Cullin Mitch - The Post-War Dream

“I'm sorry,” Hollis said, realizing the pain had completely vanished, leaving him weak and light-headed. “Please forgive me, don't know what got into me.” His hands weren't shaking anymore, but the blood hadn't yet returned to his face.

“Shouldn't fret on it,” Florence said, tidying his hair with her fingertips. “These things have a way of creeping up on us.”

“I got 'im,” Bill Sr. said, maneuvering next to Hollis; he pressed a palm across Hollis's neck and began guiding him forward, walking a short distance to the quilt — ”Easy does it” — where he then helped him sit down near the bewildered stare of Edgar.

“Hey, you okay?” the boy asked, rubbing Hollis's knee.

“I'm okay,” Hollis mumbled, scanning the quilt, taking in an array of foil-covered plates and napkins and a clear-plastic pitcher of tea. He glanced at Edgar, who was smiling with a concerned expression, and, mussing the boy's hair, he returned the smile.

“C'mon, let's eat,” Bill Sr. said, clapping his hands together while lowering himself on the quilt.

But Florence loitered at the grave, stooping to touch the carnations. “Looks like that girl was here,” she said, carefully rearranging the flowers, fanning the stems farther apart.

“Don't matter no more,” Bill Sr. said, crossing his legs, grasping the ankles of his boots.

“No, I suppose it don't,” she said, drawing her hand from the flowers before standing upright. “Poor child, that girl's got to live with herself, there's punishment enough I imagine.”

As Florence turned, moving toward the quilt, the pink flowers shimmered upon the earthen mound, infused with sunlight and swayed by a gentle afternoon breeze; and, for a moment, Hollis sat transfixed at the sight of the carnations fluttering there, his body feeling as weightless as the cloud which had hung alongside the highway — the cloud which now, from his vantage point, had dissipated into almost nothing, forming a faint squiggly line in the sky beyond Creed's burial plot.

That girl.

From then on, at the Sunday picnic and in the days to come, Hollis would ponder the girl, contemplating what she might actually look like while never settling upon anything specific; for she remained only as when he had originally glimpsed her on a slightly bent black-and-white photograph, first shown to him within the bowels of a transport ship during that turbulent crossing of the Sea of Japan: a nameless, indistinct dark-haired girl posing in the blurry foreground, arms hanging at her sides, her features difficult to perceive; by contrast, the background of the photograph — a wide-open field of tall wild grass — was plainly visible. “That's my girl,” Creed had explained, the animated clip of his voice becoming solemn. “She's waiting back home in Claude, missing me like tomorrow ain't ever coming.” Months later and thousands of miles away at the McCreedys’ farm, the photograph was studied once again by Hollis, and from time to time he paused before Creed's bedroom bureau, examining the remote image of the girl yet resisted touching the now-worn photograph with his hands. But he didn't feel comfortable asking the McCreedys about her, nor did it seem appropriate to do so, for Hollis sensed the family's disapproval; more specifically, he sensed Florence's disapproval, as she occasionally made derisive reference to that girl when talking with Bill Sr. at supper: “Passed that girl's mother in town today, carrying on like she owned the place,” or “Heard tell from Alma Branches that that girl was up at the cemetery last week, can you imagine? Too little too late, I say. Can't understand what Billy ever had for her to begin with.”

“Don't matter no more,” was Bill Sr.'s weary stock response. “It just don't matter.”

Then toward the latter part of his visit, with sunlight filtering through the shut drapes, Hollis dressed in front of the bureau early one morning, buttoning up his shirt while looking down at the photograph. As if from nowhere, Edgar appeared beside him, wearing pajamas and not yet fully awake, tapping a middle finger against the edge of the photograph. “Scrunchy,” the boy said, yawning afterward.

“Scrunchy?” Hollis asked, glancing to Edgar with a somewhat amused, puzzled expression.

“Scrunchy,” Edgar repeated while turning around. “That's what my brother called her.”

“Why?”

Edgar plodded back toward his bed like a sleepwalker, shrugging as he went. “Don't know,” the boy said. “Guess he liked how it sounded.”

Hollis watched Edgar climb beneath the sheets, promptly vanishing under the pillow so a little extra rest could be had before getting ready for school. “Scrunchy,” Hollis said slowly, savoring the word, trying to comprehend its flavor; his stare moved from the boy, and at last he lifted the photograph off the bureau, bringing her image closer. “Hello, Scrunchy,” he heard himself say, peering into the indecipherable gray-and-black grain of her.

Except, of course, her name wasn't really Scrunchy — and she wasn't just that girl . Rather, for Hollis, she was destined to become the girl . But other than his own mild curiosity about a face he couldn't quite distinguish, there was nothing in the fuzzy photograph which hinted at the role she was meant to play throughout his life. Still, the curiosity was finally enough for him to probe further, to draw information from the boy he had previously been uncomfortable to seek. Subsequently, during the late afternoons, he accompanied Edgar around the farm when the boy did chores — learning how to milk cows, helping feed livestock — anticipating the right moment in which he might interject some question concerning Scrunchy.

What Edgar would then tell him, what was imparted as the boy's hands squeezed along teats or scattered hay upon the ground, cast a small amount of light on the girl, yet, at the same time, did much to explain Florence's disapproval of her; for while she had been Creed's sweetheart, a younger high-school student he had dated and planned on marrying someday, Scrunchy hadn't attended her boyfriend's funeral service. And although the girl lived nearby, less than a mile off at her family's large ranch house, she hadn't offered a single word of condolence, nor did she even sign the sympathy card her own mother had left inside the McCreedy mailbox. In fact, the girl had kept mostly to herself since Creed died, rarely spotted anywhere other than the halls of the high school. Edgar had caught sight of her every so often, usually at dusk while he was roaming the farm property or the adjacent fields. He once spotted her riding a Tennessee walking horse along the fringe of the canyon, and twice he spied on her from afar, tracking her like an Indian scout when she strolled alone within an isolated grove of mesquite trees — her body moving slowly among those gray arthritic branches, arms folded across her chest as if to embrace herself.

Nevertheless, the girl hadn't totally avoided contacting the McCreedys. Several weeks following the funeral, she came by the house on a Saturday, showing up when Florence and Bill Sr. happened to be in town. It was Edgar who opened the front door, taken aback to find her standing there, her lips tightening as she blinked nervously. “This is for your mom and dad, and you, too,” was what she said with a sort of wince in her eyes, handing him a freshly baked peach cobbler, and she didn't say much else except goodbye. However, the cobbler was an empty gesture where Florence was concerned; she wouldn't touch it, didn't want it in her kitchen — even after Edgar and Bill Sr. both sampled a piece, each agreeing it was pretty darn good. But Florence didn't care how delicious the cobbler tasted: that girl wasn't worth the effort it'd take to chew a bite of the stupid thing — and she had never been worthy of Creed; she hadn't truly felt for him as he, apparently, had felt for her. No, she wasn't really her deceased son's special Scrunchy, not by a long shot. She was, instead, a selfish, thoughtless Debra, that's all.