Three Stories

The Wall


The wall separating her yard from the road was too low; walkers, joggers, bikers, and drivers were more visible than she preferred, so she hired us to increase its height. Manny, Rocco, and the rest of our crew combed the surrounding woods for stones. We stacked the selection in the style of the existing wall. She gave us green juice and spoke using the little Spanish she knew, though we understood her English fine.

She sunbathed on her deck, with cucumbers covering her eyes, a yellow towel over her head, and a spray bottle beneath her lawn chair, supervising our work from a distance. She spoke on the telephone and tossed pistachio shells into the grass. Each day the wall grew, we grew: darker, further from the ground, closer to the sun. Sheltered from the walkers, joggers, bikers, and drivers that irritated her, she grew paler and more serene.

Still, she was not satisfied. Now the wall reached the treetops. The selection of stones in the surrounding woods was scant. She gave us a few days to search for rocks in neighboring towns. On one of the days we were gone, while she was picking weeds from her garden, a bear approached her. She screamed for help and, like a swimmer paddling through the garden bed for something to cling onto, tightly grasped a root. The bear dragged her from the garden across the lawn.

They found her body in a raspberry bush, unscathed, at the edge of the woods. People passed the wall that day. None could see her. After hearing the news, one neighbor said he heard a scream but ignored it, unable to locate its source. She died from a heart attack. Her garden was a mess; the giant root she had clung to mutilated the bed.

A year later, her husband held a memorial in their backyard. He called us to fix the garden, which we worked on free of charge. The wall was gone. Walkers, joggers, bikers, and drivers passing by stopped, compelled to join the service.

Your Fault


Caroline’s big brother, Gregory, had his friend, Marshall, over. While Gregory and Marshall played basketball, you and Caroline played with her small dog. At home, you had a big dog. You roamed Carrie’s house, placing her dog on top of kitchen counters and in different chairs. The dog squirmed and whined in your arms when you held it and teethed at your ankles when you put it down because it was a puppy. You took the dog outside and ran the dog up and down a wooden skating ramp in the driveway. Caroline took the dog on the jungle gym, which was a close call because when you tried to climb the jungle gym with the dog, it fell and dangled from its leash, and that was scary because the dog was out of breath, so you had to care for it and step down from the jungle gym to help it and give it water. You were tired from the long day. You went inside and gave the dog some water, tried to pet it and leave it alone.

You raced Caroline up the bifurcated staircase to her brother’s room, which she said you needed permission to enter. She said she needed to take a break from hanging out with you. She wanted to read her book now and told you to wait in her brother’s room, which you took as permission to enter.

“And don’t sit on my brother’s bed. Don’t sit on anything,” she said. “I’ll be back. You wait right there.”

You waited right there. You stood in her brother’s room by the door. You took her order to stand as an order to hold your breath, close your eyes, count to infinity, and shrink. Eventually, you had to pee, so you crept to the toilet and sat for a while, maintaining awareness of the hallway and your imminent return to the door. You wanted your mother, your stuffy, a head scratch, and a plum. The little dog scared you. Rather, that you scared the little dog made your stomach hurt. Before you returned to your position at the door, Caroline was in the bathroom looking at you with your pants to your ankles. She came to the toilet, and when you thought she might say something harsh, she gently asked you to get up because she had to pee. When she was finished, she told you to come with her, and she invited you into Gregory’s bed, at which point you forgot about how bad your stomach hurt and how much you wanted your mom due to the comfort of Caroline’s attention and sudden change and embrace of your company. You figured she wasn’t lying when she said she needed to be alone and read Dear Dumb Diary.

She took Marshall’s phone and slid it under her shirt, then yours, into her pants, and then yours. Together, you examined the pictures, Caroline clutching your wrist and laughing into your shoulder at the idea of Marshall finding them on his phone. She placed the phone back on the side table, and you resumed your position by the door, but she tugged your wrist and dragged you along with her. “I’m hungry,” she said. And you felt relieved because you were too, but were too nervous to admit your hunger for fear of being called fat and told to stand in another doorway and wait until she was finished eating. In her kitchen, you shared a spoon and ate from a carton of chocolate ice cream.

Caroline’s mother was in the kitchen talking on the phone. When she got off the phone, Caroline began to laugh, and you joined her. Her mother gave you wet towels to wipe your faces.

