If It's Five Million

Michigan, 2019

I’m standing in my little blue kitchen cooking bacon, thinking of Stasia. Every time with bacon, Stasia comes to mind, because she first taught me. In Virginia, when we were teenagers. Her momma Ruth sitting to the side, eyes a little glazed but laughing deep. Ruth, she could laugh, and so much made her, even with all the sadness she carried. Stasia’s standing over the pan, gently flipping each piece, one by one. You know how a moment can happen and you don’t know then that you’ll come back to it, for the rest of your life? This – it’s that.

The smell of the house (when we’re not cooking bacon) is not quite musty and not quite dog. Ruth had a bit of schizophrenia, a bit or a lot, I don’t know, but she talked about it open like, so I don’t feel odd mentioning it. Stasia was loud and prone to yelling but it didn’t bother me much. She laughed a lot, too, just like Ruth. At the time, I was a foster kid and other things bothered me more. Stasia and Ruth were good to me.

--

I don’t exactly know how I ended up here. And “ended up” isn’t exactly the phrase I prefer to use. Sounds to me like it’s over, no more moving, and that can’t be true. Stasia used to say that I was a runner and she was a tree. Meaning, I was always searching, moving, while she grew into the spot she stood. Maybe she had to root deep, caring for Ruth. Maybe I moved because I’d been moved around so much, I had a feel for it. I don’t know. When it was time, I looked at a map and found someplace that looked like something different, and I came up here.

What’s beautiful about upper Michigan? And by upper, I mean - as far up as you can go. My favorite is the full forests, the pine trees, with their long soft needles, months and months covered in snow. The way snow lands on the branches, fluffy like. Woods everywhere, and when you stand in them it’s a different kind of quiet, cold and fresh.

We also have dogsledding, two survivalist militias, a small college, and a ton of closed-up copper mines. Copper Country. There isn’t a lot of everything, but there’s enough. This morning I was thinking there are two kinds of people here. People who pull their jackets up tight, a kind of fortress against wind and snow and you and everything else, and people who open up, let you in and say hello. To my surprise, I’m the second. Or maybe you learn to love people even if they’re not quite what you’d hoped for, because there aren’t that many options here. How I’m not likely to find another friend like Stasia, but I keep looking. There’s a kind of joy stirred together with loneliness when you find a friend.

Virginia, 2012

What I remember is this. The way the road curved back and forth from the top of the mountain down towards the river. The Blue Ridge. Autumn reds, summer greens, the smell of fast water. The big white house, Stasia and Ruth’s, just by the river. I aged out of the system long before I had somewhere to go, and I moved in, Ruth insisted.

Stasia once told me roots grow when you’re standing still, like it or not. Maybe that’s true. Maybe I’m different, like those walking trees I read about, moving around in search of sun. Which I learned is a myth anyway, so I may have just proved her point.

--

I met Stasia because I knew her half-brother, Chase, who later died in Iraq. Chase had a sheepish smile and playful eyes and he called me “hey, girl.” Hey, girl, did you see me watching you? Hey, girl, why don’t you come to my house? Things like that. My (foster) family was strict but Chase was charming, and he managed to have them liking him enough for me to go. Chase and I pulled apart quick but Stasia and I bound forever, that was that.

--

At the checkout in Hank’s, we’re getting coffee filters, trash bags, bagels. I say, “and a winning lottery ticket, please” and Hank laughs, prints two. One for each of us. Two equal chances. We’d split it anyway.

“Share anything bad and everything good,” Stasia says.

The lottery is one of our favorite games. If it’s five million, what then? What if it’s ten? We figure what we’ll live on, what we’ll give away. A house wherever we want, travel somewhere, build a dog rescue – that’s my dream, an art center for the school – that’s Stasia’s.

It might be silly, but it’s hope. Maybe you’re not someone who counts a lot, on Wednesday and Thursday, how much until Friday’s pay. I just wonder what it’s like to do the shopping and buy the expensive apples, the Lady Alice kind, without even thinking. If I won the lottery I’d buy Lady Alice apples for everyone.

--

I’m in the kitchen of the farmhouse with Stasia. We’re both in overalls, covered in paint. Laughing, rolling really, painting the walls terra cotta red. “Like Italy,” I say. Somewhere we both want to go. My hair has red streaks that Ruth painted there. She’s doing Stasia’s right now. The light captures Stasia’s face as Ruth styles her, lovingly. This room will be beautiful, but right now it’s a complete mess.

