Sunday, July 06, 2008
The Prodigal Daughter
(The three words for this story were: sex, drugs and rock-and-roll"
The Prodigal Daughter
By
Phoenix Hocking
Sparrow Jones was not just “exposed” to drugs in utero, she was fairly awash in the stuff. Her mother, rebelling against the innocence of the rock-and-roll fifties, stepped into the counterculture of the sixties with abandon. She had sex with multiple partners, smoked everything from marijuana to banana peels, and gave new meaning to the word “hippie.”
Sparrow’s mom wore long skirts and long hair, gave up shaving, went barefoot and joined a commune. She loved folk music, and would sit for hours listening to Bob Dylan and talk to other hippies about how the world was going to hell in a handbasket. She changed her name to Moonbeam Sunflower, and tripped through her days alternating between drug-induced euphoria and sleep.
Moonbeam Sunflower was well into her sixth month before she even realized she was pregnant. Morning sickness had passed in a sort of blur, and was chalked up to bad batches of Mary Jane. In her seventh month she tapered off the drugs a bit, but not much. In her eighth she almost died from an overdose of something somebody had given her; she never knew what.
And in her ninth month, the most extraordinary thing happened. Moonbeam Sunflower gave birth to a little girl. A tiny, perfect, helpless birdlike creature, all arms and legs and a peeping little cry she named Sparrow. It was in that instant, looking down at her daughter, that Moonbeam Sunflower became plain old Sarah Jones again. The next morning, Sarah climbed into her VW bug with the peace symbols painted on the sides, put Sparrow on the seat beside her and tucked an old towel in front of her so she wouldn’t fall off, and began the long trek for home.
Sarah came from Austerlitz, a little town in upstate New York, whose only claim to fame was that it was the home of poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. Sarah had read Millay extensively, drawn to her brooding darkness and free-wheeling lifestyle. Austerlitz was a long way from California, in more ways than one, and Sarah was discovering that Thomas Wolfe was wrong. You could go home again, but it wasn’t easy.
Considering that Sparrow had spend the first months of her life swilling second-hand drugs as she swam in the toxic soup of her mother’s womb, she was a surprisingly easy child. She lay on the front seat of the VW, either sleeping or watching the shadows on the roof or the shine of the love beads hung from the rear-view mirror. She cried when she was wet or hungry, but other than that, she was quiet.
Every so often, Sarah would reach over and touch the little miracle beside her. She sang Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore or The Times, They Are A’Changing. She stopped often, at gas stations and rest stops, and just walked, with her child hugged tightly to her breast. At night Sarah would curl up with Sparrow in the back seat and catch some sleep before starting out again in the morning. She traded her meager possessions for cloth diapers, which she washed in the restrooms of filling stations and rest stops.
She begged for gas and food, using Sparrow as a bargaining chip, and looking pitiful in her long skirt and unkempt hair. She would promise to send payment as soon as she got home, and even when gas attendants and store clerks didn’t believe her, they took pity on her and let her have what she needed.
Sparrow slept, and watched, and listened, and Sarah sang, and drove, and thought. Going home was not going to be easy. Not easy at all.
Sarah’s mother couldn’t have been more the stereotypical fifties mother if she had posed for the poster. Sarah’s mother’s name was Jane, and she wore shirtwaist dresses and sensible shoes. She curled her hair every morning, applied make-up and wore an apron when she cooked. Jane was devastated by the behavior of her good-girl-gone-hippie daughter and was heart-broken when Sarah moved out and moved on. She hadn’t heard from her daughter in almost two years.
That didn’t stop Jane from praying for Sarah every night. She knew nothing of the drugs, or the sex, or the commune. She only knew that her little girl was “out there” somewhere. Every time the phone rang, she froze, wondering if it was the police telling her that her daughter was dead. Every time there was an unexpected knock at the door, it took all of her courage to answer it, fearful. And every night she prayed for her daughter’s safe return.
Sarah, on the other hand, was terrified of going home. She had not left under the best of circumstances. Her middle-class home was full of rules and was boring to boot. She chafed at curfew, rebelled at school, couldn’t wait to try her wings and felt like she was a bird in a cage, pecking at the bars.
She had hooked up with Bobby, a long-haired hippie who had turned her on to LSD and talked about peace, love and freedom. He made the open road seem like the only way out of her stifling, boring, middle-class existence. She left in a cloud of dust and angry words that hung in the air long after she’d gone, perched on the back of Bobby’s motorcycle, three sheets to the wind.
Within a week, Bobby had left her at a rest-stop somewhere in New Mexico, and Sarah had been too ashamed to call home. She hooked up with a trucker, who took her to California, for a price, and Sarah learned to sell her body and her self-respect. She found the commune quite by accident, and the time there passed in a haze.
