Storymania - Glass Drop by Plume

Glass Drop
Plume

Isabel Muller sat sipping her usual morning coffee. A Horsefly was buzzing in mad spurts around and around, hitting the ceiling despite the open window over the sink. Breezes brought in the fresh newness of spring. Outside she could see gardens in bloom and her neighbor's red tulips. They were a new addition this year, Mary was constantly nursing new life into existance. Every year since Isabel had lived there, Mary's bounty increased until now it was generously spilling over onto her own lawn. She thought this had something to do with Mary never having children, she was definatly retired by now with the amount she spent weeding: Isabel's plants never sat neglected aand everything looked mangled and wild compared to Mary's flowers.

Isabel's left hand was spread out before her on the glossy tabletop. I t was now when the young green things were sprouting out of the ground that she missed her ring finger the most. The was just a stump, a sorry knot in place of it. She hadn't seen her complete finger for five years, since her twenty-eight birthday. She studied it so intensely, it was if Isabel believed she could simply will it to grow again. Her mother had said that it was a pity, Isabel had such beautiful hands, the kind Jesus would bless people with.

The woman had to live with it, every day of her life, long after her family had accepted it, but she could not. She deserved it, it was a mark of her failure in everything, in her marriage to Harry. All she thought about of those days were the times he was away, how she had refused to attend his gallery opening, his one and only. Of course she had thought there would be many more. It hadn't even had to do with him, she just simply couldn't imagine herself sipping wine and talking to women in black dresses, pretending to understand what abstract forms cut out of tree trunks were about, let alone critiquing his technique and the language he conveyed with the sway of a chiseled curve. She had refused to go to any of those openings, his or otherwise.

Isabel had come up with ways to cope with her missing finger physically; she carried, held, and buttoned everything with her perfect hand. She was once a teller in a bank, but the thought sickened her now, all that exchanging of money from one hand to another. She had gotten a jobe in a warehouse store, she spent her days now pushing economy boxes of detergent down concrete rows. It was impossible to take notice of such small things there.

Glancing up at the clock, Isabel saw that it was already 8:15. She put her mug in the sudsy kitchen sink, almost knocking over one of her newly finished figurines. It was her favourite, Isabel stopped and considered her a moment. She had carefully sewn the tiny wonan's scarlet dress, true to time. I'm going to make my self late again, standing here, Isabel thought and hurried to her car. The early moring blue sky seemed to transcend her shull and float aroundall the bareness. She could tell it would be beautiful out. Maybe if she were lucky Fay would let her ride around in the gardens department and pick up those bags of mulch. She pulled into the black sea of shining cars and went inside to work.

A busy row of workers were stocking shelves when Isabel arrived. She was impressed with wha ease they slung boxes up onto the shelves as if they were empty, and chattered and laughed in between without having to recover their breath. When Isabel had told her brother, Antony, about her new job he laughed, "But Bella, you're so palid and frail like the rest of us, you mean they hired you to do that?" He hadn't meant it in a cruel way. She hadn't told Thomas, her other brother, who was always away on business trips so she rarely spoke to him.

Isabel set to work stacking ovrsized tubs and barrels whenshe was approached by a middle aged woman, her hair in a barrette, followed by two small boys. "Can I help you ma'am?" she queried. One of the boys was impatiently yanking at the woman's skirt hem, but she continued to look towards Isabel, even after the boy had grabbed her arm and began swinging on it. "Yes, can you direct me to the cereal aisle?" she asked in a prim voice. Isabel put down her stack of "Depends" boxes and motioned for her to follow. The woman suddenly spun around and gave the child at her side a smack. "Cut it out Rick, now that's the last time I'm telling you!" she yelled. Isabel led her to the end of the aisle. "Now go down to that sign that says "babecue sauce special," turn right, go all the way up the aisle with the baby food, and just keep going straight, it should be in the breakfast food aisle."

She had noticed the woman's gaze and her espression. It wan't until then, with a box still tucked under her arm tightly, that she realized how she had motioned so carelessly with her left arm outstreached, the stump in clear view. She was reminded again that she wasn't complete. Isabel was only happy hen she looked down at her watch and saw that it was five o' clock.

She scurried to her car as if she had some place to go, something very imprtant to attend to, but really the only urgency was to be away from the great hallow warehouse, that even which each day's new arrival of bulk food,and housewares and office supplies, she could not fill up. In her car in the passenger's seat still sat the unopened box her mother mother had sent her, she already knew it contaied what her mother considered to be "some of the essentials." Every time she got a package it inclued chocolates made with soy milk or some healthful alternative, "healthy mind, healthy body" brochures, and ofen times, socks. Isavel was the one she worried the most about, even though she was the eldest of the three, and her mother made no attempt to hide it. "I just hope you can be happy, I'm afraid of the effect your father had on you," she told Isabel. Isabel hadn't let her father have any affect on her, and she was certain she was at least not as frail as her moher was.

