rose petals and glitter

There were rose petals and glitter on the stairs. Italian a cappella music was echoing out from the upstairs gable bedroom. The windows were all locked shut against the rain. The oven timer was going off. It sounded like a weary, but resilient and cranky old gentleman pressing the front door bell at equal intervals -- you could feel his annoyance and abhorrence for everyone who lived within through the incessant pattern of sound. 

We’d been stuck inside for a long, long while now. Long enough that the days were all bleeding together in my mind just like how the laundry had bled when Chloe put her pink doll skirt in with Charlie’s white baseball uniform. 

Ruby was pirouetting in the living room. She had pushed all the furniture to the side, put on her old ballet costume and slippers, and done her hair up like the ballerina she had always wanted to be. Every now and again she came down hard with a thump, or spun right into the couch and toppled over, but for the most part she danced like a fairy sprite bouncing over a field of flowers. 

Charlie was playing with his guitar in the basement. I am pretty sure he had turned upright like a bass and was plucking the strings. Colette sat in her white, purple and gold prom dress from last spring at the kitchen table. She was wearing gloves and Ruby had curled her hair. She was writing letters with a quill pen on distressed paper, her wax and seal right by her elbow. She was absolutely delighted with herself and her charade. Chloe was asleep under the table in the tent she had made with Jack. Jack had disappeared. He was good at that. I was in the corner by the china cabinet, practically underneath the stairs. Watching. I had my plaid jumper pulled down over my knees, knees tucked up under my chin, hands tucked under my feet. Colette had braided my hair into two braids while Ruby curled hers. When she was finished, I tied two scarves on the end of them so that they fluttered behind me when I walked and it made me happy. 

Mom came in and turned off the timer. “Juliette, honey, would you please find Chloe?”

“She’s sleeping under the table,” I replied. 

“Would you wake her up please? And get this fort cleaned up. It is time to get ready for dinner. Colette --” she giggled at Colette’s get up. “Who are you writing to?”

“My friends!” Colette responded cheerfully. “Do you want to write with me? Here’s some paper!”

“No, thank you, honey. You should clean that up soon. I need your help with dinner.” Mom pulled the last tray of oatmeal raisin cookies out of the oven and set it on top of the stove.

Colette nodded and went back to her letters. I crawled through the pillow entrance, under a chair, and slithered into Chloe’s fort. She was on a stack of brightly embroidered pillows, three high, her thumb stuck in her mouth and her blonde wispy hair spewed out around her face. It was positively electric thanks to all the flannel static around her. I sat up slowly so I wouldn’t bonk my head and gently shook her shoulder. 

“Time to wake up, Chloe.”

Her long eyelashes snapped open to show those almond brown eyes beneath. She opened her mouth around her thumb to talk: “What time is it?”

“5:15. Time to get dinner ready and to clean up the tent,” I replied, pulling down the lime green polka dotted blanket beside me and folding it up. 

“No!” she wailed, holding out her hands, panic filling her sleepy mind. “No, don’t take down the tent! Jack will be so mad!”

I took both her chubby baby hands in mine. “Hush. It’s okay. All tents have to come down at dinner time. Jack won’t mind.”

“You sure?”

I nodded. “Help me put everything back where it belongs, please.”

Chloe wiped her damp thumb on her jeans and sniffed. “Okay fine… what’s for dinner?”

“Meatloaf.”

“Ew.”

“Pretend you like it.”

“Why?”

“‘Cuz Aunt Laurie worked really hard to make it.”

“Why?”

“Because she loves you and wants to make you tasty food that is good for you.”

“It isn’t tasty.”

“You haven’t tasted this one.”

She scowled and scooted out from under the table with her armload of pillows.

I pulled down the rest of the tent and rolled out from under the table and right into Ruby and Mom fighting over the living room. Ruby wanted to leave the furniture pushed to the side - Mom wanted it put back together and put back together now. I quickly ran upstairs with a pillow firmly over my head and into the butterfly themed bedroom I had shared with Chloe for the past few weeks. 

I stood still in the center of the room with the pillow on my head for a minute, looking out the wide rectangular window above our desk. There was light! Had it stopped raining? I focused on the brick patio for a moment. No raindrops bounced against the puddle. The sky no longer poured like an open faucet. It just dripped like a squeezed sponge. 

