If There Is Anything We Can Do
Eight pairs of shoes at eye level. Seven brightly colored and small. The eighth black, stylish yet sensible, with a short heel. All attached to feet, attached to bodies, attached to necks, hung by nooses. All moving mere centimeters, stirred, perhaps, by the commotion of those gathered in the schoolyard at the base of the tree. No one dares look up until one man in a T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off wraps his hairy arms around a pair of corduroy-clad legs and wails like an animal being ground alive. At the sound, each face in the crowd snaps up toward the bright green canopy, and each throat births its own song of horror at the sight of eight pale faces, eight sets of blue lips.
At the edge of the crowd, Mary keeps her gaze on a bare patch of ground in the freshly-cut grass. She needs not look up. She saw the red, sparkly Mary Janes just above the heads of the already gathered parents and emergency personnel when she arrived. She knows Harriet is among those hanged.
***
When she returns home, everything is as it was when she received the phone call. The breakfast dishes in the sink, the east side curtains not yet open, though now the sun has started to drop into the west side window frames. She tries to will away the sirens, the sobs, Harriet’s eyelashes that somehow looked even longer in death, and return to the moment when she reminded herself to soak the oatmeal pan to save herself the hard scrubbing later. Disintegrating oats float like pond scum on the water’s surface, almost allowing her to do the trick. But beneath the scum, she sees the red handle of Harriet’s spoon at the bottom of the pot, and it digs under her ribs and behind her heart, threatening to remove it from her body. Raw, raw, raw and still beating too fast.
Light-headed again, her body climbs the stairs, her mind already under the thick blankets of her bed. But there too, the morning’s unfinished business waits for her. Piles of clean laundry cover her bed. Among her own garments, nearly all grey and brown, and the scent of lavender and something that isn’t bleach, Harriet’s clothes sprawl, as she would, trying to take up as much space as a girl small-for-her-age could. Mary tugs at a purple sleeve, drawing it from the pile. She tries to imagine it filled out with the soft muscles of Harriet’s arm. Those arms, perpetually swinging through the air in illustration or celebration without cause. The dress looks like it belongs to a doll, an infant she could cradle in one arm. Harriet was small, but not that small. Mary remembers Harriet tracing the spiral of the embroidered snail against her belly, giggling wildly when she got to the center, poking her own belly button. The dress was a little big for her and it was her favorite. It seems impossible that after all these washes the dress could have shrunk. The phone rings. She knows what they will say. She can’t bear to be asked if she is okay. She doesn’t want to be the receiver of condolences. She lets voice mail answer. Piece after colorful piece Mary pulls from the pile seems too small for a first grader. None of it would fit Harriet. But it doesn’t matter now. She abandons the pile of laundry on her bed for the pile of stuffed animals on Harriet’s. She sleeps with a blue dog tucked under her arm, a ladybug behind her knees, soft paws and ears all around. The phone continues to ring.
***
Eventually, voice mail full, Mary takes the phone calls just to stop the ringing.
“We’re so sorry.”
As the callers relay their sorrow and sympathy, she scoops rice from a 10-pound bag. She lets them talk. She keeps on task. She does not wish to share her pain. She wants it all to herself.
“It’s so terrible.”
She bends down, phone held between shoulder and ear, to watch the meniscus settle in the glass measuring cup. She takes a moment to appreciate the calm of the water. Thinks of floating on her back, ears full of water, blocking it all out save her heartbeat.
“Let us know if there is anything we can do.”
She stares at the rice in the water until the individual grains blur into a milky mass. She dares it to boil while she watches.
“Why?”
“Why?”
“Why?”
Why indeed? Why ask her?
“Why does this keep happening?”
She finds a larger pot. Measures twice the first batch.
“Why doesn’t somebody stop it?”
She sets a second timer.
“We never thought it would happen here.”
She figures there is at least six pounds of rice still in the bag. The stepstool kept behind the back door bangs against her shins as she carries it to the kitchen. She finds the stock pot in the cupboard above the fridge along with an old vase, a dried petal sleeping in its base, and a stuffed elephant in a suit and bowtie, an early bought present for Harriet, hiding until her birthday. If she thinks about how Harriet would have hugged it and straightened its little tie, if she thinks how that will never happen, if she even touches it, she will stir the pain and it will be so loud and powerful it will not bother with the small exits of her eyes and mouth but tear right out of her chest and the top of her head. The windows will smash and the trees around the house will crash upon the roof. The pain will create a wind so strong it will rip through the town and keep going. So, Mary pretends the elephant is just another rarely used household item. Something to hold flowers. Something for making soup. Once again she undoes the cheap plastic zipper of the rice bag, foregoes the measuring cup and pours several inches of rice into the stockpot. She eyeballs the water and turns on the flame. The phone rings again.
