Adelaide Literary Award Anthology 2019 - ESSAYS

ESSAYS ANTHOLOGY

Marianne Song is an essayist who strives to reproduce the feel-
ings and memories with poetic images through English instead
of her mother tongue, Korean to convey her raw emotions as
honestly as possible, otherwise might be fabricated by self-con-
sciousness. The way she explores her experiences and memories
to correlate with social issues corroborate her viewpoint that
arts can be far away from reality. Currently, she is working as
a writer and English instructor in Jeju Island, Korea with an
unwavering belief that someday her angst and hardships could
be transformed into artistic treasure

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Rehabbing Rain:
In the Shade of the
Cottonwood Tree

by Brianna Heisey

I was born and raised in the desert. Like most desert plants
and animals, I love rain. I live for rain. I live because of rain.
Rain heals me, as it heals and seals the cracked surfaces of
sunbaked arroyos and limestone canyon walls. It peels back
the membranes of seedpods, freeing them to the warm winds
and porous soils to replant and grow—shallow rooted and thin

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bodied. Rain plumps up cactus flesh, sending a moist exhale
of rescue breaths down the throats of desiccated, sweat-caked
desert dwellers. This collective gasp sweeps across the land. The
forced air is said to be the origin of the infamous haboob, the
monumental respiration of all living things in the desert when
the rain clouds roll in and the infernal sun is finally blotted
out. You probably didn’t know this, did you? The power of
breath in the desert. In close proximity to sand and the earth’s
core, breath is powerful. The air is heavy. Rain rehabilitates
the desert world.

As a girl growing up addicted to biannual rain seasons
in Tucson, Arizona—summer monsoons and winter mainte-
nance rains—I loved rain so much, I decided to name my
first-born human child Rain. Someday. When I had one. Then
someday became today and I didn’t have a human child, but
instead, I found myself with an immense love for wild things.
For displaced wild animals. For the canines that walk the line
between domestic and wild, not knowing their sure place. For
many reasons I will get to later, I can relate to these animals.
The world made us as we are—compatible and cohesive—to
gravitate together in a realm of dire solidarity, to band together
and survive. To thrive as a pack. And so I began to rescue wolf
dogs in danger of euthanasia from animal shelters. My first
feral female I, of course, named Rain.

Rain arrived. There was nothing seasonal about her, ex-
cept that she arrived with the monsoons, and she was weath-
ered. Withered. Scrawny—her fur matted and full of parasites.
In spite of this, she was beautiful. A spirit animal from another
dimension. A small, white, yellow-eyed, large-toothed wolf.
When I took her home from the shelter and bathed her, she
howled, she gnawed, she clawed me. She was so malnourished,
most of her sinewy fur fell out. She had the beginning stages of

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an Upper Respiratory Infection (Kennel Cough)—I could tell
from the sniffles and runny nose. She fought me, just enough
to show will, but she was tired. I lathered her up and scrubbed
her down, as she finally submitted, stiff as a board. Fight or
flight had passed—Rain was in shock and submission. She
was entering the pre-stages of learning to trust and to simply
breathe in the desert.

When I finished, she stared blankly at the drain—im-
mobile, hairless, eyes on fire, skinny legs and all. I wrapped
a towel around her and lifted her from the elevated tub, her
legs sticking straight out, all 35 pounds of her emaciated
frame. Her hip and shoulder bones pierced my hands, leaving
a lasting impression. I dried her gently with the towel, then
set to clipping matted fur from her with scissors and feeding
her tiny pieces of dried fish. This, I would soon find, was her
element. Soaked to the bone and devouring protein. It would
take months before Rain would gaze upon me with her full
moon eyes, but she was already beginning to feel me. To lean
into me and fight less. And it wasn’t long after that, Rain was
racing with me as I reveled in ethology and the genius of all
things wild.

We hit the roads. Rain darted every which way like a
minnow, petrified of my footfalls. Each forward step I took,
she took two to the side. I finally let her off leash and she began
to follow. We also had Shooter, my male Mexican wolf mix, a
confident alpha in any pack, leading the way for us. Shooter
found me in the back country wilderness of the Tonto National
Forest as a young pup. But that story is for another chapter. It
was Rain—as Rain needed the rehabbing—that growled and
lunged at Shooter, conditioned from her first year of life as a
stray in the streets of South Tucson to fight off all competition
for resources. And I was her number one resource now. Shooter

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saw her as damaged and not worthy of his time, snorting into
the air with disapproval. So I ran between them. We took to
the washes—in between floods—dodging Diamond Backs and
chasing rabbits. And the monsoon rains fell. Every afternoon
into the evening, like clockwork. It was an El Niño year, and
the satiating season for rehabbing Rain had begun.

