The Edge of the Grass

For the majority of her college years Carrie Ogden lived in a cozy one-bedroom apartment set back within a quiet, peaceful cul-de-sac overlooking a small neighborhood lake in Lexington, Kentucky. Sometimes, to take a break from studying or to simply go outdoors, she would amble over to the lakeshore to feed the ducks whatever leftover bread she had. Sometimes just a few stale pieces, she would rip them up into smaller chunks, wad them up in her hand for better distance, and hurl them as far out onto the lake as she could. The grateful ducks would chase after the doughy lumps as if she had just thrown the missing pieces to an unsolved riddle, and having emptied her bag, Carrie would sit by the slapping shore content to have made their day and smugly contemplate the pieces of her unfolding life.

The placid lake water was always a source of comfort to her, bringing back happy childhood memories of boating and skiing on Lake Malone in southern Kentucky. Sun drenched days spent zooming over wakes that trailed and marked the paths of other boats like white jet streamers marked against a brilliant blue sky. Afternoons combating binding life-jackets smelling of mold and plastic, and the shock and wonderment she would feel swimming into a cold spot in the water. Why was this spot different? The countless knee scrapes and bruises from climbing in and out of the boat on the flimsy over-the-side ladder.

Having spent a good portion of her childhood summers around that lake the smell of all lakes was engrained in her, and as familiar to Carrie as the smell of her own clothes. It never failed to soothe whatever troubles or regrets she had as she looked out over the play of light fractured and reflecting upon each individual wave, creating a mosaic, dancing show of brilliance. In one wave she learned to ride a bike, then, undulating in the sun and roaring outward was the wave of her first kiss from a schoolboy during a game of spin the bottle; yet, in another wave was the pain and soreness from getting her braces, and the sting of embarrassment going back to school with them that first day. In moments of clarity and reverie, the waves carried her past, but it was ever so slippery, like water rushing over the lip of a glass down into the drain.

It was because of the slippery nature of her life that she nurtured a need to feed the ducks whenever she could, as if she had some manner of control over their destinies, if even for just that moment in time--as if somehow, by divine transference or slight directed hope, she might somehow also have the same power and control over her own destiny. But fate, or rather one's delusion of control over it, is a fleeting wave.

One wintry Saturday afternoon in her junior year of college, the January wind had the chill and tingle of winter at its peak, the sky a strange mutation of pale orange and heavy, dense gray. The air outside held no sound except for the bristling wind. Even the omnipresent ducks had sought sheltered haven elsewhere. As Carrie walked to the parking lot of her apartment complex to run errands, the frigid wind wrapped around her fingers and made her young hands red and as clumsy as boxing gloves in the abusive air. Car keys jingling lightly in her hand, she fumbled for the key to unlock the car and noticed, startled, a solitary figure standing across the parking lot like an unyielding sentinel. Glancing over out of instinctive curiosity, she saw a young woman facing her, bearing an expression of expectation that was, for some reason, directed pointedly at her. Taken by surprise, Carrie glanced at her again, wondering what she was doing just standing there by the bushes; no one else was anywhere around. She reasoned that the woman must be waiting for someone to come out of an apartment somewhere nearby, but then Carrie noticed that her attention was still purposefully focused upon her. The stranger's eyes, intent upon Carrie's movement, were sizing her up, judging her for some as of yet unknown criteria and purpose. With that flash in her eyes, it became clear to Carrie that she was somehow to become a part of the stranger's shrubbery guard.

From a distance of about forty or so feet she could tell that the woman was petite. Her disheveled, sandy-brown hair was just long enough to curl and waft in the cold breeze, giving her the appearance of small birds flying about her head. She donned a light-weight short-waisted coat that was ill-suited for the January weather; but as she was nicely dressed, it looked as if she had merely misjudged the day's forecast and mistakenly grabbed the wrong coat. As she approached, the woman seemed to be in her mid-thirties with watery blue eyes that reflected in the overcast light of the January afternoon. All of these things registered in Carrie's mind as if she were compiling a police description of her, in case she might need it later.

For Carrie's psychology class project she had to read and critique a self-help book--she chose Gavin DeBecker's The Gift of Fear, as it was newly published and everyone seemed to be talking about it. Even though the book focused on preventative measures one should take to avoid being attacked, it was still a harrowing account of abductions, kidnappings, rapes, and murders. Carrie was shamelessly paranoid for weeks after reading it trying to size up strangers on the street, on campus sidewalks, and even in restaurants while she quickly ate her lunch, slyly eyeing the big burly man eating a hoagie in the corner. She soon discarded her heightened sensitivity, determined not to be quite so impressionable from then on, to rely upon her own intuition and common sense. This woman functioned as Carrie's chance to set herself right with the world again, but she still felt her shoulders tense as the woman approached, preparing herself for the unexpected. As their eyes met, the stranger raised slightly off her heals and expectantly picked up her gait to a slow jog.

