This book is a work of fiction and any
resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely
coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and
used fictitiously.
"That charm
looks splendid around your neck, Max," Gerald winced as a splash of dye
stung in the corner of his eye. "Why, that old key hasn't lost a bit of
its old shine."
"Flattery will
get you everywhere, Gerry," Maxine stretched to reach a paper towel on the
kitchen counter, and the bronze key jangled at the end of the silver necklace
her husband Richard had given her as an anniversary gift. "Now sit still
before I get any more of this stain into your eyes."
Gerald tried his best
to deny a chuckle and held still upon the folding chair set in the middle of
Maxine's kitchen, linoleum floor. Maxine was in high spirits that Saturday, and
Gerald wished to do nothing that might frustrate her efforts to summon a young
shade of dark black back to his aging, gray beard.
"Well, look in
the glass," and Maxine waved a small, hand-held mirror across Gerald's
face. "You tell me if you see any spot of gray I might've missed. I'm
still too young to be dating a man with gray in his beard."
Gerald nodded as Maxine
held the mirror, hardly breathing to prevent any more of the black dye from
seeping off his apron to stain his shirt.
"I think the
beard looks fantastic, Max."
Maxine pinched
Gerald's ear. "Don't be so quick to answer. I tell you, I'm still too young
to be sharing a bed with a gray, old man."
Gerald was certain
that Maxine had painted each course hair of his beard a deep color of black
several times over. He had sat upon that folding chair placed in the middle of
Maxine's kitchen each Saturday morning during the course of the spring and
summer and waited while Maxine did all she could to paint clean the traces of
his age. Maxine had dyed his beard black for such a long string of Saturday
mornings, and yet Gerald knew that it would do no good to remind her of the
previous weekends' successes, regardless of how long the boxes of dye promised
effectiveness. Her mind would still regard that morning's session with Gerald
as her first attempt to combat her lover’s age. Thus Gerald each Saturday morning
bent his stiff knees into that folding chair without protest. He never grumbled
about the fumes. He never complained about the stains. Gerald had no desire to
remind Maxine of her slipping memory.
So Gerald took the
mirror into his hands and slowly passed it along his face. Old age was a cruel
and diligent worker. He knew the reflection did not lie. Yet when exactly had
the wrinkles expanded so wide from the corners of his eyes? When had his bronze
cheeks faded into a surface of rough parchment blotched by so many age spots?
How had his forehead grown so high? Why had his hair turned so wispy and thin?
"Now that I give
it a second look, Max," Gerald held the mirror above his right ear,
"I think there might be a trace of gray here in my sideburns. Just enough
gray to need a little more attention."
"I'll have you
looking as young as the day I first spotted you in the snow." Maxine
winked, and the key fastened upon her silver necklace glistened in the
kitchen's light. "I was thinking, Gerry, that we might drive by the home
on Maple street later this afternoon. Would do my mood a little good to see
that old house another time."
The decades had not
scraped as deeply across Maxine's face as they had Gerald's. Yet Gerald thought
time had been downright wicked in its dealing with his life's one, true love.
The years had refrained from so savagely contorting Maxine's face with wrinkles
and splotches. Instead, the years claimed terrible measure upon Maxine's
memory. Her dark eyes sparkled with all the twilight they had held when Gerald
had come upon her lonely, crow figure seated upon one of the old library's cold
steps in the middle of the snow. Her black hair never suffered gray's
blasphemous touch. Her skin had hardly wrinkled at all, though she was but a
few years younger than Gerald. For a while, after circumstance had brought
precious Maxine back into his life, Gerald had envied his only, true love,
before recognizing that time demanded a more terrible price from Maxine.
"I don't know,
Max," Gerald proceeded cautiously, "I don't know about looking at
that old house on Maple street again."
"Dammit! Don't
move, Gerry!" Maxine flooded Gerald's sideburn with dye, and black dripped
down her subject's face. "Hold still so I can reach that gray!"
"I am holding
still." Gerald hissed through his teeth.
"One more move
and I'll smack you with my fly-swatter."
"I won't even
breath, Max."
"Sit still and
we'll finish with your beard before driving to see that old house one more
time."
Gerald worried if he
had invited ghosts to haunt Maxine when he had offered her that old, bronze key
now tied to her necklace. He tried to deny the hurts the new days delivered to
Maxine's mind. He tried to ignore the dents he found in the bumpers and panels
of Maxine's car. He tried to pay little attention to how Maxine's refrigerator
crowded with unopened bottles of maple syrup. He did his best to chuckle
whenever Maxine repeatedly asked him to revisit that empty lot along Maple St.
where an old home no longer stood. But Gerald could not ignore all those things
together. He could not deny how time faded Maxine's mind.
Maxine stepped back
from the chair and smiled. "You can keep your invitation to my bed a
little longer, Gerald Hollenkamp. You're not so young, but at least you're not
so old as to have dried up all gray."
Gerald smiled, very
mu
ch relieved that Maxine's thoughts retreated from floating
memories of that old home along Maple St. "That's pleasant to hear. Think
we might turn the television on and watch the ballgame as we wait for my beard
to dry?"
Maxine rummaged
behind the bottles of maple syrup stacked in her refrigerator before retrieving
two cans of beer. Gerald grimaced at his first pull. He didn't want to think
how stale the contents of that can may have grown at the back of Maxine's
refrigerator. He watched Maxine's lips curl as she hesitated in the center of
the kitchen.
"The remote
control's probably beneath one of the couch cushions, Max."
"There's no
reason for the remote to be there."
"I think I
might've left the remote there last night."
Maxine frowned.
"But you didn't sleep over here last night, Gerry."
Gerald forced a
smile, though his heart cracked to realize how Maxine's memory failed to
remember his arrival yesterday afternoon. "Try the cushions all the same.
Those remote controls sure have a strange way of crawling from one place to the
next during the night."
