Mae and Jun

Dear Mae,

              I’m coming to see you beautiful. All my things crushed and stashed away in a black roller bag, an illogical, chaotic mess. I banged my knee barging through the station turnstile – hard. I’m sure it will throb endlessly tomorrow, but for now it’s nothing. Truthfully, I can’t feel anything at all. I’ve only uttered a few words the last four days.

              So maybe silent words, for you, a letter while I steam north to Boston from D.C. It’s drizzly Mae, drizzly and cold and gray, so morose it’s like the melancholy’s been dripped into my brain. You know those days? The ones so bad they consume you from the start. Pewter rain drops in the window, thunderclouds in my head. And ice in my heart; breaker bars and circular saws could cut blocks five feet thick. The azaleas and magnolias and cherry blossoms bloomed in April all at once – then a cold snap ushered in and wiped them out. More buds have bloomed but the city appears uncharacteristically bare. It’s supposed to be mild this far into spring but I’m absolutely freezing. Maybe a memory to warm me up.

              There are too many to pick just one; how could I ever choose? All of the scorching summers we spent together in West Dennis on the Massachusetts cape. Do you remember that little old cottage? The yellow one with the chipped white shutters and the wood porch with the screen door that you had to burst out of because it swung so violently it might sever your achilles if you weren’t careful? The patio out back with cracks crammed full of weeds and the long cedar picnic table, warped by rain and salt air where we’d eat hot dogs and potato salad and dip watermelon in sugar. The grill to the side where our fathers sipped Budweiser and flipped meat in cotton-blend button-downs with just one of the buttons done, the hair on their chest triumphant and unashamed, their bellies bulging. There was a laundry line that ran from the back of the house to a young sycamore where my mother would hang our wet suits to dry. Nearer the kitchen window, on the same line, your mother hung anticipatory sundresses so that we could rinse from the beach in the outdoor shower, towel off and pull them over our heads without having to go inside. What a picture, New England summer. Cheerios and Trix for breakfast, and in the window frame a sunflower in a glass of cool water, proud and tall, the glass sweating moisture, and our future wares, the dresses we’d have on for all of the polaroid shots in the garden, at the beach, around the bonfire, the yellow-orange glow providing just enough brilliance for an exposure.

              Mae and Jun – perfect names for a little blondie and her shy Korean friend, who met on the beach when they were four, all pails and shovels and pink suits and attitude, so lucky that their mothers laid out sheets and towels within speaking distance, who realized they had rented cottages separated by only a flimsy wood post and chicken wire fence, and who for the next twelve years after that rented just the one for both families to share and spend two weeks together at the start of July. Mae and Jun together in the month of July.

              Do you remember how convinced we were that we’d meet a third friend and her name would be July?

              “I’ve never met a July,” your mom said, her face squished and silly.

              “Maybe an April, loves,” my mom replied. “What a trio! April, Mae, and Jun!”

              But we wouldn’t accept it. She would come after the two of us so she had to be July; that was the proper order. Besides, July is when we were all together and that was the alignment in the stars that proved our point.

              “Maybe a Julie,” my mom quipped.

              But neither July nor April came into our lives so it was just the two of us. But who cares? You were my best friend Mae. You were all I needed.

              Sometimes I close my eyes and see the colors of our summers. Fourth of July fireworks that set the midnight (9pm) sky aflame, booming showers of bright red and glittering blue with secondary flares that broke apart and chased after one another like fireflies in frenzied flight. White willow trees that crested and flowed gently down in the shape of umbrellas, umbrellas we could have used to protect ourselves from the charred paper remnants that fluttered down upon us because that’s how close we were to the firing ground.

              The sidewalk chalk we toted in the tin Folgers can, rusted and grooved, with which we sketched and scratched the universe of our imaginations, imaginations untouched by sadness or the passage of time. The silly things of little girls like unicorns and magical forests, but tom boy things too as we got older like Yankee Stadium and bad chicks with guitars, tattooed sleeves glinting in gold rings and further down jean skirts and onyx boots zippered all the way up to their knees.

              We didn’t have to choose. We were gonna be the princesses and the rock stars.

