Depositing Garrison's money felt like collecting hush-hush fees, a quiet, under-the-table tap tap tap, as if she were born into the mafia and wasn't to tell. Her mother scoffed at this. Money didn't care where it came from. Life cost just the same. Dina deposited the checks into a savings account; it added up. After her mother's death, the checks arrived in Dolores's name. She considered burning them but didn't. Don't be foolish. The right amount of money gives you freedom. You can do what you want when the bills are paid and your refrigerator is stocked.
She traveled. She went north because most young midwesterners went south. She reached Minot, North Dakota as residents pulled block heaters out of their garages. There was nothing of interest in Minot, but she was tired. She spent two weeks at the Traveler's Lodge where she met a man named Willie at the continental breakfast. He asked to take her to dinner, and she decided it was time to leave.
Dolores checked out and turned her car south and west, meandering along narrow roads that scissored through the Black Hills and then Wyoming. Snow began to fall, and the landscape looked alien. She dreamt of Mars while sleeping in her car at rest stops.
While eating pancakes at a diner in Casper, her Aunt Regina called to say she was entering the hospital and expected to die soon. Two days later and thirty minutes outside of Denver a nurse named Diane called to say that she had. Because there was no one else to tend to her aunt's affairs, Dolores set her course back east toward home.
Truth be told, Dolores did not like to travel, so when she learned she had inherited the house, she pulled up the peach-colored Berber that stretched across every room in the house, including the bathroom, painted the walls white, and moved in.
It was a small house, but it was nice. The back sliding door off the kitchen opened into a fenced-in, oversized back yard with three trees, a shed, and a row of lilacs her aunt had kept pruned into fat eggs. A gate in the back fence opened to a walking trail; and across the walking trail, a carpet of green yawned across two acres. A setup like this needed a dog, and so she brought one home from the shelter. Because most of the dogs she knew were named Buddy and Bailey and Murphy and Lou, she named hers Todd. His breed was anyone's guess; when she was asked, she said "Bastard" and left it at that.
She noticed the boy first, holding the hand of the odd man with the untucked shirt. They stood motionless where the sidewalk met the grass, the sun behind making them featureless like paper dolls. Dolores threw Todd's tennis ball. The boy broke away from his father and ran swinging his plastic library goodie bag beside him.
It always alarmed her to see the same random stranger more than once in a day, made her feel as if God were shuffling chess pieces and she was missing the play. In this case, it alarmed her more in that they seemed to be watching her. (GJE-3: Reappearance of ego. Start again.) And then the boy there, Army crawling under the shrubbery for Todd's tennis ball, her head started to buzz. He reappeared, ball in hand, and threw it back toward the picnic table where his father appeared to be stranded.
"Wonderful! Thank you!" she told him. They both followed Todd.
The boy's father seemed trap, caught, stuck. The buzz grew--vibrations, up threw the heels of her feet. Mountain pose, mountain pose, mountain pose, she told herself. Center of Earth, where are you? The man stammered something in response to something she had said. What had she said? Was this what it felt like to lose ego, finally? That in fact, the moment ego left, one drifted into the ether, finally consumed entirely by energy? If GJE-3 is a success, how will I note it? She noted the irony of wanting to celebrate the accomplishment of a project that would eradicate the compulsion to celebrate accomplishment. And then she began to panic, feeling herself tangling. Overgrown vines in chain link. The buzz grew to a pounding. Unbearable.
And then it stopped. The boy's hand slipped into hers. It was weightless. "Oh," she said. Green fringe from the shrubs stuck in his hair. He had a cowlick at the crown of his head, just as she did, and she resisted the urge to smooth it down.
The boy's father exhaled audibly and unballed his fists. Todd yawned, stretched onto his belly, and sighed with his snout on his front paws, the tennis ball in between.
"This is Phillip. Do you babysit?" the man asked, stiffly.
Phillip. "Sure," said Dolores.
Phillip squeezed her hand, and somewhere in between, she felt her mother say Yes.
Monday, November 5, 2012
Monday, October 29, 2012
Ledge (a song for Richard)
Ledge (a song for Richard)
I'd try if I could, but the world is precarious
Tilting and pitching and spinning and whatnot.
