Imprints

Imprints

The little red Sunbeam hatchback bounces off the white gravel driveway onto the paved road bounded on both sides by woods. Lillian takes her foot off the gas and coasts down a long hill, letting the car gather enough speed to start up the next rise. She likes to see how far she can get before she has to press the accelerator again. “Lookit,” she says to her granddaughter as momentum carries them up the next slope, “This car just goes and goes.”

Seven year old Avry nods, although she is a little confused by Momsy’s excitement. Her parents wouldn’t care about this, not the way her grandmother does. But four days ago, her parents had brought her to Momsy’s log cabin in the middle of upstate New York and left her there while they went on a ten day vacation. And now Momsy’s in charge. Good thing she’s not afraid of anything.

Yesterday in the bathroom, the biggest spider Avry has ever seen popped out of the crack between the floor and the wall and ran straight toward her. She’d shrieked and cried. Tried to lift her feet off the ground but couldn’t because she was on the toilet. Momsy must’ve heard her. She swooped in like a superhero, picked up the spider with her bare hands, carried it to the front door, and deposited it outside, shouting as she went, “It’s a daddy-long-legs. They don’t hurt anyone.” On the way back to the kitchen, she stuck her head in the bathroom and added, “Two squares Avry, that’s all you need. You don’t need any more.” Then closing the bathroom door, Momsy washed her hands at the counter and resumed cleaning the fresh chicken they were having for dinner. Earlier, she’d shown Avry how to dig out the quills embedded in its flesh with the tip of a knife.

Momsy lives alone. Popsy died when she was still young. At least that’s what the grown-ups said. After his heart attack, Momsy came to stay with Avry’s family for a couple weeks. Avry, four years old at the time, was secretly relieved Popsy was gone, but she didn’t tell anyone that. She brought her mother tissues when she got teary and watched her grandmother closely. No one hugged Momsy. That made Avry sad. It was the first time she had seen Momsy cry, and her grandmother hasn’t cried since, as far as Marnie knows.

When Popsy was alive, he spoke with an accent. He used to nap in the living room of the log cabin in a sleeveless white undershirt on the pullout couch. When he woke up he would run his hands over his bald head, smooth his furry mustache, and put on his brown leather shoes then go into the kitchen and yell at Momsy about something she’d done wrong. She’d yell back that she hadn’t done anything wrong, but he’d yell louder. And at meals, he’d make everyone finish all the food on their plates even though no one got to choose what it was or how much of it they got. It made Avry nervous. He made Avry nervous. He came to this country from Poland when he was seventeen. There had been a war. It was over, but Avry still felt the war in him, even though no one else seemed to. Sometimes when the whole family was together in the living room, Popsy would open his arms and her cousins would run to him giggling, climb on his lap and up his sides. But Avry didn’t. She stayed as far away from Popsy as she could.

And now he’s not here anymore. But in the TV room there’s a big deer head. It’s on the wall with antlers and black eyes. Its two front legs are bent at 90 degree angles, its hooves point toward the ceiling. The legs are attached to the wall below the deer’s head, and a rifle lies across them the way wood rests in Avry’s arms when she carries it in from the woodpile. Avry wonders what happened to the rest of the deer. When she first saw the mounted head, she asked Momsy why the deer was on her wall. Momsy said it came with the house. And she liked it.

It’s part of the house’s history.

In the front yard, there’s a metal swing set. That’s also part of the house’s history. What remains is all rusty. Avry never considers that it might once have been new. What it was once doesn’t matter. It is what it is now. Abandoned, covered with red rust, sharp edged. Yet, there’s something about the dilapidated swing set that draws her to it. A wish maybe. Or a shadow of something.

This morning, before she and Momsy went out to do errands, Avry walked down the stone steps from the house and crunched across the gravel driveway through the copse of tall Hemlocks to the swings. The horse-swing glider had one seat pointing edge up and the opposite one angled nearly straight down. Avry tried to move them both but neither would budge. They’d been stuck like that for as long as she could remember.

