Congratulations, Barbara! Story of the Month
EYES OF THE HEART
by Barbara Anton
Old Mr. Heller spoke mostly in cliches, but even he would never have described Maddie's hair as “mousy brown.” No, her hair is the soft rich brown of the crust on freshly baked bread that has been varnished with butter. And Maddie's eyes--even the biggest, ripest, blueberries, freshly washed by early morning rain, never shone like those cobalt-blues.
Yes, Maddiewas pretty for sure. Oh, maybe not the pretty of a city girl, that high-glosskind of pretty, but she had a sweet, simple, country kind of beauty that a fellow could cuddle up to on a chilly winter night. When she looked up at me from under lashes as thick as the fringe on Mrs. Smiley's upholstered piano stool, my heart soared like an eagle lifted by wind racing to a storm.
Maddie never paid much attention to me, though. I was just the boy next door in Conger’s Grove, with no two hairs that fell in the same direction. But then, how could she notice me, with all those fellows from Wiley’s feed store crowding in on her? It's a wonder poor Maddie could breathe.
Percy Lewis was the worst, driving his daddy's shiny new Ford V-8, the model with the front window that laid down over the hood when you wanted to feel the breeze on your face. It even had mahogany running boards that Maddie would step up on to get into his dumb old car. Actually, one fender rattled. I heard it. Well, anyway, this particular spring day,with the forsythia bushes so full and yellow they looked like bundles of down plucked from baby geese, Maddie stepped up onto that mahogany running board and slid onto the black leather seat.
Percy scrambled around to the front of the Ford and gave the crank a couple of turns. I thought the crank might snap back and break his durn arm, like cranks sometimes did if a fellow didn't know where to place his thumb, but it didn't. The motor sputtered, then coughed, and Percy raced back and jumped in beside Maddie, grinning like a farmer whose cow had just birthed twin calves. He pumped the choke and the Tin Lizzie vibrated, backfired and chugged unevenly. Percy laid his right arm across the back of the seat, almost touching Maddie's shoulders. It was downright disgusting and practically indecent.
Maddie didn't seem to mind, though. She was laughing at one of Percy's dumb jokes when they pulled away from the feed store and putted off down the street past Morrison's Mercantile. Before old Mr. Heller could have said, "Twenty-three Skidoo," MMaddie and Percy were rounding the bend by Millie's Cup &Saucery, and I lost sight of them. I wonderedif Percy would take her down behind the tobacco barn on the pretense of showing her the wisteria. Maddie loved flowers, and some of the clusters of lavender flowers on those old vines were as much as three feet long. They sure were pretty, and I hoped they wouldn’t soften Maddie up for what I figured Percy had in mind. I kicked the dirt, spit, and turned to go into store to get oats to feed the horses, when I heard a deafening crash.
The sound of crushing metal sent me running off toward the bend in the road, my legs pumping like pistons. When I rounded the curve I saw Percy’s Tin Lizzie scrunched up against Mr. Mc Gregor's big oak, with Maddie lying across the hood of the car. Blood spurted from a gash across her eye, and her lip was split and bleeding. Her leg dangled over the fender like a towel hanging limp from a line, and any fool could see that the leg was broken.
Percy, dazed and hollow-eyed, climbed down, checked the tires, and ran a shaking hand over the crumpled metal. "My daddy will kill me,"he muttered, "Mydaddy will never let me drive his car again.”
I positioned Maddie's leg as gently as I could, placing it close beside her. I brushed the hair back from her forehead, then I panicked when I saw blood gushing from her wounded eye. "Maddie!Maddie,” I begged, “say something. Are you all right?"
But Maddie just lay there white and still as cream in a milking pail. I lifted her down off the hood as gently as I could, holding the injured leg close to her body, and laid her on the grass. I ripped my shirt off and tied it over the gash across her eye, hoping it would stem the bleeding. By now half of the town was running toward us, and I saw that Doc was carrying his little black bag.
I stepped back to make room for him to crouch beside Maddie, hoping that he could make her open her eyes and say something. My heart pounded so hard I was afraid it might somehow hurt her. Doc stemmed the bleeding from the wound across Maddie's eye, cleansed the split in her lip, and taped her leg to a stick that I found lying nearby. He seemed resigned that there was little more he could do. He stood, and walked toward Percy, who was sniveling and running his hands over the crumpled metal.
I screamed, "No!" and dragged Doc back to Maddie.
"There'snothing I can do to bring her back, Son. I'm sorry." He pried my fingers from his arm and turned to Percy, who had nothing more than a little trickle of blood on his chin.
I knelt beside Maddie and stroked her forehead. She was so pale, so still. I begged her to breathe, and when she didn't, I put my lips over hers and breathed for her. "Come back, Maddie, please come back," I pleaded. One of the men tried to pull me away, but I wouldn't, I couldn't, let go. "Maddie!Maddie!" I sobbed into her still chest. I stroked her hair and patted her cheek. I touched the cut on her lip.