You're squirreling your nuts in the belly of chaos.
Don't mind if I do keep my hands clean.
One must stay protected when under the elements,
Hurling their daggers on heads without hats.
Punching the suckers with faces unguarded.
Watch your step, son.
The world is a ledge, and you're bound to fall off.
Time is a bomb, and it's bound to go off.
It's not paranoia if it's just the truth.
My mind's full of caves too dark to explore.
If I can contain, and I can control,
I won't slip in.
Your youth makes you careless; it binds me in knots.
You're playing with knives and fire in traffic.
The earth is ready to open its jaws.
Watch your step son.
The world is a ledge, and you're bound to fall off.
Time is a bomb, and it's bound to go off.
Words & Music by Patresa Hartman, 2012
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Six Barn Cats Ran Skittery Skat: A children's story
One pig wore a wig as
Two geese in fleece charged the police.
Three cows in the field failed to yield, and
Four big chickens ran like the dickens.
Five little ponies hid fried baloney, while
Six barn cats ran skittery skat.
Seven goats sped away in a boat, leaving
Eight hoot owls screaming foul.
Nine wooly sheep failed to peep, when
Ten thick hens fled their pens.
Two geese in fleece charged the police.
Three cows in the field failed to yield, and
Four big chickens ran like the dickens.
Five little ponies hid fried baloney, while
Six barn cats ran skittery skat.
Seven goats sped away in a boat, leaving
Eight hoot owls screaming foul.
Nine wooly sheep failed to peep, when
Ten thick hens fled their pens.
4. four big chickens ran like the dickens
She rode in the street, although Saturday traffic was heavy at noon. This made Richard grip the steering wheel tightly. The math of following someone on bike while in a car did not align, and he waited in parking lots ahead of her six times before he lost her completely. He rolled down the window; the spots on the glass obscured his thoughts.
In the backseat, Phillip also rolled down his window. And then he rolled it back up.
They cruised the rectangle block and then the next and then the one adjacent to that and so on for 42 minutes. Richard could not comprehend his own behavior, and he worried of this until tapping on the glass in the rear of the vehicle interrupted his concern. Phillip knocked on the window while staring pointedly at the large green across the street. The girl named Dolores, followed by a shaggy gangle of a dog, opened the chain-link gate between a row of backyards and the park, unclipped the dog's leash, and threw a tennis ball into the empty green. Phillip knocked on the glass once more and then rolled it down.
Richard had no plan. "There is nothing to do," he said.
Phillip thumped the rubber soles of his heels together. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. He raised his library book above his head.
"Right," said Richard. He parked alongside the curb, helped Phillip out of his car seat, and locked the doors. "Here," he grabbed Phillip's hand as they crossed the street. He understood this was how fathers and young sons crossed streets together--hands clasped low-v, bodies forming misshapen m. He wished Phillip would hurry.
Richard stopped them on the sidewalk, his toes one inch from the green. There was no paved walking path into the center of the park. Richard did not like walking on the grass. He pictured clods of dirt pasting grass and dead insects to the treads on the undersides of his loafers.
"Todd!" Dolores called after the dog. The dog dropped the ball and barked, dropped its shoulders to the ground and left its rump in the air.
Richard cleared his throat. Phillip's pinky bone felt fragile in his hand. Richard worried children were too delicate to survive into adulthood. There must be a way to reinforce their underdeveloped structures, the way one might reinforce the legs of a weathered bench. "We're going to that table," he said to Phillip, pointing to a picnic table in the middle of the shade cast by a crooked oak tree. "I will release your hand. Do not dawdle, please."
Richard let go Phillip's hand, and Phillip shot across the lawn. The plastic library goodie bag banged into his elbow and then his hip each time his right foot met the ground. Richard had noticed more than once that Phillip, other than his inability or unwillingness to speak, did not share his peculiarities. The boy did not balk at mess, tangle, or uncertainty. Richard considered Nadia may have lied, the DNA test may have been inaccurate, and that the child was not, in fact, his.