Our adventures rolled in like thunder. It wasn’t an easy
time, but miracles did occur daily. And the sheer experience of
living in the Sonoran Desert during monsoon season is exciting
enough. If you aren’t aware yet, in the summer time, in the Ar-
izona desert, all living creatures seek shade. It’s shade—before
the rains begin—that provides relief and rehabilitation from
the relentless desert sun. The shade of a tree, the shade of a
bush, the shade of a tiny blade of grass—anything to defer the
radiant sun that seeks to scorch itself upon the earth, absorbing
directly or becoming ambient heat. The permeable flesh of

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animals—particularly the vulnerable flesh of humans—is the
perfect surface to absorb the sun’s rays and burn. The infamous
sunburn. Rain and Shooter—my wolf pups—have no problem
with this. They never burn, with their numerous layers of fur.
Even their vision is protected by dark black rings that encircle
wild yellow eyes, cutting back on sun glare and absorption when
scanning the landscape for prey or predator. I’m not as perfectly
created by nature to triumph in the open range, and the desert
reminds me of this. I’m usually lathered in sunscreen, wearing
a hat, and I’m always on the watch for confident predators that
might land me at the bottom of the food chain. Thank you,
large brain, for compensating for my weak, pulpy, defenseless
composition and keeping me alive thus far.

In the Rillito River arroyo, there isn’t much shade to be
found. There are plants, but they are the usual desert brush,
weeds, and small trees like willow, blue palo verde, ironwood,
and the highly invasive tamarisk (Saltcedar)—the thirstiest tree
in the southwest. But the arroyo is a unique, wild landscape

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within the urban space of Tucson—a raucous space where
rivers sleep, awaiting rain run-off and a majestic awakening
and return to the efficacy of desert waterway. Here, in this
sleeping river bed, the sand is deep and the sun beats without
reprieve. It ebbs and flows in piles and waves—both sand and
sun—hardening into a concrete-like mass in the center where
most of the vegetation grows. The soil in this arroyo is so loose,
so unsettled and exposed that roots run rampant, clinging to
one another in anticipation of the next upheaval. The next ac-
cumulation of hydrogen and oxygen molecules so rarely com-
bined in this moonscape of a desert-ed land.

Naturally, this arroyo is the perfect unregulated corridor
for rehabbing Rain and avoiding the throngs of people that
casually jog the paved walkway or ride their road bikes at
break-neck speeds along the edge of the river run. A place
within the city where the rules of wilderness return, and the
rules of humans dance in the distance like a desert mirage.
Shooter, my six year-old wolfdog, has determined that the fast-
moving people on the running path are reminiscent of deer or
elk, and that he must lunge at each human missile that passes
us, creating a game of chase in a space where it’s not appreci-
ated. So, the empty river bed is where we go to rehabilitate
Rain and run wild as monsoon waters might flow.

In 2012—an El Niño
year with record monsoon
rains—I lived in a house
that backed to the Rillito
River. Next to my house
was an open-faced culvert
that lead run-off water to
the giant anticipating ar-
royo. Each morning, Rain,

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Shooter, and I ran like water—like frantically moving and un-
stable molecules in a liquid state—through the culvert,
searching for the lowest, remotest form of land to sink our feet
and imaginations into. It’s an interesting metaphor—to let en-
ergy build within one’s body each night, restoring cells and
flowing as fast as legs can carry, into the harsh landscape of the
Rillito. Just like rain. Just like water. Just like anything looking
for escape.

We ran early
in the morning
like flood waters
with sharp teeth
and punctual ca-
dence, and we
ran fast—wolf fur
thick and wavy in
the warm desert
winds. I had a
bottle of water in each hand, mostly for my furry friends whose
body temperatures were three-to-four degrees warmer than my
own. The sun was milder in the mornings, but the air was still
heavy and humid, already anticipating cumulus build-up over
the local sky islands—the Santa Catalinas, the Santa Ritas, and
the Rincons, to name the closest and largest. The wind rushes
over these igneous rock formations (at approximately 10,000
ft.), building pressure systems in a time of year when mois-
ture is spinning counter-clockwise out of the Gulf of Mexico,
borrowed from the Tropical Cyclone season in the Caribbean
and the heated ocean waters close to the equator. This is the
monsoon season of the American Southwest.

