THE SWAN

      It was almost dark when he reached the field and parked on the dirt.  The vacant farm house was a silhouette in the trees.  He ignored it.  A moment’s search was all that was needed to find a freshly piled haystack a few dozen yards from the road.  Stiffly working his way down the embankment, Raymond struck off across the field.

     As he approached the haystack, he again drew in that wonderful smell of clover and alfalfa and lavenders blowing across the fields.  With night falling quickly, summer stars already cast an eerie neon glow on the open field and, nearby, the old oak tree stood proudly, its branches black against the frosty sky.

     “You came.”

     Julia’s voice was unmistakable.  She lay quietly against the dry straw, bare feet crossed.  “I’m glad,” she smiled.  Extending a hand to Raymond, she added, “It’s been far too long.”

     Looking down at her, he nodded.  “I was afraid,” he explained.  “Afraid you might not be here.”

     “I was frightened, too, but we can stop being afraid now, can’t we?  So come!”  She patted the straw next to her, smiling brightly.  “Come sit and talk to me.”

     Raymond sat next to her and stretched back against the hay.  They began to talk, quietly at first, sometimes with laughter.  Soon, the crickets began to sing and they drifted into silence as the frosty ribbons of the Milky Way edged across the summer sky.

 

***

Cursing, young Raymond kicked a stone in his path and it ricocheted off the chicken house.  The hens’ protests only angered the 14 year-old more.  He fired a second rock at them for good measure and stormed down the path, leaving the hens and the small farmhouse behind in the darkness.  The drunken screams of his mother and his father’s bellows grew more distant as he escaped into the field.

     “SON of a bitch!”  he growled, whipping the tall grass with his stick.  A dairy cow raised her head and watched as he passed.  Unafraid of the dark, Raymond headed for the high oak tree in the distance.  Kicking and swinging a stick in the grass, he muttered his favorite epithets.

     “Fuck!” he spat, and kicked a dry cow pile spinning down the path.

     “That’s my dad’s favorite word.”

     Raymond froze, startled and angry at the unexpected voice.

     “Fuck, I mean.”

     Raymond saw a slim girl standing in the darkness not twenty feet away, watching him with amusement.  The clouds of stars bathed her in a grey light.  “It’s okay.  It’s a good word.”

     Raymond kicked at the dirt. “Yeah,” he said, “I guess it is.  So what of it?”

     Raymond knew the girl.  He’d seen her getting on the school bus from the neighboring farm.  He’d never spoken to her and they had gone their separate ways in classes at school.  She seemed nice enough, he admitted—for a girl.

     Her arms were crossed and her summer dress fluttered slightly in the warm night breeze.  Her wide smile was framed by pigtails and she asked, “So what are you doing out here in the dark?”

     Shaking the blond hair from his eyes, Raymond replied, “None of your business, nosey.  Besides, you’re a girl and its girls aren’t supposed to be out at night.”

     She giggled.  Raymond liked the sound and was unsure what to do next.

     “So what are you doing out here?” he persisted.

     “Oh, same thing as you, maybe.  I don’t know.  I come out here to look at the stars.  And think.  Or whatever!  Is that what you’re doing—looking at stars?”

     Raymond looked up into the sky.  “What’s to look at?  It’s just a bunch of old stars.”

     She laughed again, more loudly.  “Now I know you’re teasing me!  I’ll bet you’re always like that!  My name’s Julia,” she said, suddenly serious.

     Caught off guard, Raymond looked at her.

     She continued. “Everyone calls me Julie, though, because they say Julia sounds stuffy.”  She twirled around suddenly, her dress spinning, then stopped and faced him with a smile.  Her eyes gleamed impishly and she waited for Raymond to speak.

     “I like Julia better,” he said, feeling foolish.  He felt a need to explain. “I don’t know—everyone’s called Julie.  I never heard of a Julia before.”  He paused, then finished confidently.  “Yeah, I like Julia better.”

     “Okay!” she blurted.  “I never heard anyone say it like you do.  I want you to call me Julia, okay?”

     “Yeah, okay,” Raymond answered, uncertainly.  “Oh, and I’m Raymond.” 

     “Raymond!” she grinned.  She placed a finger to her mouth, thoughtfully. “They don’t call you Ray?”