Richard pulled Phillip's library books close to his chest and quick-stepped across the park, leaning his weight onto the balls of his feet. They'd had no rain for several days, and the ground was dry. The grass was brittle, and Richard knew what it would feel like if he took off his shoes and socks and went barefoot. When he reached the picnic table, he sat on the top and rested his feet flat on the bench: elevated.
The dog named Todd submitted the ball to the girl named Dolores, and once again she threw it. It rolled under a thick green bush with white blooms.
"Your book, Phillip." Phillip sat next to him and folded his hands in his lap. His right foot went bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce, and Richard tried not to notice. He opened the book (also pretending that a borrowed book was not riddled with bacteria) and began to read aloud, steadily, without the sing-song ditty he despised in children's storytelling.
The dog named Todd yapped and clawed at the dirt beneath the bush.
"…three cows in the field failed to yield. Four big chickens ran like the dickens. Five little ponies…" bounce bounce bounce bounce. "Five little ponies…" bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce. "Five…"
The picnic table shook lightly as Phillip leapt to the ground and sprinted across the green to the bush with the white flowers. "Phillip!" Richard shouted. Phillip sidled in beside the dog who seemed to only barely notice. Phillip's head and torso disappeared into the foliage. Richard stood on the picnic table bench. The grass was too brittle. He knew how it would feel. "Phillip!" The soles of his shoes were not thick enough. He mapped the terrain from the table to the dog and the boy and now the young woman named Dolores.
Phillip scooted backwards and reappeared, his hair swooshed one way and another, a confusing mash of geometric opposition. Phillip held the ball above his head then offered it to the dog. Dolores smiled and said something Richard could not hear. Phillip threw the ball toward the picnic table, and the dog gave chase, its snout split wide with teeth in a canine grin. The ball rolled under the table and stopped. Three unidentifiable insects skittered around the ball and under a mound of loose dirt. The dog smelled of sweat and river mud as he hunkered low and army crawled under the bench. His back knocked the underside of the bench, and Richard felt the vibration in his jaw.
"Hello, stranger," said Dolores. Phillip hopped beside her. "Doing okay?"she smiled and nodded toward Richard's feet, immovable on the bench. The dog completed its retrieval, smacked its gums, and snorted.
"I am not myself." Richard climbed down from the bench and winced. A thin trickle of breeze swiped at the skin of his stomach, and he realized with alarm that his shirt had come untucked again.
Jesus, you are unfortunate, he heard.
"Phillip, it's time to go." He balled his fists. "Phillip."
Phillip slipped one hand into the young woman's hand. "Oh," she said.
In the backseat, Phillip also rolled down his window. And then he rolled it back up.
They cruised the rectangle block and then the next and then the one adjacent to that and so on for 42 minutes. Richard could not comprehend his own behavior, and he worried of this until tapping on the glass in the rear of the vehicle interrupted his concern. Phillip knocked on the window while staring pointedly at the large green across the street. The girl named Dolores, followed by a shaggy gangle of a dog, opened the chain-link gate between a row of backyards and the park, unclipped the dog's leash, and threw a tennis ball into the empty green. Phillip knocked on the glass once more and then rolled it down.
Richard had no plan. "There is nothing to do," he said.
Phillip thumped the rubber soles of his heels together. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. He raised his library book above his head.
"Right," said Richard. He parked alongside the curb, helped Phillip out of his car seat, and locked the doors. "Here," he grabbed Phillip's hand as they crossed the street. He understood this was how fathers and young sons crossed streets together--hands clasped low-v, bodies forming misshapen m. He wished Phillip would hurry.
Richard stopped them on the sidewalk, his toes one inch from the green. There was no paved walking path into the center of the park. Richard did not like walking on the grass. He pictured clods of dirt pasting grass and dead insects to the treads on the undersides of his loafers.
"Todd!" Dolores called after the dog. The dog dropped the ball and barked, dropped its shoulders to the ground and left its rump in the air.
Richard cleared his throat. Phillip's pinky bone felt fragile in his hand. Richard worried children were too delicate to survive into adulthood. There must be a way to reinforce their underdeveloped structures, the way one might reinforce the legs of a weathered bench. "We're going to that table," he said to Phillip, pointing to a picnic table in the middle of the shade cast by a crooked oak tree. "I will release your hand. Do not dawdle, please."
