Breathe

This attempt at inspriration was taken from "The Observation Deck: A Tool Kit for Writers" by Naomi Epel. The card I pulled today was: "Breathe."

Breathe

The day I noticed you could see mail peeking above the windowsill, I decided it was time to do something. That was at 6am when I was pulling out of the driveway to leave for work. I was so frantic to hide that piece of paper, I practically forgot to take the car out of gear or put on the parking brake. No one could see that paper!

Button, my marmalade kitty, scooted out the door when I opened it and, for a moment, I stood paralyzed with indecision. Hide the paper or save my indoor pet from becoming street pizza. So seldom had Button seen the outdoors, his state was identical to mine and I chucked him under my right elbow before he could decide between rose bushes and driveway.

Getting into my house when I am carrying something always reminds me of a revolving doorway. It takes a special circular movement to get me in, whatever I’m carrying in and get the door shut before anyone can see in. Safely inside, I put Button up to my face and nuzzled his neck against my cheek.

“Bad kitty!” I growled, but rubbed my finger against that spot under his whiskers and behind his mouth to tell him I was only fooling. His great escape forgotten, Button’s purr rattled the piles of loose papers where I set him down.

The window in question was in the breakfast “nook” – a gimmick room I bought into when I bought the house. How cute! Later I realized that the space would have been better served by just making the kitchen bigger. Maybe then someone could actually get something done in there. As it was, I had to turn sideways and move slowly through the kitchen so as not to bash my hip or my side against a hidden portion of my table. Of course, I also had to lean away from the stove and oven in case I accidentally moved some button or dial and set the house ablaze.

The mail was one of those “Have you seen this child” postcards that show up every Friday in the box. I had no idea what lax moment in sorting led that paper to end up here. Those postcards belonged in the back bedroom.

I took a moment to study the face in the picture. She looked to be about seven, blonde straight hair, crooked teeth, – it was a B&W picture – but I imagined she had cornflower blue eyes. “Look carefully,” I told myself, “you might be the girl’s only chance.” But how could you pin a concrete piece of factual identity about one stranger’s face among the thousands you see in person or on tv every day. The girl was a stranger. Looking at the portion of the card that indicated when she went missing, I realized no one had seen this girl in seven years. I looked at her again; struggling to picture her as an angst-ridden teenager. No good. She was a stranger. I made a mental note to compare her against my milk carton collection when I got back home after work; perhaps theirs was a better picture. I thought again how I wished they would do a separate series – perhaps a card in your water or electric bill – that showed the kids that had been found. Maybe then I could throw away a postcard or milk carton or two. I hoped the lack of such a series didn’t mean no one was ever found.

Button was playing jungle with a piece of stray wrapping paper that had somehow found it’s way into the hallway. Really, you manage a household with the best of intentions: Everything in its place and a place for everything. The next thing you knew you found your best blouse filed in the freezer. Well, not really, but I did once find an oven mitt next to my toilet. It was a mystery as I haven’t used my oven or stove since I moved in here. No wonder so many stories are written about ghosts.

Having neatly stored the postcard where it belonged, I made my way back to the front door. You have to hug the left wall with your back to it; facing the newspaper piles. Ever since I was able to produce the newspaper photo of Eloise’s daughter’s debut in local theater, which was perceived as a miracle since it happened three years earlier, I held onto every paper I received. You never knew when somebody might need something. They were organized by date and stayed fairly neat except for occasional Button-quakes. Right above the newspapers there was a high window that looked out on a Tulip tree outside. In Spring, Button loved to climb on the highest paper and watch the birds out the window. Once, launching himself off a pile into loose papers below, he scratched deep grooves into “City Council Approves Parking Meters.” I still worried that someone would ask about that article.

I checked my watch as I locked the front door. Not late yet. Plenty of time. It was as I turned to walk to my car that I saw the boy. He was about fourteen. He was leaning against the fence that hid my trash cans from the road and smoking a cigarette.

“Hey! You! What do you think you’re doing in my yard?”

But, of course, I didn’t say that. I unlocked the door and shut it behind me as quickly and as quietly as I have ever done. Once inside, I stood behind the door breathing, just listening to my own breathing. Button, delighted to see me return, moved towards me like a shark under waves of paper. I snatched him into my arms and held him against my face.

“It’s okay. We’re okay Button. Really, we’re okay.” I repeated over and over in his ear as I made my way to peek out the living room window.

