the small side door and stepped inside. There was her mother in a shaft of light. Nola stood on the old green chair with a nylon rope around her neck.

Nola was wearing her purple knit dress with silver clasp belt, maroon pumps, subtly patterned stockings. Nola’s breast was looped with necklaces, her fingers deep in rings, wrists in bracelets. She had worn all of her jewelry so that nobody would ever wear it again. Perhaps Nola had done this periodically for weeks or years. Maybe this time she had stood there all morning, collecting the sickly courage to kick away the chair.

She could still do it. Maggie would not have the strength to hoist her or the quickness to cut the rope. Nola still might do it right in front of her. There would be no point in running forward. Maggie didn’t move, but fury choked her breath.

God, Mom. Her voice came out squeaky, which made her even madder. Are you really gonna use that cheap rope? I mean, that’s the rope we tied around the Christmas tree.

Nola kicked her foot back and the chair joggled.

Stop!

Nola stared down at her daughter from the other side of things.

In Maggie’s eyes, her mother saw the owl’s authority. In Nola’s eyes, her daughter saw the authority of the self and the self alone.

The foot lifted again. Beside Maggie, the dog quivered, at attention.

Okay, said Maggie. Please stop.

Nola hesitated.

I won’t tell, said Maggie.

Nola’s hesitation became a pause.

Mommy. Maggie’s eyes blurred. The word, her voice, shamed her.

If you come down, I’ll never tell.

Nola’s foot came back down and stayed motionless. The air was radiant, hot, stifling like the secret between them. Complicity made Nola remove the rope, step down. Claustrophobia made Maggie throw up.

She puked for two days, sick every time she saw her mother and entered again the tight metal box of their secret. Nola held the glass bowl, wiped her daughter’s face with a damp white dish towel. Tears overflowed her mother’s eyes as she put the towel and bowl away. Mother, daughter. They fell into each other’s arms like terrified creatures. They clung together like children in the panic cellar.