“How are you holding up?”
The kitchen is thick with a warm, female, starchy smell. Mary fills nine food storage containers with rice. When she runs out of containers, she empties jars of half-used jellies and mustards, washes them and fills those too. She throws everything out of the fridge to make room. There is still an inch or so of rice in the stockpot. She sits on the floor, the stockpot between her legs, and eats the rice, salting each forkful before putting it in her mouth. She wonders how many grains of rice are in the pot alone. Thousands? Tens of thousands? How many grains has she pressed tight into plastic for the days to come? Millions? Will it be enough? The phone rings again. She is too full to answer it.
***
Two men stand on Mary’s front porch. Their grey and greyer suits make the colored daisies they hold seem like hallucinations, bright and floating. “I’m Charlie Williams and this is my associate, Ted Smith. May we come in?”
They seem to have something important to tell her, so she lets them in, embarrassed she has no refreshment to offer. They tell her they are with Citizens for the Preservation of Heritage and settle into the overstuffed sofa as if they were old friends. Ted fingers the magic marker stains on the arm. Mary sits on the edge of a chair opposite, holding the flowers like a bride.
“We wanted to come by and offer our support,” Charlie says. “These are trying times - for you, and the other parents most of all, of course. No one should have to suffer such grief and sadness, but you should also be proud. Her legacy has become part of our heritage.”
Mary sets the flowers on the floor. They smell like hairspray and the beetles that swarm the front of the house in fall.
“Think of what your daughter has done for the community,” Ted says. “We are stronger because of it. And because of her sacrifice, of your sacrifice, others remained safe.”
Mary stands up, her right foot crushing petals. “How’s that?”
The men sit forward in unison. “She is a hero.” Charlie says.
“She is…was…a child,” Mary says.
“Making the sacrifice even greater. Often it is adults who are hanged,” Ted says.
“They are still somebody’s children.”
“And heroes,” Charlie says.
The men’s shoes are nearly identical. Black, high shine. Mary imagines them swaying in the breeze. “But why does anyone have to be a hero? Why must anyone be hanged?”
“As with all heroes, so that others’ lives and freedoms may be preserved.” Charlie says, getting to his feet, brushing something invisible from the thighs of his slacks.
“So what? This is a deal with the hangmen? Are they some terrorist group?”
“No, no,” Ted says, standing now too. “It’s a random thing. Always random. Though, of course, you’ve noticed they have become more frequent in recent years, they’re not linked.”
“Other than that they are all hangings,” Mary says. “You’re telling me nothing can be done?”
“Just random acts of random citizens. Random place. Random time. Random frequency,” Ted says. He speaks as if about the weather. She searches their ruddy faces for some compassion, some understanding, but does not find it. She cannot see any residue of boyhood, cannot imagine them in a tender embrace.
Ted extends his hand. “So on behalf of all of us, thank you. We’ll be setting up a scholarship in Harriet’s name.”
Mary gives Ted’s hand a hard stare. He drops it to his side, and the men walk toward the door.
“Let us know if there is anything we can do,” Charlie says.
Mary grabs his arm as he turns to go. “Find out who’s doing these things and stop them.”
Charlie grabs her wrist. Tight. She can feel the bruise his thumb is building. His voice is now stern. “In a free country, these things happen. You want to live in a free country, don’t you?” His grip tightens even more, “Don’t you?”
Mary winces. She wants to live in a country in which Harriet is alive.
He lets go. “You should put those flowers in some water,” he says, the politeness returning to his voice, and closes the door behind them.
Mary locks the door and closes all the blinds. She puts the flowers in the garbage, gagging on their scent, and takes a container of rice from the fridge. Her hands shake and rice falls from her fork. She tries a spoon, smushing the rice onto it with her fingers. After a few spoonsful, the rice catches in her throat like a sob. She downs a glass of water, but as she pulls the glass from her mouth, it all comes back up, along with the rice. Only some of it makes it into the sink.