     “Naw, just Raymond.  Why?  Don’t you like it?”

     “I love ‘Raymond!’  Besides, if I’m going to be ‘Julia,’ you should be ‘Raymond,’ right?  Kind of like Romeo and Juliet!”

     Raymond watched her as she talked.  In the starlight her face was silver.  The corners of her mouth were curled in a mischievous smile and her eyes danced even in the dark.

     He looked around.  “I still can’t figure what you’re doing out here, though.  Shouldn’t you be at home?”

     “No more than you, silly!  And besides, my parents don’t worry.  They know I like to walk, and besides, this is our field and our house is right back there… OH—LOOK!  LOOK!”

     Julia jumped and danced with delight as her finger jabbed at the sky.  Raymond turned and looked, seeing the glowing trail of a meteor as it faded from sight.

     Julia clapped her hands over her mouth, still giggling.  Between her fingers she laughed, “You must think I’m nutty!  I try to count how many I see at night, but I always get excited and lose count.  Do you ever do that?”

     “Do what?”

     “Lose count!  You know what I—you’re just teasing me, aren’t you?”  She looked at him, eyes worried.  “I guess I’m being stupid, huh?”

     Raymond blurted, “No, no, you’re not being stupid at all.”  Sheepishly, he admitted, “I just can’t figure out what you’re talking about, that’s all.”

     “Oh, good!” she exclaimed, twirling in place again, pigtails flying.  “Come on! I’ll show you!”  She turned in the dark and leaped headlong into the side of a nearby haystack.  Dust and grass flew up in a sparkling cloud as she waved to Raymond.

     “Come here, Raymond!  Come on!  You have to see what I mean!”

     Hesitant, Raymond followed more carefully and stretched back next to her.

     “Now what?”

     “Now I know you’re teasing me!” she laughed, covering her mouth again.  It was a habit he liked.  She let out a long breath and settled her head back into the straw.  Raymond looked over.  A strange girl, he thought.  She was just different. She changed from funny to serious and back again so quickly.  He kind of liked that.

     They were quiet several moments and then she spoke softly.

     “My dad brought me out here a long time ago when we were looking for our dog.  It was an evening just like this, and we stopped for a couple of minutes and he told me I had to see the sky.  So we plopped down in a haystack just like this one and he started showing me all kinds of things I never saw before.”

     Julia turned towards him, rising to her elbow.  “I hadn’t ever noticed the sky before.  Not really.  Know what I mean?”

     “Well, yeah—no.”  Raymond was confused again.  “I’m not sure.”

     “That’s okay,” Julia continued. “You’re like me.  You never really noticed things either.”  She bolted to her feet and stretched out her arms. Her face was beaming.

     “That’s why you came here, so I could show you!  You just didn’t know it!  Well, here I am—your humble guide!”  Arms spread, she danced in a circle, stopped and curtsied.  She was clumsy and almost fell over.

     “At your service, sire,” she said solemnly.

     Raymond broke into a laugh.  Their laughter seemed to stir more silver dust from the hay. It swirled and made them cough and laugh even more until they choked and started gasping for breath.  Holding her stomach, Julia staggered back to the haystack and collapsed beside the huffing Raymond.

     When Julia spoke again, her tone was low and melodious.

     “Dad told me the best of all times in the world were at night in the summer.  He said when it got dark you could see the whole universe.  He said if you got lucky, you might even see God.”

     She fell silent again.  The chirping of crickets in the nearby creek was punctuated by the grunts of the frogs.  The aroma of clover and alfalfa and lavender was all around them and strong in the air.

     “Dad told me,” she continued, “that if you were lonely or had some big problem, you’d always have lots of friends up there, especially in the summer.  Dad said all you have to do is start counting your friends and all your problems will go away. Know why?”

     “Why?” Raymond asked.

     “Because you can’t count them all, goofy!” she teased.  "I fall asleep every time I try!  And then I can’t remember my problems, because I‘m asleep!”

     “Look.”  Whispering, Julia pointed up into the heavens.  She scooted closer to Raymond so he could follow her arm and finger. “Up there’s a big cross, kind of like a big letter ‘T’…”  She traced the pattern several times.  Can you see it?”  After a moment, Raymond nodded.