Richard let go Phillip's hand, and Phillip shot across the lawn. The plastic library goodie bag banged into his elbow and then his hip each time his right foot met the ground. Richard had noticed more than once that Phillip, other than his inability or unwillingness to speak, did not share his peculiarities. The boy did not balk at mess, tangle, or uncertainty. Richard considered Nadia may have lied, the DNA test may have been inaccurate, and that the child was not, in fact, his.
Richard pulled Phillip's library books close to his chest and quick-stepped across the park, leaning his weight onto the balls of his feet. They'd had no rain for several days, and the ground was dry. The grass was brittle, and Richard knew what it would feel like if he took off his shoes and socks and went barefoot. When he reached the picnic table, he sat on the top and rested his feet flat on the bench: elevated.
The dog named Todd submitted the ball to the girl named Dolores, and once again she threw it. It rolled under a thick green bush with white blooms.
"Your book, Phillip." Phillip sat next to him and folded his hands in his lap. His right foot went bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce, and Richard tried not to notice. He opened the book (also pretending that a borrowed book was not riddled with bacteria) and began to read aloud, steadily, without the sing-song ditty he despised in children's storytelling.
The dog named Todd yapped and clawed at the dirt beneath the bush.
"…three cows in the field failed to yield. Four big chickens ran like the dickens. Five little ponies…" bounce bounce bounce bounce. "Five little ponies…" bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce. "Five…"
The picnic table shook lightly as Phillip leapt to the ground and sprinted across the green to the bush with the white flowers. "Phillip!" Richard shouted. Phillip sidled in beside the dog who seemed to only barely notice. Phillip's head and torso disappeared into the foliage. Richard stood on the picnic table bench. The grass was too brittle. He knew how it would feel. "Phillip!" The soles of his shoes were not thick enough. He mapped the terrain from the table to the dog and the boy and now the young woman named Dolores.
Phillip scooted backwards and reappeared, his hair swooshed one way and another, a confusing mash of geometric opposition. Phillip held the ball above his head then offered it to the dog. Dolores smiled and said something Richard could not hear. Phillip threw the ball toward the picnic table, and the dog gave chase, its snout split wide with teeth in a canine grin. The ball rolled under the table and stopped. Three unidentifiable insects skittered around the ball and under a mound of loose dirt. The dog smelled of sweat and river mud as he hunkered low and army crawled under the bench. His back knocked the underside of the bench, and Richard felt the vibration in his jaw.
"Hello, stranger," said Dolores. Phillip hopped beside her. "Doing okay?"she smiled and nodded toward Richard's feet, immovable on the bench. The dog completed its retrieval, smacked its gums, and snorted.
"I am not myself." Richard climbed down from the bench and winced. A thin trickle of breeze swiped at the skin of his stomach, and he realized with alarm that his shirt had come untucked again.
Jesus, you are unfortunate, he heard.
"Phillip, it's time to go." He balled his fists. "Phillip."
Phillip slipped one hand into the young woman's hand. "Oh," she said.
Sunday, October 21, 2012
3. Dina
Jesus, Child, what have you done with your hair? I tried to teach you pride in your polish, and I failed. I tried to teach you insensitivity, too, and here you are over-feeling the world. I had no idea I was such an ineffective mother. If only you had kept the journals, asked for photocopies, something. You would have seen more. You were not wanted? You were a burden? Of course you were not wanted! Of course you were a burden! Had I caught on sooner, I probably would have gotten rid of you all together. Imagine how different we'd be. Me, alive and amazing; you, with a belly full of pie and casserole, tugging on some poorly dressed woman's apron strings. I was a single woman. I had plans, Honey. But here I am, dead and free: I could be anywhere. Yet, of all the places I could be, I am exactly here, witnessing your under-whelming hair. Want and Burden have nothing to do with it. I loved the hell out of you, my brooding, thin-skinned daughter. No question. Cut out the garbage-picking, and you'll see that.