Now, it was two years later and Sarah wasn’t at all sure her mother would even take her back. Not sure at all.
Never far from Sarah’s mind was what her mother’s reaction to having a grandchild appear on her doorstep was going to be. Would they be thrown out? After all, having a child out of wedlock was simply not done. Her mother and father would be shocked. Would they be turned away at the door? Told never to darken their door again? Or, if they did allow her and her child in, would they make up some lie about a husband killed in an accident? That was the usual lie, wasn’t it? God forbid you actually had a child without being married. It simply wasn’t done. It just wasn’t.
And then what? Where would she go? What would she do? She didn’t want to live on the streets with this tiny life that had miraculously been given into her keeping. How would she live? Where would she live? She couldn’t beg for food and gas forever.
The miles rolled beneath the VW like a ribbon. Not a red carpet, thank you. Sarah had no doubts that her mother would be shocked, dismayed and appalled at her appearance. Maternal protection for Sparrow sprang deep into her consciousness. She’d do whatever she needed to do to make sure her daughter had a life, a real life. The kind of life Sarah had had, she realized with surprise, was exactly the kind of life she wanted for her own daughter.
She began to compose her coming home speech. The miles brought her nearer and nearer to home, and Sarah thought about what she would say. She would apologize, of course. Apologize for the way in which she had left, apologize for causing her parents such pain, apologize for not being in touch.
But she would not apologize for Sparrow. Never.
She would get a job, get on her feet, take care of her daughter. She wouldn’t ask for handouts; just a place to stay until she could take care of herself and Sparrow. She would just ask for a place to stay; she wouldn’t be any trouble. She’d help around the house, do the yard, do whatever they wanted her to do, if only they’d let her and her daughter stay for a while.
She’d say she was sorry. And she was.
Jane Jones was standing at the kitchen sink, washing dishes and looking out the window at her garden. The roses were especially fine this year, she thought. When she heard an unfamiliar car pull into the driveway, she dried her hands on the towel and braced herself, as she had so many times before.
She peered out the front window, and was relieved to see that it was not a police car. Instead it was a truly awful looking VW bug, with peace symbols and other sixties slogans painted on it. It looked like it hadn’t been washed in months. Inside the car sat a woman. A rather unkempt looking woman, with dirty long hair, seemed to be busy with something on the front seat.
Jane squinted. Her eyes were not what they used to be, but…could it be? Was it?
She ran to the door and tore it open, rushed down the walk to the VW where the woman was just getting out. The woman turned around and yes, oh YES! It was!!!!!!
“Mom, I…” but she was engulfed in hugs and kisses and tears of thanksgiving. “Mom, I’m so sorry,” Sarah cried into her mother’s shoulder. “I…”
“Honey, don’t say another word,” Jane said. “You’re home and that’s all that counts.” She brushed the hair away from her daughters face, her beautiful daughter, her beloved daughter. She beamed and cried and smiled and seemed not to see the ravaged skin, the filthy body, the fearful eyes. She only saw her daughter, home again.
And on Sarah’s part, she only saw her mother’s love, shining through the tears. She didn’t see any condemnation, nor disapproval, nor any of the negative emotions she had so feared. She only saw love.
Just then, Sparrow, who had been asleep on the front seat, peeped. Not a big peep, just her usual little peep that said “I’m wet, Mom, and I’m hungry.”
Jane stiffened. “What was that?”
Sarah leaned into the car and gathered Sparrow in her arms.
“Mom, this is Sparrow, your granddaughter.”
Just for the tiniest fraction of an instant, Jane allowed her shock to register. What would the neighbors say? But then, Sparrow waved her tiny fist about. Jane reached out and Sparrow grasped Jane’s finger in her little hand, and Jane no longer gave a damn what the neighbors would think.
“Oh, Sarah,” Jane said. “She’s beautiful.”
It was a homecoming to be remembered, many years later. Sarah would tell Sparrow how her mother had called all the neighbors to tell them that Sarah was home. She would tell her about the pride in her mother’s voice as she told them that she was a grandmother. She told Sparrow that when Sarah’s father took one look at his new grandchild, he uncharacteristically burst into tears and hugged her so tight she almost couldn’t breathe.
They threw a party for her. A baby shower. They fixed up her old bedroom to make room for baby things, and Jane watched Sparrow when Sarah went job-hunting. Sarah cut her hair, applied make-up, and bought clothes appropriate for an office. She got a job as a secretary, and worked hard every day.
They weren’t all easy years, those years of home-coming. There were still rules, and curfew and sometimes that old caged feeling would return. But when she started to feel caged-in again, with the demands of being both daughter in her parent’s house and mother to her own daughter, all she had to do was remember the look in her mother’s eyes when she returned. She knew that should the day come when the circumstances were the same, she would react the same way her mother had, with love, and forgiveness.
