Phebe Jewell
Wings
I got my wings the summer me and Drew kept our clothes in garbage bags, just in case Cherie lost another job and we had to move again. The summer of Jimmy B and the kid I almost killed.
The first time we saw Jimmy B he was perched on top of the monkey bars, legs dangling. He pointed at an empty swing. “If you can stay on the RollerCoaster for a count of ten, I’ll let you play.”
The swing’s left chain was short and the right chain so long the seat dangled, almost touching the ground. Drew froze, heavy with fear. I sat on the warped, torn seat, pushing it back as far as the chains could take me. Then I let go, pumping my feet until I was kicking air.
“Eight nine ten.”
Too high to stop, I flew over the swingset, above the roof of the apartment building and the boarded-up pawn shop. I soared over cars and streets, bridges and boats. I saw rivers and forests below me, and when I was ready to return to earth, I flew out of the seat, landing on a little kid waiting his turn by the seesaw.
“You’re pretty good for a girl,” Jimmy B said, pulling me off the kid who ran away before I could say sorry. Drew wrapped his arms around my waist. “Show me how to fly,” he whispered.
We lived on the playground that summer. Jimmy B waited for us on top of the monkey bars every morning. I’d survey the scene below with him while Drew and the younger kids chased each other. We were always the last to leave, long after the other kids were called home for supper. I’d switch on the light, pull open the fridge, scraping the half empty jars of peanut butter and mayo and make us sandwiches. The day before school started Cherie told us we were going to live at our dad’s. “Pack your toothbrush,” she added, in case we forgot she was our mom.
The 16th of Every Month I Check My Mailbox
God started sending me letters every month, ever since my teen-age son had brain surgery. I’m no church-goer, but I murmured lines from half-remembered prayers as I watched them wheel my boy into the operating theater. Would he survive? If he did, who would he be? When the surgeon showed me before and after pictures, repeating “It was a miracle,” I nodded, flooded with relief.
The first week he was home from the hospital I found a pearl white envelope in our mailbox addressed in handwritten block letters. I usually get bills and appeals from nonprofits I can no longer afford to support, so I was surprised to open the envelope and read a handwritten note in the same block letters : “It gets better. Trust me, he’ll come through it alright, though he might be a little different afterwards, and so will you.”
The letters were a little shaky, but the “you” was underlined with a firm hand. No return address. Stamped, but the ink on the postmark was so smudged I couldn’t make out the sender’s location. Had I been wrong to doubt God’s existence? But why now? Why me? I dropped the letter in the recycling bin only to find my son later, standing in the kitchen, holding the letter. “It’s cool that someone cares enough to write you,” he smiled. “So old school.”
Months after his surgery the letters arrive like clockwork. They’re never signed. They have to be from God. Who else knows what’s really going on in my world? I only share the outline of a life on social media because my days are filled with fears that never go away, people I miss. I show my son the God-letters but he just shrugs. This generation has no appreciation for mystery.
I make sure to check the mailbox the 16th of every month, certain a letter will be waiting for me. Like this month’s message, written in the same shaky hand: “Look around you: the world is full of surprise.” I frown. Lately the surprises hollow me out with dread - flash floods, ugly elections, missing neighbors.
Again the “you” is underlined. I stare at the page, trying to see the hand hesitate before writing each word. I hold out the letter to my son, who pats my arm. “Maybe that God of yours is on to something,” he says as he hands me the letter. “One thing I can tell,” he calls as he starts up the stairs, his thin back shaking with a laugh he can barely contain, “whoever wrote these sure is dope.”
Phebe Jewell's recent flash appears or is upcoming in numerous journals, including Ghost Parachute, JMWW, Wildscape Literary Journal, Bright Flash Literary Review, SoFloPoJo, BULL, and other wonderful publications. A teacher at Seattle Central College, she also volunteers with the Freedom Education Project Puget Sound, a nonprofit providing college courses for incarcerated women, trans-identified, and gender non-conforming people in Washington State. Read her at https://phebejewellwrites.com.