He was still there, insolently leaning against my fence, wearing loose baggy jeans, an oversized t-shirt, and a red ball cap backwards. I gasped. Red! Backwards ball cap. My God he could be part of a gang! Already kneeling on the floor to look out, I sunk lower as I scanned everything else I could see for more hoodlums.

There was no one. No once except him.

What brought him here? Why was he in my yard? I studied him for a moment. Could I have a card somewhere in the back bedroom with his seven-year-old face on it? Could he have parents somewhere who wondered where he is and had no knowledge he had ended up like that? Was he once someone’s sweet little angel?

Button snapped me back to my senses with a well-timed yowl. I still held him in my arms and he was getting pushed a little tightly against the wall.

“Shhh!” I admonished. “Sorry baby, but we don’t want to draw his attention.”

I crawled away from the window for 5 feet before I stood on my feet. My cell phone was in my purse in my car; I’d have to call work from the kitchen.

I moved past the oven at a bad angle and my hip brushed a dial. I stopped and ran my fingers over it until I was certain that the arrow pointed up, in the off position.

As I lifted the phone up to my ear, I realized my breathing was loud and ragged. I set the phone back down and willed myself to breathe more slowly.

“It’s okay. Really. You’re okay.”

I thought about who best to deliver my message to and decided to call Juana, the woman at the desk next to mine.

“Chjess?” She answered with a thick accent. I wondered why she never used “Hello.” I wondered where she was from to have that accent. I wondered why I had never asked her.

“Juana? This is Penelope. Penelope, from the desk next to yours? “

“Chjess?”

“Could you tell Mr. Hoskins that I’m having some car trouble and I’ll be in late?” Talking to Juana, the lie slipped easily from my lips. She wouldn’t ask any questions; wouldn’t press for any details.

“Hokay.”

“Thank you.” Hanging up the phone, I sank down with my back against the wall until I was sitting on two uneven stacks of cookbooks.

Was the boy still there? What should I do about it? I chuckled slightly as I pictured myself hurling cookbooks out the living room window at him while shouting “Go away!”

Maybe he was gone.

Maybe he had worked deeper into my yard. Maybe he was in my back yard.

That thought propelled me to my feet faster than any jet fuel.

“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”

The bathroom window had the best view of the backyard. I slipped my shoes and socks off so my feet would get a better grip on the tub. Standing with my left foot on the edge of the tub and my right on a stack of magazines in the tub, I unlocked the window and lifted the opaque glass until I could scan the yard. It took me about 5 minutes to convince myself that shadow behind my pink Camellia wasn’t him.

There was no one in my backyard.

Moving to shut and relock the window, my right foot slid on the top magazine. Flailing about like Button trying to escape the tub when I’m trying to give him a bath, I tried to remain upright. But I fell. I banged the back of my right thigh against the tub edge and landed with my butt on the floor and my legs in the tub. I sat as I had landed for a long time. Not moving. Maybe I was in shock. I would be sore, but I hadn’t really hurt anything. A tiny portion of my brain was assessing the noise I had made and wondering if the boy had heard me. I pictured firefighters breaking down my front door and rescuing me because the boy had heard me fall. I pictured me thanking him just like Timmy’s Mom used to thank Lassie.

“Tshhh.” I breathed in disgust. “Look what you’ve done to yourself, Penelope. Just look.”

I took the magazine that I had slipped on and ripped the front cover off. I crumpled it into a ball and threw it into the waste paper basket next to the toilet. I did the same with the next page . . . . and the next.

It seemed like a year later when I threw that last page into the trash and left the bathroom, but it can only have been thirty minutes. Back in the living room, I crawled those last five feet to the window with my shoes and socks in my left hand. I peeked out as I slid my right sock on; the boy was gone.

I checked every accessible window twice before I could leave the house. There were countless shadows and branches that seemed to move like an insolent teenager. But the boy was gone. I spent a long time surveying the front before I opened my door. There was no one.

Behind the fence, where the boy had been standing, the only evidence that he had been there was a small cigarette butt. It was tiny, the sort of butt someone makes when he’s used to bumming cigarettes.

“Tshhh.” I lifted the cigarette between the very tips of my fingers and slipped it into a plastic baggy in my purse. Tonight I would look for that boy in the postcards and, if tv is to be believed, even a cigarette butt this small should have the boy’s DNA if the police needed it.

I wondered if his parents knew he smoked.