Elizabeth Wrenn - Last Known Address

Home. The purple and white crocuses would soon be dotting that hillside, not quite the cheerleaders of spring that tulips or even daffodils are, but maybe the junior varsity squad, smaller, less popular, but still cute and perky. Every year, just when she needed it most, they had cheered her into believing that spring would once again be victorious over the long, northern Iowa winter. But maybe not this year. Her life had been so turned upside down that now even the spinning of the earth on its axis seemed to be in question.

She was vaguely aware of C.C. and Shelly quietly talking, the kind of softly urgent exchanges between upright people around a prone person, in a coma maybe, or discovered inert on the sidewalk. But Meg drifted away, backing out of reality, which she did so often lately.

But reality, as it always does, followed. The familiar image of her husband, not her, ensconced on the couch with Buster sent a dull ache through her. Then a thought made her heart skip and race in a way that was both invigorating and life-threatening, all at once. Maybe Grant was there now! She put a hand to her chest, unconsciously spreading her fingers wide, like a net over her sternum. Maybe he had come back, was even now reading one of the letters she’d written and left for him, just in case, on the kitchen table.

A weak groan escaped from deep within her. She knew all too well that her house was empty–empty of children, empty of Buster, empty of Grant, and most of all empty of herself, because even when she’d been living there, alone, the past few weeks, she’d felt barely a shell of herself. And maybe even before Grant had left. In her heart of hearts, she’d known that their marriage had been leaking air for years, invisibly, like a balloon forgotten in the corner of the living room long after the party is over. Wizened, sinking almost imperceptibly, but undeniably, weighted down now by the very ribbon that was supposed to keep it from floating away.

‘Meg-legs?’ C.C. enquired again. Meg held up a finger, asking for another minute before anything was required of her. ‘Okay, honey, take your time. We’re warm and toasty in here. And we’ve got food.’

Good ol’ C.C. She would sit quietly in the back for days, munching her chocolate bars, supporting Meg in her fragility. In fact, it wasn’t her own but C.C.’s situation that had finally made this trip happen, first with Lenny’s death, then Aunt Georgie’s and the inheritance of Dogs’ Wood, the house in Tennessee.

So much change. Wasn’t life supposed to be less full of change, not more, with age? She wasn’t sure where she’d gotten that idea, but it was dead wrong.

A noisy clatter startled her. She abruptly sat up, bringing her seatback forward with the flip of the lever. The rain had suddenly intensified, the fat drops making a chaotic drumbeat on the car.

‘Oh, yay. That’s what we needed. A percussive soundtrack to our…situation,’ said Shelly, looking out her window, her enthusiasm of a moment ago gone.

Meg looked at her friends; they were both gazing skyward, hunched down into themselves as if they expected the roof to fall in. Meg grasped the key again, her mouth set. She felt both women’s rapt attention on her. C.C. began muttering a prayer.

‘C’mon, baby. You can do it,’ Meg said loudly, over the rain and over the prayer, deciding that talking directly to the car would be more productive than to a God she no longer believed in. ‘You can do it.’

It pulled at her throat to hear her words, exactly the way she’d urged on her kids, especially for all their firsts: letting go of her fingers and taking those first robotic steps on stubby legs across the living room; or when they were learning to dive off the edge of the pool, their little toes curled tightly around the cement edge, bony knees knocking from chill and fear, arms plastered against ears, fingers tight, hands laid perfectly, one over the other, a prayer pose if ever there was one, with Meg treading water, waiting, saying, ‘You can do it! I know you can!’; or as they wobbled off on their little bikes with the small, fat tires but, for the first time, no training wheels, defying both gravity and Meg’s own death-grip on their bicycle seat till she had to let go; or when they first merged into rush-hour traffic on the freeway with their still-crisp learner’s permit tucked proudly into their purse or wallet, both child and mother’s knuckles white; or when they were sitting on their overstuffed college suitcase, finally succeeding in zippering it closed, and then the child who had been so irritable and distant all summer, nearly bursting with the need to leave home, suddenly burst into tears at the prospect. ‘C’mon, you can do it,’ she’d said each and every time, until they had.

‘C’mon, you can do it,’ she said again, louder, to her car and to herself. But when she turned the key, the solitary and forlorn click of the ignition could barely be heard above the rain. She looked right, saw Shelly studying her, overly sympathetically.

‘Damn cars,’ she told Meg. ‘They’re like men. You can’t live with ’em, and you can’t live without ’em.’

Meg nodded, although it was Shelly’s mantra, not hers. Meg had never wanted to be alone. Never.

She sighed, reached forward, patted the dashboard. ‘What’s wrong, little Rosie?’

She felt a gaze pierce the side of her head. Shelly again. This time, mouth and eyes wide open. ‘You named your car?’ she asked. ‘I did not know this about you. How could I not know this? Did you name your lawn mower too?’ Shelly snickered. C.C. chuckled in the back seat. Meg tried to look indignant, but she couldn’t completely stifle a smile.

‘And your cheese grater?’ asked Shelly. There was just a fraction of a moment of silence, then the car seemed to explode with laughter. Their fatigue and predicament was taking its toll, all of them laughing so hard they could barely breathe, tears streaming down their cheeks, the kind of uncontrollable laughter that was pure, emotional release.

‘And your… carrot peeler ?’ Shelly wheezed.

‘Oh, wait! I know, I know!’ said Meg, breathlessly. ‘Together, they could be Larry, Moe and Curly!’ She fell onto the steering wheel in silent, shaking laughter.

Shelly shrieked, then caught her breath enough to squeeze out, ‘Perhaps we should change from The Trio, to the Three Stooges!’ More uncontrollable laughter. ‘Oh! I’ve got it!’ Shelly was almost screaming now. ‘The lawn mower is… Moe!’

C.C.’s distinct laugh, an almost maniacal giggle when she really got going, made Meg laugh even harder. They were all beside themselves, hardly able to breathe.

Shelly was wheezing, talking in gasps. ‘And the…carrot…peeler is… Curly ,’ more shrieks of laughter, ‘and the…the…’

Meg and C.C., still laughing but more controlled, waited for Shelly.

But Shelly had stopped laughing. She looked truly frightened. ‘Oh shit!’ she said, pressing her palms to her cheeks. Meg glanced back at C.C., who looked worriedly at Shelly, then at Meg.

‘Shell?’ asked Meg, placing her hand on Shelly’s knee. Meg’s mind raced with what the problem could be–a suddenly remembered stove left on at home? Sudden pain?

‘ I forgot the third thing!’ said Shelly.

There was just the briefest pause, then all three screamed with laughter again.

‘I don’t remember it either!’ C.C. squealed.

‘Oh my God,’ Meg said flatly, catching her breath, looking side to side, blinking. ‘I can’t remember it either! This is so pathetic.’ She burst out laughing along with the other two and inadvertently snorted, making them all dissolve again.

‘Stop! Stop! Or you’ll make me pee!’ C.C. gasped from the back seat.