TWENTY BEES

Bitter. An after-taste that remains an hour or so later.

To be honest, I’m not a natural wine drinker.

But for the past while, I’ve been sipping some of hers.

To make her laugh.

I noisily slurp, smacking my lips just for the sheer theatre of it.

She likes a dram of red wine with her evening meal.

A meal that seems to be getting smaller each passing week.

Twenty Bees – that’s her choice of wine.

Red. Never white.

Canadian, I’m pretty sure.

Only twenty bees were harmed in the making of this wine.

That’s not on the label.

I pour from the large bottle into a small crystal tumbler.

Two inches in the bottom - for her.

Another inch on top - for me.

I swirl it around, giving it air. I think air adds flavor. But I don’t know for sure.

I bring it to the dinner table.

Hunched over, she peeks from under a fuzzy fringe of white-gray hair.

‘Your wine,’ I say, holding the tumbler in my hand. ‘Twenty Bees. Your favourite.’

She smiles.

Then, I slurp it. Loudly. Pretending to like it.

Sometimes I get carried away with the slurping. My shirt front blossoms red.

She laughs.

I remember that special laugh, but now a soft giggle’s thrown in.

‘Oh. My. God,’ she says.

It’s her favourite saying these days.

Except for ‘You’re weird,’ which she says quite often.

At least to me.

‘Not too much,’ she says.

‘No worries,’ I say.

I set the tumbler down.

Another smile.

A hand, brown freckles in abundance, eases out, slim fingers surround the glass.

‘Ah,’ she says. ‘You’re weird.’

She sips - like a tiny bird from raindrops puddled within a leaf.

‘Ah,’ she says again.

Thin, pale lips smacking, just like me.

There’s an after-taste that lingers long after dinner.

It isn’t the wine.

It’s the memories of what once was.

Forever lost.

‘You’re weird,’ she whispers.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I am.’

First Published. In CommuterLit, June 17, 2021.

The Backstory. This story is about my life in the year of a pandemic. Serious illness has come to my family - unwanted, life altering and challenging to everyone. I write about some parts of it, just to gain perspective. Occasionally, I share a story with a wider audience beyond family and close friends. This is one of those stories.

Legal Rights. I own the rights to this story. Please don't 'borrow' it from this blog and publish it somewhere without my permission. Ask me. Tell me what you want to do with it. We probably will be able to work something out.

THE BALL JAR

 

THE BALL JAR

Grandma Ruth lived for canning - almost anything that grew on trees or in the ground. Summer and Fall, sealed bottles of preserved this and that began to line up, three and four deep, on the rough board shelving she had in the 'cold room.' Whenever possible, she liked to use Ball-made jars, but in a pinch, she'd take any glass bottle that could be sterilized on her stovetop, seal tightly and still be good months later.

Unfortunately, canning skills didn't pass down from Grandma Ruth to her daughter Beth, my mother. I remember the two women quarrelling over it. 'Too much bloody work, mama, when I can go down to Fresh Stop and pick what I need - in a can, right off the shelf. Or pull from a bin in the vegetable and fruit section.' After many years of disagreeing, both just grew tired of the fight and withdrew to their respective corners of our family's generational ring.

Grandma Ruth canned until she died in 1966; my mother avoided the hot topic of canning but deliberately went out of her way to buy more tin cans of this and that then could reasonably be expected to be consumed in two lifetimes. I've always believed it was Beth's way of sticking the finger at her mother for all their years of quarrelling over the god damned Ball jars taking up space in the walk-in pantry and the daughter's unforgivable moral corruption of not embracing her mother's religion of canning.

When Grandma Ruth died, Beth and her sister Evie reluctantly went to their mother's home to clean it out wall to wall in readiness for a quick sale in a scorching metro city marketplace. I went along on that first day just because I knew Beth was determined to start with Grandma Ruth's many shelves of Ball jars.

I wanted to bear silent witness to Grandma's obsession with Ball jars – empty or full.