My wolves ran beside me as we entered the wash. I had
a remote shock collar on Shooter, who listened well unless

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the call of the wild superseded—the call of coyotes known
to beckon and lure animals to a playful, pack-oriented death.
Like the gingerbread house in Hansel and Gretel or the clown
demon in the rain gutters of the horror movie It, the coyotes
lured creatures away with their promise of song and dance.
Then the pack closed in and tore the creature limb from limb.
Nature is not nice. Nature is to survive. I had to step in with
the threat of handheld lightning upon encountering coyotes,
with their siren-like song that held species survival and mur-
derous intent for anyone less savage than themselves. My wild
dogs could probably handle the coyotes, but I wasn’t interested
in finding out, only to return with a smaller pack of my own.
This would not fare well for our survival, either.

In the lead, Shooter flushed out a rabbit and Rain crept
around from the side—as social predators, they began to
pursue and hunt as a team. Not truly being hungry, they didn’t
catch to kill and eat. They chased and sometimes caught, as a
game. And once the animal stopped moving, the game wasn’t
fun anymore and they left it. It was clearly all about the chase,
as some humans can relate to. On this summer’s day, Rain and
Shooter chased a rabbit into the dense, tall growth of weeds
and shrubs in the median of the arroyo and disappeared. I
didn’t panic. This happened often. I jogged along and looked
for an opening or path in the growth, as one usually appeared.

As I mentioned, there are few large trees in the desert.
It’s not like a coniferous forest, and most trees are deciduous.
In fact, most of the desert landscapes around the world are
quite tree-less. The Sonoran Desert (in Southern Arizona) is
lush when compared to other deserts. Arizona contains all
four North American deserts – the Sonoran, the Mohave, the
Chihuahua, and the Great Basin—and it’s the only state that
does so. But it’s the Sonoran Desert that allows for certain

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deciduous, hardwood trees to flourish. The Cottonwood tree
is the largest tree in Arizona. So, in a state dominated by all
four North American deserts, the largest tree to be found is
something special. Something unique. As Cottonwoods are a
part of the poplar family—closely related to aspen trees—they
require more water than a typical desert area might provide.
These Cottonwoods must grow close to perennial, intermittent,
or ephemeral waterways.

Every once in a while you might find one of these larger
trees in the Rillito—a rare instance in which a Cottonwood
or a Sycamore took root and shot straight up into the hot,
blue sky. Here and now—there and then—I found the in-
famous Cottonwood tree—its large, green leaves whispering
and fluttering, light bark beginning to grow thick and knobby
around the trunk. To find a Cottonwood tree in the middle
of an occasional river bed is truly rare, as most of the desert

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waterways have been invaded by the Tamarisk, which grows
like a weed and monopolizes soil nutrients. Cottonwoods are
in direct competition with the Tamarisk. This Cottonwood
discovery gives one hope for a healthier desert watershed, as
groups of these hardwood trees can be seen clustered together
from a distance—a bright splash of green leaves and pale bark
in a land of mostly blues and browns—and can always lead you
to water in the desert. So the Cottonwood signifies a steady
water source, which in turn symbolizes survival in the desert.

I was looking for my animals, but I was drawn to the
Cottonwood, mesmerized by the absolute shadow it cast. The
tree wasn’t big, maybe fifteen feet tall, a young version of its
future arboreal splendor. As I walked closer, I could see a
lean-to beneath the tree—an empty shopping cart tipped on
its side and several pieces of plywood propped against the tree.
I immediately felt sorry
for the tree, for a live
tree is not suited to sup-
port human construc-
tion and utilitarian
burden. Then I noticed
the dark boots sticking
out of the structure, attached to human legs. A man was laying
inside. I stopped fast, scanning for the dogs, not wanting to
wake or upset a stranger.

As I spun in circles, the wild pups appeared—over their
rabbit hunt—and immediately discovered the motionless
man. They were on his doorstep in seconds, sniffing and as-
sessing. They seemed calm, so I strained myself to stay calm,
too—a very human endeavor and foreign to most of the an-
imal kingdom. They smelled his legs and torso, then entered
the wooden tent and started licking his face—probably for

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the sweat and delicious oils there. I was nervous, but reacting
would alarm the intuitive animals, so I stayed still and watched,
ready to act or consider interceding if needed. It happened so
fast, there wasn’t much left for me to do, anyway. I was a spec-
tator watching human and animal interaction, praying for the
best. Willing a benign encounter, or better.

The man stirred. He had a faded blue baseball cap pulled
low, a long-sleeved flannel and torn blue jeans. I called in a
hushed voice to Shooter and Rain—“Come here, now!”—but
they chose this moment for selective hearing, as the new man
in the sand was more interesting and aromatically potent than
I was. The man’s eyes fluttered open. He slowly lifted his arm
and let Shooter lick his hand. Then he began to scratch the
large dog’s chest—Shooter’s favorite place to be pet, other than
his hind quarters. Rain, afraid of a fluttering shadow, kept
her distance, until she couldn’t stand it anymore. She moved
in closer and the man scratched behind her ear—her favorite
place to be pet, besides her belly. She remained leery, ready to
run at the slightest threat, but she let him touch her, which was
a sort of desert miracle.