Maxine found the
remote beneath a green couch cushion just as Gerald said she would. She had no
difficulty in remembering what button powered the television console. She
showed no trouble in finding the proper channel for the baseball game.
"Here we go,
Gerry," Maxine reclined into her favorite spot upon the couch. "I
think Ace Henderson's on the mound this afternoon. Should be a certain win for
the boys in blue with him throwing. Did I ever tell you of the weekend I spent
with Ace Henderson?"
Gerald pulled long at
his old can of beer so that he did not sigh. Ace Henderson had not pitched for
well over four decades. How many phantoms trespassed upon Maxine's days?
"His complete game that October was sure
something, wasn't it Max? A two-hit shut-out. They might not have won the
championship, but no one can fault Ace Henderson for it. A shame the boys in
blue haven't even made it back to the playoffs since."
Maxine's eyes
sparkled as they watched the players rotate around the diamond glowing upon her
television. "I'll never forget the party we threw that year at the shoe
factory. I'll never forget how widow Thurston shut down the factory so all of
us could watch that game. I brought cheese potatoes for the pot-luck. Ray Smith
brought a keg of beer for all of us. It tasted like champaign after Ace got the
last out. That sure was something. Don't you remember that party?"
Gerald feared Maxine
didn’t recognize him as she turned her sight away from the television to regard
him. Her face softened into a gaze Gerald recognized she had never intended to
share with him, a look Maxine had given to a man other than Gerald Hollenkamp.
Gerald didn't move on that folded chair set in the middle of Maxine's kitchen.
He prayed she would still know him. He feared to consider a time that may come
when she would only know him as a stranger. Gerald held his breath while he
watched Maxine search for her husband Richard, twenty years ago lowered into
his grave.
Maxine frowned, and
the stone strength usually so customary to her face returned with a flash.
"Oh, forgive me, Gerry," Maxine sighed, "I forgot for a moment
that you were still serving in the Army when the widow Thurston threw that
party at the shoe factory. Forgive me if I made you feel left out of something.
It was just a very special party."
Gerald grinned and
felt the dye dry upon his beard.
"It's a
wonderful to hear you describe it."
"The boys in
blue will win a championship in our time, Gerry. You just wait and see. I
promise to keep you a little longer so we can share in the memory of it."
"Promise?"
"I
promise."
Gerald watched the
game's first two innings from his fold-out chair in the kitchen. Between the
top and bottom of the third, Gerald joined Maxine upon the couch, the plastic
apron still fastened around his neck to keep any dye that might still be moist
away from Maxine's furniture. Maxine said nothing more to him, nor he to her,
as the game's outs were recorded. Both dealt with the ghosts and regrets as
they knew best.
Together, they
prepared baked lasagna for dinner with the items Gerald had carried to Maxine's
home. Maxine remembered each of that recipe's ingredients and steps. She
betrayed no hardship in lighting the stove's burners. She promptly cleaned each
pot and pan. Gerald hoped that Maxine's earlier confusion was only a sign of
afternoon fatigue, of a lethargy that also came upon him, like a weariness that
only needed a good, black cup of coffee to deny.
But then Maxine
opened her refrigerator and for a minute only stared at the contents she had
therein gathered. She took one bottle of maple syrup after another from the
cool shelves until her kitchen table crowded with the sweets. Gerald's heart
mourned to see how Maxine struggled to recall any reason for purchasing such
stock.
"Maybe you were
thinking your grandkids were visiting this weekend." Gerald extended his
arm and softly gripped Maxine's wrist. "Maybe you wanted to be prepared
for breakfast with all those grandkids over at once."
Maxine sighed in
relief. "Of course. I need all that syrup for the French Toast you and the
grandkids love so much."
Gerald's shoulders
fell. He had never liked Maxine's French Toast. That sweet had always too
painfully hurt his teeth. It had been Richard who had loved the French Toast
Maxine made in her oldest, black skillet. Maxine again saw her late husband's
ghost lingering upon Gerald's dyed, black beard.
Gerald knew he
possessed no power with which he might exorcise those ghosts who came to haunt
Maxine. He knew he would be powerless as he would watch that fog settle and
cloud everything Maxine had ever loved.
"For the kids
tomorrow," Maxine smiled. "We'll fill them up on French Toast, and
then we'll take them along Maple St. to see that old home. Don't you think that
would do us both some good?"
"Of
course," Gerald winked. "I would love to look at that house one more
time."
* * * * *
Chapter 2 - Secrets
Lost...
Gerald Hollenkamp
didn’t consider his lifetime to be any more blessed than any other man's. He
would not quickly count himself among the lucky. He had never felt very wealthy.
He had never been very competent in the accumulation of treasure. Yet, Gerald
Hollenkamp had reason to believe in magic, and so he clutched to a faith that a
power might spark and protect his hopes as he drove the miles separating him
from Maxine.
"Hold for me a
little longer, Lady Luck," Gerald peeked through his windshield at the
winter morning's sky of heavy gray and hoped the snow would wait out the
weekend before falling. "Just a few more miles to Maxine's."
Gerald envisioned
that bronze key fastened to Maxine's silver necklace and prayed it was not yet
emptied of luck. In the end, Gerald believed that key had brought them
together. That key had to be something special, regardless of all the years of
loss, all the years of regret. Gerald hated to think what kind of man he may
have been had it not been for the faith he placed in the small key.
Still, that key had
not spared Gerald from choking on his regret. Regret still soured his
tastebuds. Maxine had proposed herself to Gerald so many lost years ago
following the successful completion of her sophomore year of secondary school.
She had promised Gerald that a middle school education, plus two years of high
school, was more than enough learning for a wife. But Gerald had declined, and
he still regretted his answer. He had still enjoyed roaming about shortstop on
the summer baseball team, had still thought he might rise to be something
greater than the town leatherworker and tanner as was his father. He had only
wanted to deny Maxine's proposal for a handful of years, for only a short time
so that he might save for an appropriate engagement ring, to be able to propose
to his love in a manner she deserved.
