The Bookends Review

– Serge Lecomte…

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“I just need to be by the water,” Sadie says as we sit out on the patio, after dinner and our evening walk, watching the burnt orange sun descend beyond the wavering elm trees that separate our property from our neighbor’s. “That’s all I need—just the water.”  

Sadie’s been feeling gravity’s pull, again, I can tell—I can always tell—how she gets, sort of retreats within herself, with a faraway gaze like she’s somewhere else.

“The water,” I say. “What water?” I ask, and I take a sip of my beer, a summer shandy though I’m not a summer shandy person—give me an IPA—but Sadie bought these this afternoon, her “accomplishment for the day,” her words, and so I thought I’d give one a try but it’s not for me.…

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She was almost out of my jurisdiction. When you set the distance parameters, it’s best to be realistic considering the weather and person. Una Manzini had the kind of smile that made dandelions blush; a free spirit exceptional in matters both chemical and unnerving. A Harvard alum who studied abroad at Cambridge, except when she told the story on our first date, it was mostly just raves and beans that semester. Una only mentioned Reginald once. He was just some footballer she’d shacked up with in the country that summer when they lived and loved off the land.

I still couldn’t figure why she’d chosen me out of the rest within a forty-mile radius. I was a stagnant fool in a cushy coaching gig with nothing but spare time.…

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My last ride of the night stumbled out of the pub, and I slid my passenger seat forward to accommodate his massive frame. Thick black hair spilled out of a paint-stained Boston Red Sox cap. Crammed in the backseat, he rested his elbows on jean-torn knees and planted his face in oven-mitt hands. His knuckles were scarred and the veins bulged. Those weren’t scars from framing houses or laying brick, I thought. I knew a fighter’s hands when I saw them.

My Lyft emblem glowed purple in the dark night, and after riding in silence on the desolate Brockton, Massachusetts streets I asked him what he does for a living. A plastic tarp blew in the wind on a boarded-up house.

“I’m a carpenter,” he said without turning away from the window.…

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1986
My sister and her husband called Wednesday and told me Dad had
molested their daughter. Over the weekend. At his house. He was
babysitting her. Another sister told them the previous week that they
should be concerned because Dad had fondled her from seven until she
left home at seventeen.

The four-year-old. . . pain, pediatrician, abrasion, evidence. By law, the
doctor filed a report. My sister . . . he put his pinkie in her, he had her
hold his penis, something thick, like toothpaste, came out. It’s what play
therapy revealed. Pedophiliac. I never knew the word before.

1987
Our father pleaded no contest on two counts of child molestation against
his granddaughter. There will not be a jury trial. We are relieved.…

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“We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.”
― Oscar Wilde

Fear.
You start at the carousel on the first day of your working summer. She’s a big old girl—more than twenty pounds of metal perpetually rusting since the sixties, a mass of carefully crafted boards screwed to her sides. You’ve lived in the same town since you were five years old, rode the carousel since six and still you find her beautiful. And now the conductor is you, a girl in a headband and ponytail combo with a t-shirt that hugs all your unflattering curves. The conductor is you and the button you press, bright green with potential.

     It’s the first day of your working summer and the crowds are non-existent.…

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“And that is this, and this with thee remains” – Shakespeare, Sonnet 74.

“Harold Michaelis.” Dad answers. I can see him standing there. Probably no clothes, gaunt, perfectly groomed.

“Pop, it’s me.” I say.

“Stanley!” He calls to Mom. “Honey, it’s Stanley!”

“I have that financial rundown. We can talk about it.”

“Sure, anytime.” He says. “Are Sandra and the kids coming?”

“Not this time. We would never get around to business. Thought we could come over Sunday after church.”

“Perfect. You are on your way now?”

“Yes, I’m almost there.”

“Perfect.” He says again.

“And Pop,” I add. “Pants for everyone. Tell Freddie and Moonglow.” They being my older brother and his live-in.

“If you insist.” He says.

I hang up. I can see him going to tell Mom.…

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