Strawberry Hill, Chapter 4

Recommended for 8 and older. This chapter looks at the grief of losing a family member, so please prepare listeners who need support with this subject matter. The family members face their grief over the loss of an infant who died earlier. The chapter offers hope and healing, too. Overall, the novel is about Raleia who wishes she lived in the past when people have an answer for why things like this happened. She befriends an elderly recluse who lived through the time she longs for.

Transcript

Hello,

This is Alexandria Le Fay of Sylvanosity and we're going to be reading chapter four of Strawberry Hill.

Before the chapter begins,

I want to offer a bit of warning to those who are listening.

This chapter delves into one of the hardest aspects of life,

And that is death.

And one of the hardest deaths for anyone to accept is the death of a loved one,

Particularly a parent accepting the death of a child.

Because of the subject matter,

I will completely understand if you need to choose another selection.

But I would also like to invite you to consider that death touches every single life,

Not just at its end,

But throughout.

And one of the things that happens when we share stories about the hardest parts of our lives with the younger members of our families,

We can often give them the tools they need to cope with the most difficult times in their lives.

Sometimes stories are about allowing us to escape,

To be removed from the difficulties of our lives.

Sometimes the stories are there to help us,

To give us a light,

To guide us through the most difficult things we have to face.

And because difficulty never travels alone,

There's much in this chapter that brings light and promise of hope,

Because even the darkest aspects of our lives allow hope to shine through.

And if you're willing to keep listening,

Not only to this chapter,

But the chapter that follows and the one after that,

There is hope in this story,

And not just for a young mother facing her grief.

And her living children and husband,

Who mourn the loss of a little one who didn't live,

But for the other characters in the book as well.

So it's your choice.

Turn back now or proceed forward.

Chapter Four of Strawberry Hill Rellia entered the house mumbling.

She gave the door a good push,

Knowing there would be a satisfying slam.

But there was no crisp,

Loud bang,

Just a muffled thud.

She screamed,

I hate Tidal Mane.

There was a loud crash in the kitchen.

Mane staggered into the living room,

Speckled with little globs of red jello.

Holding her arms away from her body,

She asked Rellia,

What has gotten into you?

Rellia didn't know whether she should laugh or go on a tirade,

Like the one she had playing in the back of her head.

This place was full of killer storms,

Bratty kids,

Doll-sized houses,

And cranky old men.

She had a long list of complaints,

But the jello mind sliding off Tiny's nose was too much.

Rellia began to laugh.

What now?

Tiny tried to hold back her own laughter,

But she couldn't.

Jello dripped into her eye.

Wiping it away,

She said,

So that's it?

You're laughing at me?

Tiny slid into the kitchen for a second,

Then came back with a handful of jello.

Fleeing at Rellia,

She yelled,

This mess is your fault.

Struck in the cheek,

Rellia laughed.

Unable to pass Tiny to go for ammunition,

She ran outside to try the other door.

Tiny came up the back door,

Throwing jello.

Splat!

Rellia was hit in her forehead.

She grabbed at the water-soaked tiger lilies and flung one handful after another.

Rounds of jello hit Rellia as she tossed flowers.

She laughed and dodged and screamed.

Tiny's shrill voice echoed hers.

When the jello stopped flying,

Rellia had a chance to get her breath.

Tiny was covered in jello,

Bright orange tiger lily petals clinging to her clothing.

Her eyes seemed to be laughing,

Even though her mouth was closed in a dimply smile.

The blossoms collected on her bulging stomach made Rellia feel guilty for throwing them.

She rushed forward to wipe them away.

Are you okay,

Rell?

Tiny frowned.

You're acting a little fruity.

Rellia wanted to touch her mother's tummy,

Hear the baby's heartbeat,

But she took a step back instead.

This place makes me crazy,

She turned to go inside.

Tiny grabbed Rellia's arm.

Hey,

Blue girl.

Tell me your tale.

Nothing.

Rellia figured Tiny didn't want to talk about Maeda.

She pulled away and went toward the back door.

Following her into the kitchen,

Tiny said,

Nothing?

You mean like the mess in this kitchen is nothing?

Rellia stared at the room.

Bricks of jello covered everything in sight,

Like a strange form of measles.

Yuck.

Swiping the rag off the spigot,

Tiny said.

And you're cleaning it up.

She tossed the rag.

It landed on Rellia's shoulder.

Come on.

You scared me with your howler monkey imitation.

