Starry Night

Starry Night

No one knew how the two-seater bench ended up in this condition. Was it the journey up the rocky path that loosened the screws like eyeballs rolling aimlessly in sockets? Was it the weather that stripped the blue paint from the wood aside from the leathery strips that hung on like torn ligament clinging to bone, desperate and limp? And what would happen to the bench that sorely rested amongst the rocks? Would it sit and wait until the frail legs softly folded inward at the joints? Would the damp wood make a noise as the bench came to a kneel above the horizon? Until then, the bench sat lonely on the hilltop. Below, the small town hidden in the bowl of the mountains mirrored the midnight sky, porch lights and backyard campfires scattered in the darkness. Away from the cluster of warm crackling lights, sat an alarming, lonesome orb, like a UFO that landed just far enough away to remain unseen.

You could trace the path to the orb down the street that ran through the center of town until the road passed the last few houses and turned to gravel. Then, a sharp right up the unmarked dirt road that was tucked between trees. Every so often, a truck with mountain bikes bundled in the cargo bed would kick up the dust in search of secluded trails. The innocent-looking road would narrow, bottlenecking the unsuspecting drivers like a fly in a sugar trap. Pine needles clawing along each side of the vehicle left no choice but for drivers to continue maneuvering through the dips and rocks, corkscrewing through the woods. Eventually, the road opened into a driveway, and the little bungalow appeared like a mirage through the trees. There was just enough awkward leeway for drivers to U-turn in front of the bay window. For years, the drivers were safely unseen until the house was sold and the lights burned through the night once again.

The sale ad featured pictures from seven years earlier, tagged with the line, “A happy two-bedroom bungalow offering a slice of secluded mountain life”. Natural light poured in through the windows and skylight, mountains watched over from the backyard. Outside, the eves fed into the garden of flowers that ran along each side of the house, stopping only for the expansive front and back decks. Picture perfect.

When the woman made her journey through town and down the dirt road, her pick-up was already pregnant, bulging with the material things that made up her life. She parked in front of the clouded bay window as the rain plinked down on the metal roof of the bungalow.

“Help me with this?” she motioned toward the mattress in the back of her truck. She was worried it would soak through.

The slouched realtor, here to hand over the key, perked at the idea of helping move her in. They hustled to get the boxes and furniture sheltered from the rain in the safety of the bungalow. Soon, the keys were in her hands, and the woman was alone in her new house.

Her new house had rain tumbling off all sides of the roof because the eaves were clogged with seasons' worth of leaves. The pictured garden of flowers hadn’t been perennials; now, a muddy moat with a drowning army of weeds reached skyward to the blue and white boards that made up the outside walls. Their color had partially evaporated over the years, and the woman was sure that if she wrapped her fingers underneath one and pulled, a rectangular void leading inside would be all that was left.

She hadn’t hesitated about moving in, and not just because of the rain soaking her mattress, but because of the second bedroom and the backyard. She had never had a second room for herself or any sort of outdoor space. A lifetime of apartments in the city, shared rooms with her sister, and common spaces with roommates. Opportunity filled every inch of the bungalow. Would she take advantage of the skylight and fill the extra room with plants? Maybe a comfy chair in the corner? Bookshelves lining the walls? Or, would it be a guest room if her friends came to visit from the city? No more air mattresses on kitchen floors when a friend wanted to stay the night.

Living in the bungalow, she was consumed by projects. Painting and hammering between answering calls, on her lunch breaks, she was up on the ladder grabbing fistfuls of wet leaves from the eavestrough, or replacing the flooring in the living room while proofing quarterly reports. The woman diligently worked late into the night, slept, and repeated.

She and the bungalow had a mutualistic agreement, she fixed it up, and the projects tethered her mind like a leash. She kept her body busy working until the leash was tight enough for her to close her eyes and sleep without thinking. During the night, the leash would loosen, and she caught herself in the morning letting her mind run, wishing he were there. He had a keen eye for design. You wouldn’t think it by looking at him, his lumberjack-like build, stubbled face, it was obvious he could move furniture easily, but less obvious that he knew exactly where it should go. He could arrange every room to make it feel like a home.