Pretty soon the man was petting the thick, but thinned-out
summer coats of both wolfdogs. He sat up, adjusting his cap. I
could see his face better. He had a dark beard, and dark brown
eyes he kept lowered. He seemed to have an idea of what he
was doing.

“Sorry,” I called so he would know I was there and that
the animals weren’t alone. I took a few steps closer, but I didn’t
want to throw off the balance of animal-human amorous in-
teraction, or send them into guard-the-human-alpha mode.

“I thought the coyotes were finally going to finish me off,”
he said. He spoke gently, with a noticeable slur. He probably
wasn’t sober, but who knows. I couldn’t make out his ethnicity,

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as the sun had made him a creature of the desert and he was
a brownish-red color. He squinted up at me, then the canines.
“These here are really big coyotes. Do you run with them?”

I was holding my breath, I realized, so I let it out and
smiled. “Yes, they’re my dogs and we run together.”

The man smirked. “These ain’t dogs.”
I laughed nervously. A tinkling sound like rocks falling
in a cave.
“Close enough,” I said. “Ninety-nine point eight percent
genetically close enough.”
The man ignored my data touting, staying focused on
the animals. “I used to have a dog,” he said. “When I used to
have a house.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I said nothing. But I
knew. My roommate in graduate school digressed from genius
to homeless in a matter of days, and there was nothing anyone
could do. I know it’s rarely a choice. And it’s often mental ill-
ness. She was schizophrenic and I didn’t even know. Until she
stopped taking her meds. That’s when she unraveled and in a
matter of weeks, was running barefoot around the university
and downtown with the rest of the local, ephemeral popula-
tion. The descent from stability was quick, and if she hadn’t
had a family that loved her and friends that cared, she would
probably still be there, if not dead. I often think of Rachel
when I meet homeless people. I think of her when I start to
judge someone—how brilliant the human mind can be, how
fragile and fleeting our entire existence is. Seeing the world
through the eyes of a schizophrenic—danger and death around
each jagged, hallucinated corner—made me realize that most
homeless people used to have a home. And they probably even
used to have a dog. The mentally ill seemed to run in the gap
between civilized humanity and the untamed world of wild

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animals. Like the world of the wolfdog and wild urban land-
scapes. Like the Rillito River arroyo.

It seemed like I watched for hours as the man pet Shooter
and Rain. He stroked them and cooed to them like I wasn’t
even there. And incredibly, they stood still and let him. The
man was lost in his thoughts, more so with each passing mo-
ment. Then, like a gathering desert monsoon, his earth-laden
body flooded with emotion and he began to cry. His shoulders
shook and tears streamed down his face. Now my Shooter dog
is the most sensitive, unruly guardian soul I’ve ever encoun-
tered, and human emotion undoes him—the same as thunder.
It troubles him to the marrow of his bones. So Shooter whined
in response to the man’s tears and licked his face with inten-
sity—an act I’d experienced many times myself. Shooter licked
his face with so much concern, the man started to laugh, as
the wolfdog’s earnestness and empathy forced a crack in the
stone wall of human emotion. A life preserver in a sea of black.

Soon the sunbaked man was roiling with laughter, as
Shooter’s antics knocked his hat off, and Rain rolled on her
back next to him, offering her belly, catching the playful mood
and the need for comic relief. This was the first time I’d seen

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her vulnerable to anyone but me. The man buried his dark
hands in the tangle of Rain’s snow white fur. She wagged her
tail and rolled around on her back, smiling upside down with
crocodile-like, toothy wit. I’d never seen her do this, but she
was enjoying the attention. The man was laugh-crying, so he
wiped the moisture from his face, and took deep breaths. As he
put his hat back on I could see that it was a faded University
of Arizona hat—the red and white “A” now a dark brown. I
wondered if he’d been to school, and what sort of events had
landed him here, in the bottom of the Rillito River, in the
shade of the Cottonwood tree.

With the break in human emotion, Shooter was restless
and ready to move on. He was a practical counselor, and not
one to dwell in the past. Rain was ready, too. She jumped up
and threw herself into Shooter like a tiny wolf wrecking ball,
and they were off and running again, kicking up sand in the
man’s bed cloths and spinning into the desert wonderland.

The man put his clay hands up in mock protest. He spit
sand from his mouth, grinning and shaking his head.

“Sorry about that,” I apologized, feeling self-conscious
without the animals.