But fortune had
conspired against him, and Gerald Hollenkamp was never offered the opportunity
to propose to his Maxine.
War erupted around
the globe, and airplanes and bombs wrenched Gerald's country from its slumber.
Boys set down their baseball gloves and picked up rifles as men, praying the
fury and the gore did not reap them from the land. Gerald sacrificed his goal
to achieve a high school diploma in order to enlist. Maxine gave him all she
possessed one night in that home that used to stand along Maple St., and the
next day she kissed Gerald farewell as the train took him to war. She did not
offer Gerald a second proposal, for neither of them possessed any illusion that
war held any mercy for husbands, that it would show any soldier a kindness simply
because he wore a wedding wing around his finger, or kept a wife's picture near
his heart.
In the morning the
last remaining gift Maxine had to offer her lover going to war was a small,
bronze key to her home's front door, the best talisman she had to give to the
young soldier who had taken her heart in a snowstorm.
With that key
fastened to that necklace that held also held his dog-tags, Gerald survived
bullets and bombs, food poisoning and malaria. He was not cut down in the
jungle, was not burned alive in a bunker, was not drowned nor devoured at sea.
He returned to a country ready to celebrate with parades. But he was haunted by
shrieking demons and wailing ghosts. And so Gerald did not immediately return
home to the Maxine war had forced him to leave behind. Haunted, he rambled as a
railroad detective near Denver, as a forest fighter across Utah, as a dockhand
in San Francisco, as a crabber off the cold, Alaskan coast. He grew a beard to
shelter his wane cheeks from the cold, and he roamed the open wind to give the
haunts that crowded his mind all the time he could for them to quiet.
Maxine, meanwhile,
moved forward in life, having asked Gerald to keep no promise to her, nor
having offered any vow to him, the day that train pulled her young love to war.
Richard Hanson, who worked as a foreman in the oil fields outside of town,
courted Maxine for a month before offering her a fine diamond ring. Richard
Hansen had returned from the war with the determination to raise a family, and
he wed Maxine after two months of engagement during a day filled with snow.
Maxine birthed a son and a daughter while Gerald drifted. Gerald's brother
mailed him newspaper clippings to inform Gerald his first love was lost. Gerald
had felt no shock upon reading the news.
But throughout his
wanderings, Gerald always clasped that small, bronze key close to his heart. He
clasped that key to the old home on Maple St. and survived railway criminals,
forest fires and storms at sea.
Gerald imagined that
key as he drove that narrow, county highway that brought him closer to Maxine.
"It's only a
little further. Just let that snow hold off a little longer."
After three short,
wonderful years following the day Maxine came back into his life, Gerald prayed
to his small, good-luck key to keep Maxine safe. He prayed to that key during
all those weeknights away from Maxine, when Gerald's job as warehouse watchman
forced him to each Sunday afternoon drive those few hours back to his job away
from Maxine's hometown. He prayed to that key's luck that Maxine did not wreck
her car as she drove through stop signs. He prayed she did go for a walk in the
snow and ice and break another bone. He prayed for that small, bronze key to
keep Maxine safe, to protect her memory, to help her distinguish between the
real world surrounding her and the realm of ghosts that claimed more and more
of Maxine’s mind.
"Don't fail me
now," Gerald's heart quickened as he entered town and turned upon the
street leading to Maxine's home. "That's Tony's car parked in the drive.
Maxine, hold strong a little longer in front of Tony. A little longer until I
can find a better way to tell him."
Gerald parked across
the street, and his knees trembled as he stepped out of his car. Maxine did not
stand in her home's front window to greet him.
"Concentrate on
your corner!" A young voice shouted before a red baseball cap appeared out
of the front door of Maxine's home. "Grandma's favorite picture frames are
in this box, Kyle! Concentrate before you shatter them all on the ground!"
Gerald held a breath
as Maxine's grandsons Kent and Kyle Hanson wrestled against a heavy and sagging
cardboard box. Gerald gripped his hands into fists so that his arms did not
shake for his worry.
"Where you boys
taking all your Grandma's pictures?" Gerald feared the worst. He felt
terrible for having to ask those boys, boys who had so easily found a place in
the old man's heart after the years brought Maxine back to Gerald. But he
needed to know before he confronted their father. "Your grandma going
someplace for a vacation?"
"Gerry!"
Kyle, the younger of
the brothers, smiled and freed a hand from the box in order to wave at Gerald.
Gerald heard the
pictures rattle as Kent roughly lowered the box to the ground to speak.
"Did you see your ball team just won another three-game series? Gomez
belted two homers last night. Your boys in blue just might finally make the
playoffs this season."
Gerald winked.
"Sure did. But what are you boys doing with that box?"
"Putting it in
our car trunk," Kyle answered. "Grandma's coming to live in our town.
Dad says she's going to be closer to us."
Gerald concentrated
on the image of that small, bronze key to prevent the panic from overwhelming
him.
"Boys!" A
deep voice, a man's voice, shouted from inside the home. "Get that trunk
into the car like I told you!
The boys wrangled the
box back off the ground and grunted their way to their family's car before
their father stepped into the front door's frame, his face hardened, his lips
locked into a frown. Tony looked more like his father than he did his mother.
His wide shoulders and short legs descended from his father's line; and Tony's
silver hair, his father's hair, might have convinced some that Richard had left
a younger duplicate of himself behind had it not been for the pair of maternal
and dark, brown eyes set deep upon his face. During that time when fortune
brought Maxine back into his life, Gerald often stole a glance at Tony during
the holidays and imagined what Maxine's boy may have looked like had Tony
inherited Gerald's line instead of Richard's. Though Tony never spoke such a
sentiment, Gerald could not help but feel how Maxine's son regarded him as a
trespasser, an interloper who had no business spending weekend nig
hts with his mother beneath the roof of his dead father's home.
