WINTER 2006-07 SHORT FICTION CONTEST

HONORABLE MENTION

The Stolen Me
by Julie Sucha Anderson

She peers out at the garden aglow in the morning light. One large blossom waves like a beckoning hand in the gentle breeze. She takes her time walking through the yard, ignoring the rain sprinkles moistening her hair as she climbs up the step into the garden.

“Get out of the rain!” Her husband hollers at her through the screen door. “You can't be doing this.”

She steadies her gaze past the gourd vines wrapping their tendrils around the tomato cages. Her eyes fix on the large, dinner plate sized ruby blossom looking for her over the yellow bell bush. In the changing seasons, this mallow hibiscus requires none of her attention. She doesn't worry the occasional Southern freeze might kill it, nor does she worry the summer heat will burn it up. Things that survive on their own are now what she likes in her life.

Tomorrow she returns to the hospital in a final attempt to kill the cells that eat away at her body. They tried to eat her soul, but she warded them off, sent them in search of other spaces. They chose her bones, her liver, her life.

She is thankful for her soul.

Her son, husband and parents want her to do this. To try once again. For them, she will go.

Taking a step, she calls out for Mr. Snake to exit the garden he thinks is his. She's seen this snake often on the rock wall fence, sunning the long pink, green and yellow stripes on his black body. She hates snakes. Has never seen a purpose for them. Doesn't understand why God invented them. Certainly they eat rats, but what's the reason for rats?

Then again, she doesn't see much reason for cancer, either.

She doesn't hear Mr. Snake rustling in the green vines and covered earth. Either he is off somewhere, or she will come across him snoozing, wrapped in the foliage that should only provide beauty, not unwelcome surprises.

Her careful steps avoid a ripe cucumber. She circles around the tomato cages.

Her son planted the seedlings for her this year. Too weak at planting time, she taught the teenager how to tend the garden. She doesn't know if it will be looked after though. Those capable may be busy with other things like rearranging finances, learning how to get rust stains out in the wash, or piecing together broken hearts.

Before her the ruby red beauty rises. She fingers the blossom and finds the petal soft, like the face of her son when she nursed him and stroked his cheeks.

She tiptoes between the leaves, following the garden's green, red, and pink stepping-stones. A few years before, she had her husband, son and parents make the steps, imprinting their hands and writing their names. Each made their own design in the mold with the beach glass or colored tiles she supplied.

She placed them in the garden believing that after her parents passed from this life, she could always walk out and set her hand in theirs. She might covet her husband's hand even on a day she may not love him as much as other days. She could trace the tiny hand of her son, remembering a time when he still let her hold his.

Instead, the owners of all these hands in her garden will no longer hold hers. Did she make an imprint of her own hand? Certainly planned to.

She hears a rustling not far from where she stands. She turns and spies a tail rising from behind the rosemary bush. Her cat, Chloe, stealthily moves toward the other side of the garden. She follows the cat's intended path to see Mr. Snake sunning himself on top of a Mexican heather bush.

Someone will tend the garden after all.

Her knees quiver and she knows she has stayed too long. Weakness comes quickly now. She will need a long nap, to recover, although lately the naps haven't ensured time. Her husband stands near the edge of the garden. He reaches out his hand. She takes it and steps down from the raised bed.

“In the garage,” she whispers. “A plastic mold for making stepping stones. Another bag of cement. For mine.”

He hesitates a moment, then says, “I'll find it while you're napping.”

“Let's do it now,” she says.

He can't look at her.

“I'll set it up.”

She insists on waiting in the living room, not her bed. She hates that she has to lay her head against the back of the couch, but she can no longer hold it up. She listens to her husband throwing things about in the garage – boxes landing against the wall, plastic pots clanging against the concrete floor.

He nudges her shoulder. She has dozed off even though she fought not to. He sets the mold filled with light blue cement in front of her on the coffee table. Her favorite color. His as well.

She thinks she is making an impression of her hands in the wet cement, but not until he places his hands over hers and pushes down does she see she hasn't made a mark.

A sucking sound notes the release of her imprint as he pulls her hands from the mold. He washes her hands clean with a washcloth and warm water.

“Use this Popsicle stick. Write your name.”

She can hear the authority in his voice. He has shut himself off. This is now just a job.

She leans forward, stick held in mid-air. She doesn't know what to write. Should she put her given name? Mom? Wife? Daughter?

Her strength ebbs. She reaches with the stick and writes a simple word. Her husband nods. He likes the choice.

He hands her the Ziploc bag of beach glass and leftover pieces from an old Mancala game. She shifts all the ruby red and royal blue pieces to one side and picks one up to rubs its smooth surface between her index finger and thumb. They remind her of the glass pieces she stole long ago, maybe when she was 5 or 6. That year, a rock show came to the county fair. When she'd seen the red and blue stones that looked like clear candy drip-dropped from a small funnel, she had to have them. She paid ten cents for five gems and wanted more.

When the lady behind the counter turned her head, she reached into the basket and took out a few, stuffing them into her pocket. Ever since, those royal blue and red droplets of beauty remained sequestered in a box of keepsakes. A box that sits unnoticed on top of her bedroom bureau.

She asks her husband to retrieve the box and she opens the silver top. At the bottom among the Kennedy half-dollars, the Hubert Humphrey for President and the I Am Loved buttons, the royal blue and ruby red stones gleam at her. She
sets the stolen gems into her stepping-stone, surrounding her ME.

Julie Sucha Anderson lives in Austin, Texas with her husband and three sons. She is co-editor and a contributor to the recently published book Grrl Talk - Sass, Wit, and Wisdom from the Austin WriterGrrls available at ww.austinwritergrrls.com. For five years she wrote a monthly column on family life. Her essays have appeared in many publications including Gardening at A Deeper Level and at thisibelieve.org and austinmama.com. She has completed her first novel, Still Breathing, and is at work on a second.