     “It’s my favorite,” she said.  “It’s a swan.  See?  See how the wings spread out and—and see how the neck goes wayyy out…?”

     It took several times until Raymond finally saw the shape of the constellation.  Like connecting the dots in a game book, he saw that it really did look like a swan.

     They lay in the haystack, still listening to the crickets and the frogs and smelling the lavenders. Each wondered if the other was still counting stars.  Raymond breathed easily and became absorbed in the wisps and swirls of the Milky Way and the filmy clouds of stars slowly moving across the sky, and his eyes grew heavy.

     “Come back tomorrow!”

     Raymond sat up with a start, kicking up the dust, and saw Julia standing on the path, hands on her hips.

     “Come back tomorrow night, okay?”  She tossed her pigtails and ran into the darkness.

 

***

​

     When Raymond walked to the field the next evening, Julia was sitting against the haystack, cross-legged and bony knees exposed.  He smiled and sat next to her.

     He tapped his stick against the dirt and began scratching meaningless lines.

     “Your parents fight a lot, don’t they?” she finally asked.

     Raymond nodded slightly.

     “That’s okay.  We can hear them sometimes, even at our house.”  She looked into his clouded face. “But we don’t have to talk about that if you don‘t want to.”  His silence was her answer.  “I understand,” she assured.  “Besides, we’ve got our friends up there and we have to count them together and talk about them.”

     Raymond liked how Julia said “together.”

     She turned to him and looked at him, a deep and curious look in her eyes. “Would you like to do that with me?” she asked.

     Raymond grinned.  “Oh, all right, sure,” he said.  “Why not?”

     They began meeting every night in the field.

     Winter finally came, and with it came the rain and cold that ended their visits.  The creek filled from the storms and the water rushed from ditch to ditch, and the crickets and the frogs grew silent.  The huge oak tree full of rustling crows stood guard over their field as the winds and blustering gales made mud of the pastures.

     Plastic raincoats and body heat and warm breath painted a fog inside the school bus windows, and Julia and Raymond would swap a smile and even sit quietly together.   At school there was little time to talk but the days passed quickly.  Raymond would watch as she jumped from the bus in front of her house, plastic coat blowing.  If he caught her eye, they would wave at one another.

     Summers always returned, and Raymond and Julia would begin meeting again at nightfall.  Each summer there were fresh haystacks to lay in and talk and count the millions of stars.  Julia pointed out more constellations, drawing their shapes in the air until Raymond remembered them all.    As they talked, summer breezes brought back more smells of alfalfa and clover and lavenders and they chattered in the darkness and listened to the chorus of frogs and crickets.

     When evening ended she always took a moment to draw the “T” in the sky and they would pause to look at the familiar shape before walking back to their homes.

     Some nights, they would lay and talk of families or dreams or worlds they wanted to see, of things they hoped to learn.  They shared their secrets and talked for hours and listened or vented their anger.  When Julia’s dog died of old age, Raymond held her hand in the haystack and stroked her arm as she shook with sobs.

     Julia wondered aloud, some nights, if she would ever marry; Raymond talked about his parents’ drinking and how impatient he was to grow up.  But both realized growing up would mean the end of summer nights together.  They decided it was best not to talk about it.

     One such night, when Julia was sixteen, she broke their silence by sitting up and turning to Raymond, a serious look on her face.  Instead of a girl of thirteen, Raymond suddenly realized she was different.  She smelled of soft powders and a tiny bit of perfume.  She had taken on a gentleness and warmth Raymond didn’t quite understand but realized was nice.

     So gradually had she begun to use makeup that he’d missed it completely.  Even the pigtails had changed.  In their place was hair that slid silkily over her shoulders around a face that had changed from baby-round to a delicate oval.  Her lips smiled in a way that made him feel curiously different.  Her eyes, however, still had the impish gleam of the child Raymond had first met.

     “Raymond?” she asked.  She drew her knees tightly to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, staring at her bare feet.

     He waited.

     “Raymond, I’m scared.  What if we grow up and both go somewhere different and we don’t see each other again?”  She shivered in the summer air and looked over at him.

     He avoided the look.  “I don’t know,” he mumbled.  “I suppose maybe we could get married.  When we’re old enough, of course,” he added quickly.