He slowly wiped sand from his shirt and pants. Then he
stared at his palms, face up in his lap for several moments, as if
they reminded him of the dogs. He rubbed them together, then,
and laced his fingers behind his head. The man was still smiling
as he lay back down into the sand. I watched him, wondering if
he would respond to me without the animals around.

“Thank you,” he whispered from inside the wooden tent.
I considered thanking him for being so calm. For his will-
ingness to interact with the unknown. For playing a symbiotic
role in the rehabbing of Rain. But I didn’t.
“You’re welcome,” was all I said.

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I followed in the wake of my ambassadors. As we ran in
the raised center of the wash, away from the only Cottonwood
tree in the Rillito River for miles, I could already see the cu-
mulus clouds building over the Catalina Mountains. The rel-
ative humidity was on the rise and the air temperature would
rise with it. Until it began to rain. I watched the fluffy tails of
my wolfdogs disappear into tamarisk and willow scrub ahead
of me and I couldn’t help but wonder if our new sand man
friend would find his way out of the arroyo before the big
floods came. I couldn’t help thinking that if he didn’t, at least
he would sink beneath the water with a smile on his face.

Brianna Heisey is a writer and musician in Flagstaff, AZ. She
received her B.A. in English at Loyola Marymount University
and an M.F.A in Bilingual Creative Writing from University
of Texas El Paso where she focused on Ecological and Latin

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American literature. Brianna has published with Rio Grande
Review, Adelaide Literary Magazine, SAGE Magazine, and
won several literary contests. She spent ten years working as
a Wildland Firefighter and is writing her first novel about it.
As an avid animal rescue and wilderness advocate, Brianna
can usually be found traversing the out-of-doors with her wild
canines.

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To My Grannie, Love Me

by Valerie Angel

How does one start writing about a family member they just
lost? Well, I guess one would start at the beginning and work
their way to the last minute they were together. My story starts
with my great grandmother, Laura. I only found out her real
name sometime in middle school because I had grown up
calling her “Grannie.” My Grannie was one of the most sincere
and radiant humans that I have experienced in all my twen-
ty-one years. My parents have told me that my Grannie and I
spent a lot of time together when I was a baby. Grannie used
to watch me while my mom had to run errands, and in the
winter, she would turn the heat on to sweltering temperatures
just to make sure I would not get cold. When my mom came
back to pick me up, she found me in a crying fit with bright
red cheeks. I am sure that Grannie was so delighted to have me
there, that she held me tight the whole time.

I have many fond memories of Grannie from when I was
a small child as well. My mom would bring Grannie along to
run errands, so that my brother and I could wait in the car
while my mom was inside. I would unbuckle my car seat and
plop down next to her in the driver’s seat so Grannie and I
could play. We could sit there for minutes on end playing some

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of the silliest games that I made up. I think now looking back,
I always wanted to play a game that was funny, just so we could
laugh together; I loved hearing her laugh. One of my favorite
games to play with her was called McDonalds, where I would
put on my mom’s phone headset and I would take Grannie’s
order, pretending we were at McDonalds. When she would
finish ordering, I would read her back her order in a silly voice,
so we could again laugh. I would do anything just to sit in that
same front seat and her laugh again.

As I grew up, I probably did not see my Grannie as much
as I would have liked to, or should have, but I still knew how
much she loved me and how often she thought of me. In fact,
I think that everyone who knew Grannie, felt her constant love,
prayer, and thoughtfulness that she gave to each person she
knew, every single day. When I look back at my childhood, I
always remember Grannie being there for us. We would spend
the holidays together, go to her house to trick-or-treat for Hal-
loween, or just go over on a Sunday afternoon to share a bucket
of Kentucky Fried Chicken, which was one of her favorites.

More time just seemed to pass and before you know it all
her grandchildren and her great grandchildren began to grow
up. I definitely know that I forgot to realize that while I was
busy growing up, she was slowly moving closer to the moment
I am facing here today. When I graduated high school, three
years ago, it finally hit me, just how close my time with

Grannie was coming to an end. Fast forward to my first
year of college with me aged nineteen and my Grannie at nine-
ty-three years old. During that year, my grandmother went
through a surgery that caused her not to be able to take care
of her mother on a weekly basis. I was home for that semester,
so I offered to take care of Grannie, so that my grandmother
could recuperate from surgery.