I lost all control and threw the darn pan in the air.

You're lucky I didn't go into labor.

Don't say that.

Rellia felt cold for a second.

It's not going to happen.

It won't.

Tiny's face seemed to shift.

Her eyes narrowed.

Her lips thinned.

She looked serious.

Maybe even old.

You were worried about the baby?

Rellia couldn't look at her.

She had to stare at her own feet.

Tiny took the rag off Rellia's shoulder and started cleaning,

Her hand flat over the rag.

Tiny pushed it in a wide circle as she spoke.

I only got to hold her for the smallest sliver of a time.

Just an instant.

But I knew she was not mine to keep.

I could feel her slipping away.

She was there long enough to say goodbye.

She tapped the counter.

Life doesn't hand out any guarantees,

Blue Girl.

None.

God says he'll answer all your prayers.

Rellia whispered.

Tiny laughed.

She looked over her shoulder at Rellia.

You're confusing the Bible with God there,

Kiddo.

God made no such promise.

Not to me anyhow.

Leaving the rag on the counter,

She walked out saying,

Clean this up.

The globs of jello dissolved into the rag,

But they left little red dots behind.

Each blasted little red dot seemed to be embedded.

Rellia rubbed.

She scoured.

She even clawed at them with her thumbnail,

But they wouldn't go away.

They only faded to a pale pink,

Like tiny shadows.

Or the small dots of color that she could see in the rays of sunlight when she looked through a camera lens.

Did people of yesteryear know those dots?

Did they find them through their magnifying glasses?

Or see them through their spectacles?

God,

How she wished she lived at a time when everyone believed that an infant's death meant that the baby was spared from the hardships of life by the grace of God.

The old were taken to their final resting place beyond the gates of heaven,

And things happened in God's time.

Everything was gentler,

Slower,

And more in the natural order of things.

There was always a reason for the tragedies,

A way to get beyond them.

Rellia found she was on all fours like a dog staring down at the pink dots on the floor.

She'd slipped off again.

It seemed so easy to make the here and now disappear.

Why couldn't she just float back to the old days?

When everything in life had a meaning and a purpose.

What exploded?

Tick asked,

Waltzing in with his hands in his bulging pockets.

Seeing something in his pocket move,

Rellia saw herself waking up to a bunch of tree toads jumping all over her face.

No more toads in the house.

Who has a toad?

Tick pulled at a wiggling red salamander out of each pocket.

Ew!

Rellia turned away.

Salamanders made her think of mutated snakes.

And unlike snakes,

Salamanders were cold and slimy.

Plethodon Cinaris!

Tick recited their name before kissing each one.

He couldn't remember President Ford's first name was Gerald,

Not Harold,

But he could spite off the Latin names of any amphibian.

Get them out of here!

I'm cleaning!

Rellia waved him away.

Hey,

They can help.

He dangled them in front of her face.

Tick!

She swatted at them,

But Tick yanked them back.

Put them outside where they belong!

Squirmy!

Tick stuck out his tongue as he went towards the stairs.

I'm going to go show them to Tiny.

Great,

Rellia thought.

Tiny would have them swimming in the bathtub before too long.

She loved the little creeps because she thought they'd look like they were smiling all the time.

When Tiny got to oohing and aahing over salamanders,

Max always teased her saying,

You've got to love anybody that can keep a smile on their face.

Rell!

Rell!

Tick came charging down the steps.

He almost fell over her as he creamed into the kitchen.

Tiny's folding baby clothes.

Where's Max?

Ray asked,

Getting to her feet.

He went down to the cove.

Typical Max.

Knee deep in water when a family crisis hit.

So it was up to Rell to put Tiny back.

To pull Tiny back from the edge.

Rell found her on the floor of the master bedroom.

Piles of clothes surrounded her.

She could have been folding laundry,

But it was lives she was handling.

That's how Tiny saw it.

Now that her audience had arrived,

She started retelling the tales.

Holding up a pale yellow sleeper,

She said,

Tick's legs were so short,

I had to tie the legs off in knots so he didn't get entangled up in his walker.

I heard him screaming one morning.

When I ran in from the kitchen,

He was in the living room letting go with one of his four alarm wails.

She tugged at a leg.

He'd gotten a knot stuck in that stupid grate in the floor by the bathroom.

Tiny smoothed the sleeper out in front of her,

Tucked in one leg,

Then the other.

She was slow,

Careful,

And silent.

Raya knew she couldn't speak.

