Nonfiction Honorable Mention, 2021 Doro Böhme Memorial Contest

I was eighteen when my mother gave me the garnet ring. “From Nanny Moon,” she said. A large deep red stone, rectangular, set between several small diamonds on two sides, the metal gold, the ring itself weathered. I never saw my grandmother wear it, nor my mother. I couldn’t imagine when I might wear it or why she would give it to me. The ring didn’t fit; I weighed less than a hundred pounds that year, my fingers bone thin. And yet, it was mine. She didn’t pass it down to one of my sisters, who were both married and with kids by then, but to me, her youngest granddaughter. Grandbaby, she would say in her soft voice with a hint of determination behind it. I wish I could remember where she got the ring. Was it her husband—one of three? An old boyfriend? Did my mother know? They are both gone now, mother and grandmother. Even the ring has disappeared.

You wander the university library on a quiet afternoon, drawn to the sight of so much knowledge. You run your hands down the spine of an ancient text: Men, Women, and Books by L. Hunt. You don’t know Hunt, but you know books and women. And men. The scent of history hangs in the air, like the cologne of your first lover the night you met. Though “lover” sounds silly. You were nineteen when you faked your way into the club. Sipped cautious on a beer, leaned confident against the wall under the blue of the UV lights. You took to the dance floor. This lover and his friend watched from the shadows, laughed at your moves (so you thought). So you tried to ignore him. Impossible. The way he walked up to you, spoke that line from Heathers near your ear. “What?” you said. He repeated the words, closer this time. And in his car, the taste of beer on his breath. A few months later, he bought pizza with the works (which you ate even though you hated mushrooms and black olives), and he caressed your hair and spoke of how beautiful you were and well, it didn’t take much. You were all in. Afterward, he taught you postcoital etiquette: the woman fetches the towel while the man lies in repose, satiated and satisfied, a lesson layered in meaning that will take years to unlearn, an education you don’t find in these old stacks.

It wasn’t my fault the ring was lost, though I feel guilty all the same. I kept up with it through college, through some tumultuous years best left forgotten, and through several moves from Texas to Oklahoma, from the house on Wilson to my one bedroom in Folsom Apartments. Then a thousand miles north to Wisconsin, a year living with my boyfriend and three of his friends, too much alcohol and pot and that one night we dropped acid. The ring waited, while I spun and wandered and grasped at people and places for some sense of self, until I pulled the ring out of my jewelry box, stared into that garnet and took a long look at my history.

You travel back through waves of memory, like a swallow returning to its nesting place, a salmon to the mouth of the river. Back to the beginning. There is a place: a rooftop at midnight, an open window. You take a blanket from your bed, step over the sash, your bare feet on shingles still warm from the heat of the day. You say, Room for two! And he follows, though the blanket is for you alone. You take in the scent of wet grass, the glow of a crescent moon, the silhouette of trees marking a break in the horizon. You breathe in the burn of his cigarette smoke as if it is the oxygen you need and wonder at the comfort of him there. You have just met. You study the shape of your feet, the wear in his shoes. You talk as strangers do, about nothing, about anything, until the mosquitoes drive you back inside. You say something forgettable, but he laughs, true. Thank you for the smoke, he tells you, then he looks you in the eye, keeps a polite distance, smiles. And leaves. He does not ask for anything more. At this, you are surprised. And relieved. You fall asleep to a sense of quiet you have not known for a long time.

While the ring was a mystery, other details about my grandmother were clear: born in 1905, she had nine children by two husbands. The first they called Mr. Halbert. The second, Gordon, the truest of the three. The last husband, no one mentions his name. She grew up dirt poor. She moved across the country and back with Mr. Halbert, and when he left and left again and finally died, she went back to poor. With Gordon she was settled and at least rich in love. She lived a hard life but lived to ninety-three.

Carved in clay but never fired, the small bust of a woman raises more questions than her presence might answer. I know the artist, the name scratched into the base: my mother, Betti jo. I know the studio where the woman came into being: 4101 York Street, the attic space turned art room. I know her approximate year: 1980.

What I don’t know: Self-portrait or face of a stranger? Left unfired by intention or by resignation?

