Vixenscratch

It’s September 29th and Magdalene White is sitting in the backseat of her own car, dressed in black, both hands holding a bouquet of blue and white flowers on her lap, her purse at her feet. In front of her, in the passenger seat, her husband, quiet in his black suit and tie. Her daughter is in the driver’s seat, sticking out with her hair dyed a bright, yellowy orange, what used to be a nice, tidy pixie cut grown out into something she refuses to have tamed into a more becoming style. She has, at least, dressed more appropriately for the occasion than her go-to of mended jeans and her boyfriend’s shirts, in dark slacks and a button-down shirt.

There used to be a time when September 29th was the happiest day of Magdalene’s life. Then, almost four years later, it became tied with June 18th. Until, not two years later, the joy associated with that September day had been marred by tragedy. She still has the memories, treasures kept in photo albums and tucked away in her heart, but there would be no new ones made like them. Never again. The first year had been the most difficult, but it has never become easy. It’s been sixteen years, now, and this is still a day where she wakes up with a black weight somewhere deep in her chest. A day where the silence emanating from one upstairs bedroom becomes deafening.

It had surprised her, two years ago, when Felicity for the first time offered to drive them. Their daughter had been very clear she had no intention of joining them, but it had still been a step up in engagement after years of avoiding any involvement whatsoever. It doesn’t make the loss of their son any less painful, but it has made Magdalene feel like her daughter is acknowledging her grief. It may not be something they share, but at least Felicity accepts — or so Magdalene thinks — that it is a burden she will always carry; one that is as much part of her as her love for her children.

There are few cars in the church lot as they pull in. Magdalene thinks she recognizes one of them, but sees it only briefly before Felicity pulls into a parking space and turns off the ignition. Magdalene and Victor exit the vehicle, and she shoulders her purse before taking her husband’s arm, letting him lead her towards the cemetery.

Hearing the car lock engaging surprises them both; she looks up at Victor as he glances back over his shoulder towards the sound.

“I wasn’t expecting you to come.” She can tell by his tone that he’s speaking to their daughter even before she comes into view.

“I’m not staying.” Felicity’s lower lip is between her teeth, and she’s slouching her shoulders. Any other place, any other day, Magdalene would scold her; today is not a day she can be that kind of mother. It’s too easy to remember that they only get so much time together in this world. “I’ll just… walk with you to the grave. If that’s okay?”

“Of course, honey.” Magdalene tries not to sound too surprised. Far as she’s aware, Felicity hasn’t visited her brother’s grave since she was too small to fuss about it. Magdalene doesn’t pretend to understand what her daughter’s objection is, where her resistance comes from, but that she’s willing to even walk up to it seems like a step in the right direction.

They don’t speak as they walk. The paved parking lot gives way to gravel paths, cutting through the grassy grounds with their lines of headstones. By the time they reach their destination Magdalene’s throat is already tight. Visiting Justus is always hard on her, though she wouldn’t miss it for the world.

She releases Victor’s arm to approach the headstone, gray and cold with her son’s name, birthdate, and the date he was ripped away from them etched into its surface. Kneels down to place the flowers at the base of it, next to the ones left by an earlier visitor. Most likely her parents or mother-in-law. For a moment, she reaches out and brushes her fingertips across his name, as though she might somehow be able to touch her child through the stone. When she rises and returns to her husband’s side, she is surprised to see her daughter step forward.

Felicity bends down, as well, though she doesn’t linger, simply places something down and straightens up. She looks awkward, uncomfortable, as she looks at her parents. “Give me a call when you’re ready, yeah?” Without waiting for an answer, she starts walking, heading back the way they came.

A small teddy bear, no taller than her hand, sits leaned against the headstone.

Magdalene allows herself a few moments to wonder, standing silent next to Victor. He puts his hand on her waist, his arm behind her back providing support. He doesn’t speak, and doesn’t need to; in his silence he is her rock. It hardly seems right that either of them should have to suffer this grief, that anyone should, but if she has to bear it, she is grateful he is the one by her side through it.

“We miss you, honey.” It’s the same thing she tells the headstone every time they visit, and like every other time, it’s what draws out her tears. “We love you so very, very much.”

Those are the only words she speaks out loud. The first few years, they’d exchanged stories, ‘remember-when’s about the boy who’d left behind a hole in both their hearts. At some point it had gradually started turning into what they have now. Mutual contemplation; two grieving parents silently seeking to remember their son as he was. A warm, happy, loving child, so proud to be a big brother. Now all that remains of him are those memories, filled photo albums, an untouched bedroom, and the cold stone before them.