Isabel decided to stop by Fresco Fabrics since it was on the way home anyway. It was one of those first spring days, when the senses came out of winter hibernation. Isabel rolled down her window and the wind that swept her face smelled like marigolds and thelake breexes that came in when she lived on the shores of Lake Erie with Harry. Isabel tried to repair her thoughts by turning them to her newest project. Now that flowered pattern, should I have red or red orange to gowith the yellow?" she was crocheting a dress for her porcelain lady.

The inside of the store was a bewildering mix of unrelated objects. She found cotton batting next to wrapping paper. The only thing left was to ask the clerk. Isabel found a silver-haired lady who storde in bounding steps up to her. "Why, I'd be delighted to show you where the yarn is!" she exclaimed when Isabel questioned her. She followed the woman's cheery chatter. "Here we are now!" she annouounced as if they were on a tour bus. Isabel kept her left hand shoved in her pocket. "Now, what shades did you say you wanted? Oh, look here deary, this is a very fine kind, feel how soft!" she shoved a few bundles into Isabel's hand. "Oh no," the clerk grabbed them back, "here's my favourite sort of thing, Canada Yarn, its quite good." She gave the clerk an uneasy laugh. But what would you thinkyou really saw who I was, would you think of me just the same way? A nice girl who sits at home and knows how to quilt? she thought.

"This is a hobby of minetoo you see, and I think its just charming that young people like yourself can share in the plesure of it! That's just lovely. You know, all kids care about today are thier video games," The clerk told Isabel.
"Thanks, could you hand me just one more?" she asked. The clerk turned to find her yarn again and Isabel purposely reached out with her left hand toreceive it. Isabel couldn't help feel frustrated with everyone, but mostly herself

She couldn't keep anything together, not her marriage, ever the collar she had sewn on her shirt was unraveling. After Harry had gone nothing had mattered, at least she thought nothing would matter anymore. She had been terribly careless after that. All of those familiar, sympathetic voices and faces of her rfriends surrounded her, but she didn't want their sympathy. She had done it to herself when she shut that heavy heavy door of her heart, she had smashed her finger, ruined it, severed it.

When Isabel returned home she found it the same as ever, nothing ever changed with her little house except for the addition of the figurines she dressed. They surrounded the interior as if to replace the real living, breathing beings who once sat inroom on the lake. Isabel never really thought of this, she subscribed to a lot of sewing magazines and once considered getting a cat.

Now she didn't know what to do, Saturday and Sunday where spent in the dimness of the bleank sky that let down rain at intermissions. Isabel studied each of her carefully crafted works. Ladies in elaboate curls stood here, they were lost in time. Some sat sat on top of the television, others looked out the window from their bookshelf perch. Last winter Isabel had visited her mother in the hospital with a broken hip and hadn't realized until then how everyone was glass on the edge of a shelf.

Mulling over her plan, Isabel became surer. I canmake anything, what is there to consider really? she thought. First she took the size of her finger. Isabel did everything with care, she planned everything as she had planned the pattens of dresses, of her own clothing. She went in the cabinet for Harry's sculpting clay that she had kept, not as a momento, but because he was going to get rid of it. She formed every fold and wrinkle and line. After the finger was made, all she had to do was wait for it to harden. In the afternoon the sun was finally shining and Isabel took it for a sign. She put on her finishing touches, even making the fingernaillook clear, and then she went to get her deedle.

She screamed. Isabel had not believed anything could be this painful. She was sorry she had not shut her kitchen window. She hadn't seen Mary bent down tending her young plants. Of course she's heard me, Isabel thought. She could see her neighbor running towards her house with her straw hat and gardening gloves. In a moment Mary was at her front door. "Isabel, what's happened, what's going on?" Isabel turned, bitting her lip. Mary grabbed her hand and ran the faucet over it, but didn't say anything. She didn't question her, but only tried to clear it off and stop the blood that streamed into a little pool. Isabel hardly knew what went on though, she hardly believed anything was real.

"Dave, get the car, we have to take Isabel," Mary called to her husband through the kitchen window. She had wrapped Isabel's hand with the scarf that had bbeen holding on her hat, and now it was already spotted with blood. Isabel started to cry, she couldn't tell if it was from the sight of blood or her mere disappointment. She didn't feel much pain, but she felt very weak, as though she could just sit ther for a thousand years until she turned into dust and then let her ashes be carried out through her kichen window. But Mary interrrupted her dream. "Come Isabel, come on get up, we're going."

Isabel didn't remember the car rideor walking in the emergency room, she just felt completly stranded, as if her ship would never come back to the island to see her fire. "My god, why would you try to do this o yourself!" she heard a doctor exclaim. She saw the baby scale on the tble next to her, marked carefully out in pounds and ounces. I tag said "Dr. Hoffer's." She stared at the unblemished metallic sheen and reached out with her left hand to touch it. It was cold and all she could think of was what a shock it would be to a baby who had only known the warmth of his mother's closeness.