“She thought of him now and made him last forever.” Vivian Pham
Autumn, 2019
The cemetery was silent but for the soft cooing of a mourning dove and the sound of air rustling the leaves remaining on the 200-hundred-year old oaks dotting the well tended grounds. Two centuries of generations were represented by headstones ranging from the ornate epitomizing the tastes and philosophies of ages past, to the simpler and more austere of today. A lone somberly dressed woman stood looking down at one of the simple ones. She was an ordinary looking, middle-aged woman, on the short side, a little plump, with shoulder length soft brown hair that lifted gently with the breeze. Her nearly crystalline blue eyes, her one claim to beauty, reflected the sorrow filling her. Clutched to her breast was a slim book with a leather bound burgundy cover that gleamed richly in the afternoon sun.
Dropping to a crouch, she traced her fingers over the name carved into the finished granite as her mind drifted back...
Summer, 1971
Inasmuch as it was possible with being a girl, Heather Russett was all boy. Growing up as she did the only girl among three younger brothers, she had learned long ago how to be tough and to give as good as she got. She was brave, bold, and very imaginative in her play, and was forever rebelling against her mother's quixotic attempts to make her behave like a lady. At nine years old, Heather just wasn't interested in fru fru. She called very few girls her friends but she had several boys that she considered her best pals. The closest were ten-year-old Thomas Sullivan and his younger brother, Tony. The three were nearly inseparable. Where you found one you would most likely find the others.
Summer had arrived hot and humid on the tiny military base in southeast Virginia where their fathers were stationed. Enlisted housing consisted of townhouses with small, well maintained lawns. Many had colorful flower beds alongside the foundations and sidewalks, some glistening with water droplets from sprinklers at the ends of hoses. In the streets and along the sidewalks kids rode their bikes or roller skated, while others enjoyed the playground beyond the back yards.
The Three Musketeers, a they called themselves, emerged from the woods they weren't supposed to have gone into, animated and suitably impressed with finding the spot where a local farmer would haul off the bodies of his dead cows. They had long heard the rumors that such a place had existed but it had taken many secret forays before they actually found it. To their immense disappointment no cow seemed to have died recently, but, still, all those bones lying around had been pretty cool.
Heather strode confidently between the exuberant, often rash, Tony, and the quieter, more reserved Tommy, singing the chorus of “Jeremiah Was A Bullfrog” in between commenting about their experience. Soon they were planning their next expedition to find a forgotten Civil War cemetery, also in the woods behind them. They weren't exactly certain what the Civil War had been all about but they'd heard enough to know there had been much heroism and bloodshed.
She was glad that the school year had ended weeks ago. In the past couple of months things had gotten kind of weird with Tommy and Tony. It started exasperatingly with their suddenly arguing over who would carry her books from the bus to her house, a matter she settled in a practical manner by dividing the books up between them. Then there had been that new girl move in down the street. The prissy one who wore the sissy shorts and blouses that tied up around her waist. Heather couldn't see what value she had as she obviously couldn't handle a curtain rod sword or field a ball, but all the boys were suddenly interested whenever she happened to saunter by. Then came the painful field trip to Colonial Williamsburg where her friends suddenly weren't interested in sharing space with her on the bus, preferring to sit with a group of other boys that excluded her. She had been relegated to sitting with the girls, with whom she had nothing in common. Her feelings had been unaccountably hurt and the excitement over the trip had quickly died. It had taken her a week to get over it.
But now it was summer. School was out and things were back to normal. They were The Three Musketeers again and there were adventures to be had. Adventures made all the more exciting because they meant going places and doing things that would have upset their parents to no end.
When they reached the boys' house they all went inside for some grape kool aid. It was cool inside after the heat of outside and it felt pretty good as the sweat dried from their grimy faces and bodies. As they sat at the table talking about an upcoming cub scout trip that Heather could go on because her parents were the den leaders, the boys' mother suddenly appeared. She scolded Tony for being so late coming inside, reminding him that he had a dentist appointment within just a couple of hours, and ordered him upstairs to bathe and get ready. A neighbor would keep an eye on Tommy while she gone, which made him and Heather grin at each other in relieved glee. Better Tony go to the dentist than they. Very soon afterward, they escaped back outside, collected their bicycles, and took off for the minnow pond on the outskirts of the base. It was someplace else they weren't supposed to go, of course.