“What are you two laughing about?”

You and Caroline told her mother what you were laughing about. Shari’s smile fell. She raised her voice, demanded the phone, and asked you to delete the photos. You couldn’t. You didn’t know how. Now, what you don’t remember is what happened with the phone, the photos, and Marshall. You don’t remember how Shari explained why she needed Marshall’s phone. You only remember Shari in the kitchen, holding the phone, telling Marshall that she could not give it back, making you apologize to him for what you had done without telling him what you had done.

Years later, it’s your brother’s piano recital. You invite Caroline to come. She is supposed to sleep at your house. She was supposed to be there before the recital, but she didn’t show up. Her mother calls your mom and says she’ll meet you at the venue. You are disappointed. When you arrive, you wait for Caroline, but she never comes. You start to worry. You feel angry. You remember hearing once that anger is sadness turned inward, which makes you angrier. You find out from your mother that on their way to drop Caroline at your brother’s piano recital, her father hit their dog in the driveway with his car.

“Her father is trying to put the dog back together. Its stomach has fallen out.”

You don’t understand what your mother is talking about.

“What? Oh no. What. Is it going to die?”

“It’s graphic. The dog. It was under the tire and it’s. He doesn’t want to move the car and make it worse.”

There is a birthday party tomorrow, and you already have a feeling about how you’ll feel there tomorrow. When you get to the party you try to remember if the feeling that it was your fault started before Caroline didn’t show up at your house yesterday, or when she didn’t show up at your brother’s piano recital last night, or when her mother called to tell your mother what happened last night, or when your mother told you what her mother told her happened last night. Caroline and your friends ignore you at the birthday party, and you stand still in the doorway by the bathroom counting the time until the party ends which feels like never, and you feel like closing your eyes but that would be weird and you’d probably draw attention to yourself, and you wish you could shrink, and you recount what happened before the birthday party and what you could have done to make her upset, and your recounting leads you back to when the dog was a puppy that squirmed in your arms when you held it and teethed at your ankles when you put it down. Caroline’s father picked you up from your house in his convertible, and you, the summer wind hitting your faces, felt good. Playing with the dog at home, putting it on the skate ramp, in the pool, on top of the washing machine, knowing not to put the dog in the oven or the microwave or inside the washing machine because you heard on the radio that that would kill the puppy and realized you had those ideas too, but they hadn’t surfaced until you heard about the boy who did it to his dog on the radio and good thing you heard about the boy because the ideas might have never surfaced until you did it yourself, so it was a good thing you knew that now because you had a curiosity too, but not enough that it surfaced. Probably because you were too preoccupied with your urge to put your own body into spaces you were growing out of, such as piles of clothing and leaves, and hampers, and luggage conveyor belts, and wishing fountains in the park and at the mall, and cabinets, and crawl spaces, and laundry chutes, you threw coins down.

You forget what you are recounting, but are reminded of not knowing certain things, like when Caroline’s father came with you into the bathroom and you pulled down your pants to use the toilet, and he yelled at you, saying you should know better than to pull your pants down in front of an adult. It seemed so obvious to him. Later, you think about Marshall’s phone and wonder what happened to the photos, and are thankful that Shari got so angry, and that Caroline’s father got so angry, and that that girl you pushed down in ballet class started to cry because, as you are learning, you were not taught where your body starts and hers ends. Your life is not unlike your worry about a game of hide and seek: How long have you been hiding before you should start to worry that no one’s coming to find you? And you feel you are still learning things, such as when you are pulling on the leash so hard that the dog is choking. And when to use like instead of such as. And that the dog is not choking, not because the collar isn’t too tight, but because you are not pulling it too hard. And you are grateful to have discovered the things you do know, such as if you push Rose Beerman down in ballet class, she will cry, if you hold a puppy in your arms, it will squirm and whine, and if you put it down, it will start to teethe at your ankles. Your parents won’t kick you out of their bathroom when they follow you into the bathroom and you pull down your pants to pee, but Caroline’s mother will delete those photos from Marshall’s phone. If you pull on the dog’s leash, it will bark, and if you chase the dog, it will run down the driveway, and a car will run it over. Just kidding. And if your friend tells you to wait right there, she’ll return, and if your friend ignores you after her dog dies, you may start to feel angry, but inside, you are sad because you know it’s not your fault.

