18th
The Last Jar
This idea came to me quickly and the first draft basically wrote itself. Then it was a matter of getting the opportunity to rewrite it. It could still use a few polishing rounds but I wanted to get this posted for Maria sooner than that.
Three gifts down
Jack exhales and watches the leaves dancing through the foggy window. Wiping it with his sleeve he notices the newest batch are brown and crinkly. On Wednesday he’d woken to find the world turned yellow and orange and purple and red. Just two days later and the trees are naked. The fluttering leaves: brown and dead.
And it was cold. He’d never been so cold before. So he slips into the kitchen.
It’s in the back of the highest cupboard and sometimes when she’s busy, Jack likes to climb onto the counter and reach his hand up, back where he can’t see it but knows it is. He likes to feel the smooth glass, warm from the sun bottled inside. Then he gets on tippy-toes and stretches his fingers out. The jar spins as he tries to gain purchase. It finally catches against the ancient contact paper and he pulls it into the curl of his little hand. He takes it down to gaze into it. The little piece of sun roils inside, churning like the ocean at sunset, gold and bronze, with bits of white swirling in the mix.
Staring into the sun jar he remembers: hot sand warms his toes after coming out of the surf a raisin, melty ice cream dribbles down his chin, mommy’s soft hands rub cool sunscreen onto his back.
He reaches up to return it and bumps the shelf. The jar slips from his hands, crashing to the floor.
Maria runs in and sees Jack frozen on the counter, one hand clutching the open cupboard door. Tears streak his face as he trembles with silent sobs. Wisps of light float up from the floor and dissipate in the autumn gloom.
She wraps her arms around and clutches him tight. She takes him away from the kitchen and the sun jar, now a scatter of glass shards flecked with drops of gold.
“Mommy! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…I just wanted…”
“Don’t cry, baby. It’s okay.”
“But it’s the last one!”
“Is that what all this blubbering’s about?”
Jack looks up, confused.
“Close your eyes.”
“But…”
“Close your eyes.”
Maria strokes Jack’s hair and his breathing slows. She asks, “do you remember that day at the beach it started to rain and everyone started to run around like crazy chickens? I started to pack up but you took my hand and pulled me to the water. You closed your eyes and stuck out your tongue and tasted the rain. Remember?” . A smile turns up the corners of Jack’s mouth. “Uh-huh. It tasted like pennies.”
“What did you tell me?”
Jack remembers. He’d said the sun was still there, that all they had to do was close their eyes to remember it.
“We stood like that till everyone ran off and it was just the two of us. Just standing there, tongues sticking out like weirdos.”
Jack’s eyes pop open and he laughs, “and that bird chased us!”
“Right! A huge pelican came straight for us, flapping its wings and chasing us away.”
Jack notices the sun jar on the table in front of him, its coppery cone of light warming the twilit room. “But…”
“The sun’s still there, baby. You just have to remember it.”