Thomas Wolfe was wrong. You can go home again.
The End
By
Phoenix Hocking
Sparrow Jones was not just “exposed” to drugs in utero, she was fairly awash in the stuff. Her mother, rebelling against the innocence of the rock-and-roll fifties, stepped into the counterculture of the sixties with abandon. She had sex with multiple partners, smoked everything from marijuana to banana peels, and gave new meaning to the word “hippie.”
Sparrow’s mom wore long skirts and long hair, gave up shaving, went barefoot and joined a commune. She loved folk music, and would sit for hours listening to Bob Dylan and talk to other hippies about how the world was going to hell in a handbasket. She changed her name to Moonbeam Sunflower, and tripped through her days alternating between drug-induced euphoria and sleep.
Moonbeam Sunflower was well into her sixth month before she even realized she was pregnant. Morning sickness had passed in a sort of blur, and was chalked up to bad batches of Mary Jane. In her seventh month she tapered off the drugs a bit, but not much. In her eighth she almost died from an overdose of something somebody had given her; she never knew what.
And in her ninth month, the most extraordinary thing happened. Moonbeam Sunflower gave birth to a little girl. A tiny, perfect, helpless birdlike creature, all arms and legs and a peeping little cry she named Sparrow. It was in that instant, looking down at her daughter, that Moonbeam Sunflower became plain old Sarah Jones again. The next morning, Sarah climbed into her VW bug with the peace symbols painted on the sides, put Sparrow on the seat beside her and tucked an old towel in front of her so she wouldn’t fall off, and began the long trek for home.
Sarah came from Austerlitz, a little town in upstate New York, whose only claim to fame was that it was the home of poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. Sarah had read Millay extensively, drawn to her brooding darkness and free-wheeling lifestyle. Austerlitz was a long way from California, in more ways than one, and Sarah was discovering that Thomas Wolfe was wrong. You could go home again, but it wasn’t easy.
Considering that Sparrow had spend the first months of her life swilling second-hand drugs as she swam in the toxic soup of her mother’s womb, she was a surprisingly easy child. She lay on the front seat of the VW, either sleeping or watching the shadows on the roof or the shine of the love beads hung from the rear-view mirror. She cried when she was wet or hungry, but other than that, she was quiet.
Every so often, Sarah would reach over and touch the little miracle beside her. She sang Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore or The Times, They Are A’Changing. She stopped often, at gas stations and rest stops, and just walked, with her child hugged tightly to her breast. At night Sarah would curl up with Sparrow in the back seat and catch some sleep before starting out again in the morning. She traded her meager possessions for cloth diapers, which she washed in the restrooms of filling stations and rest stops.
She begged for gas and food, using Sparrow as a bargaining chip, and looking pitiful in her long skirt and unkempt hair. She would promise to send payment as soon as she got home, and even when gas attendants and store clerks didn’t believe her, they took pity on her and let her have what she needed.
Sparrow slept, and watched, and listened, and Sarah sang, and drove, and thought. Going home was not going to be easy. Not easy at all.
Sarah’s mother couldn’t have been more the stereotypical fifties mother if she had posed for the poster. Sarah’s mother’s name was Jane, and she wore shirtwaist dresses and sensible shoes. She curled her hair every morning, applied make-up and wore an apron when she cooked. Jane was devastated by the behavior of her good-girl-gone-hippie daughter and was heart-broken when Sarah moved out and moved on. She hadn’t heard from her daughter in almost two years.
That didn’t stop Jane from praying for Sarah every night. She knew nothing of the drugs, or the sex, or the commune. She only knew that her little girl was “out there” somewhere. Every time the phone rang, she froze, wondering if it was the police telling her that her daughter was dead. Every time there was an unexpected knock at the door, it took all of her courage to answer it, fearful. And every night she prayed for her daughter’s safe return.
Sarah, on the other hand, was terrified of going home. She had not left under the best of circumstances. Her middle-class home was full of rules and was boring to boot. She chafed at curfew, rebelled at school, couldn’t wait to try her wings and felt like she was a bird in a cage, pecking at the bars.
She had hooked up with Bobby, a long-haired hippie who had turned her on to LSD and talked about peace, love and freedom. He made the open road seem like the only way out of her stifling, boring, middle-class existence. She left in a cloud of dust and angry words that hung in the air long after she’d gone, perched on the back of Bobby’s motorcycle, three sheets to the wind.
Within a week, Bobby had left her at a rest-stop somewhere in New Mexico, and Sarah had been too ashamed to call home. She hooked up with a trucker, who took her to California, for a price, and Sarah learned to sell her body and her self-respect. She found the commune quite by accident, and the time there passed in a haze.
Now, it was two years later and Sarah wasn’t at all sure her mother would even take her back. Not sure at all.