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My Great Aunt Valerie, who I am named after, walked
me through the careful care of Grannie, showing me what
medications and vitamins she took in the morning, where to
find her beloved toasted coconut donuts (they were hidden
in Grannie’s closet!), and how to check Grannie’s vitals in the
notebook system we had for her. I had careful instructions to
check the blood pressure on the opposite arm, and I became
a pro at convincing Grannie to wear her hearing aids. Soon
after my trial days with Aunt Valerie came to an end, it was
nineteen-year-old little Val taking care of Grannie on her own.
To distinguish myself from my aunt, my family began to refer
to us as “Big Val” and “Little Val”; I have been Little Val for as
long as I can remember.

My first day taking care of Grannie alone was slightly
nerve racking. I was extremely nervous that I would mess up or
she would not remember me without Aunt Val around. But the
moment I walked through her door, I remember her telling me,
“I remembered you were coming today, I was worried you had
forgotten.” Grannie never wanted to be a burden on anyone
and was so grateful for everyone who would care for her or
visit her. After that moment, I was never nervous working with
my Grannie. We seemed to get along so well, and we would
excitedly await when we would get to see each other again. On
the day I told her that I would be transferring colleges, and I
would no longer be able to take care of her Grannie said “oh I
didn’t realize you had to go, but that’s okay, just come back to
visit me.” And my heart broke because I knew in that moment
just how much she truly loved me.

Grannie was so sweet every day, even when she was feeling
sick. She thanked me more times than I can count and would
sometimes try to take care of me instead. We had a daily rou-
tine, that began with us eating lunch together. Grannie always

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wanted to make sure that everyone was fed and served before
herself. And even though she was no longer able to serve me
first anymore, she would sit ever so patiently at the kitchen
table for me to sit, so we could eat together. After lunch, I
would get her dressed, and we would go for a drive. Like clock-
work, every day we would go for a ride with Great Uncle Jo-
seph to get two unsweetened green iced teas from Starbucks
and on occasion we would pick up a fish sandwich “for later.”
As we made our way through town, Grannie would point out
all the places she recognized from when she was a little girl.
She would point to a plot of land off to her right side and tell
me how her father had a dairy farm there, and how when she
was young, her family had to move because they could not
own cows too close to town. The memory of her father’s dairy
farm was one that she never forgot, and which she liked to talk
about often.

I will forever remember the way Grannie would make
me feel when I would walk into her room and she would give
me the biggest smile and say, “you look so beautiful today.”
Her smile and laughter were absolutely contagious. From my
Grannie, I learned to slow down and to enjoy each blessing
for what it is worth. I found that within myself, I carry much
of her essence. She had one of the biggest and most caring
hearts, and I would like to think that I embody some of that
big heartedness as a future Social Worker and such.

And so now my story of Grannie comes to an end, with
the phone call from my grandmother telling us that Grannie’s
death was near. To my Grannie, family was everything, and so
it was only fitting that when she drew her last breath, her entire
family surrounded her bedside. Grannie was above all thankful,
with her dying words being “thank you.” As I sat there by her
side, it occurred to me that my family and I had all the reason

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to be thankful for her. But I believe that I now owe her a thank
you, for all that she showed me and all that I learned on her
journey toward death. Grannie, thank you for showing me
patience, compassion, and perspective. You were there for me
during a period in my life where I felt lost. I did not know
at the time, but you were ultimately teaching me about my
true worth and inner beauty, and for that I could not be more
thankful. Until we meet again my sweet Grannie, I love you.

Valerie Angel is beginning her bachelor’s degree in social work,
where she plans to focus on support for the disabled and the
elderly. This is Valerie’s second published piece in Adelaide.
Her first piece of work appeared in Year IV, Number 24, 2019
titled, “Valerie Maud Goldman”. At the end of 2019, Valerie
lost a close member of her family, whom this piece is dedicated
to. In your memory, Grannie.

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A Love Song

by Janel Brubaker

I miss him.
I hate that I miss him.
I hate that my body aches for his skin, that my tongue keeps
searching for his, that my fingers reach into the increasing
void around me and bring back only empty space.
I don’t know what I expect to grab onto.
I hate that I expect to grab onto anything at all.
I hate that my mind is filled with every beautiful memory,
every sensual moment that lights up my body with electricity.
I hate and crave those memories, those moments, barbs
of lust and loneliness that drained me of myself.
I hate that I loved that loss, that I felt so at home inside
of it, I no longer recognized my own reflection.
I hate that as my reflection clarifies, the
loneliness inside of me expands.
I hate that I can’t disconnect my heart
from this complicated nostalgia.

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I hate that this nostalgia is a mythology, a representation
of the life I wanted with him, but never had.

I hate that my desire for him overwhelms my body with
desire for everyone else; that I keep searching for people
who might offer me one moment of relief from his absence.

I hate how I still feel his hands on me, still taste
his lips, his tongue, his member, his semen.