The afternoon passed. After time spent catching and releasing minnows with their bare hands they rode their bikes back toward housing, meandering this way and that as their attention was caught by different things. Heather noticed that the Bookmobile was parked at the end of the street but she knew she wouldn't be able to go until her dad woke up from having worked the night shift. They cheered when the Coca Cola truck pulled in so that people could buy whole cases of drinks right off the truck. And they wished they had money to buy candy bars from the vending machine outside of the small exchange near the community pool.
Eventually they found themselves at the deserted flag football field and climbed to the top of the bleachers. There they remembered the events of the day and talked about what they would do the next. She didn't notice that Tommy was growing quieter until she realized she was the one doing all the talking. Looking at him she was surprised to find he wouldn't look back and she stopped talking, not exactly sure what was going on. They sat in silence for a few minutes and Heather was just about to demand an explanation when he suddenly turned to her with a scared expression. Startled she waited and watched as he opened and closed his mouth a couple of times. She was beginning to get really worried now.
After a few moments, his voice gone high with anxiety, he blurted, “I love you!”
Heather was horrified! After one gaping moment she fled down the bleachers and didn't stop until she reached home. Her last glimpse of Tommy's young face had betrayed his anguish.
Many years later, Heather would often recall the experience with regret and confusion. It wasn't until she recalled that day and that moment in therapy that she began to understand the tragic dynamics of things that were happening each time she, her parents, and her brothers would go home to Tennessee to visit their family. She began to fully understand the damage that had been wrought by someone whom she was continually thrust into the company of, and by the apparent blindness of her parents to what was going on. In knowing this, she began to look back with sadness for her lost innocence and with sorrow for the way she had hurt a young boy who had bravely and ardently declared his feelings for her. And she struggled with anger and the sheer injustice of it all.
Now she crouched beside the headstone bearing the name of Thomas Sullivan, dead these nine months, and cried quiet tears as she remembered that one glorious summer so long ago. As the tears began to slow, she looked at the cover of the book with its exquisite leather binding. Imprinted was the title, “Young Forever Love.” Tommy had grown up to become a university English professor and the book contained poems that he had written about loving as a child and young adult. She had received it a few days before from an attorney's office in another part of the country with a letter explaining Tommy's final wish that she somehow be located and the book sent to her. Two days later she had flown to the university town where he had lived and died, found the cemetery where he had been laid to rest, and spent a long time pouring out all that she wished she could have said to him. Opening the cover she felt the tears begin anew as she read his inscription, “I never forgot. Love, Tommy.”
Heartbroken she kissed the tips of her fingers and touched his name.
“Me, neither, Tommy,” she whispered, “Me neither.”
There comes a time, during adolescence, when childhood buddies suddenly discover different feelings that they never had before. And, when we are young, we often make rash decisions that we regret the rest of our lives. You have combined these two very nicely in this story. But you added something that offers a reason why Heather was put off by Tommy's advance. The betrayal of a family member earlier in her life. Making me believe that this story may be autobiographical.
When I was that age in sixth grade, I had a tomboy girlfriend, Yvonne. She was thin and athletic like me with the palest blue eyes and short dirty blonde hair. Remember seeing her get in a fight with another girl on the playground with an exciting glimpse of panties. Also remember her inviting me, the only boy, to her birthday party where she sat on my lap and gave me a surprise. My first. She had posters of her favorite movie star that all of her girlfriends loved because he was such a manly man, Rock Hudson. ;-)
I recall a guy coming up to me and declaring that Yvonne was "his girlfriend." He showed me where he had carved her name, misspelled, "Evonne," with a pocket knife (switchblade?), on his arm just above his wrist. I laughed about the misspelling. Anyway, we moved away and I didn't miss her back then, but your story does make me wonder what happened to her.
I am a real sucker for a sob story like this and I had to wipe my eyes more than once. I love the way you quietly build the frame of the story and your insightful elaborations along the way. I keep saying it: You have a way with prose that well suits you. And these simple story lines touch reader's heart because they ring true. These things happen. Thank you for posting.
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Autumn, 2019