Gerald forced himself
to peer back into Tony's eyes.
"You don't need
to do this," Gerald whispered. "She belongs here."
Tony's eyes burned.
"How do you know what I need to do? Who are you to say where she belongs?
Did you think I wouldn't find out about any of it?"
"Who told
you?"
Tony waited for his
boys to skip back into their grandmother's home in search of another packed box
of mementoes before answering.
"Do you think I
heard from only one person?" Tony shook his head. "Her neighbors
called me many a morning, telling me how mom tried to work their locks with her
keys. The city police called to let me know how they worried about her driving,
about all times she ran her car over the curb, of how she cruised, lost, around
the streets until an officer escorted her home. Did you know she called the
fire department three times last week, telling them that an oil fire was
climbing up her kitchen walls? I'm not so many miles down that highway, Gerry.
I'm hardly an hour further away than you are. And I still have friends here,
who count the new dents in mom's car. I've known for a long time now, and I've
made plans to give Maxine the kind of care she needs now."
Gerald peeked at his
shoes as his heart hammered. "We can care for her here, here in her home,
Tony."
Tony's eyes blazed.
"I thought I opened my family to you, Gerry. My boys think so much of you.
I kept waiting for you to tell me."
"I was only trying
to make the most of her days. Only helping her stay in her home."
"How much longer
do you think she will recognize this as her home?"
"She belongs
here, Tony. This is her home."
Tony sighed.
"She belongs where she can find the care she needs. There's no one left
here to care for her, Gerry. No one to make sure she doesn't drive her car
head-first into oncoming traffic. No one to see that she eats. She needs to be
close to me now, so I can make sure she is being looked after."
Gerald felt tears
welling in his eyes. He felt his mind swoon. "I can care for her. You
can't begin to understand, Tony. Let me be here with her now. Let me look after
her."
"I already gave
you the chance to enter into this family," Tony replied, "and you
attempted to keep this secret from me. How long has her mind been
deteriorating? Since she broke her hip on the ice last year when the two of you
went skating?"
Gerald wiped at his
eyes with his wrinkled hands. Tony showed no mercy in tossing that guilt at
him, by heaping only more regret upon Gerald's old shoulders.
Tony's eyes still
blazed while Gerald sobbed. "Could you really look after her even if I
believed you and left mother here? How would you keep your night job, Gerry?
Who would look after mom when you were gone? How much have you been able to
save for the choices that are going to be ahead of you both?"
Gerald stared at the
ground. He could not catch his breath.
Tony sighed as his
boys hauled another box towards their car. "You have the afternoon to
remove whatever belongs to you from this house, Gerry. I'll have new locks on
the doors first thing tomorrow morning. Whatever's left in that house when I
get back tomorrow afternoon will be included in the estate sale. I’m taking
Maxine to a place where I can see she is cared for. I don’t want you to see
her. You’ll not be welcome to visit my mother."
Gerald's lips
twitched, but he could think of nothing to do to prevent Maxine from being
taken another time from him. Tony left him thunderstruck. Gerald was too
shocked to beg for Maxine's new address. He only stared at his shoes, lacking
the breath, the will, to look back into Tony's smoldering eyes.
Kent paused a moment
before returning back into the home. "Dad, did you look in grandma's
refrigerator?"
"It's full of
maple syrup bottles," Kyle added as he jumped onto the front porch,
"and none of it's even opened. Why do you think grandma brought all that
syrup?"
"Leave it be,
boys," Tony sighed to his sons. "We've got enough boxes for now. Time
for us to head back home. I'll meet you both in the car."
Relieved so suddenly
from their day's chores, the brothers sprinted to their vehicle. Gerald kept
his gaze rooted upon the ground, certain his heart would shudder if he looked
up at the sound of those boys' feet pounding across the yard. He thought of
those nights when Kyle and Kent had stayed with Maxine, when the four of them
had ordered delivery pizza and watched old black and white films on television.
Gerald had never had children of his own, and so perhaps he too foolishly fell
in love with the boys of another father. They had called him grandpa.
Gerald looked up only
after Tony walked away from him and started his car. Kyle and Kent smiled and
waved at him from the backseat as the vehicle pulled out of the lane of
Maxine's home.
Gerald did not wave
back as tears blinded him.
* * * * Chapter 3 -
Wardrobe and Magic...
Gerald searched
through Maxine's empty home all afternoon before finally finding the bronze key
buried at the bottom of a cardboard box filled with silverware.
"It would be
cruel to resent you for my ill luck now after all you’ve done for me,"
Gerald held the key into the light streaming in from the window above the
kitchen sink. "You just looked so lovely upon Maxine's neck. How do you
think I might ever find my way back to her?"
Gerald found a spool
of yarn in a dresser kept in Maxine's bedroom and fastened the key upon a
strand of purple which he tied around his neck. He rambled aimlessly about the
home, pausing often to consider how he had aged in a mirror, where he suspected
the dark, black dye of his beard would soon fade to reveal the true gray
lurking beneath so much dye. He sat upon the couch to watch the afternoon's
baseball game upon the television, but he found he lacked the will to search
for the remote control without Maxine's company. He imagined the sound of
Maxine breathing next to him. He imagined the scent of her perfume, thought he
heard her shuffling out from the kitchen, bringing him a chill beer she found
behind so many bottles of maple syrup. Already, ghosts crowded Gerald's mind.
So searching for some
distraction from the regrets that plagued him, Gerald drifted through the home
Maxine had for so many years shared with her husband Richard, the home in which
Maxine and Richard had lived a lifetime, in which they had raised a family.
Gerald paused to consider the pictures still hanging upon the walls. He
imagined himself standing where Richard stood in those snapshots and portraits.
