All I Can Give

PROMPTS: Witnessing magic from a hiding place, Write a story involving a magical potion

ALL I CAN GIVE

by Michael Krass

When you were a kid, I took you to the movies. It was about a fairy who lived in the woods but was so small that no one knew she was there. But it was her magic that made the flowers grow. "You leaned over to me," hand in the popcorn bucket, of course, and said, "is that real? no, magic can't be real."

I didn't answer because I lost you into the movie again and you never asked that question again and I never brought it up. I'd like to answer you now... if you can hear me. 

I drop a sugar packet into the hospital coffee cup and wait as if I expect a lucid answer from Hazel, my daughter.

Hazel is lying in the bed. She is long and thin with fair features of light blonde and blue and rose pink. Her color is coming back. A good sign. I think about last night... unbelievable. I think of grieving parents I've seen on the news use the phrase "it's a hell that I don't wish on any parent ever!" I get it now. I really do. She looks content. Healthy beeps coming out from the machine above her bed. Her numbers look good, the nurses say. The numbers haven't changed so I'm guessing they are still good. 

Hazel and I are just getting to know each other again. We've been separated since she was a child and her mom moved to Australia to be with someone else. Her birthday and Christmas were the days that reminded her that she still had a biological dad somewhere in the world. It's not enough to build anything on, to have a connection. Even I knew that. Hazel and I lived off these memories in spots and little clips that were sewn together to give us a story. The truth is that until last night, I didn't know my daughter at all. I couldn't see what she was craving or going through or that all she wanted from me was something, a piece of my life that I could share, that she could relate to, judge, or whatever. 

I lean forward in hospital chair. The plastic leather creaks like an old rocking chair. I take another sip of coffee. I've been through so many cups that the caffeine is starting to affect my nerves. But it's warm and sweet and feels like the right thing to do. Hazel hasn't budged though I can see her chest rise and fall with her breath. 

I believe she can hear me, and I decide that I want her to know what I think about magic.

It was another horrible day at school. Most of my eighth-grade days were. New kid in a big city and all that... Everything was so different. We came from a beach town, slow moving, easy going, everybody looked the same. This city was so different. Concrete and metal everywhere. Everything was old and cold. There was no breeze or ocean in the air. The faces were different. Shapes and colors and sizes thrown together with enough friction that could light a house on fire. And at times it did. It was violent. Kids ganging up on other kids, threatening teachers, homeless people drifting into the cafeteria at lunch time. It was awful.

I chuckle as I say that last line and then laugh at myself for the irony of it. I doubt Hazel would even believe it. We never talked about my childhood which was so different from her own. Kids who don't grow up in these kinds of circumstances can hardly fathom it.

I always knew to keep my head down. Keep your head down and nobody sees you. I learned it quite early when I hid from my father. His anger was wild like a forest fire and raged over everything around him. But if you keep your head down and you stay quiet... In the hallways, the gym, and the bathrooms of this school, it was the same tactic. Keep your head down. If a group of Italian kids came - head down. A group of black kids walked by - head down. Asian kids? Eyes down! Don't look or glimpse or give anything to attract attention and you'll make it through another day.

As I got older, I realized where I learned this. Your grandma had a sign on the wall of her kitchen, an old crotched picture of a mouse hanging on a knot at the end of a rope. It read: When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on! The mouse's face looked terrified. Like waiting for the inevitable end to come when someone would see him, and the knot wouldn't matter anymore.

To Grandma, in her solid color dresses and outfitted aprons, that picture was a way of life. She kept her head down in life but for different reasons than mine. Her childhood was one of silence. It was how you survived abuse, strict rules, and child labor. You shut down and shut up, not that you were fooling yourself that it would get better, but you didn't want to risk it getting worse. Her marriage didn't change much. She served, never raising a head or hand to object to anything, lest it all was to suddenly disappear or fade away. And keep your head down, keep it all inside. 

She seemed to know the practical craft of motherhood - food, fresh clothes, clean house, basic medical stuff. But I didn't know her. We never talked about anything. We had no stories.