              And of course, the sunsets, Mae, the countless dusks I was sure would last forever that we’d watch wide-eyed from the sand dune where the rope separated the public beach from the area of conservation. Your mother cut us strawberry slices thin enough to see through, so thin you could suck on them and they would dissolve on the tip of your tongue. There we would witness the dying Atlantic sky, drenched blood orange, tossed in a mixer of pink lemonade and hibiscus, swirling and shifting before us. The infinite blues of the ocean: aquamarine and sea foam and shades of darkness so mysterious they pull from my mind the word naval.

              I can feel the blood rushing in my face. It wasn’t a warmth due to temperature or a feeling of flush from the humidity. It was a warmth of contentment, a feeling of perfect place because I was beside you and you were the only place I wanted to be. In those moments, I felt as if I was being fired from a cannon. At the same time, I was quietly slipping away to a watery world of slumber.

              On that dune, over the years, we discussed: mermaids, ice cream flavors, sunglasses, horses, dancing, hula hoops, pogo sticks, boogie boards, ferry rides, the bras of our mothers, the tempers of our fathers, bracelets, necklaces, the ickiness of boys, our first use of pads, the cuteness of boys, acne, your first kiss and then mine (so much later!), middle school, high school, drivers licenses, speeding tickets, college essays, letters of admission, internships, and business casual.

              Our parents stopped booking the cottage when we graduated high school because the schedules no longer aligned, but we booked a return, just you and me, the first grownup thing we’d ever done on our own, for a week in July after our junior years to rekindle what we’d missed.

              On that dune you wept into my shoulder because your grandfather had recently passed, his mind slowly drifting away and then his body finally following suit.

It’s where I told you, still the only person that’s ever known, that after a night of drinking with his friends, Gabriel hit me with an open palm because I told him I wouldn’t sleep with him when he was drunk. You wouldn’t let us leave until I called him and you heard me say the words we’re done.

Do you remember when we were eleven and we saw the lightning strike the weathervane? You, that boy Tucker, and I recruited those kids shooting hoops down the street and we dragged them to the field with the high scratchy grass, the field Liz is sure is the place she picked up the tick that gave her Lyme disease. We set up a beach chair to serve as the strike zone, divvied up teams (rigging it so we’d be on the same one, duh), and played a few innings of wiffleball before the wind came blowing and thunderclouds rolled in, black and purple and angry, spitting moisture and echoing low, threatening rumbles.

We were debating if we could squeeze one more inning in before the worst of it arrived when a jagged, white bolt tore the bruised sky open like a zipper. Thunder clapped without delay and struck the weathervane, a metal rooster perched atop that decrepit beechwood structure rotted by sea air that I suppose at one time served as a small barn. The charge ran down the spine of that barn, rippled outwards a rolling electric field, and I swear it shocked me from the tips of my toes to the north of my skull. The hair on my neck stood and crackled – yours too. We fled, abandoning the beach chair, dragging our jaws on the ground behind us. We made it to the porch and the clouds finally gave. Sheets of rain pounded down and we drew what we had seen.

I have no clue why I’m asking if you remember – it’s tattooed on your left wrist. My strict mom said no, of course. You went with me when I had it tattooed identically on the underside of my heel.

What else do I remember? That you were always the brave one. When that bat got in through the attic, I screamed my head off and dove under the bed, sheets wrapped around my head because I was terrified it would get trapped in my hair, shrieking and clawing and winging until I opened my mouth and it seized the opportunity to crawl inside. But not you. You chased it with the tennis racket, swinging wildly, yelling at me to get the window, which I finally did, and you drove that nightmare out, slamming the window behind it while I cried and fled. The next morning we located the hole in the attic and plugged it with our gym socks and one of your dad’s tee-shirts.

I remember our treasures that we buried at the base of the sycamore tree when we were nine. Polaroid pictures and butterfly hair clips. Sea shells that we thought were identical twins. Two quarters nicked from the wishing pond at the mini golf course. And our bracelets Mae, the ones our mothers bought for us on the pier, the ones we begged for and they finally relented. We loved wearing them so much but they’d be safer here we said. We dropped them in the hole together and we filled the hole with sand. Then we scratched our initials into the tree.