I hate that I would fuck anyone just so I
could pretend that he was fucking me.

I hate how I silenced myself so that he would love me.

I hate that I valued his love for me more
than I valued my love for myself.

I hate that I still see his apathy and his absence as love..

I hate how I’m afraid to live without him; how I’m
afraid to search for real love; afraid that it, too, will
become a mythology, if I ever find it at all.

I hate how I’m afraid that I am what corrupts.

I hate that his voice is the narrative inside my head,
still feeding lies and hollow breaths into my ears.

I hate how his voice has become a ghost,
following, haunting, distorting, tormenting.

I hate that I still believe his voice over my own.

I hate this emotionally dismemberment.

I hate how often he made me believe I was unlovable.

I hate how much I long for him and the
familiarity of that marriage because, at least
with him, I could fabricate belonging.

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I hate that I would rather exist in a fabrication
of love than exist alone in self-respect.

I hate my body and its reaction to this transformation.

I hate that I look at myself and only
see the word PATHETIC.

I miss him.

I hate that I miss him.

I hate that he’s happy to see me, even when it means
going over the divorce papers and dividing assets,
the only remaining pieces of our marriage.

I hate that that’s what our marriage has been
reduced to: items divisible by two.

I hate that I’m happy to see him, too.

I hate that when I masturbate, I can’t
climax unless I think of him.

I hate that I feel his fingers scratching at my
skin as if to parcel me into fragments he
can commandeer for his own uses.

I hate that I can smell his fingerprints on my
skin, feel his thrusting, his erection whittling
away the pieces of me he despises.

I hate that I want this destruction, that I dream
of it, that I have to fight the urge to seek it
out as a remedy to this self-hatred.

I hate that I see his eyes in the green of nature around
me, that the places where I have sought solace are
now reminders of the man I can no longer love.

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I hate that I still love him and that I want, more
than anything, to be loved by him.
I hate how I want someone in my life to love me
this way, love me and help me forget how much of
myself I murdered for a man who never noticed.
I hate this need for self-destruction.
I hate that it is what I’ve known for so long, I
don’t know how to exist without it.
I hate that I regret leaving.
I left him to give myself permission to search for happiness,
but instead I search for him, dream of him, think of him.
I am filled with rage and filled with love.
I am filled with rage because I am filled with love.

I love the rage.
It reminds me that this mythology, this mirage of
love, never really manifested or spread roots into the
soil of us; this mythology that wrapped me in blankets
and muffled the cries of my shattered heart.
I love the pieces of my shattered heart, jagged and sharp.
Stained with him, his fingerprints and his blood,
evidence of his complicity in my brokenness.
I hate his complicity.
I hate that his DNA is embedded in my
flesh, embedded in my psyche.
I hate that he is still part of me, that I want him
to be part of me, that I can’t fully escape him.

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I hate that he will always be imprinted on my memory.
I hate the memories.
But I love the path they weave through the darkness, through
the mist that shrouds me in confusion and grief and fear.
I love the way they lull me to sleep, the way they
dry my tears and point me towards the horizon.
I love the horizon, full of the future.

Janel graduated from Clackamas Community College with her
associates in English and Creative Writing. She also graduated
from Marylhurst University with a Bachelor of Arts in English
Literature and Writing. Janel was the Managing Editor of the
M Review for one year. Her nonfiction has been published in
Bookends Review, The Bella Online Review, Crab Fat Magazine,
Linden Avenue Literary Journal, Phenomenal Literature, Ade-
laide Literary Magazine, Sheepshead Review, DoveTales Journal,
LEVITATE Magazine, Timberline Review, Tiny Seed Literary
Journal, and Oregon Humanities. Janel is pursuing an M.F.A.
in Creative Writing from the Pacific Northwest College of Art.

425

The Gifts We Keep

by Carol Crawford

It was eleven o’clock on a school night. My parents were in bed.
I scrabbled through the kitchen looking for matches my dad
might have left behind to light his next cigar. Scoring a pack,
I crept back to my room, struck the match. And lit a candle.

I settled it in a holder and waited as white wax turned to
clear liquid, collecting at the base of the wick. Already I had
spread newspaper on the floor – the women’s section of the
Dallas Times Herald. On it lay a white chrysanthemum, al-
most totally obscured by doily lace and purple ribbons bearing
glittery letters: “Carol” on one ribbon, and “Little Sis” on an-
other. I turned the candle sideways, dripped wax onto the al-
ready-wilting petals. They withered a little more at the touch
of the heat.

When I was seventeen the internet had yet to be invented,
so I had no Pinterest to guide me, but a magazine said you
could preserve your mum with candle wax. Hence my late-
night craft project.