“He would have turned twenty-two, wouldn’t he?”

“Yes.” Magdalene turns towards the voice, gives her sister-in-law a sad smile out of pure politeness. Today hasn’t been a day for smiles for the last sixteen years. “Hello, Mary-Anne. I didn’t realize you’d be here.”

Seeing the sleeping 10-month-old in the car seat her sister-in-law is carrying doesn’t make anything easier. Without looking Magdalene reaches into her purse, manages to find a napkin and dabs at her damp cheeks with it. Gray stains on the white paper tissue tells her that her mascara has been running.

“It didn’t seem right to visit Church and not come by here. Not today.” Mary-Anne adds a small bouquet, looking like it might come from her own garden rather than a florist’s, to the collection of flowers. “Felicity doesn’t visit her brother?”

Victor answers in Magdalene’s stead. “Fee was here. The bear is from her. She doesn’t like to stay.” It’s possible, the way he says it, he has some insight Magdalene doesn’t; she’ll have to ask later.

Mary-Anne gives the merest hint of a frown. “I have to be honest with you; she worries me.”

“Mary-Anne, please. Not today.” Her late son’s birthday is not a day Magdalene wants to deal with her extended family’s concerns over her daughter’s life choices, no matter how well-intentioned. The amount of pressure they’ve been exerting on her and Victor both, trying to make them step between Felicity and her boyfriend, has been tiring enough without also intruding on her grief. “I’m only here to remember my little boy.”

“Of course. Maggie, dear. I couldn’t imagine the loss; he was so young. God must have loved him very much, to call him back so soon.”

“It’s been sixteen years, Mary-Anne. I appreciate the thought, but I don’t need comforting.” It’s a white lie, an empty courtesy; the truth is that she never found such sentiments comforting at all. No divine plan makes up for how little time she got to spend with her son. “I… would appreciate silence, actually. If you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. Will you at least let me invite the two of you for lunch? To spare you the work? It’s no trouble. Just stop by when you’re ready.”

“That is kind of you, Mary-Anne, but we couldn’t possibly.” She resists the urge to chew on her lip — an ugly habit, her mother had called it when she was a little girl — as her sister-in-law’s continued presence, continued talking, starts to get under her skin. “Fee will be waiting to take us home.”

“Oh, silly me; I should maybe have realized when you said she’d been. She’s welcome, too, of course.” Magdalene gets the impression that’s not strictly the case, but there’s no way for Mary-Anne to not extend the offer without losing face. “You don’t need to make up your mind now; I’ll be cooking for leftovers. Just come on over.”

“We appreciate the offer.” Victor’s voice is calm and far from hostile, but there’s a weight to the end of his sentences that discourages further conversation. “And thank you for visiting Justus. Have a pleasant day, Mary-Anne.”

“Best to you, Victor. Magdalene.”

Magdalene feels a little guilty for the sigh of relief that escapes her when Mary-Anne walks away. The sound of gravel crunching under her sister-in-law’s feet, gradually growing fainter, is more welcome than it probably should be. She doesn’t actually dislike Mary-Anne, has no reason to. She just keeps anticipating her brother to speak through his wife’s lips, and it does nothing good for their relationship.

She stands alongside Victor, silent, until his pocket vibrates to life with the sound of sleepy bees. He pulls out his cell phone, scowls at it. “I’m sorry, honey, I have to take this.”

It’s one of the perils of his position, she knows. It doesn’t happen often; that it happened now is just bad luck. She watches him walk away, down the rows of headstones, speaking in hushed tones with his phone up to his ear. Hopefully whatever situation has arisen at his workplace that requires his attention can be resolved promptly, over the phone. He deserves better than to have to go from the cemetery to the office.

Remembering Justus without Victor by her side isn’t the same. Her thoughts go melancholy, lingering more on the hole their son left behind than on the good memories they made while they had him. On how unfair it is that the sister he loved — who loved him, too, the way a young toddler loves — only has second-hand memories of him. On how only an hour before losing him she’d found a crayon drawing on the wall of his closet and cleaned it away not knowing she’d never see him again.

A drawing of four spindly figures, two with yellow hair, two with orange. One with blue eyes — Victor’s eyes are more gray, but that’s nitpicking — and three with green. Holding hands, all wearing red, U-shaped crayon smiles. A family about to be broken up and not yet aware.

The napkin in her hand grows more damp, gray stains layering into darker gray, the longer she stands there. She doesn’t really consciously register the sound of Victor’s footfalls on the grass as he returns, only hears them just enough that she’s not startled when he wraps his arms around her from behind and holds her against his chest. A solid rock to lift her out of the despair lapping at her feet.

