Easter Sunday, 1982
by Ardith Brown
Chellie arrived before dawn, lightly tapping on the glass. Her boyfriend dead one year, his last drug deal gone wrong, a wire fence breaking his neck as he ran through that idyll Missouri pasture. When she giggled bright bursts of noise woke the morning birds. Mascara tears pooled beneath her eyes, now smudged, the artifice of her mask, removed. Later, we fired up the Country Squire wagon, all avocado green and fake wood panels launching us toward the river’s mighty, brown weight. We headed south, down to the floodplain where purple wild flowers stained the fallow fields, and the dark earth underneath still smelled of winter and frost. She took me to church where services were starting, ancient and young parishioners climbing up the Baptist steps. Beside the sanctuary, the cemetery sprouted brittle plastic bouquets. She yanked the dead red tulips from the vase on his grave, replacing them with yellow roses. His favorite color, she said. I love to surprise him.
Ardith Brown received her BA from the University of New Mexico and an MA in Literature from the University of Houston. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction and is currently working on a collection of poems and essays. Her experience as a writer, teacher, and advocate have kept her busy since moving to Baltimore from Georgia three years ago.