Every single thing that happened that year was the most
important thing that had ever happened. It had to be remem-
bered, commemorated, enshrined. We trapped camaraderie
in fuzzy instamatic photos. We poured rages and fevers into

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hand-written letters on lined notebook paper, folded and de-
livered from hand to sweaty hand in the back row of civics class
or passing in the hall or waiting by the tepid water fountain.
We were desperate to hold on to everything – especially things
too fragile to last. We invested far too much in tokens, which
in the end were only souvenirs of friendship or of love.

Come autumn, and football season in Texas, the souvenirs
were chrysanthemums, enormous blossoms burdened with rib-
bons that fell to a girl’s knees. Florists delivered them in pris-
tine white boxes with gleaming silver stickers. We pinned them
to jackets and dresses. We wore them in school all day Friday
and then to the football game in the evening, shedding a little
glitter everywhere we went. As we shifted to cross our legs in
Algebra II, the miniature cowbells tied to the long ribbons
would clunk softly, annoying our teachers.

Not only were the flowers loaded with kitschy accesso-
ries, they were encumbered with meaning. We were full of the
awkward matchless splendor of being seventeen, and we were
nothing if not dramatic.

Within a week, they would shrivel, but they couldn’t pos-
sibly be thrown away. We tacked them to bulletin boards in
our rooms. For months they gently dusted the beds and book-
shelves beneath them with dead chrysanthemum flakes, like an
allergen-bearing pixie dust.

Not every token was a flower. There was the gift of a
mood ring that remained a perpetual dark green. According
to the chart that came with it, this color meant I had mixed
feelings, a sure bet for an adolescent. There was the skinny
volume of poetry by Rod McKuen that I read like a book of
prayer. And one day there was music.

In a writing group at the library I met a boy with an art-
ist’s heart. He wrote poetry about catching sight of me through

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a rain-drizzled bus window, and he sneaked it into my three-
ring binder at school where I would find it later. He appeared
at my door one night, made breathless by his walk from the
bus stop, or maybe from nervousness. He had a record album
under his sweltered arm, and he said he had discovered some-
thing miraculous. I absolutely had to hear it. It couldn’t wait
another minute. I expected maybe Three Dog Night or the
Doors. He didn’t seem like a Carpenters kind of guy. He came
in, put the record on the turntable, and reverently placed
the needle. It hissed and crackled and he frowned, lifted the
needle, and removed a miniature dust bunny from its tip be-
fore settling back to listen. The song was not something I had
ever heard on the radio. It was instrumental, and it began as a
rhythmic murmur overlaid by haunting melody. The tune was
handed off from one instrument to another and then another.
It built and crescendoed and built and crescendoed again. I
was puzzled, then drawn in, then caught up. It was exotic and
romantic and absolutely nothing like any of the records I had
back in my room. It was Ravel’s “Bolero.”

He played only the one song, and when it was over he
packed up his record and went out into the dark. I hummed
the melody in front of the mirror as I pinned jumbo curlers
into my hair. Before spring he had given his heart to another
girl, a dark-haired musician at the top of the honor roll. My
mood ring, predictably, registered mixed feelings.

The mum preservation project didn’t go particularly well.
I got burns on my fingers, and the candle wax was too thick
to outline the flower petal by petal. It dried unevenly, leaving
clumps and blobs. In the end it looked like a mound of cold
macaroni noodles festooned with purple satin ribbon.

The music stayed with me though. A dozen years after
high school I was chopping carrots in the kitchen while

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half-listening to the Olympics on TV in the next room. When
British skaters Torvill and Dean took the ice and their routine
began, I dropped everything and ran to watch, first enticed by
the music, then held there by their artistry. They embodied
Ravel’s work, turning sound into vision as only dancers can.
I was enchanted by them, and I was also swept back to the
year I heard it first. It was as though I’d met a kindred spirit in
passing at a party and then, on seeing them again years later,
felt the same spark.

My attempt to preserve the mum didn’t cement the
friendship. It was from my big sister in the high school drill
team. She was a good big sister, warm and funny and always
up for slumber party pranks. But we drifted apart, and recently
I had to pull down my high school yearbook to remember
her last name. Today I have no idea who gave me the book of
poetry or the mood ring. But I remember the name of the boy
who brought “Bolero.”

If I could go back to that year, back to the girl laboring
over her candle wax, I would save her the trouble – and the
burns. I would tell her that she was confusing the souvenir
with the real thing, that she should let it go when it wilted, and
carry only the memory going forward. The flower was not the
friendship. It was a particularly transient talisman that faded
quickly but gave a brief rush of joy, like the lingering notes of
a favorite song heard from the window of a passing car.

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