A Promise of Fireflies
Let's Keep in Touch, Shall We?
A Promise
of
Fireflies
Susan Haught
A Promise of Fireflies
Susan Haught
Published by Four Carat Press
Copyright 2016 Susan Haught
Printing History
eBook edition 2016
Paperback edition 2016
Edited by Michelle Kowalski
Cover by Elizabeth Mackey Graphic Design
All rights reserved. No portion of this Book may be multiplied, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by whatever means, including but not limited to electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without express written permission of the author. This eBook is licensed for your use only.
This is a work of fiction. Name, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
No person, brand, or corporation mentioned in this Book should be taken to have endorsed this Book nor should the events surrounding them be considered in any way factual.
For Mom
The angel on my shoulder
Dreams die every day
Some drown in the endless churn of a washing machine,
some get lost under an avalanche of responsibilities
and still others suffocate in the wake of a broken promise.
Dreams die—disappearing with the sun in the western sky.
But a sprig of grass will sprout from a blanket of snow,
new life will be born when two become one,
and a phoenix will rise from the ashes left behind.
Dreams reborn—blooming with dawn’s radiant new light.
~sh~
SCARRED CORNERS FRAMED
the small journal she pulled from the old shoebox. She traced the cover with one finger, dark stains and pebbled leather disquieting, yet as oddly familiar as the stale odor of cigarettes her mother promised to quit smoking and never did. Now the tenuous reminder, void of the peppermints her mother nursed to disguise the smell, threatened to unravel the tethers holding her together.
God, how she wished she could rewrite the last year.
With her legs crossed beneath her, Ryleigh Collins clutched the journal to her chest, leaned against the wall of her mother’s apartment—as empty of her possessions as the world was of her—and let the shadows of the waning morning swallow her.
“I can’t do this.” She grabbed a loose thread in the denim stretched over her knees and yanked hard.
Two feet bundled in thick navy blue socks appeared in front of her. “Can’t do what?”
Ryleigh raised her eyes, moist with remembrance.
“Ah.” Natalie crossed her feet, lowered herself with the grace of a toned dancer, and placed a firm, yet gentle hand on Ryleigh’s arm. “The personal stuff’s the hardest.”
After a pause, Ryleigh tucked the knot of emotions neatly back where they belonged and turned. “I’m such a wimp.”
“You’ll get through this.” Natalie Jo Burstyn’s perfectly manicured brows knitted together in a scowl that masked her usual playful grin. “I intend to see you do.”
The lump in her throat strangled the words she’d rehearsed since Natalie had offered to drop everything to help. Of course she would. Her meddling best friend always seemed to know exactly what to do. Or say. She grasped Natalie’s hand and squeezed.
Sometimes words got in the way.
Ryleigh released a long breath and straightened her legs. The journal tumbled to her lap.
“What’s that?”
She swiped a hand across the journal’s cover and then wiped them on her jeans. “An old journal,” Ryleigh said, brushing away the dusty handprint.
“Don’t just sit there fondling it, open it.”
The binding creaked. Timeworn pages fanned in a graceful arch as if her touch had resurrected them. Faded ink swirled across the unlined parchment, and the musty balm of old paper and ink tapped at a recollection, distant and unformed, yet ripe for picking—but couldn’t pluck it from her memory. Smudged and watermarked, the words danced across the aged pages. She turned each one with care.
Nat leaned in. “Well?”
Ryleigh frowned. “Looks like a collection of poetry.”
“I didn’t know your mom wrote poetry.”
“This isn’t her handwriting,” Ryleigh responded without thought, “and my mother never wrote anything more literary than a grocery list.”
Natalie peered over her shoulder. “Then whose?”
“Don’t know. Just an ‘R’ at the end of the entries.” The pages crackled as Ryleigh turned each one. “And the year. ’66. ’67 on some.” A shiver feathered its way from her neck to the tips of her fingers.
“Want to read it?” The familiar weight of Nat’s head settled on her shoulder. “Like old times?”
She’d never considered not sharing something with Nat and quickly harnessed the prickling urge to slam the book shut to prying eyes.
Careful not to damage the pages, she smoothed them flat, the tickle of selfishness nibbling at her consistent, rational side. As she scanned the pages, she muttered lines at random, the only autograph the watermarked scars of blurred ink. “
The air is thick, gray ashen snow, the ghost returns, its presence unfought
.” She flipped the page. “
Fireflies flicker against azure skies, frolicking hither in reverent riverdance
.” The weight against her shoulder anchored a covey of troublesome thoughts, but Ryleigh continued to pluck lines from the pages. “
Sodden showers of infected rain, across crystal skies littered with fire
.” She dragged a finger across an eyebrow. “Intriguing.”
“You’re mumbling.”
“
They dance to their reticent song
.”
Natalie frowned. “Who?”
“Fireflies.” She tapped the page with her index finger. “One of the poems is about fireflies. I wonder if they’re really like that.”
“Seriously?”
Ryleigh tucked a strand of hair behind an ear and closed the book with a finger marking her place. “I’ve never seen one.”
“C’mon,” Nat said, crossing her arms. “Kids catch fireflies in jars all the time.”
“Not this small-town, sheltered Arizonan.”
“Come to think of it, I’ve never seen one since moving here.”
“They’re on my bucket list.”
Natalie opened and then shut her mouth. “You added to your bucket list without telling me?”
The concentrated effort Nat used to curb her bewilderment caused Ryleigh to forget her grief for a fleeting moment. “I’ll see one someday,” she said and reopened the book to the last page.
“Read to me, Riles.” Nat folded her long legs beneath her, anticipation deepening her eyes to warm chocolate. “Like when we were kids.”
Ryleigh glanced sideways at her. “I had to explain them to you.”
“So?” Nat said, the short word long on sarcasm. “It’s nostalgic.”
“Okay.” Ryleigh took a deep breath. “This is the last entry. It’s called ‘Lost.’
‘I placed my love inside your heart
and softly called your name—
I placed a hole inside of mine
as God’s heavenly angels came.
I placed a kiss of golden tears
upon your tiny chest—
I placed a rainbow at your door
the day you came to rest.
I placed a single pure white rose
upon your tiny feet—
I placed my hand against your cheek
and said good-bye, my sweet.
I placed a gentle autumn breeze
within your tiny space—
I placed with you, a piece of me
and let you go in God’s embrace.’”
~R~’67
The words stuck in her throat with painful intensity. Ryleigh dragged her finger over the ‘R’—the last letter in the journal. “Forty-three years ago.”
Natalie picked at a stray thread in the shredded knee of her True Religion jeans. “I’m not very good at analyzing poems, but—”
“Whoever wrote this lost a baby.” Careful fingers traced the cover, the stained leather unsettling, yet somehow comforting beneath her touch. Ryleigh’s neck prickled. A tear trembled on the edge of her eye. “I feel like I’m eavesdropping,” she said and closed the book. Sheer will eased the roiling in her stomach.
“Sounds like something you’d write.”
Ryleigh shook her head. “Cozy articles for
The Sentinel
on county fairs, care packages to our soldiers, and Mrs. Grayson’s baby quilts don’t count. I haven’t written fiction or poetry in years.”