He placed himself into those photos where Richard presented football trophies
to Tony, where Richard hugged daughter Sarah upon college graduation. Gerald
discovered a shoebox brimming with postcards from places Gerald had never
realized Maxine had visited in an antique, roll-top desk. He read the scrawled
notes written on the back of those cards, and he wondered why Maxine had never
shared those experiences with him. Had he talked so much in Maxine's company
that she never had the opportunity to tell him of her own travels? Or had
Maxine thought it best to sequester the memories of one lover from another, so
that the years or Richard and those of Gerald did not smear together as her
memory turned ailing in her age?
Gerald discovered a
closet filled with Richard's abandoned wardrobe in the home's empty second
bedroom. He was curious how much the slacks and coats might tell him of the man
who had taken Maxine for his wife. He would not touch Richard's old Army
uniform, but Gerald did not feel too ashamed to search through the pockets of
other outfits for clues to the character of Maxine's deceased husband. Gerald
had never asked Maxine about Richard, feeling such questions would have been
imprudent, might have jeopardized the reunion time had granted to him. Thus
while he looked upon golf shirts and bermuda shorts, Gerald wondered if Richard
had been tender or cruel. Could one of Richard's vests hint if the husband had
placed his wife's wishes above his own, or if that man's goals defined what
aspirations Maxine might hope to achieve? Could dress shoes supply Gerald with
a sense of Richard's intelligence? What might Richard's ties say of the humor
of the man who had worn them?
Gerald stretched to
reach a gray Stetson gathering dust upon the closet's highest shelf. He traced
the hat's brim with his finger, admired the fine feathers stitched into the
hat's side, thought of older times he knew when it not yet become strange for
men to wear hats. He dreamed to remember what it had felt like to wear such a
Stetson, and so Gerald set it carefully upon his brow. Something burned against
his chest for a second, and his fingers snatched at the key held by the purple
thread around his neck. But the key was cool to his touch, and the heat he
experienced, Gerald thought, had to have originated from another source.
His skin still
tingling in the surprise of that sudden heat, Gerald turned and saw his
reflection in that room's tall mirror.
Gerald gasped at the
face that greeted him in the glass.
Richard Hanson peered
from that mirror where Gerald's reflection should have been.
"How in the
world?"
Gerald winked, and
Richard's reflection winked with him. Gerald clapped his hands. He hopped. He
turned. He frowned and smiled. Yet though the reflection contained in the
mirror never belonged to Gerald, it matched each of his movements. Gerald's
beard vanished, transformed into the cropped haircut in which Richard always
kept his silver hair. Weight gathered around the eyes in the mirror, sagged
beneath the chin, so that Gerald could not claim the face winking back at him
was his own no matter how that reflection matched each of his movements. The
clothes Gerald wore were the same as those in the mirror. The necklace of
purple string and the small key attached to it did not differ. It appeared that
the glass dressed another in the clothes Gerald wore.
Gerald tested the
strange reflection by lifting the Stetson hat off of his head, and in a flash,
his natural features returned in the glass.
"A magic
hat?" Gerald's eyebrow arched. "What would Richard Hanson have done
with a magic hat? And where would he have found it?"
That sudden heat upon
Gerald's heat returned as he lowered the Stetson back upon his head. In a new
wink, Richard Hansen's reflection returned in the mirror. Gerald lifted the hat
again and he giggled when his bearded face returned to the glass. And as Gerald
set the Stetson a third time upon his head, his eyes caught a flash from that
small, bronze key kept at the end of his necklace, where his chest burned in
the returning heat.
"Is it even the
hat that's doing it?" Though Gerald gripped the key so tightly that his
knuckles turned white, the touch of that charm remained cool. "What else
does this house hold in the closets?"
Gerald found a
crumpled, blue baseball cap on the closet floor as he shoved aside work shirts
and sweaters. It was a vintage cap from Maxine's favorite team, with white salt
stains still circling the brim. Gerald's fingers trembled as they traced the
logo's fine stitching. He thought of Ace Henderson, of that pitcher who was
always Maxine's favorite athlete. Gerald rushed back to the mirror and took a
breath before closing his eyes and tugging that blue cap upon his head.
The bronze key burned
upon his chest, and when Gerald opened his eyes, a new man greeted him in the
mirror.
Ace Henderson matched
each of Gerald's gestures and expressions. It was a young man's smile that
twisted in the reflection along with Gerald's. The eyes that winked back at
Gerald belonged to an athlete in his prime. The reflection's skin was tanned by
afternoons in the sun. Sweat pasted the younger reflection's hair to his
forehead, as if that image in the glass had just strode off the mound at the
end of a complete game. Gerald pulled back his shirt sleeve and flexed his old
arm's bicep, laughing as he watched Ace Henderson's younger and stronger muscle
follow that movement.
"It's the key.
It's the old, bronze charm."
Gerald tossed the old
ball cap onto the room’s bed and hustled through the home in search of other
items of wardrobe. A red scarf with yellow polka dots draped around his neck
transformed Gerald's reflection into that of Maxine's second cousin Pearl,
whose beautiful youth remained unforgotten among the woman's surviving, elder
peers. An orange life-jacket retrieved from the home's attic shifted Gerald's
reflection into that of a very young Tony, with his silver hair grown long to
fall upon sunburned shoulders. Slipping into the yellow sleeves of a raincoat
left forgotten in the mudroom morphed Gerald's image into that of Maxine's
daughter Sarah when she had just turned seventeen, with red hair falling down
her back, with the green, emerald eyes sparkling in the home's dim light.
Gerald donned one
article of clothing after another as the short, winter day shifted into night.
Most of the pieces turned Gerald's reflection into that of some member of
Maxine's family, into reflections that portrayed Maxine's loved ones in various
stages of their time passed beneath her home's roof. A few pieces of wardrobe
presented Gerald with the reflections of strangers he did not know, with faces
that left Gerald imagining what connections had brought them to the Hanson
home, of how such nameless reflections came to leave gloves and coats behind
after Christmas parties and card games. The bronze
key burned each time he donned a new article of clothing,
working its magic in every reflection Gerald found about the home.
