I Blame the Squirrel

Before mobile phones or computers, back in the Twentieth Century which some people can still remember, a young woman boarded with her half-sister’s family.

She paid a pittance to sleep in a postage stamp of a room high up in the attic of the big house but that was okay as she owned few possessions and was unlikely to gather more because she was saving up to own a house herself, though this would take many years if she remained single.

The cheapness of the accommodation was not simply due to being a blood relation, but because she frequently helped out with both of the little boys and the new baby, often cooked and always cleaned. She also worked for Bell & Howell, something to do with cameras. Her half-sister expected that would stop as soon as she got married and settled down to have children of her own.

No sign of matrimony on the horizon yet, though the young woman, let’s call her Marie, wore lipstick and curled her hair into ringlets with a curling iron and dared to wear modern skirts that had a peekaboo slit which revealed her stockinged knees to any interested male gaze.

Bees buzzed in the white tufts of clover that ornamented the slightly unkempt lawn. Without any tree on the property, birds flitted by without lingering, but Marie began to provide a peanut or two or three to a squirrel on her way to catch the bus to work. On Saturday, she popped out of the house to give him his treat before she started her chores. On Sunday, she asked God to bless her little friend as she provided four peanuts to reward him for being such a good squirrel all week.

She loved to watch the way tail flashed as he bounced toward her from a distance. He grew tame over time and began to acquire the habit of waiting patiently outside the back door. They had come to an understanding. He would look cute and she would feed him. This might be all the preparation she needed for eventual wedding bells, though this did not occur to her at the time.

There came the day when Marie cupped the peanuts in the palm of her hand. The squirrel sniffed her fingers but dodged back when she tried to pet him with her other hand.

She slowed the process down, alert to the twitch of his tail that measured his nervousness, observing the anxious paws that sometimes seemed to be turning an invisible peanut around and around.

She imitated his clicking noises, though she realised she might have sworn a blue streak in his language. Maybe she had told how she liked the way tree branches rustled in the wind when she was snug in her nest and the moon rode high in the night sky. He always looked interested, as if trying to parse a previously unheard dialect of squirrel-ese.

She responded to his worry by pretending she was only a big rock sitting here, nothing that could possibly threaten him in any way, shape or form.

Sometimes at random intervals she shelled a peanut herself, deliberately enjoyed one of the nuts, then offered the other on the tips of her fingers. He eventually dared to snatch these unshelled offerings, fortunately not nipping her in the process.

Softly and slowly and with an infinite patience which would doubtless stand her in good stead later in her life, Marie coaxed the squirrel to trust her. They basked in each other’s friendship as much as two dissimilar creatures could in such circumstances.

It probably helped that they only encountered each other in the morning at a specific time. A short burst of daily friendship that didn’t need to endure too long to be a burden on either of them.

Then the morning came when things did not go to plan. This is how it came to pass.

Marie, after being asked so very many times, finally agreed to go out with a few girls who rode the same bus in the morning.

Exciting to ride an evening bus that Thursday to the movie theater, giggle with the other girls while waiting for the movie, and share comments afterward on their way to a nearby bar.

She would never have dared to enter alone, but safety in numbers persuaded her. Greatly daring, she agreed to have a drink which blurred the edges and made everything much funnier.

A man she worked with approached her, but she took refuge in shyness and turned her attention back among the group of girls, so he eventually gave up and walked away.

One of the other girls had noticed that the handsome man took off his wedding ring and put it in his pocket before he came over and talked to Marie. However, this girl didn’t want to interfere and only eventually confided this information when it was no longer helpful like it would have been now.

Giddy with a happiness that she had never tasted before, Marie almost danced home from the bus. Luckily, a girl who lived nearby made sure to escort her to the front door of the big house.

That there was a light on inside pleased her, to go from the darkness of night into the comfort of electric light was a wonderful thing. She ached to tell someone about the exciting movie though the plot sat jaggedly in her brain due to the alcohol in her blood. She would like to have shared some of the humorous conversations, too, though those were also hazy.

The confrontation startled her. The accusations from her half-sister piled up. What if one of the boys or both of them needed her? What if the baby cried for her to change his diaper? What did she think she was doing when she must be up early to go to work tomorrow? Look at the clock on the wall—the time for bed had long gone by.

As Marie stared at the wall clock, another minute ticked remorselessly past.