Having reached a reasonable speaking distance she offered thinly in a quirky high voice, "Hi. My sister lives in that apartment," her arm reaching and pointing in compliance behind her, "and I don't have a key to get in. Would you mind terribly just giving me a ride up to the leasing office?"

Yes, Carrie thought. She was right to finally trust her instincts. Briefly she conjured up images of proudly telling of her good deed to her best friend Amy that night at dinner. Gaining a bit more confidence she casually replied, "Yeah, sure," now feeling proud of herself for dispelling her newly acquired suspicions of the world.

With that the woman rounded Carrie's sensible tan Camry and jumped into the passenger's side to quickly slam the door. A bit more slowly, Carrie did the same, hoping that she had not just made a grave mistake. She turned on the car and, in mutual silence, they drove the mile up to the leasing office. The stranger smelled faintly of a sweet, unfamiliar powdery perfume, echoing the same unfamiliarity of her unexpected presence in the car. Turning on the radio Carrie glanced over at the woman's hands folded in her lap--scrubbed looking, a painful burning red, as if the wind itself had scalded them. As they neared the leasing office the woman attempted to make polite conversation in the same high-pitched, scratchy voice with, "You see, I'm the first one here. The first one of my family to get here from Washington State. Everyone else should, hopefully, be here sometime this afternoon or tonight."

"Oh." Carrie followed naturally enough with, "Are all of you here for a reunion or something?"

Apparently, Carrie thought, she had asked the wrong thing. But not having much to compare it to, she just let it drop as they were at the leasing office, and Carrie considered her duty now complete. As the woman turned to face Carrie, she fully expected her to say, "Thanks," and be on her way, but what the woman did, in fact, say next had Carrie wondering if she had been wrong in not being more cautious earlier when she had the chance.

"Thanks, but would you mindÉ" she paused, searching for just the right words to say. "Instead of dropping me off here, could you take me to my motel? It's only a mile or two down the road from here." Then taking a breath and saying a bit more loudly, "I just walked on over here from my room not realizing how far it would be on foot. I didn't think it would be so cold here in Kentucky," grabbing the folds of her obviously inept jacket. "This is the South, isn't it?" Her thin, scratchy voice now louder and higher, a bit hysterical, she explained, "This is the only coat I brought," again calling attention to the flimsy garment clearly intended more for brisk autumn strolls in the park than combating frigid January winds.

Oh, what the hell, Carrie thought. At this point it would be harder to say no to her and have her get out of the car than it would be to simply take her a short piece down the road as she requested. She was ready to have this task over with and get back to errands. Carrie halfheartedly nodded another assent and pulled out of the drive onto the main road. The woman smiled at her appreciatively, not guessing that Carrie was simply looking forward to being rid of her.

Seconds later they turned onto the main road, but as she pushed the accelerator, Carrie noticed that something was amiss within the car. The woman's nose, red from the first moment Carrie laid eyes on her, had appeared to be red from the cold. But now Carrie saw that the strange woman was silently crying. Tears, like streamed confetti hurling down steep stadium rows, fell down her cheeks. The woman looked intently at her nondescript shoes, embarrassed to be crying in front of a complete stranger. Somewhat confounded, it hit Carrie that this would be no ordinary ride. Crying, Carrie thought. She had no idea what to say to this woman. Who was she? What was wrong with her?

The woman then wiped away her tears with the back of her hand, and then finally reached into her pocket to retrieve an already saturated tissue. Wiping her nose, realizing that Carrie had seen her crying, she managed, "It's not that my sister just isn't home." She paused and then mumbled almost inaudibly, "She died. I didn't know what to do when I got here, so I just walked on over." Now a bit confused she added, "I don't know what I was thinking. Who I thought would let me in, I don't know. I didn'tÉ" her voice now cracking, "I didn't evenÉ" she trailed off, defeated. Having lost her tentative grip on control, she now sobbed openly, taking in raspy gasps of air.

"UhÉ That's horrible. IÉ I'm so sorry." Her own breathing, now an effort, seemed unbearably loud in this confined space. Carrie cracked the window, partly in an effort to get some fresh air but more so to create some sort of diversion, something to make a sound. She wished she was vapor and could slide right out the crack in the window to take flight.