"Maybe the key's
magic isn't just in the glass," Gerald spoke to himself as he looked upon
the young, wide-shouldered form of Richard a masonic ring summoned in the mirror
when slipped upon Gerald's finger. "I wonder if the mirror is only
reflecting what it sees?"
Gerald got an idea as
the neighborhood dogs howled to announce the postman’s daily arrival. Gerald
slipped into a raincoat found in the foyer closet and peeked at his reflection
cast by a glass picture frame after his good luck key burned upon his chest.
Tony’s reflection looked back at him. Tony’s face from earlier that morning
smiled from the glass. Those eyes that earlier smoldered now looked upon Gerald
with a glimmer. Gerald hurried through the front door as the postman climbed
the porch’s steps to reach the mailbox mounted next to Maxine’s front door.
“More hair product
catalogs?” Gerald squinted so that he did not miss any expression that twisted
upon the postman’s face. “She stopped styling the neighborhood matrons’ hair
two decades ago, but Maxine never cancelled any of her catalogs.”
The postman chuckled.
“Well, Mr. Hanson, my mother used visit Maxine’s basement salon. I don’t think
mom’s ghost will ever forgive Maxine for not setting her perm one last time
before her visitation. All of us think the world of your mother.”
Gerald nodded and
swallowed a giggle. “Tell me, have you happened to have seen that Gerald
Hollenkamp around much lately? You know, the man with the black beard.”
“Sure,” the postman
answered. “Comes by on the weekends. Seems a nice enough fellow.”
Gerald couldn’t
repress a grin. “That’s a relief to hear, and it means a lot to me knowing
Maxine has good people keeping an eye out for her.”
“Least we can do for
Maxine, Mr. Hanson,” and the postman retreated from the porch and continued his
route down the cracking sidewalk.
Gerald hurried behind
the front door and laughed in the privacy of Maxine’s home. The old, bronze key
had not yet abandoned him. With a slight burn and glow, that key tied around
his neck offered a little more magic for his aging days. Somehow, the key would
bring Gerald back to Maxine. There yet remained undiscovered closets waiting
within Maxine’s home, and Gerald’s heart skipped as he rummaged through the
wardrobes gathered during Maxine’s lifetime.
* * * * *
Chapter 4 - A Pair of
Old, Brown Shoes...
Gerald discovered
that the bronze key's power of transformation was not absolute. No matter where
he donned a piece of wardrobe gathered from Maxine's closets, the key's power
disguised him as the clothing's original owner. No matter how many miles
separated that box of coats and pants from Maxine's home, the key morphed
Gerald with a burning sensation against his chest. But the charm worked only
with those gloves and scarfs, shirts and slacks that Gerald had gathered from
Maxine's closets. Wearing a pair of steel-toed boots Gerald had borrowed from
his brother Pete to help with weed-eating failed to motivate the key to any
magic. Gerald did not turn into a tall, superstar athlete when he donned the
old football jersey a professional quarterback had once worn before signing and
giving to Gerald. The key worked only with articles of clothing connected in
some way with the memories of Maxine.
"I hope the
ghosts forgive me." Gerald frowned as he donned another article of
clothing taken from Maxine’s home. A stranger’s face peered back at him from
within the mirror. "But it's not right for Tony to take Maxine away like
he did. Not right to have taken her from her home."
Gerald took a deep
breath. Would Maxine see his true face? Would she comment upon how the black
dye faded to show the ugly gray of his real beard? Would Maxine see through the
magic Gerald hoped would disguise him from others? Or would Maxine's vision
also be fooled by the small key's magic, or worse, would she fail to recognize
any of the faces Gerald donned at all?
"I'm afraid,
Maxine, that I'm not going to make it easy on you. I hope your memory hasn't
faded too far."
Gerald unfolded the
articles of clothing from that cardboard box and set them across his
apartment's living room floor, trying to judge the pieces that would work best
for his plan. He needed a disguise that Tony would not recognize should he
arrive at the retirement home to check on his mother while Gerald was visiting.
Gerald needed to wear a face Tony would not recognize from some snapshot taped
into a photo album. Gerald didn't dare assume the guise of anyone he himself
recognized, but such strategy would not guarantee that Tony would not know the
face of whatever glamour Gerald chose for a mask.
Gerald's fingers
rubbed the bronze key as he considered a pair of brown, leather dress shoes.
The shoes were not a snug fit, but Gerald could at least slip his feet into the
soles, would be able to walk some distance before the leather might blister his
ankles. He had expected to see one of Richard's faces looking back at him from
the mirror. Instead, Gerald looked upon a stranger's face. Gerald suspected the
face could've belonged to one of Maxine's cousins or uncles. He had not
realized how little he knew of Maxine's family before witnessing the key's
power. Could the face that winked back at him in the polished glass have
belonged to an unknown lover, the face of an affair during those golden years
with Richard that Gerald so envied? Gerald wondered if Maxine held regrets of
her own.
Gerald hoped he would
have the opportunity to ask Maxine of those regrets. He hoped he would have the
luck to find some time alone with her, so that he might step out of those brown
shoes and show his life's love his true face should she fail to see through the
magic. He hoped that Maxine's heart would not flutter upon witnessing such
magic.
The gray sky looked
heavy enough to fall as Gerald loaded that box of clothing taken from Maxine's
home back into his car's trunk. Gripping the cold, small key at the end of that
purple strand of yarn, Gerald prayed that snow and ice would not turn the
highway treacherous.
* * * * *
Chapter 5 - A Drop of Ink in the Snow...
