JEANNE-MARIE FLEMING

END OF AUGUST 

Rough hands grab under Alison's armpits and lift her to her feet. The lights on the triangle arches are haloed by misty pools of green air. She can't make her feet work.        

Two police officers pull her along. She looks down at the river; they ask about her car.           

Alison doesn't know. "I might have Ubered. I'm…" Her thoughts are trapped and wound like the hairs and fuzz at the bottom of the vacuum. She tries to pull apart the strands and insists she's okay.         

"Ma'am, you were unconscious. We need to bring you in for observation," the cop with the thick, sandy mustache says.        

"For what?"          

"It's procedure, sweetie. When it comes to this bridge, we never know."         

"I think I'm fine. I should know."         

"Why did you Uber to the bridge?"

The other officer with the big belly straining his buttons asks, "Do you have children at home?"

Solara bites the bottom of her pen, sits back in her chair, and rubs her temples. Uber wasn't a thing then. Hmm. The question about kids. A stumbling block. I'll go with "no," Solera thinks. This is complicated, this art of fiction.

"I wanted kids," Alison says lifting her chin. "I mean, I still do."         

"Ma'am, could you state your full name and date of birth?" He jots notes on a yellow legal pad.

"Did you try to jump?"        

"No. I'm not trying to die. I came out here for the stars. The echo in the water. Can you see that?"         

"Ma'am, have you attempted to take your life before?"         

"I told you my name—Alison. So, please stop calling me ma'am?"

Solara recalls not having her shoes on at the bridge. When did Uber happen? It was the end of August when she threw shiny flip-flops in her bag and hurried out of the house. She had reminded Dan of the school meeting before he left for work that morning, but Dan, a self-absorbed man, cocktailed with a co-worker before returning on the train and buzzed in late.  

"Sorry, forgot," he said. Forgot she needed to see adults. She was desperate to escape cracker crumbs, runny noses, diapers, and the constant clinging. The oldest must have been five, the baby one, so Jessie, three.          

At the school, there were no parking spaces. It was unfathomable that this many mothers would show up for a "Read in your Pajamas Day" committee meeting.           

Solara was already agitated that the highlight of her week was a PTA meeting. And Dan, thoughtless bastard, shook the scaffolding she had so intentionally arranged around herself.          

She picks up the pen and continues. 

The officers inquire about alcohol and drug use. Alison denies both. "We smell liquor on your breath," they say and open the door to the back seat.           

Solara wasn't a drinker back then. Was she? There were days when the constant clawing of needy little hands triggered a primal rage that summoned all of her strength to resist and then spun her back in time to the receiving mouth of a blunt backhand. Knowing the water bottle of emergency vodka was in the diaper bag served as harmless but vital insurance in preventing that rage from seeping to the surface. She had the backup bottle that night in the minivan when she sniffed her shoulder, trying to discern if the awful sour smell of four-day-old sippy cup juice was coming from the upholstery in the back seat or from her skin. In the glove compartment, she kept some pills, too, stolen from the medicine cabinet of her in-law's home. She popped a few in front of the elementary school. She didn’t know what to do next. She only knew she didn't want to return home.           

Alison is angry when the cop reaches around her chest to secure the seatbelt like she is a child. She lies to the cops about wanting kids. Why had she said that? She doesn't want to be seen as a cold woman who lacks the desire to procreate. The engine starts; Alison's bones and eyelids are equally heavy. A flick to the cheek by an emergency room nurse wakes her. Her limbs fold like play dough, and she is wheeled in. Her chin cannot resist gravity and rests on the hard desk in front of a woman in a flowered smock asking for her insurance card.  

Solara gets up and pours chilled gin. She doesn't remember driving to the bridge. When they had asked her for her phone number, she cried and shook her head. I'll be fine, she said. She had been adamant--she didn't need help. She never did.           

How will Alison handle this?

