Vaughn Zimmer - Reaching for Sun

Tracie Vaughn Zimmer For my mother,
Pauline Courtney Schwitalski,
and in memory of my grandmothers,
Jane Wyatt Stines,
Ollie DePew Vaughn, and
Lenora Jackie Whittington CourtneyThen let not winters ragged hand defaceIn thee thy summer. William Shakespeare (SONNET VI) The late bell rings, but Im hiding in the last stall of the girls bathroom until I hear voices disappear behind closing classroom doors. Only then do I slip out into the deserted hallway and rush to room 204, a door no one wants to be seen opening. Not even me. With my odd walk and slow speech everyone knows Ive got special ed, but if I wait until the hall clears, taunts like tomatoes dont splatter the back of my head. Its the last day before winter break, when the hallway is littered with Christmas ribbons and wrappings, when presents are passed between romances and friends. As I walk through the door Mrs.

Sternberg hands me a lunch bag decorated with stickers and stamps thats full of candy, but it wont change the lonely taste of seventh grade.

If being assigned to room 204 wasnt bad enough, now the new occupational therapist (Mrs. Swaim) appears to escort me to her torture chamber. She nags me (just like Mom) about wearing my splint. She reminds me (just like Mom) to do the painful stretches and exercises. I sit third row on the bus, try to scrunch myself tight against the frosted window, feet on fire from the heater beneath. I sit third row on the bus, try to scrunch myself tight against the frosted window, feet on fire from the heater beneath.

Hidingagain from this weeks troublemakers assigned to the first row: Natalie Jackson, for cussing; Pete Yancey, for spitwads; Caleb Harrison, for flipping off a delivery guy. And from their friends who sit in the back of the bus caged animals waiting to be unleashed in the Falling Waters neighborhood. Im last to get released from this rolling tortured tin can, as they head off in pairs and packs joking, laughing, gossiping, planning, new scenes for their perfect lives.

In the kitchen Grans stationed at her double oven, four pots bubbling and steaming, sweat beading on her upper lip. Her friend Edna (the complainer) stands near the sink mixing a giant bowl of batter. Edna. Edna.

Hello, honey. How was school, Josie-bug? Gran asks, wiping her face with her oven-mitted hand. Okay, I lie in front of her friend. Edna hands off a wooden spoon for me to stir the caramel on the double boiler the main ingredient for Grans famous popcorn balls. Already coconut bars, divinity (little white flowers that melt on your tongue), and vanilla fudge march across countertops on wax paper. Well deliver them all to Lazy Acres, the nursing home where Gran visits her old friends.

The one place other than here only smiles greet me.

Each day Gran wears khaki elastic pants, a crisp white collared shirt that never gets spotted no matter how much she cooks or works in the garden. Her brown vinyl purse is always within reach, and shell unearth almost anything from its secret compartments. Her long hair stays fastened in a bun with chopsticks until bedtime, when it waterfalls down near to her waist. She grew up in this very house, the only daughter after four sons and the single one to survive and inherit the farm though now theres only five acres left of it to call her own. Ten minutes after Edna leaves Mom flies through the front door from her job waiting tables at the Lunchbox Caf next to the Ford plant.

She pecks Gran on the cheek, me on the head, but never stops moving or talking the whole time. Grabs her lunch bag (and two pieces of fudge), changes out of her yellow polyester uniform, and heads straight out the back door in a run and thats all Ill see her today. Shes got finals this week, and then one semester left at the community college with a double major in business administration and landscape design. So shes just a blip on the screen of my life these days.

I dont know much about my father except he was a freshman in college just like Mom when I was conceived though he didnt drop out on his dreams. I wonder if he ditched me and Mom when he found out about my disability, or if it gave him the excuse he needed typed letter left behind in the mailbox, no stamp.

I wonder if I got my straight blond hair, blue eyes, and cowardice from him, and whether hes real smart, rich, and now got himself a picture-perfect family. I wonder whether he likes pepper on his corn on the cob like me, or poetry before slipping off to sleep. When I asked Mom she always answered: I dont know, between her teeth until I stopped asking. Gran said she knew next to nothing about him and thought of him even less. If we met one day accidentally, say, in an airport, I wonder if hed be carrying my baby picture behind his license.

Gran stretches to store her rose-covered shoe box back up in the hall closet. Gran stretches to store her rose-covered shoe box back up in the hall closet.

Youd think she taught first grade, not just Sunday school, the way she loves cutting and pasting her way through winter. She snips out pictures of fences, flowers, plants, and pots from seed catalogs and gardening magazines a puzzle of her dream spring garden with no perfect fit. Just as she tips the box into place, it falls. Out flutter petals of color and Granny lands on her wide bottom. I rush to her side, help her find her balance.

My moms best friend, Aunt Laura (though shes not really my aunt), visits each December with her son, Nathan, whos also in seventh grade. My moms best friend, Aunt Laura (though shes not really my aunt), visits each December with her son, Nathan, whos also in seventh grade.

Mom and Aunt Laura shop for days on end while Nathan and I watch movies or play checkers silently. Mom and Aunt Laura stay up almost until dawn never running out of words. Nathan and I ice cookies while Granny sings off-key to her vinyl holiday albums. After spending days leading to Christmas together each year, youd think Nathan and I would be friends but were not.

Its a tradition that we only get three gifts each year Was enough for Jesus, Gran says and two of them must be homemade. Gran taught me to crochet with my good hand, and we figured out a way to make the yarn loop around the frozen fingers on my left.

Its taken three months to make them each a wooly scarf and mittens in their favorite colors purple for mom and fuchsia for Gran. Next year it might take me six months, but Im going to learn how to knit!

On Christmas Eve we buy up the gala apples with thumbprint bruises, oranges, scaly and puckered, even bananas spotted like Grannys hands. Cutting the fruit into wedges, and then piercing them with large paper clips. Stringing popcorn, raisins, and cereal until the tips of our fingers ache. Huge pinecones get smeared with peanut butter sent from Aunt Lauras down in North Carolina, then sprinkled with sunflower seeds and bird feed until theyre coated. We dress our white pine tree just outside the family room window with these offerings.

Then kill the lights and watch the holiday feast.

At midnight we bundle into the darkened church. Kids from school who usually pretend Im invisible wish me Merry Christmas and say hello in front of their parents. But the hymns I cant even sing warm and light me like the small white candle flickering in my good hand.