The Green Woman

After I assembled this tray, it took me awhile to figure out whose story this was. At first I assumed it was the green woman because her size dwarfed the other characters. Then the little boy drew my attention but I couldn't figure out his relationship to the woman. I studied the props, the rifle, the safe, the lock, the nest, the Thespian mask, but nothing came to me. The large building seemed to indicate that this takes place in a small town but nothing more than that. The small rapper guy was a mystery and then this story began to take shape.

"It's not right, leaving Oliver with the housekeeper. She hardly speaks English, for godsake."

As though it were all her fault, Rupert steered Maudie with a vengeance through the thicket of bicycle messengers and taxis that clogged Main Street these days. Maudie didn't need his guiding hand, of course. Except for her mantle of grief, Maudie was neither ill nor frail. It had become his habit, this claustrophobic hovering of his. It began the day Ruth told them about the accident. In front of mourners, and after forty years of a distracted, irritable attention, Rupert assumed the expected pose of tender husband supporting his grief-crushed wife. But as soon as the bewildered well-wishers delivered their awkward condolences those first wrenching days, he would slip into the den, not appearing again until breakfast in a fresh crisp shirt, Windsor knot in place with no inquiry as to how Maudie spent her own anguished night. Eighteen months later, he was back in the nuptial bed, but that was the only change. In public, he doted, in private he disconnected himself from her the way he would unplug a lamp from the wall, speaking to her only when he had one of his frequent grievances about their daughter-in-law and the way she was raising their four-year old grandson. Rupert had wondered if he still had to refer to Ruth as his daughter-in-law, and he determined to relieve himself of that insult upon her marriage.

"Ruth knows what she's doing, dear." Maudie jumped back as skateboarder aimed for the curb she was just mounting. "The woman has her own family and knows how to care for children."

"Her children are barefoot and selling orange slices by the side of the road in the Yucatan jungle while she's set up here in the guest room of my son's house."

"Rupert, you don't know that about her children. Ruth was lucky to find her, the state she was in after, well after it all."

"She's not a proper au pair. She was hired to clean the toilets and scrub the floor not attend to the needs of boy who has lost his father. Ruth just dumbs Oliver into her lap whenever she pleases and runs off to do god knows what. Lay about with that salesman and abandon her son to a stranger, a foreigner, that's what."

"Rupert, women don't wear widow's weeds anymore. Allen owns his own business and does very well, better than Rod would have. I don't know why you can't give him that. Anyway, things will be different after the wedding. Men don't understand about weddings, how much work they are. Ruth is moving on with her life. It is what Rod would have wanted."

"I know what Rod would have wanted. A wife who kept his memory alive for their son."

Maudie knew enough to let the matter drop there. When Rupert started down the road towards Ruth's deficiencies, it would end in a frenzy of anger against Maudie for defending her. Distraction was her only defense.

"Any news from the lawyers?"

The mountain lodge belonged to Rod's boss, who, on the advice of a consultant hired to address flagging morale in the company, hosted a bonding weekend for the executive staff. A newly hired finance guy with skin the thickness of cellophane had embarrassed himself by losing badly at Texas Hold'em. One of the R&D guys further humiliated him by advising to sit out a hand and wait for his luck to change. He sulked around the room while Rod scooped up the cards, shuffled them in one hand and dealt a new round. The fellow who took his seat won the hand. Rod dealt again.

"Is this real," he asked, pointing to a hunting rifle hanging on the wall of the game room in the basement of the house.

"No need to own a gun if you don't plan to use it," the boss said. He was looking at his cards and without looking up, added $20 to the pot. A moment later the finance guy said "Stick em up," with a mock gangster leer. The startled card players looked at each other, one gaffawed like an adolescent until the boss said, "Put that down, you idiot, it's loaded." The guy's gaze settled on Rod, sitting next to the boss, who waved the prankster away with a fist full of cards. Rod and his chair fell backwards before he ever heard the shot. Rupert's lawyers were suing the man and his company for wrongful death.

Rupert opened the door of the Richmond Day Cafe for Maudie and said, "I'm thinking of suing Ruth for custody of Oliver. She's clearly unfit."

I learned some interesting things about this story from the props. The headless mannikin gave me the clue that Ruth was getting married, and she is losing her head. She is still grieving Rod and the marriage is an escape I think. She is looking for safety, she has lost her nest. The tragedy/comedy faces mimic her life, the gay marriage plans masking her grief. Oliver is in the background, distant from all of them. They are too consumed with their grief and anger for him to be in the center of their world. The gun is near him, about to go off again when the custody battle ensues. The scales of justice have appeared to introduce the legal fight, and address the question of justice, from exacting justice for Rod's death, to what is just for the boy Oliver, to the issue of Ruth's competence. But ultimately, this is a story about grief, and it is the heart-which is an empty box in fact, that is the clue. Their grief has left them with nothing in their hearts, especially Rupert's. He is the least appealing character to me, but really the one in most need of compassion. He has no love with Maudie, he has lost his beloved son, and has no resources to help him care for those who are left. He has a hard road ahead of him, to fill up that heart.