But, she was here in the house alone, painting in the middle of the night. The lights of the bungalow summoned the moths from the spruce forest. They patted around every window, desperate to get where the woman was buzzing along inside, painting the walls of the spare room a deep green to cover the glaring white. Standing on her semi-refurbished kitchen chair, she made her first soppy stroke at the top left corner of the wall. Pearls of green rained down, plinking onto the plastic liner below. Some of the drops veered left and landed on a spot the plastic liner missed, creating accidental stars on the hardwood floor below. She didn’t notice immediately, too mesmerized by the lines in the paint stroke from the bristles of the brush. Her body wanted to drag itself to the bedroom, throw up the covers, and force itself down, but her mind needed to be in the light, focused on the painting. She looked down to adjust her feet and saw the fallen stars. Shakily stepping down from the chair, she wiped away the accidental galaxy before it could dry. Crouching on the floor, she wasn’t sure if she had the energy to get back to her feet. She closed her eyes for just a second, but almost instantly, she could smell the grape-scented marker. The smell came from behind her, pressing into the skin of her back. Gently, he moved the tip of it, slowing over each freckle like a car on a road trip stopping for gas before carrying on. He continued like this until every freckle she couldn’t see was mapped out. “See, you have the big dipper on your back!”

From the way he said it, she could tell he was smiling, “But it doesn’t have to be the big dipper. Couldn’t it be anything if you just drew the lines differently?”

“No, no. No matter where you start, it will always end up the big dipper.”

That wasn’t what she meant, but she turned herself onto her back underneath him with a smile. It was then that he asked her to move in with him.

Her lease was ending soon, her roommate was moving in with her fiancé, it made sense, another piece falling into place, another line drawn. She would move in, he would know how to seamlessly blend their things into a shared apartment, a shared life. In another year or two, he would propose, they would save for a house, and so on. She could see the constellation forming. What other line could she draw? She couldn’t afford to live on her own in the city. Would she pack her truck up? Move to a small town? Leave a lengthy voicemail for him on her way out of the city?

From her crouching position, she opened her eyes and looked for something to tighten the leash; painting the walls, cleaning the clouded skylight, as her head turned around the room, she looked at the open bathroom door across the hall. She left the lights off in the bathroom, but if she looked hard enough, she could make out the rectangular silhouette bulging on the counter. Resting beside the sink, the growth called to her like the moon pulling the tide. Energy waved from her feet, pulling her upwards through the crown of her head. Stepping onto the cracked tile flooring of the bathroom, the buzzing of the lights subsided, her eyelids relaxed, but the rest of her body tensed as she hovered her hand over the counter. The pregnancy test was still face down. What if he was right, and no matter where she started, it would end up the same? No matter the lines, she would only ever have the Big Dipper on her back. She closed her eyes, flipped the test over, exhaled, and looked. In the dark of the bathroom, the countdown started: two lines, nine months. The smell of grape-scented marker drew nearer, ready to circle her into the bungalow.

Would she replace the bookshelves and plants with a crib and rocking chair? Would she have to tell him? Leave another voicemail? Would he move out here? Would she keep it? She tightened the leash on her mind, projects, projects, projects. The woman dragged her feet back to the spare room where her hand latched onto the paintbrush, bristles already soaked in the deep green sky. She recoiled her arm and sent it forward, snapping her wrist towards the imagined crib. Stars shot out around her. The woman reloaded her brush in the ether of green and continued splattering stars like a drunken god. At some point, the brush, slippery with paint, flung out of her hand cratering into the wall. She bent down and dipped her hands into the paint. Dripping with green light, she dragged her hands along the wall, introducing each lonely star to its neighbor with the thin green lines extending from her fingers. She circled the room, constellations sprouting around her. Solitary dots pulled together anyway she liked, the final picture slowly revealing itself. She stood at the center of the room and rotated slowly, before lifting the bottom edge of her shirt, firmly placing her hand on her bare stomach, holding it, and then pulling away. The smell of paint forced her out the back door.

From the deck, the yard extended a twenty meters or so before the jaws of the forest opened, and unkempt spruce needle teeth gnawed along the edges of the grass. Behind the trees, drastically sloping upward, was a hill with a small dirt footpath. She headed forward, her slippers soaked from the raindrops the grass collected during the day. A meteor shower of lightning bugs guided her to the top of the dirt path, where a lonely bench sat on the hilltop.

Breathing heavily, the woman rested with the bench, staring out at the town and the stars. She closed one eye and cast her pointer finger downward to the bungalow. Then, she traced a line to each speck of light in town. She kept moving her finger until she hit the highway, touching a car with headlights speeding back toward the city, toward the blinking voicemail light on his landline, toward everything that brought her here. Finally, she slid the palm of her hand, cracked with dry green paint under her shirt, onto the green handprint resting on her belly. Would she tell him? Would she let him move here? Would she keep it? She couldn’t see the constellation yet, but the stars were at her fingertips. All she knew was first thing tomorrow, she would bring her paint and tools to the top of the hill and fix up this bench.