“You
can keep that one if you like.”
Sitting on her bed with all of the pins
spread in front of her, Polaris recalled how extraordinarily similar that that
sounded to the story that Sharon had told her.
Polaris and Sharon had been friends for
a long time. They lived on the same street and were in the same grade. It was a
rainy day. Little drops had been sprinkled Polaris as she walked to Sharon’s,
but as she entered it was as thought the heavens had been smashed open and all
of the waters above had dumped themselves onto the road that they lived on.
They were sitting on the soft carpet
next to Sharon’s bed. Sharon was showing Polaris one of her most prized
possessions: a heart-shaped brooch, not two inches long and a pale sunset pink.
Three flowers, two yellow and red and one blue sprouted from the tip. A
butterfly hovered over them flying in the strip of white that streaked across
the top where the color had been rubbed off.
With pride, Sharon talked about how she
had received it. She clasped it in her hand and it looked to Polaris that she
was messaging it.
“It was a day like today,” Sharon said.
“Rainy and grey. I remember because I wore my rain coat with the red flowers.
We were going to the hospital to visit a friend, but looking back I don’t
remember who it was. I was nervous and
didn’t let go of my dad’s hand.” She paused. “There was a packed elevator when
we went up. At each floor someone got off. Soon the only people left were
me, my dad and a lady who looked about in her twenties.” Pause. “She was
pretty, but I forgot what she wore. I think that it was a white shirt and
knitted cardigan. Anyway, she was wearing this very pin,” Sharon relaxed her
fingers so that Polaris could see it, “and I couldn’t take my eyes off of it,
Polaris. It was just so beautiful. She must have seen me staring, though,
because she smiled walked over.
“‘You look afraid,’ she said to me, and looked
me straight in the eye. And you’ll never guess what she did next, Polaris. Can
you guess?”
Polaris opened her mouth to answer, but
Sharon rushed ahead.
“She gave it to me! Can you believe it?
She just undid it and pressed it into my hand and said, ‘You can keep this.’ I
don’t know about you, but if I had something that pretty I’d never give it
away!”
A few months later it was Polaris’ twelfth
birthday. It was as wet as it was on the day at the hospital, so when Sharon
and her twin sister, Sam, came to deliver her birthday present they couldn’t
stay for long. When Polaris opened her birthday presents that evening, she
found the little pin at the bottom of the bag.
“If
I had something that pretty I’d never give it away!”
“Never, Sharon?” Polaris whispered as
she rubbed the pin thoughtfully.
On her bed, she noticed that she had
been unconsciously feeling the brooch. She looked at all of the other pins that
had been spilled in front of her, then gently put the heart down and picked up
a pair of twin buttons, with needles so stiff that she couldn’t open it
herself. They were both round, and fit each fit easily a palm. Polaris knew
that they had once been orange, though now they were the color of rust. Each
read “Maryland Beagle Club” with a brown and black pup standing, alert, on each
one. Polaris knew well the one whom they had once belonged to.
Conrad Sterner was born in the year
1919. He grew up, got married and had four daughters, raising them about five
minutes from the local Methodist church on the border of Maryland and
Pennsylvania. They each got married
and had children, and grandchildren (Polaris was one of them), and by 1990,
Conrad Sterner was a great-grandfather. His wife lived to see her
great-grandchildren, too.
In his long life, Pappy Sterner (as he
was known to Polaris) had been a part of many things. One of these things was
belonging to the Maryland Beagle Club. He had a special fondness for beagles
(and John Deere tractors, and hunting).
In March 2012 Pappy Sterner passed away.
He was ninety-three.
Polaris didn’t think that she could cry
any more. Her eyes were sore from being rubbed and her fingers were clammy and
cold and numb as she wrung her tissue between them. While her family loaded the
car to return home, Grammy, Pappy’s daughter and Polaris’ grandmother, came up
and wrapped Polaris’ hands around something.
“Polaris,” she said to her, “I was
unpacking some of Pappy’s things from his house, and I found this. It has a lot
of gifts that your family gave him, and there are some things that I found that
I’d like you to have.” It was a wooden box, about eight inches wide and half as
tall, the white paint peeling off and a picture of her mother and father and
younger brother all sitting on a loveseat. It had to have been taken at least
ten years ago, because Polaris’ father’s hair was still black and curly rather
than grey and her brother was still less than a year old.
While Grammy hurried back into the
house, Polaris opened the box. Inside there were a few trinkets and the
Maryland Beagle Club buttons. She held them close to her chest and imagined
Pappy Sterner wearing the same pins forty years ago.
When Polaris’ father drove back to their
home, he decided to take a detour (dads are sometimes like that) and drove past
by- you guessed it -the Maryland Beagle Club, or the tree-shrouded field and
house that it used to be, anyway. Polaris could see Pappy (much younger, of
course) running across the field with a pair of faithful beagles at his heels
and other men running with him, then getting tired with the sun and finally
dragging themselves inside where hot cider and lantern light waited for them.
Polaris blinked and the image faded. It had lasted barely a second.
Months passed. Polaris acquired many
more pins, but every now and then she’d put on one that had once belonged to her
beloved great-grandfather. It was in late August when she had picked them up
again in the comfort of her cozy bed and clutched them tightly, one in each
hand.
No comments:
Post a Comment