The windshield wipers
strained to clear the thick and heavy snow from the windshield as Gerald pushed
his car through the winter storm to reach Maxine. Voices on his radio hissed
and popped warnings of ice, and Gerald anticipated he would not be able to make
the drive back home until the next morning. He hoped the warehouse would show
him mercy for missing his shift, but Gerald knew his employer would feel little
obligation to give such kindness to an employee as old as Gerald.
Yet Gerald did not
resent the snow. The snow summoned memories of that afternoon he first saw
Maxine so many decades gone.
He had just turned
seventeen, an age most believed marked the beginning of a man. The football
season and the fall had ended, and so Gerald lingered in the woodshop following
the school day's last bell, where a man as young and as green as himself might
overhear tips on finishing a table, of fixing a carburetor, perhaps on even
slipping a hand casually up woman's shirt. But on a gray afternoon so many
decades ago, Mr. Harold chased all of the young loiterers out of his wood shop,
warning that the falling, thick snow was but a precursor to the storm that
would strand any lingering student away from home.
Much snow had fallen
in that hour since the younger children had skipped and laughed after being
dismissed early into the snowstorm's first flakes, and Gerald began his walk
across town to his home upon streets the snow made lonely and clean. Snow
gripped at Gerald's boots and taxed his steps. His ungloved fingers quickly
numbed whenever Gerald pulled his hands from his pockets. Not one vehicle
rumbled into his sight. None of the townsfolk watched him from a front porch.
Gerald felt happy, for the white world seemed prepared for his whim, a clean
slate upon which he might write whatever he chose to fancy.
A sound other than
the wind floated into Gerald's cold ears as he stepped upon the public
library's open front block of snow. Gerald froze in his steps. He had come to
believe that the snow had swept away everyone but himself from that town of
small, white homes and concrete sidewalks. He held his breath and listened
through the wind to a sobbing that carried across the chill.
Gerald wondered how
he had overlooked the girl who sat upon the library's first step. An oversized,
black coat draped over her thin, sobbing shoulders. Strands of black hair fell
out of a dark cap pulled low onto the girl's ears. Hands covered in red mittens
rose to rub at eyes that did not gaze upward from the snow. Gerald thought that
all those layers of clothing in which the girl huddled against the cold looked
both too large for her thin frame, casting the impression upon him that someone
had stolen a field scarecrow and dumped that mannequin upon the library step.
"The storm's
only going to get worse. They're saying the snow's going to turn to ice before
nightfall. You need to get home."
The girl's face
snapped up at Gerald. "Is it really going to ice?"
The girl's dark eyes
struck Gerald the moment he looked upon them. Gerald looked into those eyes and
thought of a pile of raven feathers, of ink dropped upon the snow.
"All this white
snow is just supposed to be the calm before the storm. That's why they've
already closed school."
The girl's shoulders
fell as she again sobbed.
"But it's only
snow right now," Gerald felt an urge to reach out to her, but she seemed
too delicate to touch or to comfort with cold, ungloved hands.
"I don't know
where to go," the girl didn’t look up from the step. "I didn't think
the storm would close the library like it has the school. I just needed a warm
place for a little while."
Gerald brushed a spot
on the library step next to that girl clean of snow. "Do you have very far
to walk home? I've got to go all the way across town, and maybe a little
company on the way home would help a little against the cold."
The girl's dark eyes
squinted into the cold wind as she shook her head.
"Are you scared
to go home?" Gerald asked. "Is there something wrong?"
The girl sighed, and
her breath frosted in the falling snow. "I don't know where home is."
Gerald raised an
eyebrow. "You must live somewhere. Have you forgotten how to get home? Are
you new to town?"
"You don't
understand," the girl replied.
"Well, where did
you come from this morning?"
The girl's mittens
rubbed at her eyes. "I know where that house is. But that house is empty
now. No one’s there. It's not my home anymore."
"But where are
your parents?"
"My mother's
gone," and the girl slowed her sobs and caught a new breath, "and I'm
hoping my father will remember that I like the library and come here to tell me
where home will be for tonight. But he won't come looking for me until after
dark, and the ice is coming. I just don't know where to go."
Gerald didn’t
understand how a girl could sound so lost in a town so small. But he knew that
cold could make even strong men very weak, and that crow of a girl sitting on
the library's front step was very young.
"Show me the house
you came from this morning."
The girl didn’t
accept Gerald's naked and numb hand into one of her red mittens when he offered
it, but she rose from the step and stomped across the thickening snow covering
the library's wide, front lawn. Gerald trailed and watched the girl's boots trip
as they pulled through the snow. He often pulled his cold hands from his
pockets to catch the girl as she stumbled upon a growing spot of ice on the
sidewalk. But the girl always caught her balance at the last moment as she
pushed her way through the white storm.
She stopped in front
of a tar-paper home several blocks from the library, in a section of town
usually loud with the barking and yelping of dogs. In that afternoon's snow,
even the dogs turned quiet.
"This was my
home this morning," sighed the girl, "but it's empty and locked
now."
"Maybe we just
need to knock. Maybe your father was out earlier."
The girl shook her
head and turned her eyes away from the house to look a new direction into the
snow.
Gerald climbed the
home's creaking steps onto a crooked, front porch. He rapped loudly upon the
front door, and his cold knuckles throbbed for the effort. The home remained
dark and silent. Peeking through a front window, Gerald saw within empty
chambers of dusty floors and peeling wallpaper. No one answered his knocking,
and Gerald returned to the girl waiting in the street.
"Are you sure
this is your house?"
The girl frowned.
"It told you it's not my house anymore. It was only my house this
morning."
"But it doesn't
look like anyone's lived in that house for years. It's completely empty."
"We don't have
any furniture, and we only stayed there a couple of weeks."
"Could you have
forgotten where you live?"
The girl's eyes
blazed. "I'm not a fool. I haven't forgotten anything."
Chapter 6 - A Mask and a Reunion...