She wanted to protest: but I was having fun for the first time in my life.

Instead, looking down at the threadbare brown-grey carpet, Marie said, “I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.”

“Damn right it won’t,” agreed her brother-in-law emerging from the main bedroom, one hand clutching his abdomen where he had lost half a stomach to the invasion of an enemy bullet.

Her half-sister continued, “Or you’ll have to find somewhere else to live.”

Without even daring to say good night, Marie removed her shoes so as not to wake the children on her way and skedaddled as best she could up all the uncarpeted stairs that led to her postage stamp of a room.

She carefully hung up her blouse and skirt to wear again tomorrow, relegated her underwear to the laundry bucket, rolled down her pantyhose to hang on the back of the only chair. Feeling the blissful invitation of sleep, she set her alarm clock, pulled on her nightgown and escaped into oblivion as soon as her head hit the pillow. She didn’t even have a minute to regret that she had forgotten to brush her teeth or drink the glass of water the girls had recommended.

A patch of sunlight on her face awakened her.

At first, Marie wondered why had she gone to bed with the curtains open?

Then memories from the movie, the bar, and the confrontation on arriving home began to echo alongside a hammer hitting an anvil somewhere inside her skull, painful and unrelenting.

After hastening all the way downstairs to answer the call of nature and climbing more slowly all the way back up, she congratulated herself on being awake before the alarm clock rang.

But when she picked it up, the clock hands admonished her.

She was late, not early.

She turned the clock around and discovered that the alarm had not been set to ring.

Like a whirlwind, she dug in the drawer for fresh underwear, rushing so much that she caused a bad run in her pantyhose. Luckily, she had a new box, but struggled to untangle the flimsy garment from the cardboard insert which seemed determined to hang on for dear life.

When she reached for the little perfume bottle, she knocked it over the edge of the bedside table. It crashed and broke. The heavenly smell rising to fill the room her made her feel ill. And, looking at the smug alarm clock, she knew she had no time to clean up the mess.

Blouse. Skirt. Bus fare. She didn’t even glance in the cracked little mirror on the wall or pause to comb her hair.

Marie put on her shoes and clattered down the uncarpeted steps to burst out the front door of the house praying that she would manage to get to the bus stop in time.

She did, but that is not the end of the story.

 In Marie’s absence, her half-sister decided to take the two boys and the baby to the park, not so much for their benefit but to get them all out of the house. Their noise would disperse in the open air, their mischief would not matter because it was someone else’s problem and often did not attract any consequences except maybe stares or glares or mutterings from other people who had no idea what raising twins was like compared to having one child to control.

The squirrel, meanwhile, waited outside the backdoor. Not being a human, the squirrel did not have a watch to measure time, but anticipation might still have bloomed or maybe simply hunger.

When the half-sister unlocked the back door, the squirrel expected to see Marie. He chittered with upset when a strange human loomed into view.

The half-sister recoiled, filled with maternal urgency to protect her children and most of all the baby from this vicious squirrel. She slammed the door shut, locked it, then went into the adjoining room to bang every window shut in case a squirrel could weasel its way under the screen windows.

Twin boys who had been promised adventures in the park and maybe an ice cream after if they were good racketed around the house. The baby, maybe sensing the broken promise even at such a young age, cried and cried. It would not accept the bottle and did not need changing.

It was, inevitably, an exceedingly long day for the half-sister.

Marie, likewise, found her work day much more arduous than usual because of her first ever hangover as well as the worries about losing the postage-stamp sized room where she had lived for several years.

She very nearly asked if she could go home, but she didn’t like to let anyone down, so did her best with what she needed to accomplish.

The handsome man, not wearing his wedding ring, brought her a glass of water without being asked and gave her his own tiny bottle of aspirin though he cautioned her to follow the instructions. He recommended that she write down how many pills she took and when she had them and to keep drinking as much water as she could to flush all the toxins out of her system.

Grateful to be cared for, Marie thanked him and felt better able to carry out her duties. He topped up her water glass twice because he just happened to be passing. How very kind of someone so very much her senior in the workplace. She had scant idea what exactly he did since she didn’t do any typing for him.

When he bestowed a special smile on her toward the close of day, she felt she could have melted. He remarked on how tired she looked and asked whether a friend would be driving her home.

She looked down at her desk, embarrassed, and explained about the bus journey.