I tossed the pillow onto my bed, pulled my floral rain boots and red coat out from the closet and ran back down the stairs. 

“I’m going for a walk,” I called and stepped out the door, shutting it tight behind me before anyone could ask to follow. 

It was quiet. 

Blessedly quiet. I had not felt a quiet this deep in weeks. 

I closed my eyes and let the breeze leftover from the chilling, wild storm run its fingers over me. The sun was not out yet, but there were strips of blue peeking through the grey tangle above. There was hope and mud and puddles. It was clean. All washed clean. 

I began to walk. 

The sidewalk had been brushed over by a river of mud. The spring leaves were all on the ground around my feet in their tight green curls. Flowers that had sprung up innocently in a lull had been scattered like confetti across the gritty street and wild front yards. The wind shook the rain drops onto my skin, a quiet hello and a reminder of the great storm this grey green brown world had endured while I stayed snuggled inside with the hodgepodge of family who had taken shelter in that yellow gabled house with the magnolia tree. 

I kicked my heels in the puddles and licked the rain drizzle off my lips as i walked, swinging my arms and taking deep breaths of the newborn air which seemed to rise up out of the tousled earth and push off the oppressing dark clouds that had pushed down on us for so long. 

“I wonder if anything’s changed,” I murmured to myself. 

“Look!!!”

Ugh. Chloe had followed me outside. Never a moment alone! I really had been lucky not to have a little sister all those years. I shouldn’t have complained. A little cousin here for a month was bad enough. 

“Chloe! Does your mom know you’re out here?”

“Yes! She and Aunt Laurie said I could come if I stayed with you! And look! I’m wearing your old rain boots!” She stomped her bright yellow boots with defiant glee and grabbed my hand, swinging it along as she dragged me forwards. “Come on, Juliette! Juliettey lettey!”

I sighed, laced my big knuckled fingers through her chubby ones and we began our exploration. 

It didn’t take long to find the change. 

We turned into a side street between Gloucester and Raven. The brick cottage with the purple shutters where Maeve and James Kanady lived was half destroyed. The roof was gone. A tree had plummeted down through the second level into the first. You could see their fireplace in the library. There wasn’t any floor around it now. The windows were closed, but there was rain on the inside panes and streaks of mud and flower petals. 

I stopped and sat down on the curb. Chloe sat down beside me. 

“Juliette, what happened?” she asked in wonder. 

I put my arm around her and rested my cheek on the top of her humid blonde hair. “The storm plopped the tree down on their house.”

“I don’t like the storm.”

“Oh, don’t say that. The storm meant that we could stay together at my house for so long.”

Chloe shrugged and bit her finger nails. “You didn’t like it all the time.”

“That’s true, but I am glad it happened. We got to bake cakes and read stories and be sisters for a little while.”

“And name the raindrops.”

I laughed. “Yup. We were especially bored that day.”

“Mommy says we’ll go home in two more days.”

I pulled her a little closer and pushed her hair back from her round pink face. “I’ll miss you, but we’ll both visit each other lots.”

“Even though you’re bunches older than me?”

“Oh yes.”

She smiled and took her fingers out of her mouth. “Can we go stomp in more puddles now? The ground is cold.”

I pulled her up onto her feet and we stomped and giggled all the way back home. A drizzle of rain accompanied us up the front walk and onto the front porch. Aunt Lav and Uncle Jack were sitting on the steps, arguing about the morning weather report. Chloe squished herself in between them contentedly blabbering on through their arguing about our adventure and the fallen tree. I took off my muddy boots and jacket and slid back inside in my striped socks.

There were rose petals and glitter on the stairs. Italian a cappella music was echoing out from the upstairs gable bedroom. The sun porch door, the back door and every window were wide open to let the early, snapping spring air blow out the mustiness inside. Ruby had won the battle in the living room. The furniture was all up against the walls still. She was balancing on her points in the corner while my parents danced and laughed. Chris was yelling about dinner while Colette, still dressed for the prom, was begging him to come dance with her. Jack was banging a hockey stick against the stair banister. I plugged my ears and grinned.