I hate coming to the library with you. You could do anything. Garrison's checks are plenty. (I did that for you. You don't understand; but you're welcome.) It smells like my father here--sweaty shoes and old man beard. Why does everyone dress so badly at the library? I hate sweat pants. I hate the smell of my father, may he rot, but I had to come with you today, Dolores. I need you to see this child, Dolores. This man here (at least he's tucked in his shirt), are you looking? He is unfortunate, I know. He is a pitiful sort of geometry, isn't he? He is a protractor and a time release capsule. No one should live like this. But, see the child. This boy is beautiful. Do you see this light? My God, look at all that light. Do you see? I need you to see this boy. Dolores, please look. Dolores. Dolores. Dolores. Dolor...
There.
Excuse me, Sir. Oh, you are unfortunate, aren't you? Tsk. Sir. Here, look. Just…
Dolores, your tights. Understand, dear. This is my work.
I hate coming to the library with you. You could do anything. Garrison's checks are plenty. (I did that for you. You don't understand; but you're welcome.) It smells like my father here--sweaty shoes and old man beard. Why does everyone dress so badly at the library? I hate sweat pants. I hate the smell of my father, may he rot, but I had to come with you today, Dolores. I need you to see this child, Dolores. This man here (at least he's tucked in his shirt), are you looking? He is unfortunate, I know. He is a pitiful sort of geometry, isn't he? He is a protractor and a time release capsule. No one should live like this. But, see the child. This boy is beautiful. Do you see this light? My God, look at all that light. Do you see? I need you to see this boy. Dolores, please look. Dolores. Dolores. Dolores. Dolor...
There.
Excuse me, Sir. Oh, you are unfortunate, aren't you? Tsk. Sir. Here, look. Just…
Dolores, your tights. Understand, dear. This is my work.
Friday, October 19, 2012
Stuff & Such (song w/ video - Dolores)
Stuff & Such
(Dolores)
words & music by Patresa Hartman, October 2012
An I without an I
Can swoop and soar and sail and fly
Never lonely, when you got every- thing
And nothing. It's the same thing.
No limits. Just rooftops of treeptops.
No time. Just stems on a vine
And towers that bend and shed leaves.
Too lightly loaded to fret and grieve.
Over stuff and such.
Don't need much.
Stuff and such.
A dog without a leash
Can run and roll and leap and feast.
Never lonely, cause he got every- thing
And nothing. It's the same thing.
No limits. Just rooftops of treetops.
No time. Just stems on a vine
And towers that bend and shed leaves.
Too lightly loaded to fret and grieve.
Over stuff and such.
Don't need much.
Stuff and such.
Quiet the mental, and I'll be elemental.
When ego go catatonic, soul go supersonic.
No more me. Just easy.
Stuff and such.
Don't need much.
Stuff and such.
An I without an I.
A dog without a leash.
Don't need much.
© Patresa Hartman, 2012
2. Dolores.
It started with an article about jellyfish in National Geographic. No egos, no brains, no instincts, jellyfish had survived pre-history on reflex and a willingness to drop intention of any kind. Dolores Moynihan decided this was a nice way to live, floating in the tide, and so began a series of Great Jelly Experiments. She would live like the jellyfish.
Great Jelly Experiment #1 (GJE-1): Wherein, 100% wordlessness may be attained and maintained for at least 90 days. It failed decidedly and immediately. She had little issue with not speaking words; she could even sidestep writing them if she narrowed her existence to places that required little to no human interaction. Not hearing or reading them required significant effort but was doable. However, she could not stop thinking in words. She drowned 100 times a day in her own brain chatter. Within hours of initiation, she understood that cognitive literacy was irreversible without significant brain trauma, and therefore ceded GJE-1.
Great Jelly Experiment #2 (GJE-2): Wherein, 100% voicelessness may be attained and maintained for at least 90 days. As discovered during the short-lived GJE-1, Dolores had a tremendous capacity for silence. In fact, this came so easily to her that it started to feel less like an experiment and more like a simple series of observations about how she spent her day. Out of pride and principle, Dolores abandoned GJE-2 after 6 days.
Great Jelly Experiment #3 (GJE-3): Wherein, 100% "I"-lessness may be attained and maintained for at least 90 days. The rub of GJE-3, like GJE-2, lay in her brain's constant dialogue. At the word go, Dolores looked into the mirror over the bathroom sink and thought, "I will squish you, Ego. I will squish you dead." And so she started again.