What I imagine: A Sunday afternoon, bright and temperate–outside and in. Kids preoccupied in the yard; husband drawn into football downstairs. She’s been to church, served roast at lunch, cleared the dishes. Usually, it is now that she would nap, but today she slips into the art room and unwraps a cool piece of clay. She throws it against the table once, twice. Pauses. Listens. A third time quick, then she readies her hands and the water. With her thumbs she massages the forehead into shape, slow and meticulous. As she smooths out that space just above the woman’s eyebrows, the creases between her own release, her thoughts loosen. She breathes in, breathes out, the scent of clay like a balm. She forms the nose and the nostrils, and scratches her own. The nose is too big, she is sure, but the way it turns up at the end makes her grin. The lips, she crafts smaller than her own and more relaxed in a way, and here she stops to consider. Laughter from her girls outside lifts like the wind; their voices slip in under the sash, curl up and around her shoulders, tickle the back of her neck.

The other night I watched Bridges of Madison County for no good reason. Other than the fact that I remember it being one of my mother’s favorite movies. And maybe it’s because we’re coming up on Mother’s Day or the near-beginning of summer when I have more time to think. Or perhaps it’s because plenty has happened in the last year that I would like to discuss. I reach into strange places in hopes of finding her. Like Madison County. She was never anywhere near Iowa, though, and not at all like Meryl Streep’s character, Francesca—not from another country. Though there were times when she stood out in a crowd as if she spoke with an accent, when she was attractive in the most plain of dress. And there were dreams that she gave up in the course of her life. I see it now. I am twelve years old, sitting in the auditorium at the community college where she takes Theater. I am watching her up on stage during rehearsals for a play where she is Star of the Show. She is electric under the lights: brilliant and powerful, funny and full of character. Later, she will win an award. But after that season, she won’t go back. I don’t remember why. Only that she quit taking classes. Only that she grew quiet again. And those months become a separate season of my mother in color, a season I was privy to somehow. Privileged, to see her under the lights.

Later, I did wear the ring for a dose of strength here and there, and I looked forward to giving it to my daughter, to passing on the spirit of the women who came before her, who suffered and survived. I never thought the ring would disappear so easily. Taken on a Tuesday afternoon, somewhere between 11 a.m. and 2:30 p.m.

I imagine the feet of the two young men and the one young woman pressing down on shards of wood from a broken panel in the back door, pounding up five steps to the back hall. One runs into the kitchen, another to my son’s room. The third takes long strides up the stairs to the second floor, two steps at a time. Young  kids  are  agile  that  way.  A  right  turn  into  my  daughter’s  room,  where there is little of consequence among playmobile scenes and her American Girl doll. Though there is some cash. Gone. Down the hall to the master bedroom, it doesn’t take long to spot the jewelry box. Straight ahead. On top of the dresser. The young man glances only for a second at what’s inside. There is no time to linger when you are thieving in the middle of the day.

But perhaps, as they pile back into their white van, after enough has been confiscated, and really, once the jewelry was found—enough, he hands the box to the young woman behind him. Perhaps she opens the box slowly.

Does she run her fingers across the row of rings, or does she notice the garnet first and pause?

Does she pull it from its hold in the jewelry box and slip it on her finger? Does she feel the heat—no, the burning—of a woman lost? Perhaps she gives the ring to her mother, the garnet a birth stone. Red, your favorite color, Mom.

A gift so precious, it leaves another woman weeping.

Christi Craig lives in Wisconsin, working by day as a Sign Language Interpreter and moonlighting as a Writer, Teacher, and Editor. Her stories and essays have appeared online and in print, most recently in The Sunlight Press and Stonecoast Review. She is also the Publisher at Hidden Timber Books. Visit her website at christicraig.com.

SPOT IMAGES CREATED BY WARINGA HUNJA

HMS is an arts & culture nonprofit (Hypertext Magazine & Studio) with two programs: HMS empowers adults by teaching creative writing techniques; HMS’ independent press amplifies emerging and established writers’ work by giving their words a visible home. Buy a lit journal (or two) in our online store and/or consider donating.