Frog Song

<I have never been in love, but if I was to compare thee to a summer’s day, I’d choose one like this.>  

The dry spell has broken and now it’s even more beautiful than the days leading up to this of shimmering heat. Rain beats the dusty roads to mud and tall grass bends under the weight of the fat droplets. It hisses on the surface of the pond and sets the frogs singing. The song of this amphibian chorus floats through the windows of the treehouse, muted by the sound of the rain pattering on the leaves surrounding us.  

I sit on the windowsill, and Maggie sits on the rug thrown across the mismatched floorboards. 

<Isn’t mismatched a beautiful word? Correlation created by the fact that these objects are together is because they shouldn't be.> 

She is knitting a scarf for our grandma who is sick. 

<Our grandma is dying, but we don’t tell Maggie that because she’s too little.> 

Maggie struggles with the needles, sometimes dropping stitches, sometimes picking them up. Her round face screws up in concentration, lips pursed. Golden waves fall into her eyes and she flips them away with a quick motion of her head.

<Mama jokes that she found Maggie sleeping inside a hexagon of honeycomb and took her home in her pocket. Maggie always looks two thirds human, one third fairy.> 

“Will there be lightening?” Maggie asks, looking over at me, worried. 

I shake my head, short brown curls swinging from side to side.  

<Mr. Foreman told me that he liked how long and pretty my hair was. But the way he looks at me disgusts me so much I decided I didn’t want him to think I was pretty and went straight to the bathroom, kitchen scissors in hand.> 

I look out at the sky through the curtain of rain. “I don’t think we have to worry about that.” 

“Why not?” 

“Clouds aren’t dark enough. See? Remember when it thundered the night we were in Topeka? The sky looked like soup being stirred.”  

<The night we were in Topeka, Mama and Daddy couldn’t stop fighting. Mama threw the glass from the nightstand at his head, and it shattered against the wall. He slept in the car that night.> 

Maggie giggles. “What kind of soup?” 

“Split pea!” I say. “Split pea and Nimbostratus cloud.” 

“Each time you take a bite, the lighting makes your hair stand on end!” she says, giggling harder. 

<Only seven years old. Life hasn’t caught up with her spirit yet. I act old for my age because that's how they treat me.> 

“Do you need any help?” I ask, gesturing to the sixteen inches of scarf curling from her needles. 

“No!” she pouts, dropping the needles. “Let’s play a game.” 

I slip off the windowsill and cross the treehouse to a chest set against the opposite wall. I lift the padlock, metal dulled by years of use, and sort through the boardgames inside.  

<I threw most of my hair clippings into the toilet and washed the rest down the sink.> 

“Candyland or Monopoly?” I ask, holding up both boxes. 

Maggie looks them over. “Monopoly is boring. And hard!” 

“Candyland it is.” I open the box and a spider, hasty to exit, scuttles across my hand. I scream and throw the box. It flips gracefully and the pieces are propelled into the air. Cards fly in complete disorder like Autumn leaves and the board, split into halves after years of being folded and unfolded, falls unceremoniously to the ground. 

<I used to catch spiders and take them outside, but now I let them be. They must be cold out in the rain. Just because they frighten me doesn’t mean I don’t care about their wellbeing.> 

“What happened?!” Maggie shrieks, seemingly more scared by my outburst than I was of the spider.  

“Nothing! Nothing!” I say. “No harm done.” I bend to pick up the cards then shuffle them into a neat pile.

<I caught Mr. Foreman staring at me when I bent to open the lowest drawer in the kitchen. He had this hungry look on his face that I didn’t like.>

“Do you want to play the blue gingerbread man or the red one?”  

“Yellow?” 

“We're missing the yellow one.” 

“Bummer. Red, I guess.” 

Maggie pulls the top card and hops her piece across the board. We play one game and then another. Outside the rain picks up. I can hear it louder on the leaves. I let Maggie win both times. 

<I want to protect her from everything wrong around her.> 

“I tired of this. I want to go home!” she complains as I reshuffle the cards for a third game. 

“Mama said not to disturb her when she’s with her grownup friends,” I say quickly. “She’ll call me when he’s gone.” 

<We can’t go home yet because Mr. Foreman will still be there, and he will be kissing Mama. Maggie doesn't know yet and Mama said not to tell her.> 

“I hate Mr. Foreman. He’s creepy. I wish Daddy would come home.” 

<Daddy is staying in the Motel 6 by the highway, where he burns holes in the sheets with his cigarettes.> 

“I miss Daddy too.” 

“When do you think he’ll come home?” 

<Mama hit his nose all bloody and told him to go to Hell.>

“Soon.” 

<I hate lying to her.> 

Maggie reaches out the pulls gently on one of my curls, stretching it out, then releasing it and watching it spring back. “I hope Mr. Foreman doesn’t become our Daddy.” 

“What makes you think he will be?” 

<Please God, don’t tell me she’s seen him with Mama. His hands are rough and calloused> 

“I just...” Maggie knots her hands. “He’s been around an awful lot, and Mama now makes us leave when he’s around which she doesn’t do when it’s Reverend Michael or Mrs. Spencer.” 

<Reverend Michael and Mrs. Spencer don't stare at little girls like Mr. Foreman does. I worry he wants me more than Mama.>

“Mags,” I say to her, “I will never let that man replace Daddy. 

“Promise?” Her lip trembles slightly. 

“Promise.” 

<This time I'm not lying one little bit.> 

She stands and walks to the window. “Look! The rain has stopped!” 

I get up and stand beside her, looking out over the pond. She is posed like a still from a movie with her arms folded on the windowsill, chin resting of her wrists. Her golden head doesn’t reach much higher than my elbow. 

<She is very small for her age and very delicate, like the china dolls Grammy keeps in the attic that are the size of real girls and just as breakable.> 

“Can we go catch the frogs?” she asks. I tune back into the frog chorus, realizing I’d stopped noticing it. 

<Nothing is forever. Not my curls or the frogs. Or the dry spell. Time is moving at a million miles an hour. And soon it will be Autumn.>

“Be careful not to hurt them.” 

“I will.” 

<I can’t protect her forever, but I can this summer afternoon.>