As I look at the sandtray after beginning this story, I see that the exercise helped me focus on the point of view, and after I finished the writing, I saw how the props influenced the story, though I was not conscious of them, except for the rifle, as I was writing. Now I can see everything in tray playing a part in the story, though none of that was clear until I completed the piece and went back to look at the tray. In retrospect, the props anchor this story.

Little Will

I began this tray having only one thing in mind, which was that my previous three pieces seemed glib to me, or at least not very serious, and I wondered how I would go about creating something darker, more literary. I started making circular motions in the sand until I had reached the bottom of the tray and realized I had a lake. I went searching for characters and the little boy stood out. I haven't used this character before nor has any of my clients but he is always prominent in the collection. So it was his turn and he looked like he had Down syndrome and I thought of Sarah Palin. A curiosity formed about what it would be like to discover your child had serious disabilities and went looking for his parents. The mother appeared first because of her bathing suit, then the father. Almost instantly I saw the woman with twins and knew she would be a challenge for the parents to be with, especially the mother. I looked at the lake and saw it needed a boat, then I found the bottle, cottage, lighthouse, telephone, London bridge and finally, the unicorn. I saw the unicorn as representing unrealistic or fantasy thoughts and knew then that the mother was not accepting this little boy, and that the father was extremely attached to him and therein was their conflict. It didn't take too long for the story to shape itself after I saw the unicorn. Here is Little Will.

Jane and JonPaul each pretended in their own way that this would be just another summer break at the lake house. Like every August since they received the cottage from Jane's father as a wedding gift, they would spend two idyllic weeks sailing, hiking to the lighthouse for a picnic, dozing in the sand with a big, silly book they would never be caught reading in the city, cut off from computers and faxes, their cell phones stowed in the trunk of the car for emergencies. The best part of the day for Jane had always been the lazy, slow sex after lunch when they would toss their sandy, sunburned bodies onto the four poster bed and be more adventurous with each other than they ever were in the apartment in the city. They explained the difference on time or lack of it when they had work schedules. Everybody blamed listless sex on the clock. But JonPaul's budding software empire as they liked to call his recently successful but ten year old business and Jane's CPA practice that soared as soon as she secured her first hedge fund manager as a client in the early days of the new millenium had managed to eat up all their waking hours, at least before Will. After the baby was born six months ago, the demands changed, but not the drain on their time or emotions.

Jane blamed her lack of interest in sex now on Will's endless needs, the feeding tube, oxygen, twice daily blood sugar tests. JonPaul insisted she blamed him for their son's deformities, though no diagnosis had ever explained Will's condition. Outwardly, he had a perfectly formed body, except for the mild bulging in his sightless eyes. Yet his internal organs barely functioned and he was unresponsive to all stimuli except when JonPaul stroked the back of his neck. JonPaul insisted the infant smiled as his father's touch, and the soft cooing was an attempt at normal vocalization for a six month old baby. "If he didn't have to have the feeding tube, Babe, you'd see. He be communicating with us."

Tests for Down syndrome, cerebral palsy and other possible diagnoses led them nowhere. The best the neurologists came up with was that critical parts of his brain had failed to form, though they did not yet have sophisticated enough equipment to pinpoint them. Brain scans also appeared normal. It could be a defective gene, some doctors said, or a virus contracted in vivo. Will cried less than a normal baby, but that was the only break they got from his nonstop care.

JonPaul unpacked the car and set up the crib in the bedroom. It was too risky to let the baby sleep alone. He could choke, for one thing. And the neurologist had said to expect seizures, though they hadn't noticed any yet.

Jane hung her two skirts and white slacks in the closet and put her tee shirts and underwear in the pine dresser and finally arranged her cosmetics in the bathroom. "If you'll take the first shift, I'll go for a swim and relieve you in an hour," she said.

"Fine," JonPaul agreed. He wondered what excuse she would use to avoid staying in the house with him. The most alone time they had had in months was the four hour drive from the city to the lake, and she had pretended to sleep much of the time. Car drives were soothing to Will and he rode along uncomplaining in his car seat in the back.

