Slow and Steady
Written by Callie Rowland
Edited by Es Say and Taylor Yuen
No one is here forever.
For some, the knowledge inspires action: I will get as much done as I can!
For others, it inspires depression: What is the use in doing anything?
For Jack, it inspires only memory.
He sits at the funeral home, on a stone bench in the waning winter light, cigarette between his fingers and eyes wobbling with unshed tears. His mottled skin stretches over his bones like a bat’s wing, and he smells of smoke and mothballs. He must be here for his wife, people pity as they walk by. Or perhaps for a dear friend.
They are wrong. He is here for his pet tortoise, Hector.
He knows there will be no funeral; pets do not get that sort of treatment. But his grandmother once told him, You are allowed to feel the weight of death at a funeral home, and today, Jack has come to be buckled by it.
***
He met Hector at the carnival. The smell of burnt sugar and popcorn filled the air. Children ran across the church lawn, shrieking with laughter as the late afternoon sun bathed the world in sepia.
Papa, Jack said, tugging at his father’s sleeve. He was only five years old. Can I ride the tortoise, please? He pointed to the edge of the church lawn, where a giant tortoise was giving children rides for a nickel.
His mother gripped his wrist. No. Far too dangerous.
His father chuckled around his cigar. Come now, Betsy. They are harmless creatures.
Susanna wants to ride the merry-go-round! his mother addressed the tiny blonde girl on her hip. Isn’t that right, Susie? You want your big brother to ride the merry-go-round with you, don’t you?
Susanna began to cry.
You take Susie to the merry-go-round, his father chortled. I’ll watch Jackie. He handed his son a nickel and patted him on the shoulder. Go on, then.
Jack clambered onto Hector’s shell. It was thick and brown and polished to a shine, cool to the touch despite the summer heat. Here you are. The handler handed him a stick with a carrot hanging off its end by a string. You hold it up, like this. The handler moved Jack’s arm forward, so the carrot dangled just out of Hector’s reach. When Hector snapped and took a step forward, Jack latched onto his shell. It’s alright, the handler promised. He’ll walk for you like that, see? Slow and steady.
Papa clapped as Jack rode. When Jack slid off Hector’s shell he ran to Papa and begged, Can I keep him, please? (Papa was always telling Jack to buy things. God gave us wealth for a reason, Jackie. Let the money serve its purpose!)
Papa shook his head, but turned to the handler with a smile. How much?
***
How much? Jack wonders on the funeral home bench. How much longer ‘til I’m gone? He presses his cigarette butt into the ashtray as a procession lines up. A little girl skips toward the hearse, clutching her mother’s hand. The mother’s eyes are red.
***
Jack’s mother’s eyes were red when Susanna got married. The man was British, and took Susanna across the pond with him.
None of that wedding nonsense for you, Jackie, Papa decreed through his cigar. Not until you learn the family business.
Every morning Jack dressed up in a suit and followed Papa to the office. They planned new digs, read financial reports, listened to the complaints of sooty mountain men. The Appalachians were never the same after Jack’s family got a hold of them.
Man must leave his mark, Papa boasted, but Jack always wondered how many men they left beneath the mine. Buried in collapsed mine shafts, left dead and alone in the dark.
Those men were poor, Papa assured him, as though this made all the difference. You do not mourn a poor man who dies in the mine. You just send in more.
Jack sold the mine after Papa died. A heart attack from stress, the doctor decided, but Jack knew: his father died of shock. Jack was finally getting married — but he was marrying a black girl.
I’ll cut you off, Jack, his father had warned, but Jack had no use for a crumbling white-pillared estate. He was marrying a woman with a laugh as big as the sun and hair match.
He took Hector and left. When he heard about his father’s death in the mail, he only cried once.
***
She has cried more than once, Jack thinks as he watches the red-eyed mother usher her daughter into the hearse. But for who? The mother climbs into the hearse and slams the door behind her in one wild movement.
***
Marian was wild in the sixties. A regular hippie. This is how you smoke a joint, she explained. This is how you sit around a campfire with a dozen people you have never met, and sing off-key while someone plays Imagine by John Lennon on a half-busted guitar. This is how you travel across the country. This is how you settle down in California. Of course you can keep the tortoise! Hector is the best ice-breaker we’ve got!
***
Jack watches the icicles break off the cars as the procession pulls out. He lights another cigarette, the flame orange against the graycast sky.
***
The whole world was orange when Marian died. Autumn, when the trees turned to fire, an ocean of amber waves, just like Marian’s eyes.
After, Jack stayed home, just Hector, him, and the house. He only left for groceries and work: pharmaceuticals, but he was just the guy at the counter. He never touched the pills. Except for that first year after Marian died, when he was stealing the painkillers.
He wouldn’t say he was addicted. It was easy to quit once he realized they weren’t doing squat for the ache in his heart.
***
Jack’s body aches as he flicks ash onto the blacktop. He rests his hands on his knees. Through the funeral home’s front door he watches a group of children ogle the birdcage in the foyer. They look like the O’Malleys, he thinks of the only kids in his neighborhood. Sometimes they run over to see Hector; sometimes they give Jack drawings of themselves on Hector’s back. Sweet, those kids, Jack thinks, but I suppose won’t be seeing much of them anymore.
He tips his head to the sky and watches the clouds swirl, ever so slowly.
Hector was the slowest creature he ever met. In Jack’s memories, he is rarely the focus. Instead he is a steady presence, his impact silent and subtle. But without him, Jack’s whole world feels off-kilter.
No one is here forever, Jack thinks, and closes his eyes. But, while we are, let our focus be to keep each other steady.
Callie Rowland is a Kentucky-based writer currently pursuing a Creative Writing BFA at Spalding University. An editor at Raptor Lit, she enjoys reading books, drinking tea, and takes far too much pride in her Hogwarts house (it’s Slytherin). You can follow her on Instagram @_callierowland.
