Natasha Wright

Fireflies

 “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear—“ everyone in the room sang, each using a different name:

“--Mom—“

“—Janet—“

“—Mrs. Thomas—“

“—happy birthday to you!”

“Make a wish, sweetheart.”  Dad had whispered into Mom’s ear.  Her face was glowing from the light of thirty five purple candles melting on the otherwise pristine white cake.

 I will never forget the way her skin had looked in the soft lighting, the way her smile involved her whole face…my mother was beautiful, and still is.  My dad still looks at her with the same crinkly-eyed smile as he did on that warm summer night.  Even now, eleven years later, the memory of that night finds its way into my thoughts when I can’t sleep.  However, my mother’s face and my father’s smile are not the only things from that night staining the inside of the eyelids.

My mother had bit her lip as she leaned over the candles and considered her wish.  A few seconds later we were all hovering over the cake and puffing at the candles, desperate to help her extinguish them all in one breath so that her wish would come true.  I was squeezed in between my father’s left hip and my best friend Jeremy Mitchell’s right elbow as we all tried to get close to the cake on the small round table.  Jeremy and I clapped as smoke rose from the center of the table and twisted toward the ceiling fan, lightly filling the room with the scent of vanilla and burnt wicks. 

Jeremy and I had met in Mrs. Hamill’s 2nd grade class.  He was two years older than me, and had been held back because of poor attendance.  He lived across the tracks in the part of town that I wasn’t allowed to ride my bike through.  That’s why he was always at my house.

We scrambled for a spot at the front of the cake line, tripping on untied shoelaces and each others feet. 

“Settle down, you two,” Dad said, pointing a frosting-covered cake trowel at us menacingly, “the first piece goes to the birthday girl, you know that.”  He winked and wrapped an arm around my mother’s waist, kissing her cheek.

 “Jeremy, are you sure you don’t want a piece of cake?” My mother cooed, putting the back of her hand to his forehead to check for a fever.  She was always worried about things like that.  “Are you feeling alright?”

“Yeah, thanks Mrs. Thomas, I’m just not so hungry.”  Jeremy stared down at his swinging feet, ignoring the empty plate on the table in front of him.

“Meagan, why don’t the two of you go outside?”  My mother said, giving an obvious nod of concern in Jeremy’s direction.  I licked my fork clean and scooted out of my chair in a way that my mother would consider “unladylike”.

I had picked a scab on my elbow as I waited for Jeremy to make his move on the homemade checkerboard that we slaved over last week.  It was drawn on the floor of my tree house with pink and blue chalk.  The “checkers” were the best part:  each side of the board was covered with an assortment of rocks, bottle caps, and dead bugs.  We used to have old chewed gum as checkers so that we could color-code our pieces, but the raccoons kept eating the gum and leaving checker pieces of their own.  By the time Jeremy finally made his move I had worked my way from elbow scabs to knee scabs, tugging the frilly hem of the party dress my dad made we wear out of the way so that I could get better access. 

I shook the jar of lightening bugs that we used as a lantern.  There were only two in the old peanut butter jar that night, which I blamed on the Henderson boys down the street because they always used to hog up the lightening bugs.  When the jar was shaken, the bugs flew around frantically, blinking their bodies and tapping against the lid of the jar, trying to escape.

“Are you serious?”  I said, looking at the move Jeremy had made.  He was very good at checkers and he never made mistakes like that.  “King me.”  He stared out of the door at the windows of my house that were glowing yellow against the sinking dusk.       “What’s wrong with you?  You’ve been quiet ever since we had cake…now I know I didn’t elbow you that hard to get to the front of the line, so you shouldn’t be mad at me.”

“It’s not that,” he said, still staring.  I looked at the window too and saw the silhouettes of my parents at the sink, washing dishes together. 

“Well, what is it then?”

“Nothing.”  He sighed, rolling his eyes.  “If I tell you, will you quit staring at me already?  It’s just…I don’t know.  It’s the way your dad kisses your mom.  They smile a lot.”

I waited, not really understanding what he meant.  “Well, doesn’t your dad kiss your mom like that?”

He gave a sharp laugh and looked at me from the corner of his eye.

“What?  Well how does he kiss her, then?”

“Well,” he said, pursing his lips in thought, “I don’t know how to explain.  I think it’s something I’d hafta show you, not tell you.”  He shook the jar this time and held it, watching the fireflies stumble around.  I inched closer to him, smoothing the wrinkles on my dress.

“Well?”  I said impatiently as he continued to watch the bugs.  “Aren’t you gonna show me?”  I moved closer, looking at the freckles on his nose.  “Kiss me like your daddy kisses your mother?”