     Julia thought about it. “But people grow into adults and then they stop liking each other and they do all the things like drinking and fighting and hating each other all the time.  Could that happen to us?”

     Shaking his head, Raymond scratched his stick in the ground.  “I don’t know.  I don’t think it could ever happen to us.  I mean, if we were going to hate each other, wouldn’t we know it by now?”

     Julia was silent a long time. “I could never hate you, Raymond.  I love you.”

     Raymond felt the blood rushing to his face and he stared at the ground.  Finally, he looked up and their eyes met. “Yeah,” he stammered.  “Yeah, me, too.”

     Julia sprang to her feet and pulled him up. “Let me show you something really special,” she said excitedly.  She grabbed his hand and, putting her finger together with his, pointed up at the swan.

     “See where the swan’s head is?  That one bright star?  See it?

     Raymond strained as he peered into the overhead sky.  “Yeah,” he said, “I see it.”

     “Oh, look really, really close.  If you squint and look hard, you can actually see that it’s two stars really close together, one gold and one blue.  Look hard!”

     Raymond strained.  “I only see one.”

     “Squint harder!  One is gold, and the other is blue.  They’re beautiful!”

     Raymond tried for several moments.

     “Close your eyes,” she insisted.  “Shake your head and try again!”

     This time he caught it, a glimmering jewel of gold almost touching the other of blue.

     “You saw them, didn’t you?”  she cried happily.  Raymond grinned, nodding.

     Julia held onto his hand.  “Will you make me a promise?  Will you promise me that if anything happens to us, if we have to go somewhere or we don’t see each other for any reason, will you promise to meet me there?”

     Raymond looked up at the swan.

     Julia read his mind.  “I thought about it.  I decided it was a good place for us to meet.  Then I won’t have to be scared.”

     “Yeah,” Raymond obliged.  “Yeah, okay, I’ll meet you there, even if I have to build my own space ship—I promise.  Does that make you happy?”

     “Yes!”  Releasing his hand, Julia spun around gracefully and did a long, slow curtsy.  “I thank you, sire.”

     Raymond and Julia laughed as they had laughed so many summer nights before, and Raymond suddenly felt her hands on his shoulders as she kissed him quickly on the lips.

     Startled, he blinked.  The kiss was gone and he focused his eyes just in time to see her running up the path towards her house.

     “Come back tomorrow night!” she called over her shoulder as she ran.

​

***

​

     When Julia died that winter, her father had tried to explain to Raymond how scarlet fever could kill so quickly.  All Raymond understood was that Julia was gone.  He dreaded the last summer of his boyhood.

     When warm weather finally came, he walked alone into the field and went to the haystack. He stretched back facing the sky and found the swan.  He looked deeply and found the two stars.  They were deep blue and gold and very close together.

​

***

 

     The arthritis had crippled his fingers and Raymond struggled to get his glasses off so he could wipe his eyes.  Julia leaned over with a tissue in her fingers.

     “Here,” she whispered, “let me get it.”  She dabbed at the corner of his eye and dried the tear.  Clumsily, he returned the glasses to his nose and smiled at her in the darkness.

     In spite of the wrinkles on her face, Julia was beautiful.  Her grey hair fell smoothly over her shoulders and her eyes still had the impish gleam of a thirteen year-old.  She smiled.

     “Besides,” she pointed out, “You came back to me.”

     Slowly, Julia rose to her feet and, unsteadily, spread her arms and turned slowly in a circle.

     Fearing she would fall, Raymond started to get up, but she brushed him back with her hand.  “Oh, pfoo!” she grinned.

     She stopped and curtsied.  “But thank you anyway, my good sire!”

     They both laughed as they had when they were young, and Raymond watched lovingly as she covered her lips with her fingers.  He was only slightly aware of the cancer in his body, and the warmth of Julia’s smile erased the pain.

     Julia came back and snuggled close to his side.  “Look”, she murmured, pointing into the sky.

     Raymond looked up, and they were quiet as they gazed high into the depths of the universe and found the pair of stars at the head of the swan.  He could see them clearly, this time, shimmering gold and blue.

     And the frogs spoke again to one another and the crickets played a chorus and the breeze blew clover and alfalfa and lavenders across the field as Raymond died in the glow of the summer night sky.