Donnie and I had always loved drinking from the spring. The chilled water awakened our senses, and the tangy metallic taste tingled against our teeth. I had thought that drinking the rust-colored water was what had made my hair red. I chose to ignore the fact Donnie drank as much of the water as I did, and his dark hair had never gotten any redder.
I supported myself by putting my hand on the spout, lowered my head near to the ground, and let my mouth fill up with the crisp water. I stood and swallowed. “Ugh!” I spit into the grate where the water pooled and then traveled through the middle of the stone pavers of the circle. “That’s disgusting! Tastes like I just drank dirty cotton!” I spit again.
Donnie doubled over in laughter.
“Has it changed that much since we were kids? What happened?”
Still laughing, Donnie sat back on one of the steps that led down to the fountain. “That was priceless. The look on your face!” He let out another hoot, pointing at me. “I thought you might have that reaction. It was almost the same for me when I got back from college. I bet it’s worse for you, being used to all your Colorado mountain water and such.” He sighed, his laughter ebbing. “I like it more now, but still not to the level when we were kids.”
I swiped my sleeve across my mouth, wiping it clean. “Unbelievable.” I looked at Donnie and grimaced. “The one thing I actually was looking forward to. That just shattered some memories.”
“Well, thanks a lot.” A forced hurt look came across Donnie’s face. “The dirty water was the one thing you were looking forward to? I might as well just head home and let you find your own way back to Maudra’s.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “You know what I mean, dork. But, by all means, take off. I am sure I can manage to walk the five blocks back to Maudra’s.”
Donnie bent down and got a drink from the fountain.
“Can’t get enough, huh? Don’t blame me when you get lead poisoning.”
Donnie straightened up, and the glint in his eye warned me, but not soon enough. He spit a stream of water right at my face. I flinched backward, and the water splashed against my chest. The chill of it made me gasp.
Donnie burst out laughing again.
“Keep laughing at my expense and I will just head back to Colorado, and you can have my mother all to yourself to take care of.”
“Nah, I’ll just ship her to you, express.” He walked over to me and slung his arm over my shoulders. “Come on, drama queen.”
“Drama queen,really?”
“Hey, told ya, been holding back a long time. It is gonna take years to catch up.” Laughing again, he led me back up the steps out of the fountain. The weight of his muscled arm was comforting. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed Donnie. However, his touch made Jed’s absence more tangible.
We went around to the back of the railing that followed the perimeter of the fountain and began walking up the vertical sidewalk that led to the upper level of the park. Donnie and I used to run full sprint up the hill, laughing and yelling the entire time. The thought of it made me feel winded.
“Wow, it’s changed a lot.” The sight at the top of the park made me a little sad. They had a whole new playground, with upgraded swings, chrome merry-go-round, and a larger sand box.
“Yeah, couple years back. They must have got a grant or something. It is pretty nice. A lot of the stuff was getting pretty sketchy. They even redid the surface of the tennis courts.” He motioned beyond the playground. “And they left the slide, just fixed it up a bit; some of the steps on the ladder were getting kinda scary. Mom wouldn’t let the grandkids go up it.”
Sure enough, as he pointed it out, I could see that it was indeed the same slide. That made me feel better. I had always loved that slide. It was huge and narrow. I had always gotten such a thrill climbing up the ladder, and my stomach would soar to my throat as I zoomed down the wavy slope. Even now, it seemed like the one thing that hadn’tshrunk. It was huge. I couldn’t believe I had actually had the nerve to climb it when I’d been a kid.
I unintentionally wandered away from Donnie, walked over to the slide, and ran my hand over the rough metal steps. Another place in town I’d been able to put the details of my life out of my mind and simply focus on laughing and living.
Leaving the slide, I crossed over the playground and entered the covered open-air shelter. It was a large concrete slab with a couple of rows of green wooden picnic tables. I sat at one of the tables and ran my hands over the chipped paint and the names and hearts from the past twenty years carved into the surface of the wooden planks. Most Sundays after church, I would come here with Donnie’s family. His mother, my aunt Sue, would bring a feast, and we would eat and play for hours until we would have to go home and clean up all the dirt and sweat before returning to church for the evening service.
It seemed like I could hear our voices as I sat there. Donnie and his sisters and I screaming as his dad spun us faster and faster on the red-and-green merry-go-round until it felt like we would fly off if we dared to unlace our legs from the metal railings. Sue and Grandma Luella laughing with a couple of other families from church as they continued to pick at the remaining food.
Sometimes Maudra attended, always with her buffalo stew in tow. I think her brother may have even come with her occasionally, but I’m not sure. I had never thought much about him until he died. Even Pastor Thomas and his family would come sometimes. We never liked it when he did. His kids were always brats, demanding to be first at everything and tattling on us over every little thing. Mom never came. She didn’t want to. She didn’t come tochurch with us very often. Even when she did, she would leave me at Aunt Sue’s until late, after the evening service and dinner had ended.
Most of those times blended together, their individual memories combining to form one mesh of wonderful times in the park. All but one.
I’d been eleven or twelve. Maybe even thirteen. I don’t guess it matters. I remember it was sometime after Grandpa Joseph had died, and that was when I was ten. Grandma was there, though, as was Maudra. I also remember it was one of those Sundays when Pastor Thomas’s family had been there, as their middle daughter, April, had tripped me after I reached the bottom of the slide. I’d fallen into the dirt and got it all over my orange T-shirt. I also remember Sue had made strawberries and pie crust. It’s funny how certain details stay with you and others are lost forever.
We’d been there for several hours already. Most of the food had been eaten; some of the adults had left. Even we kids were starting to tire and slow down. I remember it was one of those especially hot days. Not that there were many Missouri summer days that weren’t sweltering, but this was one that made the slide burn your legs and hands as you went down, and you could see waves of heat coming off the blacktop of the tennis courts. Donnie’s twin sister, Della, and I had started a water fight at the spigot, spraying the other kids who came near us. The dirt that had been all over my arms and shirt became mud and ran down the entire front of my shirt and onto my pants. It wasn’t a big deal. I had several changes of clothes at Sue and Chuck’s house. I could change before we needed to head back to church.
Mom’s voice reached me before I saw her. She was screaming my name at the top of her lungs. I knew from the pitch of her voice what she’d been doing. I was on the swings, swinging as high as I could so Donnie and Della could take turns running underneath me. As I heard her bellows, I tried to slow down the swing enough to allow me to get off before she showed up. I didn’t make it. I could see her on the other side of the picnic area, stumbling up the steep embankment that came up from the back of the park, on the side that bordered the city pool. She wasn’t on the winding sidewalk, but making her way over the grass, getting tangled as she tried to make her way through bushes and flower patches.
I noticed Sue, who was typically the epitome of calmness and serenity, stiffen as she realized my mother was on her way. She leaned over to whisper to Maudra and motioned Chuck over to them.
“Brooklyn!” I always hated hearing my name. Even when people were just talking to me or a teacher was taking roll, every time I heard my name, it sounded like it did in this instant—shrill, piercing, guttural.