Beth, Evie and I arrived at Grandma's about the same time. Mom and Evie got side-tracked by a painting hanging over the faux fireplace on our way back to the pantry. Mom insisted it was a genuine Lawren Harris and worth 'a crapload of money'; Aunt Evie believed it to be 'a god damn real good fake, not worth than a couple hundred max.'

While they quarrelled like only sisters can do, I went into Grandma Ruth's pantry. Six shelves high, each twelve feet long and one foot deep, her Ball jars lined up like silent foot soldiers waiting to go into battle.

Except for one.

An empty Ball jar, minus a sealing lid, light blue tinted glass with the letters' Ball - Perfect Mason' visible in the light from a 100-watt bulb dangling from the ceiling. On the top shelf – not an easy reach for my tiny Grandma, but an easy one for me at well over six feet.

I took it down, holding it carefully in my hands. I blew away layers of dust that had gathered on it over many years out of the way on the top shelf. The jar was imperfect, tiny air bubbles imprisoned within it, small ridges of glass and blue dye appearing in random patterns.

I could only imagine why Grandma had kept this Bell jar apart from the others. It was too beautiful to abuse its space with pedestrian fruits and vegetables. It should be admired. It should be kept in a special place. It needed a particular person to keep it safe from the imminent onslaught of the non-believers - Beth and Evie.

I was that particular person.

Over the years, since I rescued my Ball jar from Grandma's pantry, it has served me well in so many ways.

For a few years, I kept pencils in it. Also, broken ballpoints that I saved for spare parts. Magic markers sometimes took up space there, too – the smelly kind that little kids and I love to sniff loudly, always leaving yellow, red or blue ink dabs on the tips of our noses.

After returning from my post-college 'grand tour of Europe, Asia and Australia,' I put samples of each country's coins in Grandma's blue Ball jar. I filled it up. It weighed a ton. So it did double duty as a paperweight on my office desk.

One Christmas, I got a mesh bag of brightly coloured small marbles. I emptied the Ball jar of its contents and filled it to overflowing with the marbles. I kept it on my writing desk for a couple of years.

Once, someone in my family – no one ever admitted to it – removed the marbles, replacing them with coloured sand. 'It's calming,' my wife said. 'Bound to help your writing when you're so chill.' The coloured sand didn't live up to the promise, so I replaced it with a few dried flowers.

A few years ago, I emptied Grandma's blue Ball jar, washed it out and left it empty, sitting in the sunlight on the window sill above my writing desk. Occasionally, I rinse it out and pour in a cold beer or chocolate milk.

Of all the things that have filled up Grandma's beautiful jar over the years, I think the best thing is the memories.

The other day, my daughter asked, 'Dad, when you're gone, can you leave me Grandma's Ball jar? I promise I'll take good care of it – for both you and Grandma.'

I think I'll do just as she asks.

Grandma Ruth would be pleased.

First Published. In Potato Soup, May 25, 2021.

The Backstory. This tale is mostly made up, but some elements popped right onto the computer screen from my own experience over the years with a special Ball canning jar. Most writers, I think, have an object or a few objects that inspire their creativity on the page or computer screen. An antique, blue Ball jar is one of mine.

Legal Rights. I own the rights to this story. Please don't 'borrow' it from this blog and publish it somewhere without my permission. Ask me. Tell me what you want to do with it. We probably will be able to work something out.

 

 

Niagara Falls 1963

 

I rarely check out her lingerie drawer. I can’t remember the last time. Over our years together, checking out the contents of her underwear and socks drawer was one of those ‘rules’ a couple puts into place. Rarely spoken – ‘My undies and socks drawer is off limits’ – it just is. And, quite frankly, despite years of intimacy, I still feel a bit uncomfortable poking around in the top drawer of her dresser.

But here I am - picking through her panties, warm wool socks and bras of all colours and designs.

^{______ ó ______}

‘Next time you come back, bring me some panties, would you? Open back hospital gowns with my bare ass hanging out  - remarkable as it is, mind you – anyway, I need some damn panties to wear. Since they’re keeping me for a couple of days, two or three should do it. Ok?’