Jane pulled her blue tank suit out of the bottom of her duffle bag. She had tried it on before she packed and was happy at least that the pregnancy had not marred her figure. Because Will had not been able to nurse, she was back in shape weeks after the birth and the Speedo still showed off her gym-toned body. She had a long torso with unexpectedly large and firm breasts for someone so slender. She had once been told that a nasty colleague spread a rumor that she had implants. In fact, her mother, grandmother and great aunt had the same body shape, wierdly youthful into their eighties. After finding a beach towel and flip flops in the cupboard in the bathroom, Jane grabbed some suncreen and a book and took off. The mountain air was piney and familiar, the sun-heated sand felt comforting under her feet. This was the first time she had gotten away from the sick room environment of their apartment in months. Her out of town assignments didn't count, that was work. For a moment she pretended it was last summer, when she and JonPaul imagined giving their expected son sailing and swimming lessons when they vacationed here as a family. But that thought was too painful to pursue, and she just dropped her towel and book onto the sand, shook off the flip flops and went running into the lake, dove under and without any planning swam out towards the lighthouse on the other side.

She was surprisingly breathless when she finished the return to the shore. The swim in the warm water, the lake was shallow enough to heat up during the season, had drained some of her tension, leaving her pleasantly weary. She floated for a while, allowing the sun to sooth her tired body, her troubled mind. If only she could stay here, suspended in this lake that was filled with so many happy memories. Then she became aware of time again, her promise to JonPaul to relieve him. She glided to the shore and made her way to her towel. A few people were scattered along the beach, some children splashed in the shallows on the shore. She noticed a woman sitting on a blanket near her towel and as she approached she saw the twin stroller with two babies curled into each other, sound asleep. Jane could not look at other people's babies, nor was she interested in the excitement of other mothers as they chatted about their perfect children. She jogged toward her towel intending to grab it before the woman noticed her, but as she approached the woman stood up and extended her hand.

"Hi, I'm Fara Charles. My husband and I are renting the house next to yours for the month. We saw you unpacking the baby things and got excited that our twins might have a little playmate. They are six months old. Julie and Jerrold. How old is your baby? Maybe we can get together for coffee and a play date."

Jane returned the handshake without much enthusiasm. "Yes, well, we'll see. Actually, I have to get back to the baby now. Bye." She hurried off and was running by the time she came to the little yellow cottage. She took the stairs up to the porch two at a time and burst into the house. JonPaul was walking the whimpering baby back and forth in front of the fireplace, a beatific smile on her husband's face.

"Jesus Christ, JonPaul, do you know what we have next door?"

"Janie, stop shouting. You'll scare Will."

"We don't even know if Will can even hear us." She slammed her towel and book on the side table, noted she had left the sunscreen on the beach.

"Do you know what we have next door? Twins! Two perfect babies. And I am not spending my vacation with those babies sitting up and growing teeth and eating real food and that gooey-eyed mother of theirs cooing and grinning and making sad excuses for our bad luck. Give me the keys to the car. I'm getting my phone and I'm going to call London and tell them I'm taking that assignment. You'll have to handle Will for three weeks. We can get an aide to help you."

"You're going to leave us?" JonPaul put Will on his other shoulder. "Jane we've talked about this. You can't do this to Will, go in and out of his life because it gets too hard."

"Watch me."


If I were looking for a full time writing project, I might choose this story, though I think I've said that about all the pieces so far. The emotional conflict is right up my writing alley and yes, here is another strong, aggressive woman. Hmmm, coming out of the sandtray, that is saying something to me but I don't know what at this point. I can't say I like Jane at all, at least not so far, but I find I have enormous empathy for her because she of the three in that family is the most wounded, unable to love the child she has wanted for so long, or at least, she is afraid of it. Perhaps that empathy comes from the huge baby bottle, that I never addressed literally but must stand for the nurturing this family needs. I see little Will as the healthiest, the father seems most empathetic but he has enormous guilt and while he thinks Jane blames him for their baby's problems, he feels he did this to his son and is overcompensating by never leaving him alone. It is his idea that the baby sleep in their room even though there is a monitor available. Maybe that is the phone--communication.

I think about the value of these exercises over a written exercise proposed by a book or teacher. I can recall pieces of writing I have done from written exercises and they were very powerful. It is hard to compare but I do feel that choosing the characters and objects bring forth a personal relationship to the story that, I believe, in the finished draft would show. These are all first drafts, this one overly melodramatic in the end and quickly written, but I can imagine slowing this story down and taking away melodrama and sentimentality and turning this into a real heartbreaker. I don't think this family would stay together and I don't think the mother with twins would be likable. I think she would be the projected harshness of the mother, very critical of the way Jane and JonPaul are parenting WIll and not at all sympathetic, being very smug in the perfection of her own children. I think now that the name of the story, Little Will, is the mother's problem, no will of her own to deal with this child.