She stares at the milky puddles, catching her breath.
***
She arrives at City Hall with no recollection of having driven there. Even in tennis shoes, her footsteps echo in the lobby. A young man, lanky in glasses, sits behind a long and high counter, stone like every other surface in the room. Despite her noisy entrance, he does not look up until she is upon him.
“I’d like to talk to whoever made arrangements for the hanging, please.”
“The memorial?”
“No. The actual hanging. The part where they murdered my daughter. Someone told me it’s a bargain for our freedom. I have some questions about how that all works.”
The man stands up and begins defensively, “I’m sorry ma’am…” but stops. Mary is calm, as if she is asking for a library card. He sits and begins again, now matching her tone. “I’m sorry, we have nothing to do with that.”
“Nothing?”
“It happens all over. We’re all just as shocked.”
She takes in his rumpled hair and rumpled shirt. Decides he cannot know the idiocy of what he has just said. “There must be someone here who knows.” Though she makes every effort to keep her voice steady, the heat gathers in her blood.
“Do you need to sit down?” the man says.
She shakes her head.
“The Mayor may know something, but it is above him, really. Anyway, he’s not in today.”
“When will he be in?”
“Hard to tell.”
“Please do.”
“I can’t.”
Mary puts her forehead to the counter, slowly rolling it back and forth. It lulls the bile back into her stomach. She looks up and into the young man’s eyes. “I just need to know why,” she says and again sets her forehead to the stone.
“The Deputy Liaison is coming in from the capitol for the memorial,” the man says, the words so quiet they don’t echo. “He should know.”
Mary straightens and pulls a strand of hair from her sweaty cheek. “Thank you,” she says, even more quietly. He hands her a flier announcing the memorial. A border of hearts and daisies encircles the text.
“I really am so sorry about your daughter.” The words follow her out the door, weaving themselves between the echoes of her steps.
***
A bowl of rice rotates in the microwave as Mary reads the flier for the sixth, maybe seventh time. “A celebration of life,” it says in large letters with too many curlicues. “Eight lives cut short too soon. Pray with us for their souls, their families and an end to this suffering. Let us heal as a community so their deaths will not be in vain.”
Eight blond clipart angels float above the date, time and place. Mary tries to recall if there was even one blond among the victims. Harriet’s friend, Fiona, had dressed as an angel for Halloween. “An angel is what you turn into when you die,” Harriet had announced after trick-or-treat.
Mary had not known how to tell her otherwise. She had looked at the smudge of chocolate and caramel on Harriet’s cheek and not been able to tell her when people die, their bodies rot or are burned, and all that is left of them are memories that are harder and harder to keep whole. “Well, it’s a very fitting Halloween costume then, isn’t it?”
Harriet had nodded emphatically, her too-big witch’s hat jostling on her head. Mary had wondered if things would ever not be too big for her.
Mary stirs the rice and sets the microwave for another 30 seconds. In small print at the bottom of the flier, she finds the memorial is being put on by the Office of the Deputy Liaison. She wonders if the memorial is part of the hanging package, if the daisy, heart and angel clipart come along with Tips for a Successful Memorial. “Let us heal as a community so their deaths will not be in vain.” She reads the line over and over, trying to find the sense in it. As she contemplates how vanity might be extracted from Harriet’s death, the timer sounds. She feels its beeping in her teeth. The bowl is too hot, but she grips it tighter before setting it on the island. A tiny, bright green bug flits above her hands, making a sound like a paper cut, and lands on the edge of the bowl, a neon piece of rice with wings. It hovers over the rice for an instant before it lands on a clump and stops moving. She waves at it, but it remains. Closer now, she pokes. Nothing. She uses Harriet’s red spoon to eat her dinner. She eats the bug too. It should not have died in vain.
***
Before leaving for the memorial, Mary turns back to the fridge and puts a mustard jar of rice in her purse, just in case. In case of what, she doesn’t know, but the little extra weight gives her the sense she has not forgotten anything.
Nearly every car in town has been parked in proximity of the school. Every street narrowed by rows of nose to tail. Mary parks six blocks from the school entrance on the tree side. She is late and can hear an amplified voice coming from the direction of the school, though she cannot make out the words. As she approaches the tree, she keeps her head down, but before its shade is upon her, a carpet of flowers, photos, candles and stuffed toys invades her view. The offerings circle the tree, extending several feet beyond the tree’s canopy in all directions. It is bright and busy and beautiful. It vibrates with the sound of children playing. It hurts.