M + J

Mae and Jun, and soon you told me, April, not because a new friend had finally arrived but because you and Will were pregnant and even though you never told me, you’d always loved that name more than July.

I was ecstatic Mae, so excited to meet the little you and thrilled to watch my best friend become a mommy. Some women stress, wondering if they will or won’t be a good parent, and I know you weren’t immune to those worries, but I promised you they were just silly voices of doubt and that you’d be one of the best there ever was; I was sure of it. Even though we’re the same age, I have always looked up to you Mae.

The call came and I was positive that it would be you on the other side of the phone, exhausted from labor but punctuated with excitement, announcing her arrival and describing her features even though newborns all look the same. I was ready, Mae, to tell you how proud I am of you. How much I love you and her and I can’t wait to meet and I already have the cutest onesie wrapped up in a lace bag with a silk bow and that’s the first picture I want there to be of the three of us.

But it wasn’t you, beautiful. It was Will and he told me April was out and healthy, but they had removed him from the room to attend to you. Nothing major he said. He would have you call just as soon as you were able. I hit end and sat silently for a moment, something bothering me, a spade weighing in the back of my throat. There was something in Will’s voice that I didn’t like.

I know now that that something was fear.

Fifteen minutes passed. Then thirty. I washed the dishes in the sink with burning water. An hour gone and all the laundry folded. Two hours and the entire downstairs cleaned and vacuumed. At four I was retching so I called in a panic and it rang through to voicemail the first try, but I redialed immediately and Will picked up. He spoke and I knew.

      April was born and you were bleeding more than normal. You cried out to see her but they needed to fix you so they whisked her away to be cleaned and wrapped, and they pushed your concerned husband out the door.

        And the bleeding never stopped.

        Now here I am, broken and shattered, shuddering in numbness, fifteen minutes north of Baltimore, traveling to see you laid to rest when the entirety of your life is still sprawled out, undone and unfinished in front of you. Here I am, seven months pregnant myself with a little girl who will have her friend April, but me not mine, you Mae, never again, and the rage that comes with that is so paralyzing I fear for my own future, a future that’s no longer my own.

         What do I say when people ask how I’m doing? That I no longer believe in God? That I hate the whole world but people I love belong to it, so where does that leave me? That if I’m not careful, and I mean very careful, my mind will simply become a cage that I pick up and take with me everywhere I go? That I don’t even want to think of myself because it was you who lost your life, and when I do I feel so guilty I want to die too?

         Too far. I’m sorry. I love you. I miss you. I’m sorry.

         An hour until Boston and then an overnight stay at a Kimpton down the road from the cathedral that will host your service. I don’t know what I’ll say or think when I see you. I don’t know what I could possibly offer Will or your mother and father. Please know that if nothing comes it’s because the sorrow has blanked my mind and dragged my soul down to depths of crushing pressure.

              Then, when the service is done and I’ve said goodbye (I’m sorry I wrote that, when I say until we meet next, never, never goodbye, I’m so sorry, this was written in pen, I’ll scratch it out), it’s south and then east I’ll head in a rented car with a shovel in the trunk, to the yellow cottage and the young sycamore that is now certainly grown. There I’ll reclaim our things. There I will find you. I pray that when I find you I find myself too.

              I’ve been guilty of a little priming, Mae. When Kevin and I went for the ultrasound and learned it was a girl we were having, I started immediately poisoning the well, pitching one after the other clunky, garish names that nobody in their right mind could love. Kevin, not wishing to squash me, played nice and respectfully rejected each as I rolled them out. I acted pained, dejected. I could see, subtly over time, he was losing confidence that I would produce anything reasonable.

              He dropped me at the train station - he’s so sorry he couldn’t be there Mae – his mother’s sick and he has to be near. He wiped tears from my cheek as the train approached and asked if I would be okay. I said nothing and cried. I took steps forward on the platform and stopped. I turned to face him and said: “I love the name Julie.”

              Without blinking: “I love it too.”

(For Kelly, my love.)