It's not that she did not feel for the woman, because she did. But just moments ago she was mildly content in her predictable world. Only moments ago she had been making a mental list: go by the bank first because it's closer; pick up some cat litter and food supplies; drop off the dry-cleaning. She had been wrapped in the center of her life as selfishly as anyone, not thinking of how randomly death strikes to reach out and strangle ordinary afternoons like this. All I did, she thought, was step out of my apartment. But all of that seemed superfluous and impossibly out of reach now. She was torn between a guilty conscience for wanting to escape and a well-intentioned pang to help the woman, which only made her feel worse, as neither had completely won out. Worse yet, Carrie realized smugly that this woman was "other," as only youth and inexperience can do. She was not a part of her life, and after today Carrie would probably never see her again. Her problems were hers, weren't they? Carrie thought, "My life is still fine, on course, safe. Things like this don't happen to me and only did because I stepped out of my safe circle to intervene. The people in my life are fine and certainly do not suddenly die, without warning just like that. Why did this woman appear to me? What if simply having her in the seat next to me somehow puts me at risk, like a lightening rod attracting the inevitable strike?" Even though Carrie now knew the woman would not hurt her in any physical way, she suddenly seemed far more dangerous to her than ever, and she felt as if her spine had been tied to an invisible piece of twine that was now pulling her up and out of her skin.

The minutes in the car passed painstakingly, as a spider spinning her web. Finally, they pulled up to the clean but average-looking two-story motel. Carrie suppressed the urge to ask unwanted questions: Who was your sister? How did she die? What happened? Carrie had come to realize that the woman just needed to be and to grapple with this tragedy instead of the added burden of trying to explain it to a stranger whom she would never see again. Letting her go unimpeded, Carrie looked over at her, telling her inanely, "I'm really sorry for your loss." Silently, the woman opened the passenger door letting into the car, once again, the relentless winter air, breaking the burden of the claustrophobic spell.

"Thanks for the ride," was all she said as only her lips tried mockingly to make the shape of a faint smile, making her resemble the lifeless expressions of those creepy porcelain dolls she always hated. As the woman closed the car door and walked around the front of the Camry, her hair once more took on the wind, giving her a blurred, animated effect as she entered into the motel lobby. Carrie had not even thought to ask the woman's name. Had the woman looked back at Carrie she would have seen an empty shell of innocence. That was the last Carrie ever saw of her.

Oddly, as much as Carrie had wanted to be rid of her, now that she was gone she could not bring herself to leave the motel. She sat there sipping a strange cocktail of sympathy for the woman's shock and loss, the exciting rush of having a brush with fate, and blind, selfish relief that this death had not happened to her family. Finally, Carrie put the car in reverse, turned around, and made her way toward the grocery store just up the road.

Her errands that day were a numb pounding, something of which she was only superficially aware. The powdery scent the woman left behind in the car mingled ghostly in a dance with Carrie's thoughts of her and her deceased sister. She wondered if the dead sister had been ill or if it was some freak accident. Briefly she thought of her own sister and how it had been years since she had last seen her. What would she do if something happened to Margot? Inside, Carrie felt raw and exposed, like a skinned cucumber.

Once home, Carrie parked her car in the same place as when she had first seen the woman. Only now, she somehow felt too big for it; she saw the absurdity of the neat yellow lines dividing and separating cars into predetermined spaces. Determined, she pushed against an oncoming epiphany as of yet unrealized, but looming in her periphery. She robotically gathered her groceries and looked across the parking lot to the next building over where the deceased sister had lived. From the outside nothing had changed--the bricks were still the same color; the blinds were still horizontally aligned. The unchanged facade revealed no sign of the tragedy within; all was obscenely calm on the surface. Carrie realized that she had no idea who this woman had been; what's more, she didn't even know if she had ever even laid eyes upon her, despite the fact that she lived less than a couple hundred yards away. Did she make a difference--did she finish her life before it was taken from her? She wondered, with amazement and fear, what must a dying person know--have gleaned from life that finally makes them complete enough to die. And she stopped just short of asking if it were possible that the woman didn't know anything, that there were no answers to glean.

Looking down at the asphalt, the cracks in the sidewalk trailed off to the edge of the grass where someone had dropped a crumb of food, creating a flurry of activity in the local ant population. Below a tranquil sea of green, Carrie saw the clamor of activity. Every day, she thought, along cracks that I step over and on. Everyday without noticing or caring I go by--her head swimming around as if in a washing machine. God, how can I do this? She struggled. All of this activity behind each blade of grass, smooth surfaces, brick walls and closed blinds--people living their lives caring, loving, hating, and dying in our own little cracks, trailing off in different directions to the edges of our own lives. She looked from the sister's apartment back to her own--the same windows, the same bricks.