It would only make Tiny scream.

Her mom relived their lives,

One garment at a time,

Until she came to the bottom of the box where Mayettis clothes were kept.

The hand-knitted blue sweater with the bunny patch that she never wore.

The package of three pastel onesies that was never opened.

And the white dress with the crisp yellow bows.

A special purchase for her first picture.

On Mayettis' birthday the year before,

Tick and Raya had watched Tiny perform the same ritual.

They had found Tiny in the small yellow room that was to be Mayettis.

She was sitting on the floor like she was now,

Holding up each one of the garments for the longest time.

Then she began to imagine out loud,

Saying things like,

I'd have taken her to see the polar bears in this sweater.

It's always cold by the polar bears,

And they spray so much water when they dive in for a lap around the pool.

So cold.

But my baby would have been warm.

Raya hated the polar bears.

Their splashing,

Their grunting,

Their ugly yellow fur.

Tapping the onesies so the plastic crinkled,

Tiny had said,

These would get covered with spit up and sweat.

A little doo-doo here and there.

Setting it down,

She had turned to Raya and added,

Yours got so worn out,

I couldn't even use them as rags.

Then came the picture dress.

She held it up,

But she didn't speak.

She just started to shake.

Her face had turned a deep red as she struggled to hold back tears.

It was like watching a boiling kettle on a red hat stove,

Wondering when it would explode.

And Tiny did.

Throwing her head back,

She howled.

The dress held her to her chest.

She began to rock.

Raya tried to comfort Tiny,

But she moaned and pulled away.

Tick was scared.

He couldn't do anything but cry.

Max couldn't even comfort her when he got home.

Tiny wouldn't allow anyone to touch her.

And when they tried to talk to her,

She screamed.

That night,

She slept in the rocking chair in the corner where the bassinet would have gone.

The next day,

She walked through the house in her pajamas and a robe,

Yelling at anyone who came near her.

It was three days of whispering and praying for everyone else in the house,

Before Tiny finally came back to her old self and sang Puff the Magic Dragon in the shower before breakfast.

Raya couldn't watch Tiny go through that birthday ritual all over again.

Pulling the quilt off the bed,

Raya draped it over Tiny's shoulders,

Then pulled it around her like a goon.

Tiny struggled as Raya slid down to hug her.

Raya grabbed her wrists to lock her hug around Tiny as she whispered,

It's okay.

It's okay.

Tiny fought for a moment.

Then she began to cry.

Raya cried with her.

She lost her grip.

Tiny wriggled loose to turn around.

Tiny kissed her daughter's cheeks and her hair.

Popped her head,

Then pulled her close to cradle her.

Raya ached for Mayetta too.

But in that moment,

It felt so right to rest there in her mother's arms.

So right.

Now,

I know that wasn't an easy chapter to listen to.

But it is nice to know that when we ache,

When we're sad,

When we're struggling,

The ones who love us most are there.

Either holding us in person as Raya does for Tiny.

Or holding us in our hearts if they're not nearby.

And the other thing to remember is that time changes things.

It gives us perspective.

It doesn't make the pain go away.

But it allows the pain to mature and change.

As we change and our perception of what the loss means to us now that our lives are different from the person we love first left.

And you know,

Tiny does have a good idea.

Sometimes it helps to imagine those we've lost in our lives today.

Wonder what they might be doing.

Wonder what we might be doing with them.

And sometimes we talk to them out loud and share bits of our lives we wish they could be there to share with us.

But whatever it is that we're doing to net our hearts back together,

They are proud of us.

I know they are.

Because what they want most of all is for us to be whole and happy and to carry on.

Because you know,

When we carry on,

We share the stories of their lives.

We share the amazing things they did for us.

The things they did that made us angry.

We share the pieces of their lives with the people who never met them.

And in that way they live on.

And they live on in us too.

Not only because their love touched us.

But because we were reshaped by having them with us no matter how long we knew them.

Because everyone who enters our lives has an effect on us in one way or another.

And we get to decide how that effect grows and changes.

So you know,

The most important thing you can do for those you have loved and lost is to share the stories of their lives.

To celebrate who they were and what they did.

And to be true to the values they have given us by living them out in our daily lives.

By reflecting their love for us and the way we love others in the world around us.

So thank you once again for joining me in this literary journey.

And I hope that you'll return again sometime.

This has been Elah Fae of Southern Alsop.

Reviews

Wow 🤩 please make another one soon