He whipped his face toward me, staring with an expression I did not expect.  His eyebrows lowered and his lips were smashed together, white with anger.  I backed up, startled.

“What?  What’s wrong with you?”  I sputtered.

“Never,” he huffed, “I will never kiss you like that.  Don’t ask me again.  I won’t…I can’t—I’d never do that to anybody!” 

He spit the words out, shaking the jar forcefully.  Usually at the end of the night, Jeremy would take the lightening bugs out of the jar and scrape them across the ground, writing his name with the fluorescent remains.  I watched him rush to unscrew the lid.  He stopped, looking inside the jar at the insects climbing on top of each other at the bottom.  The lid that they had been banging into was now open, but neither one tried to escape…not when his angry face hovered over the opening. 

“Jeremy!”  My mom yelled from the kitchen doorway, carrying the phone through the backyard towards the tree house.  “Mr. Mitchell is on the phone, he said he’s on his way home now and—hold on—actually, he wants to talk to you,” Jeremy scrambled down the ladder to grab the phone.

“Thanks Mrs.  Thomas,” he said before pressing the phone to his ear.  “Hello?  Yes, I’m…but…it’s Mrs. Thomas’s birthday, and…no, I did tell you about it…I’m not back talking!  I was just saying…no, please don’t… okay.  I’m on my way home.  Bye…I mean, goodbye sir.”  He handed the phone back to my mother, who watched him with worried eyes.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Thomas, I have to go home now.  My dad came back from the bar early and wants to talk to me.  Thanks for inviting me to your birthday party,” he said, before turning back to the tree house.  “Bye Meagan…I have to go home now.”  His voice was sad; hesitant…he looked at me for a long moment before grabbing the firefly jar and carefully setting it in his jacket pocket.

“Hey!  What are you doing?”  I called after him as he hopped on his bike and headed down the street.  I set the checkerboard back to normal before going back into the house.

“I’m just worried you know,” my mother’s voice whispered to my father as I entered the kitchen.   “Have you heard what they say about his parents?  I saw his mother at the grocery store a few weeks back and she was so odd…very skittish.  She covered herself up with her jacket when I saw her and—Meagan!  Honey, I didn’t hear you come in, why, um, why don’t you go brush your teeth and go to bed?”

“Were you talking about Jeremy’s family?”

“Come on, up to bed—“

“I heard his dad drinks a lot—“ I said.

“Hush now, Meagan, and go brush your teeth like your mother said.”

“Fine.”  I stomped up the stairs, ignoring the bathroom and going straight to my bedroom. 

I couldn’t sleep that night.  Jeremy had been worse than usual.  He was always so happy when he came to visit and upset when he had to go home, but his dad had never called our house before.  I watched the tree in our front yard rustle in front of the moon, changing the shadows on my floor before slipping in and out of nightmarish sleep.

The T.V. was on in the living room when I came down stairs the next morning.  My mom and dad were both watching silently as a newscaster spoke about a murder that had taken place the night before.  I continued on to the kitchen to get a bowl of cereal until a picture of Jeremy’s house appeared on the screen.

“Dave Mitchell was shot in the back and chest several times last night by his nine-year-old son,” the newscaster said.  “It appears, according to the Mitchells’ next-door-neighbors, that Mr. Mitchell would threaten his son with a gun when he came home from the bar in order to make him behave.  Both the child and his mother, Kimberly Mitchell, were covered in bruises this morning.  The only information that we have at this time is from the child, who allegedly told the police that his father was threatening last night as he often did when he had been drinking.  We will keep you updated with more details as we get them…”

I stared at the T.V., not really noticing what was on anymore.  My mother heard my breathing and turned around.

“Meagan!  What are you doing?  You shouldn’t be watching this…why don’t you…why don’t you go outside…” she said, hiding her wet face as she ushered me into the backyard.  I heard my parents’ rushed words turn into angry whispers before I climbed into the tree house.  Jeremy’s dirty shoe prints were still on the floor.  I sat by them, tracing the outline with my finger and not even bothering to wipe the tears away.  There was no one here to make fun of me for crying and the realization of this made me cry harder.  I was wiping my nose on the hem of my shirt when I saw it.

In the middle of the checkerboard sat the firefly jar.  There were no bugs inside and the lid was not screwed on, and laid in red plastic shards around the jar. 

I never really found out what happened to Jeremy.  There were more rumors than facts about that night, and as time went on they became harder to tell apart.  It wasn’t until a couple years ago that I understood why Jeremy had returned the jar.  I was sixteen, and I thought I was in love until my boyfriend hit me once across the face.  An open-hand slap on my left cheek, and I never saw him again.  That night I dreamt of Jeremy, watching the same violence happen to his mother night after night.  I dreamt of him killing his father.  I dreamt of him freeing fireflies.