Where we don't feel


I’m scared that the student, Miles Benjamin, who sits in front of me, is going to kill me. When he asks me to use the bathroom almost every day, just as class begins, I let him go. If you stood before his friend, Darius, you would think he was a model student. His head is always in a book. I sit behind Darius. He watches television episodes on his phone between the pages of his book. I let Darius watch episodes during class periods because I fear he might be violent. I hope that if he got violent, he would remember that I did not rat him out for watching television.

Sawyer is friends with Miles Benjamin and Darius. He wears his mask below his nose. When I ask Sawyer to lift his mask to cover his nose, he doesn’t listen. When sneezing, Sawyer lowers his mask. He wears sagging pants. I asked him to pull those up.

I read their journals. Ms. Williamson allows me to do so because it’s part of my student teaching requirement. The last prompt was: Write about something fun you did over the summer. Miles Benjamin wrote about soaking a football in gasoline with Sawyer and lighting it on fire. Darius wrote about discovering a bush of berries in the woods with his brothers, eating them, and how their clothing and hands were soiled with red juice. Sawyer wrote that he did not have fun over the summer.

I am sure Sawyer will kill me. To the far left of the classroom is a candy drawer for the candy raffle. Though I’m in a high school again, I must remind myself that I am not a high schooler. My eating habits from high school have returned. Ms. Williamson keeps the candy in the third drawer of her filing cabinet. Before it got bad, when all the students had left the room for lunch, I would ask her for a piece because exposing my desire in front of the students made me feel too vulnerable.

I took only one piece, but then I’d ask, she’d say yes, and I took two or three pieces. They were fifty-calorie pieces. When Ms. Williamson went to the bathroom, the copier, or the main office, I would go into the drawer and take a piece, then another, and another. Soon, half the bag was empty, so I bought a new bag for the class. I promised myself I wouldn’t take more candy from the bag. I brought the bag home with me. After dinner, I took one piece from the new bag. Then another. I made myself stop and hid the bag in my closet.

I brought the bag to school the next day. I hoped Ms. Williamson wouldn’t notice that the bag had already been opened. I planned to say that I didn’t see the tear in the bag and that I would buy a new one, but Ms. Williamson didn’t notice or didn’t care because she didn’t mention it. Then it was Friday again. More kids took from the bag, so I stopped worrying about the tear in it. I stopped asking Sawyer to pull up his mask and his pants. I saw him trip. I helped him up. I hoped that he would remember that I helped him up.

When I was in high school, my sister drowned in a river. We were on a camping trip with her friends. An undertow pulled us toward the bottom of the river. We swam. My sister remained in the undertow, unresistant. I wanted to go back for her. I went back for her. The undertow pulled me down. I swam away. I told her to swim away.

There was a funeral, then a shiva. People brought food to our house almost every day. I was sad, yet I didn’t feel what the sympathy cards suggested. Someone brought us a brisket. We put it in the fridge. Behind the brisket, there was a turquoise box. I moved the brisket and opened the box. I took a macaron from the box and closed the lid. I closed the fridge, then reopened it. I moved the brisket, took the box, opened the box, and took another macaron. Soon, I had eaten ten. There were twenty left. Then there were ten left. Then five. I shoved the box back into the fridge, behind some Brussels sprouts, rice pilaf, and spaghetti squash, hiding it all behind the brisket. When I went into the fridge next, I took a cucumber. I drank a glass of water. I read five pages of a book. I held a plank for seventy-three seconds. I was back in the fridge with my arms moving past the meat, the squash, and the sprouts, opening the box and removing the wax paper. A pink one, a white one, a brown one, a yellow one, a green one.

One day, I came to school and Ms. Williamson told me there had been an explosion in Miles Benjamin's house.

“It blew up?”

“Yes.”

Ms. Williamson explained that Miles Benjamin lived in the house of a young couple. He lived with his mom and sister on one side, and the couple on the other. Miles Benjamin, his mother, and his sister were safe.

"The husband died, and the wife is in the hospital. It was the propane tank that did it. The tank exploded. The whole town felt the explosion, but we didn’t feel it," Ms. Williamson said. "We are deep in the woods where we don’t feel anything."