Gerald paused before
walking through the glass, double doors leading into the retirement home's
reception room. The magic of that key fastened to the purple strand of yawn
around Gerald's neck pulsated in the doors' reflection, transforming Gerald's
face into the features of a stranger. He knew nothing of that face the charm's
magic summoned from the pair of brown dress shoes Gerald had scavenged from
Maxine's closet, shoes he had chosen to wear in order to disguise his identity
and reunite with Maxine no matter her son's efforts to keep them apart. The
snow had fallen all day, and the ice had made the highway too treacherous to
turn around after coming so far, and so Gerald took a breath to recapture his
faith in his old charm's mutation and strode into the home, reminding himself
that the odds were near impossible for anyone to recognize the face he
currently wore.
"I'd like to see
Maxine Hanson, please." Gerald hoped he sounded confident to the
receptionist seated behind the greeting counter.
The receptionist's
fingers tapped a short dance across a keyboard before she looked up into
Gerald's smiling mask. "I'm afraid that I’m not able to immediately allow
you to visit Mrs. Hanson. Her family has asked that they be allowed to screen
visitors to help smooth the transition into the home. But fortunately for you,
her son is at the moment with Mrs. Hanson. Let me ask if he might give us
approval before we escort you to her room."
"Certainly." Gerald forced himself to smile. How well did his
mask hide his unease?
Gerald took a seat on
a crimson and gold couch and waited for Tony Hanson to appear in order to
scrutinize the face who arrived to visit his mother. Gerald suspected that Tony
had described his true face to the home's staff, and the fact that none in the
home's powder blue uniforms paused to give him any consideration strengthened
his confidence in his charm's shimmering magic. Gerald didn’t have to wait long
before Tony entered the reception parlor from a hall behind the receptionist. Gerald
was encouraged when the receptionist needed to escort Tony to his mother's
waiting guest.
"I thank you for
coming by to visit," and Tony offered his hand as Gerald stood from the
couch, "but I'm afraid I don't recognize you, and I hope you forgive me
for being cautious concerning who visits my mother."
Gerald trembled as he
shook Tony’s hand. One of Tony's eyebrows rose as he squeezed Gerald's fingers,
as if by touch Maxine's son recognized something didn't match between the hand
he shook and the face that claimed to own it.
"I was first an
old friend of your father," Gerald started as Tony took a small step back
and peered into Gerald's eyes. "I go back to the war with your dad. I met
your mother through him. Used to visit more often when we were all young, and I
remember how proud both of them were the day you were born."
"I'm sorry, but
I didn't catch your name," Tony replied.
"Chuck
Grisham," Gerald had practiced saying the name during many of the miles
driving through the falling snow, and for several nights he had studied the
fiction he had written upon notecards concerning the face those shoes summoned.
"You don't look
so old for your age."
Gerald felt his face
flush beneath his key's shimmering magic. "A blessing from my mother's
line, Mr. Hanson. Though my face might suggest otherwise, believe me when I say
my bones tell a very different story."
"Of
course," Tony nodded. "Forgive me for all the questions."
"No need to
apologize," Gerald replied. "A person has to be skeptical these days.
Maxine's lucky to have such a son."
Gerald squeezed his
toes against his shoes’ inner leather to fortify his face's mirage.
"I have to warn
you, Mr. Grisham, that Maxine may not recognize you very quickly, or at
all."
Gerald's heart raced.
"I understand, son."
"Then just
follow me."
Gerald smiled as his
key's magic passed its first test, disarming Tony's suspicions and gaining him
access into Maxine's new residence. Gerald followed Tony through a couple of
turns in the hall before arriving at the door to Maxine's apartment. Maxine sat
in a high stool set in the middle of a plastic tarp set upon the middle of the
floor, her hair set in tight rollers while the fumes cast by the black hair dye
stung at Gerald's eyes. Gerald couldn't resist smiling. Maxine may have
suffered a severe indignation upon being uprooted into the home, but she
refused to miss any appointment with the dye as was required to chase the away
the gray.
"Someone's here
to visit, mom." Tony grinned as he strode into the room.
"Surprised they
found me, and surprised you let them get as far as my door."
Tony gave no
indication of feeling any slight at his mother's rebuke. "Mr. Grisham's
here. Do you remember Mr. Grisham?"
Gerald didn't breath
as he stepped into the room. Maxine looked up suddenly, and her eyes widened as
they fell upon Gerald, who wondered what face the magic chose to present to his
life-long love, whose memory had so faded during the year. Gerald didn't have
to wonder for very long, for Maxine's frown stretched into a joyous grin as her
shoulders shook in an escaped, short giggle.
"Of course I
recognize him."
Gerald stood still as
stone. Did she see through his key's magical glamour? Would Maxine betray his
identity? Would the magic, should Gerald be truly named, abandon him? Or did
Maxine see his true face at all, only claiming to remember a Mr. Grisham to
distract her son from the fog that settled upon her mind?
"He was one of
your father’s close friends, Tony," and Maxine winked at Gerald, who wrung
his hands behind his back. "It's been a long, long time. I wonder if you
might give the two of us the afternoon to catch up. It would mean a lot to
me."
Tony grinned and
kissed his mother's cheek before retreating to the apartment door. "Take
all the time you need. I'll just come back first thing tomorrow morning before
work to check in on you. I'm happy to see some company make you happy. You know
I'm just doing my best to care for you."
Maxine grunted as
Tony slipped down the hall. "Get over here on this stool, old man."
Maxine slid off her seat and grabbed an unopened box of black dye from the
counter. "The gray's all over your face, Gerry. It might all be for the
best that you keep that key tied around your neck, but that doesn't mean I
can't see all the gray already filling in your beard. Doesn't mean I have to
live with that."
Gerald nearly toppled
the stool as he jumped upon the seat. Maxine applied the dye more heavily than
ever before. His eyes watered, and Gerald felt the fumes singe the sensitive
lining inside his nose. But he didn't complain at all. With a little magic and
a little patience, he returned to his Maxine.