Alison voluntarily checks in to the hospital because, more than anything, she wants to rest. She is awoken the following day for breakfast. She doesn't remember putting on this drab gray cloth, but she is hungry. In the common room, she cradles a cup of coffee and looks around. She was here once before to see her friend, Mary Bleaket. After runny eggs, Alison does a paint-by-number parrot and sits down with a therapist. His soothing voice comforts her. 

Solara was no longer in touch with Mary Scott—the kindergarten class mother, Gemma's mother, who retrieved her from the ER that night. Mary's gentle hand on her back ushered her up the carpeted stairs to an open futon. In a motherly way, Mary kisses her lightly on the cheek and whispers, "I know, I know. It's hard."  She should find Mary. A friend would help a lot.           

Solara is getting her shit back together. Writing again, like she did before she dropped out of State. She'll go the whole way, write the entire novel. She'll go to a meeting, maybe do substitute teaching, dye her roots, and call her daughters. They'll be proud of her. Dan will let her visit them soon. All she wants is to do things with them again, nice things that mothers do. Braid hair, paint fingernails sparkly colors, and sing along with commercials.          

She needs to talk to Mary again. A friend. A kind, good, helpful friend. She arches her back to reach around for an itch. She opens Facebook and finds Mary Scott. Good ole Mary, who rescued Solara and never told a soul that she went out on the bridge that night at the end of August.           

She clicks on Mary Moore and sees pictures of Mary's girl, Gemma, with the striking dark eyes, all grown— wearing knee pads on a volleyball court, in an emerald dress with her hair pinned up. Click, and there's Mary with Gemma, mother and daughter, their heads touching.           

Solara slams her notebook shut. Her hand rises to her teeth; she bites her pointer finger and holds back a yowl. The golden refrigerator glimmers like the sun, and she leans sideways against it. Papers fall from magnets. She'll wait. Will power, she tells herself. She turns and marches stiffly out of the kitchen; her fists clenched. Mary's soft voice. Her gentle hands fixing the blanket up to her chin. She closes her eyes and pushes fingertips on the lids, trying to stop the aching for photo moments of her own sweet girls.

In the freezer, there is only one finger, maybe two, of gin. No, no, no. She circles the couch. No. She lifts her arms as if conducting an army band. She doesn’t want it. She doesn’t need it. Not yet. It's still light out, and how she will she sleep? Solara drops to her knees and takes three quick breaths. She forces herself to stand and walk back to the rickety table.

Write. She tells herself.

The social worker admires Alison's careful painting of the parrot. He asks her to describe how she felt yesterday. "I woke up, and my veins were stiff. Like my blood ceased flowing. I was stuffed with sand, and I couldn't push my legs out from the covers." Alison sobs and wipes her nose. "I thought I was already dead."       

The therapist listens and hands her a tissue. "Well, we're going to build you back from that dark place. Today's a new day. A clean slate." His words are butter on warm toast, and for the first time in weeks, hope surrounds her.

Fiction bullshit. The pressure in Solara’s head is too great. Fabricated bullshit! Solara opens the freezer and pours the last of the gin. One slug. She grasps the bottle by the neck and hammers it into her thighs again and again until the wall smashes against glass.

__________

JEANNE-MARIE FLEMING IS A WRITER AND EDUCATOR. SHE HAS AN MFA IN WRITING FROM SARAH LAWRENCE COLLEGE. SHE TAUGHT IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOR TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. HER WORDS HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED IN THE WVW ANTHOLOGY, READ650 PODCAST, LOUD COFFEE PRESS AND WRITERS READ. SHE IS A FICTION EDITOR AT VARIANT LITERATURE JOURNAL, A READER AT LUMINA JOURNAL, AND A WRITING MENTOR FOR THE INCARCERATED POPULATION VIA TRANSFORMING LIVES NY. HER WRITING EXPLORES THE DYNAMIC WAYS HUMANS MANAGE LIFE AND PUT UP WITH ONE ANOTHER. JEANNE-MARIE’S HOME IS IN THE HUDSON VALLEY, NEW YORK.