Of the trio of GJEs, Dolores decided GJE-3 was likely the most worthwhile. She did not know exactly what would happen, free of I, but she sensed it was worth figuring. Her childhood, she noted with the clarity of hindsight, had been defined and redefined and redefined again by her mother's own self-obsession, by her mother's ever-present and all-encompassing I. The weight of Dina Moynihan's I could have pressed the Grand Canyon deep enough to spill fire from the earth's core. Instead, it killed her.
Her mother had lived in love of her own reflection until the Sunday night she died over the steering wheel with two bullets in her beautiful head. She left a cracked mirror, her purse, and its tight-lipped clues by her car in the parking lot of the studio where she read the broadcast news to Des Moines each night. The mirror and the contents of that purse sat in a Ziploc bag in a Forensics warehouse. Twenty-eight dollars and 42 cents were tucked into a leather wallet along with credit and rewards cards, tampons, 3 tubes of lipstick, 1 used kleenex, rhinestone reading glasses, a comb, another mirror, and an unused can of mace. In addition to these minor personal details, detectives picked from her mother's desk and closet: three journals, a large collection of embarrassing love letters, and unread copies of Better Homes and Gardens, Ladies Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, the Sears catalog, and other slick-paged mailings, all with the side notes of her mother scrawled at strange angles in page corners.
Of these contents, Dolores only missed Better Homes and Gardens--the initials R.L. and time "10:30" loosely penned on the corner of the front cover. She did not miss the journals, as she knew without reading that the contents would confirm what she'd known since she was old enough to name thoughts: Dolores had been a burden, neither planned nor wanted. As for the letters, they came from lustful men named Todd and Dave and Reinhart and Demarcus who had wives and girlfriends and children in painted houses on cul de sacs. Her mother had read her each letter, sparing no elicit detail, until Dolores was certain she would never date or marry. Romance was too harrowing, and she could not imagine her body doing the things these men imagined of her mother's.
One letter, however, eluded the detectives, safely tucked inside Dolores's English notebook, yellowed and folded until the creases perforated. Garrison had written it exactly nine months before Dolores was born. Garrison was her father. The penmanship in his letters matched the penmanship of the checks that arrived every month, made out to her mother, and then made out to Dolores after her mother's death. He was a wealthy man, this Garrison, and the zeros multiplied on the checks. Although Dina never confessed, Dolores understood she had loved him.
Her father had three children with his wife, Denise; none of them, including Denise, knew of Dolores, as far as she knew. When it was discovered that Dina had established a will including guardianship of Dolores six months before her death, Dolores considered pounding at their front door in dramatic fashion. Rather than spend the remainder of her dependent youth with her mother's Aunt Regina, whose warmest attribute was her severity, Dolores could force Garrison to take her in, raise her, love her, give her advice, make eggs with her in the morning, and stare down her boyfriends in the evenings. Her nerve buckled. In the end, as it turned out, there were benefits to staying with an old woman who did not care enough to insist on anything but tidiness. Garrison's checks arrived on time, and when she graduated from high school, Dolores took her saved loot and left. Garrison's checks found her everywhere.
In the five years since her mother's death, they were no closer to understanding what had happened so many nights ago in a parking lot on a Sunday as they were from the start. An unnamed calm settled as Dolores learned to float through the empty spaces between answers. She kept her load light and her will in-check. Then, on an indescript Saturday in June, a man with an untucked shirt and his strange son stood across from her library desk. The tide began to twitch and rise.
Great Jelly Experiment #1 (GJE-1): Wherein, 100% wordlessness may be attained and maintained for at least 90 days. It failed decidedly and immediately. She had little issue with not speaking words; she could even sidestep writing them if she narrowed her existence to places that required little to no human interaction. Not hearing or reading them required significant effort but was doable. However, she could not stop thinking in words. She drowned 100 times a day in her own brain chatter. Within hours of initiation, she understood that cognitive literacy was irreversible without significant brain trauma, and therefore ceded GJE-1.
