by Dena Daw
(dedicated to Kristie, 1982-1987)
Summer, 1987
We were on
the monkey bars, the hot summer sun burning our faces as we squinted to see
each other.
“Kristie, I
bet you can't do this,” I challenged, holding onto a bar with one hand.
Kristie looked at me, the sun illuminating
her platinum hair like a halo. “Ha! Yes I can.
And I can do it for longer, too.”
I didn't
want to compete with her. In fact I knew
I'd lose, no matter what. She was always
the bravest, always the prettiest, always the fastest. What had I been thinking? But it was too late for regrets.
Feigning confidence, I dragged myself
to face her, me on one end of the bars and her on the other. She stated the rules, confidently. “On the count of three, we both let go with
one hand. Don't let your feet touch anything. Whoever falls first has to...” She even looked pretty when she was thinking,
tapping the side of her rosy cheek with her index finger. “Eat dirt.”
She seemed satisfied with the punishment,
smiling widely and wiggling her loose front tooth with her tongue.
I groaned
inwardly. “Okay,” I said, trying
desperately to appear cool. I held onto
the bar, waiting. We both let our feet
hang.
“One....two....two
and a half...THREE!”
3 weeks later
She looked so
delicate, lying there. Her beautiful
blond hair acted as a pillow for her pale, angelic head. I'd never noticed her birthmark until now,
small and red like strawberries, right above her eyebrow. Her dress was green, which I found
strange. I'd never seen her in green
before, only in different shades of pink. Her skin looked translucent,
completely blanched; nothing like that day on the playground. I shifted my weight to the other foot while I
stared at her long black lashes, prominent against her whitewashed cheeks. She
looked smaller somehow. Kristie had
always seemed larger than life; even her hair, that her mother teased
tirelessly. It was the eighties, after all.
Now she
seemed so petite, so hollow, so...delicate. I watched the funeral attendant solemnly
close the small, white casket. I wondered if she'd ever lost that tooth.
***
I'm thirty
years old now. Kristie would be thirty
too, had she lived. After her death, her
mother, Susan, slipped into a deep
depression cured only by Jesus and a cocktail of anti-depressants. Susan had been in a dangerously fragile state
for years, completely changed from the woman I remembered at Kristie's last
birthday party. I'll never forget
visiting her with my mother a few weeks after Kristie's passing, with a casserole
and flowers to pay our respects. She sat in a dimly lit living room, a cloud of
cigarette smoke circling her head. She
told us what had happened; and although I hadn't been there, I remember feeling
painfully responsible for her daughter's death.
I had a
conversation with Kristie, about one week before she died. We sat outside on the steps of her house,
watching her parents deflate the bouncy castle in her front yard. She had just celebrated her 7th
birthday and we each held a balloon.
“What do
you think happens to balloons when you let them go?” She asked, spinning her green balloon as fast
as she could.
I sat
there, caught off guard by the question.
“I don't know,” I murmured, unwinding my balloon's long string from my
forearm and fingers. “I guess they just
get higher and higher until they pop.”
“But how
long would that take, do you think? Do you think we'd see it pop?”
I shook my
head. “No, I don't think so. I'm pretty sure it takes a long, long time
for balloons to pop. I've never seen one
pop when I let it go. I think it gets
really high up and goes really far away, where it eventually pops.”
This wasn't
the answer she had wanted to hear. I
could tell because the end of her cherry red lips went down and a deep line
appeared between her wispy blond eyebrows.
“But aren't
balloons really...I don't know...breakable?”
I
considered again. “Well, I guess we can
see. You want to let go of our balloons
and see how high up they go?”
She perked
up, the line between her eyes disappearing and her red lips opening into a
happy smile. I felt relieved.
“Yeah! You go first.”
Suddenly
annoyed, I finished unwinding the string.
She wanted her balloon to go further than mine, I knew it. Only Kristie would make this into a competition. “Sure, whatever,” I said. I let mine go and
we watched as the wind blew it over the bouncy house and toward the tall
Georgia pine trees. It floated higher
and higher until the string became invisible.
“My
turn!” Kristie squealed, standing up to
let her's go. Kristie's balloon started
floating, up past the trees, but well below mine. I smiled smugly to myself, knowing her
balloon would never catch up. We watched as her balloon passed the highest pine
tree, where it promptly popped. I'll never forget the sound, either. Nothing had been touching it, yet judging by
the sound you'd think it had been punctured by a sharp needle. Shocked, we watched the remnants of green
latex quickly make their way back down to earth. I looked up at my balloon, still
floating. Unbelievably high, it
resembled a tiny red skittle on a vast, blue napkin.
***
I could tell my mother didn't want me to hear
this, so she handed me the casserole dish and told me to take it to the
kitchen. I did what she said, but from
the kitchen I could still hear Susan's voice. I sat down at the kitchen table
to listen.
“She still
had those balloons. You know, the ones
left over from the party. They were all
in her bedroom, but she was outside.
She'd been riding her bike in the cul-de-sac with her friends down the
street, you know. She'd been outside for
the longest time, so I thought I'd go and check on her.”
I could
hear her voice break softly, and for a few moments she fell silent.
“Susan, you
don't have to...” I heard my mother's
voice trail off helplessly.
“No, I need
to talk about it. I want to talk
about it. I went outside to check on her
and she had finished riding her bike. I
remember it was propped up against the mailbox and I saw her staring up at the
sky, focusing on something. I asked her
what she was doing, and she turned and ran up to me. 'Mommy, can you get me a balloon?' she'd asked.
I thought that was a little odd, but I told her I would if she'd go and
move her bike. I went in and picked out
a green balloon and went back out to see her.
I remember she was strangely excited, so I asked her what she wanted
with it. She told me that she'd spotted
a red balloon that she thought was...”
Kristie's mother stopped talking, but I could
almost hear the silent nod toward the kitchen.
“She thought it was your daughter's balloon, somehow. I told her that wasn't very likely, but she
said she wanted to catch up to it or something.
I thought she was being silly, but she'd moved her bike like I'd asked,
so I just left her to it. I went back in
to watch television.”
It went
quiet again and suddenly I could hear the crickets chirping outside of the
kitchen window. I knew what was
coming. I felt dread sitting deep in the
pit of my stomach. I didn't want to
listen, but I couldn't stop myself.
“She just
never saw it coming,” her mother said, brokenly. “The neighbors said they saw her out in the
street, looking up at the sky, watching her balloon float higher and
higher...she just never saw it coming.”
I heard my
mom cross the room, her footsteps making every one of the floorboards groan,
like they too were in mourning. “Was it
a drunk driver?” she asked. I could tell she didn't know what else to
say. It was such a delicate situation
and I felt her distress, despite her comforting words.
Kristie
died trying to catch my balloon.
***
The other
day my four year old little girl asked me what happens to balloons when you let
them go. I didn't have an answer for
her, but it bothered me for weeks after. I didn't have the heart to tell her
they just popped in mid-air, falling to the ground in broken pieces. I wanted to tell her that God collected them
and put them in a special place. I
wanted to tell her that all balloons went to Heaven. I just didn't want her to follow.
© 2010 Dena Daw. All
rights reserved.
____________________________________________
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dena Daw, originally from Atlanta, G.A., discovered her passion for
short stories while taking a creative writing class at the University of
South Carolina. After earning her degree in journalism, she now
resides in Raleigh, N.C. with her husband and two children and continues
to write children's picture books and short stories in the hopes of
becoming a published author.