Then I felt her stir. Just a little, an almost imperceptible movement, but enough to let me know that my prayers were being answered. "Doc!"I yelled. "Maddie's alive, she moved!"
Doc walked over and laid his arm across my shoulders. "Sometimes they do that--a little involuntary shudder."
"No!No, she's alive. She is!"
Doc patted my arm reassuringly and was about to turn away, when Maddie opened her uninjured eye and stared up at us. Doc gasped, then fumbled in his bag for something to stem the bleeding.
Just then Ben Johnson rounded the curve, and when he saw the excitement, he pulled his buckboard off the blacktop to see what was going on. Doc called to him to bring the buckboard closer, then he yelled to those loafers from the feed store to help me lift Maddie up onto the buckboard so Ben could take her to the clinic down the road.
As carefully as I could, I settled Maddie on the rough boards, then jumped up and sat beside her. I cradled her head in my hands, all the while praying so hard I thought my heart would rupture. Suddenly a strange eerie feeling lifted goose bumps on my arms. Then I experienced a wonderful calm. It was almost as if I'd stepped outside myself where I was able to watch the healing taking place. Even before Maddie opened one eye and looked up at me, I knew that she was going to be all right.
I visitedMaddie at the clinic every day until she had recovered enough to go home, then I helped her mama care for her. I picked fresh strawberries in the meadow and put them in a big bowl with sugar and cream from the morning’s milking.Maddie licked her lips and managed a lopsided smile. I read newspaper stories to her, and when I read the comics she chuckled.
It took a while, but now Maddie's going about her routine again. Of course, she'll never be the same. That carefree girl that laughed and flirted at the Saturday night dances died the day Percy's Tin Lizzie hit that oak.
Now I'm the only one that asks Maddie to dance on Saturday nights at the Grange, and when Maddie limps into the feed store, the clerks don’t crowd around like they once did. Now they busy themselves with imagined chores and pretend not to notice the scars and her limp.
That's pretty rough for a girl just out of her teens, a girl who talked about being a beautiful bride in a white satin gown. A girl who dreamed of walking down the aisle to stand beside the man who would take pride in her beauty and share her dreams of a perfect life.
Well, Maddiedoesn't know it, but I'm going to ask her to marry me. I’ll put the luster back in those beautiful big blueberry eyes. She’ll have that wedding after all. I know she cares about me, too, because she's trying to get my cowlick to lie flat. She even comes over to help me weed my vegetable patch, and she pretends not to notice when I step on her toes at the Saturday dance.
I can't askher to marry me yet though, I've got to give her time to become accustomed to the scars. I'll wait until she can throw her head back and laugh like she did before the accident, without covering lips that are forever pulled into a lopsided smile.
But, as old Mr. Heller would say, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." When I look at Maddie I see the most beautiful woman God ever created, a woman who is perfect in my eyes. As soon as Maddie knows that beyond a doubt, I'll ask her to marry me. It won't belong now, because Maddie, the real Maddie, hasn't changed that much. She's still feeding warm milk to every stray cat, shopping for widow Fischer's groceries, and making quilts for the church bazaar. Yesterday she baked cookies for the kids in her Brownie Troop, and she invited me over for supper one night--biscuits and sausage gravy.
Yup, soon my Maddie and I will be married, and as old Mr. Heller would say, “We’ll be ashappy as fleas on a spotted pup.”
###
"Barbara began writing at age 13, and she has received over 150 awards for articles, short stories, plays and poetry. Her work has been published in numerous anthologies, including TAPESTRY, THE CUIVRE RIVER ANTHOLOGY, NEW CENTURY VOICES, COMPUTER TALES OF FACT AND FANTASY, AND COMPUTER LEGENDS, LIES & LORE. Two of Barbara's books, SAVORIES, a collection of award-winning short stories, articles and humor, and TERSE VERSE, are available through book stores or online.
Thirty-six of Barbara's plays have been produced on Theatre Row in New York City, and two were nominated for "Best of Previous Season." A winner in 10 of Florida Studio Theatre's Shorts Contests, two of her plays were chosen as "Favorites of the Past 10 Years." Her plays have received awards from Lamia Ink!, the McLaren Comedy Festival, The Comedy Festival in Las Vegas, and from the Dorothy Dickson Darte Center for the Performing Arts in Pennsylvania.
A Graduate Gemologist, Barbara also enjoyed a career in jewelry design, and was Fashion and Design editor for National Jeweler Magazine. She contributed a playwrighting column to Writer's Guidelines & News, and wrote humor columns for The Sarasota Journal. She now teaches writng at The University of South Florida, Senior Division.
Barbara relaxes by painting in oils and watercolors, gardening, flower arranging, and baking, but would rather be writing than doing anything else. She resided in Alpine, New Jersey before moving to Sarasota, Florida. Listed in Who's Who. Member: Dramatists Guild. ###