Just when she knew she had to give up, Momsy called from the front of the cabin; it was time to go. Avry got to sit in the front seat. Momsy talked the whole time she drove. Avry felt trapped listening, the same way she felt when Momsy wanted to spoon with her in bed. Too close. And not sure what to do. Last night though, Avry decided. She held her breath and slipped out from under Momsy’s arm. After hesitating for less than a second, Avry climbed into the other bed in the room even though it used to be Popsy’s. Stretched out between clean sheets, she fell right asleep. Momsy said she could sleep there again tonight if she wanted, and for the whole rest of the visit. It was up to her.

Outside the car window, tall stems of Queen Anne’s lace and bunches of wild blue asters blow and bend when they drive by. Bright red poison sumac dot the edge of the forest where evergreens mingle with trees turning orange, red and yellow. On the opposite side of the road, a big car passes Momsy’s Sunbeam from the other direction. Avry sees that it has a dead deer strapped to its roof. She startles at the sight; at the blood around the deer’s mouth, the way its head lolls and its tongue flops with the cars motion. It really is dead. Someone killed it. Someone in that car probably. What are they going to do with it? Are they going to cut it up and put it on their wall, make it hold the gun that killed it? She wonders if the deer’s family realizes it’s gone. If it has a family.

In Avry’s family, she and Momsy are the only ones who have red hair. When Avry’s older brother tells her she is adopted, Avry says, nuh uh, Momsy has red hair too. That's how she knows she belongs.

Also, she and Momsy both like to make things. Last night in the cabin, Momsy gave Avry knitting needles and let her pick some yarn to make a scarf with. She taught her how to knit and showed her how to make a practice swatch then she started Avry off and fixed her mistakes whenever Avry asked her to. Mistakes are easy for Momsy to fix. She uses crochet hooks. She has those. She has lots of other things too including special soap that she let Avry whittle into a Scottish terrier when her parents first dropped her off. Momsy doesn’t mind if Avry does things with knives. She was careful, and it came out really good. Momsey displayed it on the kitchen shelf. But after a couple days, Avry saw it in the bathroom soap dish, its shape already partially smoothed out. She had inhaled sharply then. But its just soap. It was always just soap.

Momsy and Avry reach the market, and Momsy parks near the entrance. Inside, they walk up and down the aisles as Momsy talks about Popsy’s brother and sister and their children and grandchildren. Avry doesn’t see any of those people very much or know them very well but she listens. Momsy believes they don’t do things right even though some of them are famous. It upsets her the way they live. She is the only one who knows how to do things, but she can’t do everything, and she can’t get them to listen. Worse, her pocketbook was stolen while she was in a phone booth. She talks about a police officer and a man from the insurance company who won’t listen either. They’re no help. It’s frustrating. Avry doesn’t follow the story exactly but it scares her. She hopes it is something that happened a long time ago and that everything’s all right now. But Momsy says it just happened a week ago. Someone tricked her and took her things. It’s hard to believe that could happen to Momsy. And if it could happen to her, then what does that mean?

Momsy tells her bad things happen sometimes, it’s part of life. Maybe as an example, she talks about a man, Charles Manson, who convinced people to kill other people. Avry has never heard of such a thing. He brainwashed them Momsy says. Girls did things for him because they loved him and he wanted them to. They stabbed people to death and drew on the walls with their blood. One of the people they murdered was pregnant. They stabbed her sixteen times.

It can’t be true.

But Momsy says it is true. It’s a real story, not pretend. In pretend, even scary stories can have funny endings, but this one isn’t, and it doesn’t.

Well then, it must have happened a long time ago.

But Momsy says no, it didn’t. Charles Manson was arrested this year, not very long ago.

Avry wishes Momsy hadn’t told her all of this. She can’t un-hear it. And it changes everything.

Maybe she'll feel safe again once time has passed. Avry's mother says, "Oh, that's ancient history" when she doesn't want to think about something. It would be nice if Charles Manson could be ancient history.

Avry twists her hands in the front seat on the ride home. Momsy says yes, Avry can have some Nestle's Quick as a special treat after they unload the groceries. And later they can make a fire and roast chestnuts. Avry can work more on her scarf too if she wants. That'll be nice.

But first, she's going to lock all the doors.