“We can stay a few more minutes, but then I need to get to the office. I already called Felicity and let her know; she’ll meet us in the lot. She can drop you off with Mary-Anne on the way. I shouldn’t be very late, I hope; they just need me to be there while a provider’s techs have privileged access. I can come get you once I’m done.”

“I don’t know, Victor.” Mary-Anne had seemed a little pushy, and some part of her doesn’t want to know what that might look like if it’s just the two of them. “Maybe I should just… go home.”

“Magdalene, I know better than to leave you on your own to start brooding. I can’t promise I’ll be home before Fee needs to get to whatever it was she had planned for the afternoon. Let Mary-Anne look after you for a bit; it’d be a weight off my mind.”

She lays a hand on his arm, nods slowly. Victor is usually right, and she doesn’t want him worrying about her while trying to resolve a problem at work. “I suppose it’s been some time since I spent time with her and the kids.” She omits her brother on purpose, not only because she doesn’t expect him to be home. Not spending time around Paul isn’t something she’s going to be made to feel bad about. Victor knows.

They stand silent for a little while longer before they start moving, like a sigh. Leaving is in some ways the most difficult part, some part of her wondering if she ought to be giving her son’s memory more time. In that way, Victor needing to leave almost makes it easier; it’s not either of them making the decision to walk away, but the universe continuing to move around them, making demands on their time.

Felicity is waiting by the car, leaning against the driver’s side door. She doesn’t speak, simply raises her arms enough to show there’s a hug there if either of her parents want it. Magdalene does, squeezing her daughter tightly, and feels her husband’s arms around them both. A few moments of being reminded that despite the periodic friction, their daughter loves and cares about her parents. Then they get into the car, back into the seats they occupied on the trip here.

“Would you drop your mother off at Paul and Mary-Anne’s, please?”

Felicity pauses, hand on the ignition. “I can do that, but… Uncle Paul’s?”

“Paul won’t be home this time of day. We met Mary-Anne; she invited us for lunch. Your father obviously can’t go, but I could use the company.” Magdalene doesn’t mention the misgivings she, herself, has. They’re vague, nebulous, not even strong enough to call intuition.

“If that’s what you want.”

***

“Tell Aunt Mary-Anne hi from me.” Felicity is looking over her shoulder, watching Magdalene as she picks up her purse from the floor and prepares to exit the car outside her brother’s house. She hasn’t been here in a long time. “And if you need me, just give me a call, yeah?”

“Thank you, honey, but I wouldn’t want to get in the way of your plans.”

“They’re more of a want, really. Nobody will be hurt if I cancel.” Magdalene can tell that her daughter is downplaying the significance of her engagement. It might not be something she has to do, but it’s definitely important to her. “It’s alright, Mom; I took the day off for you and Dad. If you need me, call.”

“You’ve already helped out, honey. Go enjoy your thing. I love you.”

“I love you, too, Mom.”

The car idles by the curb until Magdalene reaches the front gate, kept closed by an auto gate latch on the sidewalk side of the white picket fence to keep it safe from the hands of adventurous small children too young to leave the yard on their own. Only as she opens the latch does she hear her daughter drive away. It’s almost like their roles have been reversed — normally Magdalene would be the one dropping Felicity off and waiting to make sure she makes it to the door before leaving.

Magdalene has to knock twice before Mary-Anne opens the door, baby Stella on her arm. “Maggie! Hi! I wasn’t expecting you to come alone.” The greeting hug is the kind of awkward that comes from having one arm occupied with holding something very precious and fragile, yet capable of moving on its own.

“Victor had to go into the office.”

“Oh, that’s just… I’m sorry. Today of all days.” Mary-Anne’s face is all sympathy, her mouth almost turning into a little pout. “Come on in. Lunch isn’t ready, but I can get you something while you wait. Tea?”

“I’m fine, thank you, Mary-Anne. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Maggie, dear, I wouldn’t invite you over just to put you to work!”

“It’s no bother,” Magdalene insists. “At least let me take the little one off your hands.”

She doesn’t even quite know whether the faint longing she feels as she takes the baby into her arms is a desire for a baby of her own — both inadvisable and improbable at her age — or just a desperate, futile desire to hold on to her own daughter a little longer. Whatever time she can get with her little girl. For the time being, though, her focus goes to keeping her niece laughing, smiling, and out of her mother’s hair. It’s a sort of living in the moment that she hasn’t had much of dealing with an at times troubled teenager.

Maybe she misses that.

