Fifth Annual Wild Violet Writing Contest Winners (2007)
Fiction
— Second Place
Gwendolyn McIntosh received an honorable mention July 2006 for her short story "Photo Finish" from ByLine. Her short story, "What You Don't Know," was published by Joyous Publishing as a runner-up on their Web site as well as their book, Internationally Yours: Prize-Winning Stories.
Currants
By Gwendolyn C. McIntosh
Sophie crouched among the currant bushes in the side yard at her grandparents'
home, wanting to hide but knowing she could still be seen. It was just
that she didn't want to see anyone, talk to anyone or have to do anything
for anyone. If only that person hadn't come to stay with them, that Cousin
Caroline, her mother's cousin. Across the highway a playground nestled
in the amber light of leftover sun against the three-story school building.
Maybe if she ran over there to swing with abandon until her tummy got
that delicious little tingle, or to fling herself around on the giant
stride until she felt she could actually fly, she might be able to recapture
her life as it had been before Caroline arrived.
Her mother had not played piano, and Aunt Abby had not been out with her friends since Caroline arrived. Grandpa and Grandma had not changed because they didn't know the secret yet.
Two days ago Sophie did not even know Cousin Caroline existed, and now just because Caroline came to visit, life as she knew it was no longer the same. The past two years had been difficult enough. First her parents divorced. Added to that insult, she and her mother left California to live with her mother's parents and sister in North Dakota. Sophie did manage to survive first grade last year, but it hadn't been easy. There were difficulties with some of the students and even a teacher. She was the only one in the class whose parents were divorced. When Sophie began to take food home from school for her imaginary pet, a bear cub, school officials enlisted the whole family to solve the situation. And now this.
Sophie picked dark red, almost black currants, still warm from the sun, even though it had sunk beneath the horizon moments ago, and popped them into her mouth. As she munched, she pictured the scene from two days ago at the front door of her grandparents' home, the moment that started this whole thing.
"Caroline!" Martha greeted her cousin with a hug at the front door. "You've brought a suitcase?"
"I thought I might stay a month or two?" Caroline inquired with half a smile.
Martha gathered her daughter, Sophie, close and Sophie buried her face in the folds of her mother's skirt. "We'll have to ask my folks and Abigail."
"Oh, do you and Sophie still live here?" Caroline asked, raising one eyebrow.
"We do."
"Who is it?" Grandpa asked, looking up from reading the newspaper.
"It's Cousin Caroline," Martha answered.
"Come
in, Caroline," Grandma said, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel.
"Is
something wrong?"
"No,
nothing's wrong," Caroline waved off the question. "I just wanted
to visit
my favorite uncle and his family."
"Well, you can sleep in with Abigail," Grandpa said, walking to the front door and eyeing her suitcase jammed shut with bits of this and that sticking out here and there. "She's got a big room and a big double bed."
"She certainly couldn't sleep in with Martha and Sophie," Grandma said. "They share the smallest bedroom and that oversized twin bed."
Sophie watched her grandparents shoot warning looks at each other and waited for the usual shouting match that followed every time they fought over the fact that she and her mother had moved back home with them. Sophie noticed that Abigail loved the fight, and once in a while even started it just to make sure it was perfectly clear to everyone that she was Grandpa's favorite. Grandma stood up for her and her mother whenever she could but could not fight the strength of the team, Abigail and Grandpa.
"Would you like to work in the store with Martha and Abigail?" Grandpa asked.
"I bet you can use extra money for your high school graduation, just like Abigail."
"Oh, I can always use extra cash," Caroline said, shutting the door, setting her suitcase down and brushing stray locks of hair behind her ears. "But I don't know anything about working in a grocery store."
"You are a smart girl. You will learn fast," Grandpa said.
"Do you want to call your folks and let them know you're here?" Grandma asked, narrowing her eyes at Caroline.
"No, not yet," Caroline said, rubbing the back of her neck as she sat down wearily.
"You girls take Caroline upstairs and get her settled," Grandma said. "Sophie, you come to the kitchen and help get supper on the table."
That evening after supper Sophie picked berries from the currant bush, handfuls of the sweet tart currants that filled a cracked and pitted old pottery bowl. Those she ate exploded sharp and sweet in her mouth. Early evening light cast shadows of the currant bushes onto the front lawn.
When the screen door slammed shut behind her grandfather, she peered from the bush to watch him walk across the open front porch, down wood steps toward the garage. He drove east in their brand new '49 Ford on the highway in front of their house, probably to finish some butchering in the meat department of their grocery store downtown. Lights snapped on in the kitchen and then the living room spilling their light onto the yard tracking Grandma's progress through the house.
"Martha! Abigail! Caroline! Come down here and do the supper dishes," she heard Grandma call upstairs.
She knew lights glowed west from the upstairs windows of Aunt Abigail's room where her mother, her aunt and their cousin huddled. When she came into the house and stood at the bottom of the stairs, she could hear their voices humming. Just as she was about to creep up the stairs to listen in, Grandpa arrived home and Grandma woke up from her evening doze. Then her mother beckoned her to get ready for bed. Sophie lay awake most of that night while her mother rolled from one position to another in their cramped bed.
In the morning Grandfather called upstairs, "You girls take today off, get everything settled and tomorrow you can all come to work in the store."
Sophie felt relief flood her mother's body, and they both finally slept late into the morning. Grandmother fed them a substantial breakfast, informing them there would be no lunch. After cleaning up, the three again climbed the stairs to Abigail's spacious room while Grandmother settled into her rocking chair for a late morning snooze.
Their secrets intrigued Sophie so that she crept upstairs to surprise them. Murmuring voices became clearer the higher she climbed.
"Caroline, we have to tell. You will start to show soon," she heard her mother say.
Sophie stopped, frozen in motion. Last year in first grade one of her friends had an older sister who made a mistake and "had to get married." Conversations that swirled around her friends and classmates throughout that event taught her that what she just heard meant Caroline was going to have a baby.