If you asked her anything, she would say okay or no, or ask your father. Deferment was expected in matters of money or anything that could be considered a big decision. It was frustrating then because Aunt Elaine and I wanted more than she could give.  

Though I think of it now, she was protecting herself and maybe us too by doing what she'd always done and hanging on to the knot at the end of the rope.

I lose myself in my own thoughts for a moment and I realize that I haven't been paying attention to the hospital bed. She is still there. Still alive and fine enough, just resting. I watch the twitching of her left big toe as it pokes out from the thin hospital sheet. Her breathing is soft and rhythmic. It's the most relaxed that I have seen her in a long time. I regret the fight that we had. 

Even allowing myself to think about my childhood makes me feel like I want to do better for her. Why didn't I realize this before all this happened? Maybe I could've given her a place to land? Some kind of reflection of what she was going through. The images flow back to me. Her red face screaming at me about how I don't understand. Her ears bright pink and eyes wild like a pinned animal. Eyes and nose running. A volcano of emotion that I never sensed coming. She was capable of anything. She ran to her room, and I can still hear slamming and the sound of her voice muffled as if she is screaming into a pillow and then the whimpering. That grownup sobbing, a life full of regret and sorrow falling like rain against the window glass. She's so young to feel so much pain, I think.

I do what I always do, since as early as I can remember, keep my head down, wait for the rain to stop.

Catching myself back in the hospital room, I am staring out the window at a smokestack from a chemical plant. It's not particularly interesting but somehow my eyes drifted there as my mind conflagrated thoughts. I briefly consider abandoning the story. I'm not sure she can hear me anyway.

I decide to continue. At my school, our cafeteria was in the basement. All the kids went down there and ate at the folding tables that rose to a point in the middle when they folded them up. They were treacherous because you couldn't easily get in and out of them. Once you tucked your feet in, you were pretty much stuck. 

I sat away from the other kids at the end chair at the table. Nobody seemed to bother anybody at lunch. For some reason, everyone just sat down and ate in peace. I looked forward to lunchtime because Grandma always packed one of her trademark cookies in the bag. You would get one cookie wrapped in a perfectly cut square of parchment. Usually there was a flimsy sandwich with a piece of ham on white bread, but the cookie was something special.

It was the strangest thing, and I doubt that you'll even believe that I'm not just making this up, but, when you bit into Grandma's cookies, it was almost like hitting a reset button on your life. Everything felt okay, sometimes good again. Your Aunt Elaine and I would sit outside on a park bench and say nothing, conversing in ummm's and yum's, and ooo's and ahh's.

Grandma was an incredible baker. It was a tradition handed down through the women in the family. A secret code for making something out of nothing. She didn't bake often but when she did it hit the nose like a symphony orchestra to the ears. It woke things up. The house came alive with smells of cinnamon, butter, and sugar. It was old-fashioned knowledge. Nothing was written down. No timers were set. It was sacred time where no one bothered her when she worked. I always wondered if it bothered her that Aunt Elaine wasn't interested. 

I was curious but I knew it was girl's stuff, right? But I remember how I felt when the smell of cookies was in the air. And the first moment when you bit into something that was warm out of the oven, the closest thing to bliss... as if nothing else matters. 

I knew a cookie was coming today because I smelled the baking the day before. I sat under the kitchen table waiting to see if the opportunity would arise for me to get a finger in the batter. Grandma was light on her feet as she danced from bowl to bowl, popping eggs and stirring, sprinkling spices through her fingers, whipping it all together with her old wooden spoon. 

She was whirling and bobbing and then took a big step back. She was spinning the cookie dough together with great intensity and violence! Her hair fell down out of her cap and her apron seemed to loosen at its knot in the back. Even the air in the room felt thicker somehow.

And then she stopped suddenly, whispered "poteesh," as she flicked her fingers into the bowl. There was a flash of purple light and she stood there for a moment with her hands over her eyes.

"Mom!" I screamed and crawled out from the table. I must've startled her because she whipped around, and her face was... different. Her eyes were without pupils, just glazed over white and her skin glowed with an orange hue.