The rest of Carrie's weekend passed without further incident. She met her friend Amy for dinner and drinks at their favorite pub, but Carrie did not speak of the incident as she had envisioned earlier. Somehow, it seemed, it would be a betrayal to tell, but she kept it close to her in her chest; a veil pulled over it. The strain of trying to push it out of her head made her tired and sullen, and after a couple of beers, so as not to appear antisocial, she called it an early night. Once in her apartment she locked the door and mutely watched the TV until her eyelids became weights. Climbing into bed a vision of the woman flashed in front of her--her hair encircling arches of fire, and her eyes two dull, watery pools. As she fell to sleep she felt the vague, troubling sensation of the veil being pulled open onto blackness.

The next morning found Carrie awakened earlier than usual. Despite that fact that she had a fitful sleep and woke up several times during the night, Carrie felt rested and was happy to be finally settling into the weekend. She pulled on a pair of fuzzy socks and made her way into the small galley kitchen. She fixed a glass of sweetened ice tea and poured out a bowl of cereal with skim milk. Breakfast was her least favorite meal of the day. Sometimes she skipped it altogether, opting instead for a hearty lunch. She looked forward to her quiet Sundays. She planned to work on her history essay that was due next Thursday, read the Sunday paper and work the crossword puzzle as best she could, and run by the mall and browse the shoe section, even if she didn't buy anything. Yesterday's events had mellowed a bit in her mind, and the fact that her life was still normal settled like a down comforter around her. She even told herself she'd call her mom and sister. A few weeks had passed since she'd spoken to either one. The day passed as effortlessly as folds of satin rolling off a table top, and by bedtime that evening Carrie had once more enrapt herself in the safe confines of her small life.

Monday brought back routine which saw Carrie off to her morning classes. That afternoon she returned home from campus to pull into her usual parking spot only to notice, again, something unusual across the way. Today, in place of the shrubbery sentinel, was an old moving van. Carrie watched, unable to tear her eyes away, partially hoping to see the bereaved sister again. Soon a stumpy, elderly man came out of the doorway carrying a painting in one hand and a small lamp in the other, the cord dragging along the sidewalk.

Doggedly, the man walked to the van with his load. At first Carrie thought he might be a mover, but then she saw that he was too frail for such a strenuous job. His brow a torrent of worry, he was tired and drained, but concentrated on the task at hand. His drawn, tight face was timidly expressionless, a blank sheet, as if his reserve might crumble and so would he under the weight of it if he dared change it. He had the same watery eyes as her fleeting passenger, and Carrie realized that this man must be father to the two sisters. She continued gazing in quiet amazement, but then gradually began to realize how morbid she must appear. A trespasser on private emotional property, Carrie turned to make her way inside her apartment, but once at her door could not bring herself to go inside. Instead, she quickly unlocked her door, set her book bag on the love seat and walked into the kitchen to grab a bag of white bread. She quickly exited her apartment and walked down the sidewalk in the opposite direction from the parking lot on toward the lake.

Standing on the edge of the grass she looked motionlessly out onto the smooth surface of the once beckoning water, the hollowness of her passenger two days before returning to her and numbing her mind. Today there were no childhood memories cavorting in the reflected ripples of the lake, only a dull thudding in her brain of something she did not want to see. Carrie clumsily opened the bread bag and tentatively withdrew a piece of soft, white bread. Tearing it in two, she wadded the pieces up in her hand, feeling the fluffy softness squish between her fingers and then form into a compact wad. Her eyes filling with tears, she then hurled the doughy ball far out onto the lake. She waited, but that day there were no scrambling grateful ducks in sight. Before, what had been an exercise in delight and confirmation had now become a harbinger of what she must confront, as her mind and her spirit demanded. As if to receive it, she sat down in the soggy folds of the grass there by the lake water. As she watched, the wad of bread disappeared unclaimed beyond the edges of the water's surface on an unstoppable path toward the murky bottom, and, as if seeking her out, a chilling gust of wind blew across the rolling void to rush against her now expectantly resigned face.

Academic Exchange Extra invites reader response to any writings in this issue--especially articles advancing the scholarly debate of issues raised.

------------------------------ Page Citation Reference:
AE-Extra. (2005). AE-Extra. November. Available Online.
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Created: 28 October 2005. Updated: --. Accessed: ]