“Amy Holwerda‟s The Grayest Ghost is an evocative and hypnotic collection of tiny stories, which explores grief, love, desire, and longing in their wildest frenzies.” - Sherrie Flick, author of I Call This Flirting and Reconsidering Happiness “The Grayest Ghost is a prime example of an emerging Pittsburgh phenomenon: savvy, intelligent writing that doesn't eschew its own heart in pursuit of hipness. No time is wasted here on the mere idea of a person—Holwerda's going for the real thing.” - Adam Atkinson, Literary Editor of Open Thread
Amy Holwerda is the co-founder and nonfiction editor of shady side review. Her work has appeared in Flash, Dash, Crash, and various other journals whose names don‟t rhyme. When she isn‟t reading or writing, she‟s probably working in her family‟s greenhouse, dirt caked into the cracks of her knees and elbows. When people want to know more about her, she points to a cascade of petunias, or the spines of a freshly birthed fern, as if that is the answer to everything.
Š Amy Holwerda 2010 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or manual, without permission from the publisher. Sleeping Lion Press www.sleepinglionpress.com 5780 5th Avenue, Apt. 2A Pittsburgh, PA 15232 Cover Art : Ivan Lopez. All rights reserved. Author Photograph : Gareth Hinsley. All rights reserved. Sleeping Lion Press Logo : FCIT. All rights reserved.
A light breeze managed to cut its way through the thick dusty air of their fishing cottage. Irene was in the kitchen, frying this morningâ€&#x;s trout in butter and garlic, scraping her metal spatula under the sizzling fish, waiting for the sides to brown. In the bedroom, Earl gathered his anglers into a rucksack and headed out the door. He knew no amount of fried home cooking would satiate the hunger that gnawed inside him, quelled only by the pull of the river and the tug of something living, fighting at the end of his line.
Earl watched the butcher wrap two filet mignons. He hoped he could convince Irene to enjoy a dinner with him again. Start over, try to make things right. Earl reached for his wallet while the butcher wrapped the meat, and as he dropped a twenty on the counter, blood dripped from the paper and splattered his white shirt. Back home, Earl heard the bathtub running. He called inside and jiggled the doorknob. Finally, he slammed the door with his shoulder, freeing it from the lock. Irene sat naked in the bathtub, without water. “I know,” she said, then reached for the tap. Earl watched as his wife‟s body was overtaken by the rising water, the meat heavy as corpses in his hands.
When the baby died, Irene couldnâ€&#x;t bring herself to attend the funeral. She rocked in the nursery, wrapping the babyâ€&#x;s ruffled bloomers around her fists. She stared into the crib and swore she saw the blankets breathing. Somewhere buried beneath the wrinkled sheets, she heard her daughter coughing, moaning. In a frenzy, she tore the blankets from the bed, threw the pillows against the wall, and flipped the mattress, searching. She clawed her way along the walls to the kitchen, tearing open cupboards, throwing open the refrigerator door, mindless of the eggs that smacked against the linoleum floor. She crawled to the bathroom and steadied herself against the mirror, not recognizing the old woman staring back at her, gray as a ghost.
On the day of the wedding, two boys escaped the ceremony and found the church bell‟s rope. Earl‟s promise to love Irene “for richer and poorer, in sickness and in health,” was interrupted by a rowdy clanging. The preacher joked that now, when bells rang it would be a reminder of the couple‟s marriage vows. Irene blushed and clenched Earl‟s newly ringed hand with her own. Years later, Irene trolled the grounds like a spirit with a scythe threatening to slice all music from the sky. In a fit, she took off her ring and hurled it at the church‟s brick walls. She plugged her ears and screamed so as not to hear the clink of metal touching ground, choosing instead to imagine that promise circling the chiming of the bells for all eternity, never finding rest, vaporous as smoke.
Germs live in the shadows, behind the curtains, underneath the window sills. They stowaway in the plastic nipple of the abandoned baby bottle and the grit of Earl‟s boots. They‟re crawling through the electric sockets and sneaking back up the drains where she tried to bleach them away. Earl looks at her with tired eyes and says, “Irene, far as I can see we ain‟t got no infestation.” But he can‟t see the germs slithering on his own skin, dripping down the walls, spreading like endless rows of tiny ants marching toward her. Steady from the nest.
On frosty mornings, Irene woke as if from a deep sleep, surrounded by tombstones. She clutched a bottle of bleach and a rag, as if planning to scrub the names from the granite markers. As the breath pooled like smoke from her lips, Irene wondered if she had driven herself to this place. Forgotten putting the key in the ignition, or revving the engine. She wondered if she might have walked instead of drove, somehow managing to tread through knee-deep snow while keeping her stocking feet dry. And then as she gazed at the army of gray stones around her, she wondered if it was possible she floated here, hovering above the ground, already haunting what felt like someone elseâ€&#x;s memories.
On the way home from the hospital, Irene chatted idly about her new medications, the times she should take them, their side effects. She had written everything down in a little notebook and leaned over to show Earl. “See,” she said. “No more episodes.” Hearing this, Earl pulled the car over to the shoulder. Unable to meet Irene‟s puzzled gaze, he stared out the window. “I forgot how gorgeous a sunset can be,” Irene said, reaching to rest a hand on Earl‟s rigid arm. Outside, the warm yellow of the sun was beginning to fade. Earl watched as daylight slipped away, and he couldn‟t help but feel overwhelmed by the sight of the pooling red that spread like blood from a wound in the sky.
Some days Earl met the girl in her tiny, cluttered apartment. Other days he paid her extra to meet him at the fishing cottage, where he captured her naked body in a sketch pad, flushing her skin with the watercolor dripping from his brush. Earl knew he was escaping something in the body of this young girl, and at every meeting, he said it was the last time. But while the girl was lying there, exposed on the hardwood floor, Earl felt his heart snare, and he foolishly thought he saw something more in the canvas splattered red, streaked with the dirt from his hands.
Irene chose the milk-fed veal for its creamy, pink texture. She prepared a glaze with lemon juice and thyme, wanting to prove that she could prepare a decent meal, that the medicine was working. As she peeled the meat from the butcher paper, the loin felt impossibly heavy in her hands. She glanced down at the label. Nine pounds, it read. $56.00. When Earl found her two hours later, smoke poured from the open oven set to self-clean. Irene raised a hand to silence him. “Shh,” she whispered, rocking the lamb in her arms. “No one can sleep if you shout.” Irene smiled at her husband. “We‟ve all been tired for so long,” she said.