He offered her a lift and, when she raised her face to say no thank you, the earnest gaze that he gave her turned that into a yes. His car was, of course, magnificent, his driving smooth, his conversation entertaining.

To keep things from escalating with her half-sister and brother-in-law, she asked him to drop her at the bus stop so that he could not be tempted to show up at the big house.

As she walked home, the fresh air revived her. She would apologise, first of all, before anyone else could say a word. She felt confident of being forgiven. Her half-sister would not like to lose a hard worker who did so much that otherwise would fall on her own shoulders. Her brother-in-law would be on his way to the bar if not already drinking with his friends.

I blame the squirrel.

Both of them were waiting for her arrival. Teeth gnashing vermin and vicious squirrel were only two of the many things shouted at her.

By the time all the talking died down to silence, night had fallen outside the big house.

The half-sister retreated to the kitchen, her husband belatedly departed to the bar where he would need more than one drink to banish the idea of his children, his baby being attacked in his own house by a ravenous fluffy-tailed rat with enormous teeth.

Marie hugged each of the twins tightly and nuzzled the baby, then dragged herself up the uncarpeted stairs to her postage stamp of a room and packed the dilapidated suitcase that her half-sister had grudgingly loaned her.

Having nowhere to go, she sought out the girl who had helped her find her way home less than twenty-four hours ago. She slept on the sofa that night, thanking Our Lady of Perpetual Hope that tomorrow was Saturday.

Time passed which time has a way of doing.

Marie found a room to rent in a house where other single women lived. There were rules, but she was used to rules and resolved to be careful and not to break any. At least here, there would not be any unwritten rules to find out about later.

The handsome man began to take more and more of an interest in her. He never seemed to mind that they could only meet at work or during the daytime on the weekends.

She felt her mother would have approved when he began to attend church with her on Sunday, though sadly he was a Lutheran. She prayed about that.

When he bought her a swimsuit for her birthday, she blushed but was relieved that there was a skirt attached which appealed to her natural modesty.

Of course, they went swimming, but they had already enjoyed the Planetarium and Lincoln Park Zoo and the Science and Industry Museum and many walks along the Lake Shore, she was accustomed to saying yes.

Besides, as everyone knows, swimming invigorates the blood, as he explained to her, which was vital to keep the body young and support all the organs in their functioning. He told her much more than this, but she did not have as much a head for science as he did.

They even had their own special bar where they often liked to go. The juice bar was located inside a health food store downtown. Carrot juice became her new favourite drink. He always bought her the latest issue of Prevention magazine which opened her eyes to the world of healthy living which he so handsomely embodied.

Marie always thought of him as a friend, but that first kiss altered that forever.

Maybe this kiss happened after they had been laughing together while watching the polar bear, Mike, splash in his moat chasing the dead fish the keeper threw for him.

Perhaps the kiss was delivered in a secluded nook in the Botanical Gardens, surrounded by the scents of greenery and blossom.

Or possibly on the front seat of his car when they parked somewhere out of town for a picnic. What happened on that picnic blanket, I do not need to speculate about because I can guess, given what I know which you will soon also understand.

I blame the squirrel.

And, regardless of the fact that the handsome man was married which she didn’t know at the time because nobody who did know bothered to inform her. . .

I remain and always will be grateful to that squirrel.

For the sake of a few peanuts not provided on that fateful day, my mother and father came together and, without the blessing of heaven or the approval of society, they invited me into the world.

It goes without saying that I am grateful to my mother as well. She taught me kindness, especially to animals and so very much more. But that deserves a story or maybe a novel itself.

I haven’t always enjoyed living my life, but who does?

I have had more challenges than I might have liked.

However, I have loved and been loved. I have learned and grown and found enchantments and delights along the way.

Though I have occasionally not wanted to stay on the planet, especially when Marie (as we are calling her) died alone in our rented apartment while I was out working, I am glad I managed to carry on.

My mother would definitely have wanted me to continue, after all. In one of our deeper discussions, she told me that life is a torch passed from one runner to the next until the end of time. You have to keep the torch lit and run as far as you can. A steady pace is fine, there’s no rush.

I recently told just the squirrel part of this story to a friend who enjoyed it so much that I decided to write it down—the whole story—and dare to share with people I have not even met.

Bless you if you have read this far. May your torch burn brightly. Keep running and never give up.