Never far from Sarah’s mind was what her mother’s reaction to having a grandchild appear on her doorstep was going to be. Would they be thrown out? After all, having a child out of wedlock was simply not done. Her mother and father would be shocked. Would they be turned away at the door? Told never to darken their door again? Or, if they did allow her and her child in, would they make up some lie about a husband killed in an accident? That was the usual lie, wasn’t it? God forbid you actually had a child without being married. It simply wasn’t done. It just wasn’t.
And then what? Where would she go? What would she do? She didn’t want to live on the streets with this tiny life that had miraculously been given into her keeping. How would she live? Where would she live? She couldn’t beg for food and gas forever.
The miles rolled beneath the VW like a ribbon. Not a red carpet, thank you. Sarah had no doubts that her mother would be shocked, dismayed and appalled at her appearance. Maternal protection for Sparrow sprang deep into her consciousness. She’d do whatever she needed to do to make sure her daughter had a life, a real life. The kind of life Sarah had had, she realized with surprise, was exactly the kind of life she wanted for her own daughter.
She began to compose her coming home speech. The miles brought her nearer and nearer to home, and Sarah thought about what she would say. She would apologize, of course. Apologize for the way in which she had left, apologize for causing her parents such pain, apologize for not being in touch.
But she would not apologize for Sparrow. Never.
She would get a job, get on her feet, take care of her daughter. She wouldn’t ask for handouts; just a place to stay until she could take care of herself and Sparrow. She would just ask for a place to stay; she wouldn’t be any trouble. She’d help around the house, do the yard, do whatever they wanted her to do, if only they’d let her and her daughter stay for a while.
She’d say she was sorry. And she was.
Jane Jones was standing at the kitchen sink, washing dishes and looking out the window at her garden. The roses were especially fine this year, she thought. When she heard an unfamiliar car pull into the driveway, she dried her hands on the towel and braced herself, as she had so many times before.
She peered out the front window, and was relieved to see that it was not a police car. Instead it was a truly awful looking VW bug, with peace symbols and other sixties slogans painted on it. It looked like it hadn’t been washed in months. Inside the car sat a woman. A rather unkempt looking woman, with dirty long hair, seemed to be busy with something on the front seat.
Jane squinted. Her eyes were not what they used to be, but…could it be? Was it?
She ran to the door and tore it open, rushed down the walk to the VW where the woman was just getting out. The woman turned around and yes, oh YES! It was!!!!!!
“Mom, I…” but she was engulfed in hugs and kisses and tears of thanksgiving. “Mom, I’m so sorry,” Sarah cried into her mother’s shoulder. “I…”
“Honey, don’t say another word,” Jane said. “You’re home and that’s all that counts.” She brushed the hair away from her daughters face, her beautiful daughter, her beloved daughter. She beamed and cried and smiled and seemed not to see the ravaged skin, the filthy body, the fearful eyes. She only saw her daughter, home again.
And on Sarah’s part, she only saw her mother’s love, shining through the tears. She didn’t see any condemnation, nor disapproval, nor any of the negative emotions she had so feared. She only saw love.
Just then, Sparrow, who had been asleep on the front seat, peeped. Not a big peep, just her usual little peep that said “I’m wet, Mom, and I’m hungry.”
Jane stiffened. “What was that?”
Sarah leaned into the car and gathered Sparrow in her arms.
“Mom, this is Sparrow, your granddaughter.”
Just for the tiniest fraction of an instant, Jane allowed her shock to register. What would the neighbors say? But then, Sparrow waved her tiny fist about. Jane reached out and Sparrow grasped Jane’s finger in her little hand, and Jane no longer gave a damn what the neighbors would think.
“Oh, Sarah,” Jane said. “She’s beautiful.”
It was a homecoming to be remembered, many years later. Sarah would tell Sparrow how her mother had called all the neighbors to tell them that Sarah was home. She would tell her about the pride in her mother’s voice as she told them that she was a grandmother. She told Sparrow that when Sarah’s father took one look at his new grandchild, he uncharacteristically burst into tears and hugged her so tight she almost couldn’t breathe.
They threw a party for her. A baby shower. They fixed up her old bedroom to make room for baby things, and Jane watched Sparrow when Sarah went job-hunting. Sarah cut her hair, applied make-up, and bought clothes appropriate for an office. She got a job as a secretary, and worked hard every day.
They weren’t all easy years, those years of home-coming. There were still rules, and curfew and sometimes that old caged feeling would return. But when she started to feel caged-in again, with the demands of being both daughter in her parent’s house and mother to her own daughter, all she had to do was remember the look in her mother’s eyes when she returned. She knew that should the day come when the circumstances were the same, she would react the same way her mother had, with love, and forgiveness.
Thomas Wolfe was wrong. You can go home again.
The End
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