Glory Days

A family of four tromped through fallen oak and elm and birch leaves. Their soft feet clothed in leather and vinyl and polyurethane pushed down on piles of pine needles. The father said don’t enter the swirls alone. The mother with the tired look on her face, almost like sadness but not quite, said don’t walk quietly, girls, stay together.

Long and slender earthworms, thick, slick slugs, and centipedes who prefer darkness and quiet raced at their own speeds to avoid the family’s footfalls. Mosquitoes, black flies, and gnats as small as fleeting thoughts hovered around their ears and nostrils. Beetles with backs as black and shiny as polished tap shoes swung through the air with loud buzzes and slapped their cheeks, leaving purple marks as if they had been biting each other. Chickadees fluttered like friends above their heads. Invite us! the birds chirped. We’re coming too, flitted the wrens and the house finches and the sparrows, swirling capital Os between the branches. Let’s go! Let’s all go! A northern cardinal sent out a silver icicle of song, his two sweeps up followed by seven sweeps down. He wouldn’t follow them, the youngest of the family could tell by his solemn voice. He’d stand guard.

When the four reached the bramble, the canopy of trees gave way to blue sky. The older sister with the long yellow hair announced she would collect the most blackberries (Rubus Fruticosus, she said) as usual. As usual in that she usually said this, not that she usually collected the most. Remember girls, warned the mother with the tired face as she held up her tin bucket and shook it, be noisy and don’t split up.

A blackberry bush grows in places that were once something else. This bush grew tall and unimpeded where there were trees but now only power lines, its branches long arms pointing in all directions. Thorns snagged the youngest’s blue jeans. Her sister climbed quickly through the bramble. Soon the youngest was alone amidst the tangle. The chickadees and wrens and finches and sparrows were gone. The cardinal was quiet. She rattled her bucket as she’d been told. She carefully picked three plump berries and plonked them inside.

The buzz of a bumblebee interrupted her progress, and she watched it cling to a honeysuckle bloom like a little white trumpet. She climbed inside a flower herself, and then another and another until powdery beige pollen covered her hair and cheeks. She heard her sister singing Bruce Springsteen songs many swirls away. A hawk hung overhead, and she saw her house so small below, the river trickling behind it, winding across the state and into other rivers and through the city and past the Cape that beckoned like a giant finger into the stormy sea.

A monarch fluttered by her nose, open and closey and clumsy with enormity. It was the king of all butterflies. The younger sister knew that’s why it was called that. Her wings were also orange and black and if you touched them, she would die. Lazy and drunk on flower dust, she turned the corner into a big swirl with a cache of berries. On its bottom, legs outstretched and feet pointing upward, was Ursus Americanus feasting. She had not been making any noise, she realized. Bruce Springsteen was silent.

The bear’s eyes were small compared to the rest of him. They said he hadn’t known his mother very long. They said these berries were his, but just because he had to make it through the winter. He didn’t have SpaghettiOs where he lived, he said.

The youngest smelled his den. It smelled like the locker room at the YMCA where she had swim lessons on Mondays and Wednesdays. The bear moved his giant paw, and she saw it was scarred on the edge. He broke a long branch and ran it through his teeth, collecting the berries in his mouth as he pulled it left to right. She tasted the tart sweet. She felt her huge belly rumble. It won’t be enough, she knew.

Ursus Americanus had ears like a stuffed bear she kept on her bed. Two small, perfect arches. When the gnats bit them, they did not move. The younger sister felt winter, the pinch of frost in her fingers and toes. She emptied the three berries from her bucket into her hand and held it out. Ursus Americanus watched her with his small eyes, chewing. She laid them in the clover at his feet. She wanted to pet him but didn’t need to. She felt his warm, dirty fur filled with ants like a living, breathing coat. He looked away and broke another branch. Thank you, he said.

Let me see what you got, said the father when the youngest made it back to the big rock where they agreed to meet. He grabbed her bucket and turned it over. Told you, said the older sister. Not enough for cobbler, the father said. Or muffins, said the mother, frowning.

On their way home through the trees, the father stopped abruptly and held up his hand. A family of white-tailed deer lifted their heads in the twilight of a stand of birches. For a moment, all was suspended. Then the small one with the spots turned and fled.