Never Going Green - Sherry Morris
In Lesterville, we know the phrase Recycle, Reuse, and Reduce, but we ignore it. Not because we’re against saving the planet, or don’t understand the plastic problem. We do. But that slogan reminds us of Merin McCallister. And we shiver.
She doesn’t live here anymore. The house never sold. Removers came — a yard sale wasn’t gonna happen — but there’s still stuff inside. I knew Merin, we weren’t kin-close, but we walked our babies together and talked like new moms do. She told me it was Martin who found the chair. I’m not saying it’s his fault, I’m just saying it started there. Though it must‘ve started somewhere else a long-long time before.
They were the outdoorsy type, Merin and Martin, taking baby Ollie hiking nearly every weekend. She said the chair was a fair distance from the trail, lying on its front, deep in weeds and undergrowth, like someone tried to bury it. Covered in cobwebs, streaked with slime and wet leaves, two of its white plastic legs tilted skywards. The tray laid a short-flung distance away, half-sunk in bog ground. Martin, a handyman, proclaimed the chair in perfect condition.
If Merin felt uneasy reusing an abandoned highchair dumped miles from roads and homes, she never said. I’d like to think she was unsure. That when Martin said they’d take it home and clean it up, she shivered. But maybe as Martin wiped away a streak of sludge, the baby gurgled. Reached for it and Martin said, “Two against one,” and Merin told herself the chill was a passing cloud covering the sun.
She gave me a photo of the three of them. Ollie’s strapped in the chair while they stand on either side wearing big, stupid grins. I burned it.
#
Merin used an entire bottle of disinfectant on the chair, said it sparkled when she finished though plastic doesn’t sparkle. They all fell in love with that chair. Preferred it to the wooden one from her parents that cost $500. Especially Ollie. He cried anytime they lifted him out of it. He didn’t want to be in his playpen. Or his car seat. Or his bed. Or held in Merin’s arms. He just wanted that highchair.
“Teething,” Merin told me, “is rough.”
But it seemed like more than teething. Any toy with a face, the boy chewed away.
Then there was the bashing. Ollie with a spoon, or his sippy cup, against the tray. A whack that lasted for hours, gave Merin a headache and made Martin yell, then pound the counter. When Merin took away the spoon or cup, the pure hate on Ollie’s face chilled her blood, made her hands and head shake. He’d shriek the scream of foxes in heat. The sound made Merin think of babies skinned alive. With trembling fingers, she’d give him back his cup and the hammering would start again.
She tried talking to Martin, to whisper-ask as they lay awake if he heard the whack even while Ollie napped. They never slept at all anymore though they were both beyond exhausted. Martin grew brusque. Rarely showered, shaved or changed clothes. Their sex was rough now, painful and barely with consent. When she asked if he remembered to bring home milk, he threw a plate that smashed inches from her head.
#
The last time I saw Merin, she looked like she’d just come from Hell. Eyes bugged and bloodshot, mascara smudged, lipstick smeared, hair dishevelled. Walking around in slept-in clothes and wearing mismatched slippers.
Swaying on my porch steps, Ollie swaddled in a blanket pressed tight against her chest, words rat-a-tatted from her mouth. Martin was missing. Three days now. He’d lunged at Ollie. Punched her out. She’d woke to find the chair knocked over, empty. Discovered Ollie in his bed, silent, his head a funny shape.
“A Lumpty-Dumpty,” she said cry-laughing.
I invited her in. She stayed put. Said she and Ollie were gonna take a little vacation. I leaned in to see Ollie, but she stepped back.
“A bad baby’s better than no baby,” she said.
A watery cry rose from the bundle. There was an earthy smell. A spider scuttled from the blanket, then another. A cluster burst from beneath the folds and scattered. Merin brushed them all away without blinking an eye.
For a moment, the blanket slipped. I saw Ollie’s face. And a forked tongue flick.
Merin saw me see, said it was time for them to go. Added the highchair was on the curb if anyone wanted it, still in perfect condition. It’d comforted Ollie after his fall, she said, but Ollie didn’t need it anymore. He was—
I couldn’t catch her last word. It didn’t sound like ‘better’.
She walked to the back of her minivan. Placed Ollie on a pillow inside a sturdy-
looking dog crate then drove away.
#
We found her vehicle in a ditch just outside town. Only her purse and the blanket were inside. We speculated of course. Word went ‘round she’d been on my porch. I held back from telling what I saw that day. Maybe I shouldn’t have. Nobody heard from Merin again.
The highchair sat outside their house for a week, too big for recycling or curb-side pick-up. Then it started appearing around town in odd spots: the bushes next to the community centre where new moms met. Lined up alongside the park swings. In front of the Goodwill thrift shop. Eventually the chair disappeared. We all knew not to touch it, but out- of-towners often passed through. Not knowing any better, one of them might’ve picked it up.
Other pieces of furniture have started appearing around town — a bookcase leans against a lamppost near the library over on Elm. A mirror stands coquettish in the alley. These items are always in pristine condition. Always tempting to take. But I leave them. We all do.
This place is never going green. People have it firm in their minds why. At least I think they do — though I’ve started hearing something at night that sounds an awful lot like foxes.
Originally published by Cranked Anvil 2020
Originally from Missouri, Sherry Morris (@Uksherka) writes prize-winning fiction from a farm in the Scottish Highlands where she pets cows, watches clouds and dabbles in photography. She reads for the wonderfully wacky Taco Bell Quarterly and her first published story was about her Peace Corps experience in 1990s Ukraine. Read more of her work at www.uksherka.com