Applause breaks out from behind the building. Mary grips the jar of rice through the canvas of her bag and follows the sound. Even given the number of cars, she is amazed by how many people are gathered on the playground. A stage has been put up at the far end. A banner hangs over it reading, “We Will Not Forget You.” A man like a mountain stands at the podium. Behind him, a row of people sit, knees close together, shoulders trying to meet in the center of their chests. They look like a troupe of unanimated marionettes. Mary walks along the edge of the crowd toward the stage. Soon she recognizes a few of the marionettes as other parents of victims. The rumpled man from City Hall stands near the stairs of the stage. The midday sun has washed away the rumple. He, like everyone else, looks like a cartoon illustration; flat, colored shapes composed as people. The grey mountain shape must be the Deputy Liaison.
The impact of such an act of terror reaches far beyond those gathered here today, he says. “The whole country mourns with you and holds hope we shall never again have to face such grief.”
In an instant, Mary’s shirt is soaked. Sweat streams from under her breasts and the backs of her knees. Some of the marionettes crumple into their own hands, several put arms around each other. The crying in the crowd is as regular and light as a field of chirping insects. Suddenly, the rumpled man is at Mary’s side. “Let me take you to the stage.”
“I’d rather not.”
He gently takes her arm to insist, but yields when she says, “Please.” Still, he remains at her side. The Deputy Liaison thanks the emergency teams, businesses and more government agencies than Mary knew existed.
The rumpled man, without turning to her says, “I’ll take you to him when it is over.”
She touches his elbow, “Thank you.”
He takes her hand in his and holds it through the rest of the speeches. It’s better than rice.
The ceremony over, Mary and the man watch the tide of the crowd roll out. As it thins, she cools. They watch the Deputy Liaison console the families of the victims. When he approaches the family members, their backbones engage. They try to summon strength and dignity. It pains Mary to know she wears the same trying. The Deputy Liaison reaches the end of the line and descends the stairs. “Are you ready?” the rumpled man asks, squeezing her hand, and leads her to the mountain.
“Sir, this is Mary. Her daughter, Harriet, was one of the victims.” He excuses himself to attend to something on the stage.
The mountain reaches out a thick, damp palm. He is sweaty and red in his suit, though his presence is effortless. “It is an enormous tragedy. We are all grieving with you. Please let me know if there is anything I can do.” Her looks her in the eye, gently touches her shoulder.
Mary takes a long and audible breath. “There is something, actually.”
A little girl with a blond pageboy steps up to the Deputy Liaison’s side and slides her hand up into his. She’s a year or two older than Harriet; her cheekbones have emerged from her cheeks, and her arms and legs show a growth spurt that has not yet arrived in her torso. Her dress, however, fits her perfectly; the embroidered snail slides more across her chest than her belly. Mary watches her watch her father.
“This is my daughter, Ella,” he says.
“My daughter has a dress just like that,” Mary says, and crouches to her level.
“This one is mine,” the girl says.
“So it is.” Mary brushes the girl’s bangs aside and gently touches her nose. “With any luck, you will live long enough to outgrow it.”
The Deputy Liaison clears his throat. He takes his hand from his daughter’s and nudges her toward the swing set. “I’m sorry. You were saying?”
Mary stands. “Yes, I’m hoping you can tell me why we have these hangings. I’ve been told that our freedom depends on them. But I don’t understand how.” Her eyes begin to fill with tears in anticipation of the relief of an answer, the relief of being able to walk away from the nagging why.
“Ah. The Citizens for the Preservation of Heritage must have visited you. I’m sorry,” the mountain says. “There’s no real correlation between the hanging deaths and the freedoms the citizens of this country enjoy. One does not buy the other. Of course not. I hate when they imply that.” He pauses to watch his daughter at the swing set before he continues. “I think what they mean to say is when these tragedies happen, everyone else has the opportunity to feel lucky, to feel blessed, to feel relief and happiness. We wouldn’t want to put an end to that, would we?”
There is a loud snap as two men take down the banner above the stage. The Deputy Liaison flinches and turns toward the sound.
Originally published in F(r)iction Literary Magazine frictionlit.org
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