Virginia, 2014

Ruth told us the house was built in 1854, the second time. Ten years before, the first house burned. The story was a girl getting married backed into the fireplace, wedding dress and all. We heard that story a bunch of times. On good days, Ruth cackled, “Stasia, that’s a way to stop your wedding!” Worse days, Ruth was terrified of fire and the story rode up on fear. The house was built right on top of that spot and she said she felt her feet burning.

--

We find Ruth in the stream, wearing pajamas and a snow hat, with flowers in her hair. She’s sitting in the water like a child, making castles in the mud. Stasia bites her lip and looks at me, and I know what she’s thinking.

“It’s just one bad part of one day,” I say, something we say sometimes to keep calm.

She’ll be fine in an hour. Really, she’s fine now. She’s not hurting anyone, she can stay with us, that’s what we agreed. But it’s getting more than we can handle, and we agreed on that, too.

--

We’re making books. By hand. Stasia read about a journal program for psychiatric patients, easing their symptoms writing stories. Make a place to hold your stories, like you’d make a nest or a house, then write them inside.

We’re making one book for each of us, and one for Ruth. I swing between calm and complete frustration as I stitch the cover, but I have to admit it’s rewarding, crossing the stitches over the spine, coaxing the pages flat. My cover is smokey blue-black, and the pages are creamy. I’ll glue a ribbon in the spine to mark where I am.

“Bee,” Stasia says, “what if we write our stories in these books and send them to each other when you go?”

“It’ll be like we’re still together,” I say.

Michigan, 2018

We sent those books back and forth a year or more. I’d come home from the shelter and tell her about all the dogs, coaxing one to follow my lead, or to just to be calm around people. Who got adopted, who I spent extra time with, making sure they would. I told her about the classes I took, while I was taking them. How Lake Superior froze giant waves in winter, and you could hear the ice move. That people gathered in Kaleva Café while it rained white outside, the warm inside light making it feel someone’s home. How it stayed light well into the summer nights, and the sun set deep red. I never saw the northern lights, though I kept looking. I’d heard they were like a moving painting and I knew she’d want to see that.

Stasia’s book was filled with drawings of the garden, her dream to study psychology, build a women’s center, help people like Ruth. She sent sketches she did for a mural in Ruth’s room at treatment. She’d take long drives and write every little thing, take walks and send leaves or seeds or scraps stitched into the pages.

I’d read her pages, write my own, box our books up side by side. Mail them back together. One day, I sent the books on their way, but they didn’t come back.

--

There’s people you think you’ll always be with, and then they fade away. Or life just happens, maybe. It’s been a year, or two or five, and then you’re at the other end of the long line connecting you, wondering, not knowing how to find the anchor and reel back in.

Michigan, 2019

Saturday morning, with the sun dripping light on the last May snow, there’s a letter.

Bee,

I’m sorry I was out of touch for so long. It’s been … a rollercoaster here, where sometimes I felt like I was strapped in but could manage and other times it was all upside down. Momma’s gone. Not in treatment, but passed. I’m gonna go away for a bit, get some space. I got some insurance money when momma died, and there’s some for you. It’s about 20k – not the lottery but helpful, right? It’s in the house, you’ll find it. The house is yours, too, of course it always has been. Come back if you want, you can stay as long as you like. I know we’ll see each other soon.

Stay

I packed the car right away, of course I did.

--

Virginia.

I’m at the top of the driveway, looking down. White house, train tracks, river. An old, dark tree by the water, its branches like raised fists. On the porch – roses. I smile thinking about planting them, tiny but vibrant, so brave. They’re tall now, twisted, beautiful. Growing and moving every which way.

I put my hand on the door, and a hundred memories come at me at once. Finding Stasia, living here, caring for Ruth, moving away. Everything so rolled together, I could fall over. I press the brass handle down and step inside.

Standing in this house feels like traveling. I feel all the cords between us, stitching us together. Roots grow if you let them, and they can even wait for you while you’re gone. In the kitchen I see those terra cotta walls, and just like she’s there with me, Ruth laughing as she paints my hair. And then, on the giant wood table, I see them – our two books, neatly stacked, one on top of the other. The pages of all of our stories, with one ribbon tied around them.

I’m here, and I’ll wait, and she’ll come back. I know it.