My Apology

Or 

We Still Exchange Christmas Cards

Deborah Corr, “As I Left It”

by Mary-Fidelis Feeley

We’re on the lush grass separating the Buddha garden from the sliding glass door to her parents’ master bedroom when everyone rages against me, a phalanx of sweaty-fisted kids ranging from my chest height to a head taller than me, but all twisty-mouthed and yelling. I huff away so fast that, when I brush past the yellow Camaro parked outside the bachelor-with-all-the-Italian-Greyhounds’ house, my dress catches on the fender and rips, which will only get me in trouble, which only makes me madder. My sandals slap and stick on the hot asphalt. Anger squeezes liquid through the spongy part of my eyeballs, making it look like I’m crying. I refuse to run, but my rage pushes me from behind. If I don’t go faster, it will knock me flat on my face so my nose will bleed. Then I’ll get hit by a car.

I’m still huffing when I avoid my front door and unlatch the gate by the wood pile. Alone on the stubby sun-scorched grass in my backyard, I feel the bloody itch where a chunk of my knee scraped off and imagine it moist and pinioned to the scrap of dress on the bachelor’s fender, liverwurst on plaid cotton.

A thousand years later, Mom says I have to apologize. I’m still mad. I don’t want to. To make things worse, I have to do it in person; I have to invite Gwylan to the Spring Carnival at my school. Lips pressed, hating my mom, I march over.

It doesn’t cross my mind to lie and say I’ve done it. 

Injustice unkinks the bend at the corner of our streets, smothers the stench of Gingko at the half-way point, bringing me there too soon, draining her house of color. I don’t even notice the trees I always climb. 

I ring the bell. 

The door opens like a slashed canvas, a crack revealing the squealing delight of the un-excoriated: pink streamers, blue balloons, girls in party dresses running with paper plates that bend under the weight of too much cake with frosted roses. I stand on Gwylan’s porch in a shirt my brother outgrew and spit my apology, thrusting the carnival flyer into her hand.

“OK, but I have to go back to my birthday party, because up until now I’ve hated you.” Gwylan shuts the door.

My sandals slap me home. I wonder if my mother knew about the party.

At the carnival, Gwylan has several dollars in an envelope. Maybe it’s birthday money, or maybe her mom, who is a nice mom who never forces her to apologize for anything, gave it to her. I have some change I’ve saved up from my allowance (fifty cents a week—ten cents for every year old I am). Gwylan eyes a thick tortoiseshell comb with a handle featuring the silhouettes of two squirrels. Squirrels are my favorite animal (and monkeys). She knows this. Before taking her money—three whole dollars—the teenager working the table wants to make sure my freshly-apologized-to companion understands what the comb is for, that she isn’t just wasting money on pretty plastic. Instead of answering, Gwylan mimes combing. It’s the first time I realize that some people don’t want to talk-talk-talk all the time.

People remark on my excellent recall, but I’ve never been able to remember what the fight was about, what I did to make my best friend hate me. And I’ve never asked. Gwylan kept the comb on her bureau through high school. She may have it still.