Great Jelly Experiment #2 (GJE-2): Wherein, 100% voicelessness may be attained and maintained for at least 90 days. As discovered during the short-lived GJE-1, Dolores had a tremendous capacity for silence. In fact, this came so easily to her that it started to feel less like an experiment and more like a simple series of observations about how she spent her day. Out of pride and principle, Dolores abandoned GJE-2 after 6 days.
Great Jelly Experiment #3 (GJE-3): Wherein, 100% "I"-lessness may be attained and maintained for at least 90 days. The rub of GJE-3, like GJE-2, lay in her brain's constant dialogue. At the word go, Dolores looked into the mirror over the bathroom sink and thought, "I will squish you, Ego. I will squish you dead." And so she started again.
Of the trio of GJEs, Dolores decided GJE-3 was likely the most worthwhile. She did not know exactly what would happen, free of I, but she sensed it was worth figuring. Her childhood, she noted with the clarity of hindsight, had been defined and redefined and redefined again by her mother's own self-obsession, by her mother's ever-present and all-encompassing I. The weight of Dina Moynihan's I could have pressed the Grand Canyon deep enough to spill fire from the earth's core. Instead, it killed her.
Her mother had lived in love of her own reflection until the Sunday night she died over the steering wheel with two bullets in her beautiful head. She left a cracked mirror, her purse, and its tight-lipped clues by her car in the parking lot of the studio where she read the broadcast news to Des Moines each night. The mirror and the contents of that purse sat in a Ziploc bag in a Forensics warehouse. Twenty-eight dollars and 42 cents were tucked into a leather wallet along with credit and rewards cards, tampons, 3 tubes of lipstick, 1 used kleenex, rhinestone reading glasses, a comb, another mirror, and an unused can of mace. In addition to these minor personal details, detectives picked from her mother's desk and closet: three journals, a large collection of embarrassing love letters, and unread copies of Better Homes and Gardens, Ladies Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, the Sears catalog, and other slick-paged mailings, all with the side notes of her mother scrawled at strange angles in page corners.
Of these contents, Dolores only missed Better Homes and Gardens--the initials R.L. and time "10:30" loosely penned on the corner of the front cover. She did not miss the journals, as she knew without reading that the contents would confirm what she'd known since she was old enough to name thoughts: Dolores had been a burden, neither planned nor wanted. As for the letters, they came from lustful men named Todd and Dave and Reinhart and Demarcus who had wives and girlfriends and children in painted houses on cul de sacs. Her mother had read her each letter, sparing no elicit detail, until Dolores was certain she would never date or marry. Romance was too harrowing, and she could not imagine her body doing the things these men imagined of her mother's.
One letter, however, eluded the detectives, safely tucked inside Dolores's English notebook, yellowed and folded until the creases perforated. Garrison had written it exactly nine months before Dolores was born. Garrison was her father. The penmanship in his letters matched the penmanship of the checks that arrived every month, made out to her mother, and then made out to Dolores after her mother's death. He was a wealthy man, this Garrison, and the zeros multiplied on the checks. Although Dina never confessed, Dolores understood she had loved him.
Her father had three children with his wife, Denise; none of them, including Denise, knew of Dolores, as far as she knew. When it was discovered that Dina had established a will including guardianship of Dolores six months before her death, Dolores considered pounding at their front door in dramatic fashion. Rather than spend the remainder of her dependent youth with her mother's Aunt Regina, whose warmest attribute was her severity, Dolores could force Garrison to take her in, raise her, love her, give her advice, make eggs with her in the morning, and stare down her boyfriends in the evenings. Her nerve buckled. In the end, as it turned out, there were benefits to staying with an old woman who did not care enough to insist on anything but tidiness. Garrison's checks arrived on time, and when she graduated from high school, Dolores took her saved loot and left. Garrison's checks found her everywhere.
In the five years since her mother's death, they were no closer to understanding what had happened so many nights ago in a parking lot on a Sunday as they were from the start. An unnamed calm settled as Dolores learned to float through the empty spaces between answers. She kept her load light and her will in-check. Then, on an indescript Saturday in June, a man with an untucked shirt and his strange son stood across from her library desk. The tide began to twitch and rise.
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