 She smiles with just a touch of the mischief-maker in it. She knows I’ll be uncomfortable, embarrassed even. But it makes for an even better ask if she doesn’t point it out. Especially here in a hospital room she’s sharing with three other women. Of course, they’re pretending not to listen, but they sure are. And each of them has a hard time hiding the enjoyment they’re having at my expense.

‘Ok,’ I answer in a whisper. But sound carries in a room like this, so I may as well have shouted it. ‘Any particular colour you want?’ Muffled laughter from the other beds. A wide smile from her bed. She’s enjoying this far too much.

I gather up my backpack, offer a quick, dry kiss on her cheek and scramble with a modicum of dignity for the exit. Just as I reach the door, she says, ‘Oh, honey. A couple of bras too. Maybe the black lace one with the cups that push me up and out. You know the one.’ She laughs a bit too loud. ‘There’s a cute Resident here I think would appreciate it.’ 

Out in the hall, I hear all four women laughing. I resist the urge to go back into the room and remind her that she’s not 40 anymore when that black push-up bra would really mean something.

I decide I’ll have her panties and bras in a small white bag that I’ll casually slip onto her bedside table. At least that’s the plan now, but I know all four of them will be waiting for my return with her undies, especially the black bra. I can only imagine how my wife will play it up. I wonder how the Resident will react when he sees black lace under her light blue hospital gown.

^{______ ó ______}

At the back of the drawer, buried under several bulky pairs of her favourite Merino socks, I discover two rolled-up tubes of off-white paper pages. Held together with a thick purple elastic – like the kind that comes occasionally wrapped around a parcel of letters. Each tube, about the length of a rolled-up newspaper, has many sheets in it. And a small box, wrapped in old newspaper using lots of clear sticky tape. She’s always used newspaper and gobs of tape for wrapping stuff. She was doing it when I first met her as a junior in high school. She still does it now, fifty-one years later.

I’m curious. Why would she’d keep all this hidden away in her undies drawer? Maybe I’m over-thinking this. Perhaps it’s not hidden in the way I mean. Perhaps it’s all here for ‘safekeeping.’ Maybe. But I’m leaning more toward ‘hidden’ as in ‘deliberately keep it out of sight from my husband’ hidden.

I step back and sit on her side of the bed, shoving back two of her pillows to make space. Disturbed, the pillows release the scent of her – Dune by Dior – citrus, vanilla, jasmine and sandalwood. She’s worn it since the early 90’s – her signature perfume, expensive but one of the very few extravagances she permits herself. I let her scent wrap unseen around me. Memories.

I remove the elastic on the nearest tube. Dozens of pencil and charcoal drawings unfold slowly in my hands. Her pencil and charcoal sketches. Always that, never any colour. Each of her sketches is signed and dated – this one: JAS, June 8/63. Some include a note above the date – picnic Niagara Falls. I slowly turn each page. Our life together reveals itself in her perfect sketches. She always has her sketch pad with her or nearby. Most folks use a camera to capture memories or scenes that interest them. My wife uses a spiral-bound sketch pad – always the Strathmore 400 series. No object is too small or large for her pencil. But she is fascinated with the human body, especially hands and the face, eyes, and mouth.

She is an accomplished artist. But a private one. None of her exquisite work has shown in a gallery. Never will. She shares her work with family, close friends, important other people in her life. I expect her surgeon will get a drawing of his face or maybe his hands. Perhaps even his Resident, if he reacts well to the peek of black lace under that gown.

^{______ ó ______}

June 8/63 – picnic Niagara Falls. Us having a picnic on a grassy knoll with the Canadian side Falls in the background — a memory, every detail still fresh in my mind.

We drove there in my grandfather’s ’54 Chev Bel Air. He’d died in May of that year and left me his beloved car. He’d take me on road trips when I was younger. We had many good times in that machine. Now that it was mine, the Falls road trip would be the first on my own. I’d saved up enough to pay for the gas and maybe a souvenir from the shops that line Clifton Hill. She brought lunch, a blanket and of course, her Strathmore and pencils.