Mary-Anne wasn’t exaggerating when she said she’d be cooking for leftovers; she has multiple casserole pans set out, and is alternating between stirring the meat grounds and onions browning on the stove and slicing potatoes with all the efficiency of the homemaking mother of five that she is. How she managed to get that far with Stella to look after before Magdalene arrived is a mystery.

They make inconsequential small talk as Mary-Anne finishes preparations, then sit down at the table, Stella back in her mother’s arms, once the casseroles are in the oven.

“So how are you doing, dear?”

Magdalene shakes her head, just slightly. “It doesn’t get easier, anymore.” The loss of her son is less of an open wound than it once was, but it’s still a scar on her heart, and like the pain in a once-broken bone during adverse weather, today that scar aches. Just as much as it did last year, and the year before that. Just as much as it did in May, on the anniversary of his death. “But we get by, Victor and I.” There’s no way she could go through this twice a year without her husband at her side.

“And Felicity?”

“She doesn’t remember him. I’m sure if she did, she’d… She’s tried to be supportive. I don’t want to pressure her.”

“How is your relationship, these days?”

She doesn’t like Mary-Anne asking the question, but can’t think of a reason to dismiss it. “Improving. I think. She seems happier, at any rate. That’s all I can ask, isn’t it?”

Mary-Anne looks at her, and she thinks she sees a grain of pity in her sister-in-law’s eyes. It bothers her, makes her feel like she walked into something she doesn’t want anything to do with. Something she doesn’t have the fortitude to deal with today.

“She’s missing Mass again, isn’t she?” How Mary-Anne knows, Magdalene has no idea.

“That’s between her and God.” It’s none of Mary-Anne’s business that she’s argued with Felicity about just that. That she’s giving Mary-Anne the same response as her daughter gave her when confronted. “She’s an adult; she can make her own decisions.”

“I just don’t want to see you lose her, too.”

Magdalene’s stomach drops, her insides turning ice cold. In that cold, a seed of anger sprouts, hard and sharp. She dutifully rips it out like a weed, leaving only the freezing fear. The very prospect of something happening to her girl is petrifying, makes her want to collect her baby and hold her close and never let her go. But she can’t do that. Somewhere in her heart she knows that trying would drive her daughter away again. Make her leave like she did when she was younger, and now that she’s an adult, she doesn’t have to come back. “What do you mean by that? She’s growing up; she’s not dying!”

“Let me show you something.” Mary-Anne stands, hoisting her baby daughter a little higher. She walks across the kitchen, through the door to the adjoining room that serves as both family room and — in one small corner — her husband Paul’s home office. When she returns, she’s holding a printed sheet of paper, that she holds out for Magdalene to take. A URL string at the bottom of the page makes very clear it’s a printout of a webpage. “I think you should see this.”

Hesitantly, she accepts the printout. It appears to be someone’s personal account, from a forum or support group of some sort. It’s not the kind of place Magdalene frequents, and her short time as a teacher is still enough for her to approach it with skepticism, well aware that there’s no one fact checking letters to the editor or posts on online forums. Still, she reads it.

It claims to be written by a parent, and she thinks that much rings true. The writer speaks of a son, describes him of a good kid, maybe a little withdrawn at times, as teenagers are. How he stopped enjoying father-son activities with his father, how he made friends who spoke of gay rights — as though they hadn’t already seized more than their fair share of those, down to undermining the very concept of marriage as God created it — and gender identities and acronyms that keep growing. How, one day, the writer’s son had come to his parents to tell them he wanted to be called by a different name, a woman’s name.

And then he’d been gone. Had rejected the parents who raised him, in favor of the friends who’d enabled him in his delusion. Almost against her will, Magdalene finds herself feeling sympathy for the writer, finds herself a little less critical of the story than she’d accept from a student. She knows what it’s like to lose a child, and she knows what it’s like to have one walk away, to not know their whereabouts or what kind of dangers they might be in. Neither is pleasant, and she would wish them on no one.

She puts the paper down on the table in front of her. “Those poor people.”

“You don’t think that sounds a lot like Felicity?”

Magdalene shakes her head, refusing to acknowledge the similarities that she knows are there. To acknowledge them is to accept that she could lose her daughter. “Fee wouldn’t.”

“I’m not saying she’s planning on it right now, but look at where that boy is leading her!” There’s no doubt who Mary-Anne is referring to; the boy in question is definitely Felicity’s boyfriend. “You’ve seen them together, Maggie, dear. She hangs by his word.”

“I don’t want to talk about Nate, Mary-Anne. Not today. Please.”