And then it was her again. As she always was. She looked at me for a moment, out of breath, with a look that I never saw on her again. I don't know what it was, recognition? Relief? There was a softness about her that lasted about 5 seconds.

"Don't get underfoot!" she scowled. And after seeing what I just saw, I didn't hesitate to run upstairs.

I didn't sleep that night. I stacked a pile of books against my door suddenly scared that the alter-ego of my mom would come to get me at night. But I couldn't stop wondering too... Was that magic? What was that word, that I couldn't exactly remember but sounded like "poteesh," was that... My mind kept spinning and I slept really bad that night.

The next day at school, sitting there at the lunch table it was all I could think about. I couldn't wait to taste the cookie again and see if I could reclaim that experience or understand it somehow. I never did.

There was a crash at the table behind me and everyone turned to look. Everyone except Gerald DeVose, one of my classmates who already built like a man even though he was only in eighth grade. Gerald swooped by in one motion and snatched my brown paper lunch bag and took off running out of the cafeteria.

I freed myself from the folding table chair and took off after him. I could see his sneakers as he turned corners and headed for the stairs that led five flights up to the roof of our post WWII school building. I had no idea what I would do when I got to him. He could've killed me, but I didn't care. I had to get that cookie back.

My legs burned as I hit staircase after staircase in pursuit. Gerald ran up, across a whole floor to another set of stairs and back again. It was clear that he was toying with me. He made a final turn hit the stairs which led to the roof. I paused for a moment at the foot of these steps because I knew we weren't allowed to be there and surely, this would be big trouble at school and even worse, at home.

I climbed the stairs and pressed the handle to open the heavy door. 

Gerald was sitting on the edge of one of the massive fans on top of the building. I could see he hadn't opened my lunch bag yet. 

"It's beautiful up here, no?" he asked as he dangled my lunch bag in one hand, oblivious to the treasure inside, "you ever come up here?"

As I inched forward, Gerald jumped down and ran to catch the door behind me. "If it slams shut, we'll get stuck up here."

He looked me up and down almost as if we weren't the same age. "You fast for a white kid." He laughed and went back to his position on the fan. "What the hell is so precious that you chase me all over for? I was going to give it back. I was just messin' with you."

For some strange reason, which I can't even explain to this day, I told Gerald everything. About Grandma, the magic cookie dough, everything. He took the cookie out of the bag and looked at it as if it were some sacred object to be revered. 

After a few moments of silence, Gerald shared about his Grandma Josephine and how she made a sweet bread that had a similar effect. He believed it to be true. 

"It IS magic. People just don't want to admit it," he looked at the cookie like an archaeologist might look at a fossil or artifact. "I ain't going to eat your cookie, man, here." 

I took the cookie and broke it in half. Even in the cold air of the rooftop, I could smell the sweet goodness. I gave Gerald the other half of the cookie and we sat and talked for a long while about everything. I couldn't believe how easy it was to talk to him and for the first time in forever, I felt like I had a friend. It was, by far, the best cookie Grandma ever made.

Gerald and I stayed friends all the way through high school. We never talked about magic cookies again and I never brought it up to Grandma either. Nothing changed at home, and I never witnessed what I saw that afternoon in Grandma's kitchen again. Right after graduation I moved out and I didn't really go home again until her funeral. 

There was a box of effects that Grandpa wanted me to have which included the mouse picture with the rope. I looked at it and chuckled. It had become a little yellow with age and had some water spots from being over the sink for so many years.

As I was about to set it back in the box, I noticed a small stitching toward the lower left corner. You couldn't really see it because of the frame it hung on. I pulled back the frame and saw the word, "poteesh," sewn in a cursive hand. 

I step toward Hazel's bed and for the first time in years I stroke her hair. I whisper, "To answer your question –I still don't know what to make of it all but if you ask me, sweetheart... If you ask me if I believe in magic, I'd have to say yes."

I kiss Hazel on the forehead. She sighs.

THE END.