Back then, she used cheap pencils with soft lead. 2 B’s, if I remember correctly. But like anything else in life, once she became more settled and had more resources to devote to her hobby, the graphite pencils from Staedtler or Faber-Castell became her drawing instruments of choice.

She’d never been to the Falls, so there was lots to see. She’d made egg salad sandwiches on brown bread – my favourite – with carrot sticks and old cheddar slices. I think her mother made a thermos of green tea and two large chocolate layer cake pieces, especially for the trip.

‘I want a souvenir before we go,’ she says. ‘Something that helps me always fall in love with this place again and again.’ She waves her hand in a slow three-sixty in the air.

‘Then we’re off to Clifton Hill,’ I say.

She visits every tourist trap shop on the street, searching for something to remember her visit, our picnic, the wet trip to the Falls itself on the Maid of the Mist.

She finds the perfect souvenir. A small snow globe type item. Only this is unique. Somehow, the makers made it so that when shaken, the globe snowflakes only appear to be cascading over the Falls itself in a beautiful flow of sparkling colours.

‘I love it,’ she gushes. ‘Don’t you love it too?’

‘Yeah, that’s the best snow globe I’ve ever seen. A great souvenir of our visit to the Falls.’ I buy it for her, and I’m rewarded with a tight, full-body hug and a deep, damp kiss.

‘I’ll keep this forever,’ she promises.

We drive home in the Bel Air, feeling like royalty. She sits in the middle of the front seat, left hand on my thigh, sometimes slowly sliding a bit here, a bit there, as only teen lovers can do.

Before I drop her at home, we spend an hour or so at our favourite make-out spot in the lane of an abandoned farm near our old high school. We’ve been here many times before, but always in my father’s ratty Toyota Corolla. But on this day, I had my own car –the ’54 Chev Bel Air with a huge rear seat. Need I say more?

^{______ ó ______}

The second tube of sketches is more recent, my wife’s skills as an artist clearly on display in every drawing. There’s a surprise waiting for me.

Many of these drawings are of me. Since she is always sketching life around her, I never paid much attention to her drawing while I was working, watching TV, reading a book or feeding the animals in the barn. There were drawings – she called them ‘studies’ – of my hands, my face, cheeks, lips. All rendered in fine detail. 

I was stunned by the beauty of her work. It took a long time to work my way through her second tube of sketches. Taken together, these two tubes of illustrations was like experiencing a ‘Best Of…’ collection of memorable moments in our life together.

I decide to open the small box wrapped in newspaper and sticky tape. Inside, carefully nestled in amongst the small Styrofoam beads, is her snow globe.

I lift it out and hold it carefully in my hands. I gently shake it left, then right and watch the sparkly snow pieces flow over the edge of the Falls – again and again.

I put her snow globe back into the box.

I will take it to her this evening. Along with the panties and one white bra. Not the black lacey one with push-up cups.

I’m substituting black lace for sparkly snow pieces.

The snow globe.

Our picnic at Niagara Falls.

Our road trip in the ’54 Chev.

A deserted farm lane near Ancaster High.

Let’s see what those three other women in East 4-702 think of that story.

First Published. In the Canadian online magazine of short fiction, CommuterLit, during the week of April 12 to 17, 2021.

The Backstory. During the Covid summer of 2020, I took on a writing project of considerable size. I would write several short stories each week until the end of October. My stories were generated from prompt words, phrases or ideas provided by Canadian writer and educator, Sarah Selecky. 

'Niagara Falls 1963' was one of 52 stories I wrote that summer.

I enjoyed creating and writing this story of teenage love maturing into enduring love between both characters as mature adults. I hope you enjoy the tale.

Legal Rights. I own the rights to this story. Please don't 'borrow' it from this blog and publish it somewhere without my permission. Ask me. Tell me what you want to do with it. We probably will be able to work something out.