“It’s not about Nate,” her sister-in-law insists. “It’s what he’s doing to Felicity. How he’s grooming her. You know how they are. The gays.” The way she says it, it might as well be a slur; Magdalene might largely agree with the underlying sentiment, but the venom still makes her inwardly cringe. “Wasn’t he the one who brought up that nonsense about her not being a young woman? Isn’t it he who insists on it? Right now she’s just confused, and he’s taking advantage.”

“I really don’t think he wants to hurt her. It… doesn’t seem like him.” As though she knows her daughter’s boyfriend. All she has to go by is a few months of less-than-weekly interactions. Mary-Anne could be right. Her daughter could be confused, and that would explain why she’s started refusing to wear dresses for Sunday Mass. It makes more sense than what Nate has tried to explain to Victor and her. Felicity has maybe been a bit of a handful at times, has maybe grown up playing more with the boys than Magdalene would prefer, but that doesn’t mean she is one. “He… is who he is, but he does care about her.”

“And if he manages to convince her that God made a mistake? That she’s meant to be a man? That anyone saying otherwise is out to do her harm? He’s said he’s gay already, so why is he even pursuing her? It’s not about hurting her, or about caring, he’s trying to turn her. Misleading children is what they do, Maggie. I don’t want you to wake up one day and realize it’s too late.”

If Mary-Anne hadn’t been her eldest brother’s wife, or if she didn’t already know how Paul feels about Nate and about Felicity’s behavior since he came into her life, maybe Magdalene would take it all at face value. It’s still enough to rattle her; the story printed for her a little too plausible, the arguments fitting a little too well, for her to just dismiss it all as a cruelly timed attempt at manipulation. She still doesn’t doubt that her daughter adores her boyfriend — that much has been more than obvious from the first time she brought him home. Nor does she doubt that he cares for her, however poorly that fits with his declared sexuality.

Maybe Mary-Anne has it backwards, and Felicity will fix Nate.

“Fee won’t walk out on us. She’s always come home.” She says it with confidence she doesn’t really feel, wills herself to believe it at least in the moment. Mary-Anne’s arguments are lodged in her brain like hair-fine thorns, near-invisible but ready to snag passing thoughts.

“I’m just concerned. There are so many more stories like that one. I don’t want you to have one to tell of your own. You’ve lost too much already.”

Magdalene feels something on her cheek. At first she assumes it’s an insect, reaches up to brush it away, but her fingers come away wet. Moments later, Mary-Anne is on her feet, fetching a box of tissues and placing it down in front of her, the image of the caring, compassionate host.

“I am so sorry, Maggie, dear. I didn’t mean to make you cry. Maybe I’m wrong. I just… I worry. I know she’s all the two of you have, now.” The words sound so genuine, it lodges the thorns of suspicion a little more firmly.

Makes her feel like maybe she and Victor have let themselves stay “not ready yet” for too long after their son’s passing. Like they ought to have reevaluated that status a few more times. Like, maybe, it would have changed things if their daughter hadn’t grown up an only child, living beside the specter of a brother she doesn’t remember.

Because Mary-Anne does have at least that much right: Felicity is all they have.

That thought lingers with her as Mary-Anne takes her casseroles out of the oven. As they eat and as Mary-Anne feeds the baby. As her niblings, one by one, arrive home from school. Magdalene stays with Stella as her sister-in-law goes to meet Raphael, her second youngest, at the school bus stop, and then again with both children as she goes out to meet Gabriel. Michael and Eve-Marie, Mary-Anne and Paul’s two oldest, arrive together, bickering as siblings do.

The thought is still with her when, maybe an hour after the high school children’s arrival home, her husband rings the doorbell. Once he’s in the door, Mary-Anne won’t let either of them back out until they accept an aluminum foil pan of leftovers, more than enough for a meal for the two of them. So they accept, thank her for her hospitality, say goodbye to her and the children, and leave.

Magdalene is secretly glad Victor made it before the end of her brother’s workday. Mary-Anne’s concerns about their daughter were wearying enough; anything Paul would have had to say would doubtlessly have been worse. The last thing she needs today is her big brother questioning her piety over Felicity’s church attendance, or trying to browbeat her into getting between her daughter and her boyfriend.

She sits in the front passenger seat of her husband’s car, leaning back with her eyes closed as he pulls out, when she realizes where the thought Mary-Anne planted leads. Felicity is all they have, because they got stuck in “not ready yet” for sixteen years. Maybe, just maybe, it’s not quite too late.

“Victor? I think we’re ready, now. I want to have another baby.”

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The Life of Ferret by quoting_mungo