The Virgin Mary, my Blessed Mother, firmly hand-turns the outdoor spigot that connects to the water faucet and garden hose at Nanny’s house.

She wears a blue veil crowned with red roses that flows to the ground, fluid, like water.  She smiles at me.  Her foot presses a still garden snake – a serpent, his sins and sorrows quieted by Mother Mary.  Blessed is she, as she stills my heart from devil-evil serpents of the world. 

The spigot that releases water is at the front of the house, the green garden hose is lettered along its long length, with bold, silvery words that spell out “sisterly love.”  The hose snakes its way across the front yard, passes the brick porch where Nanny sits on a folding lawn chair eating an Italian sandwich of fried peppers and eggs made by Aunt LaLa.  Nanny is the queen of her world in the town of Darien, the porch, her throne.  Her home is her castle, where she lives with Grandpa, Uncle Pippi, and Aunt LaLa, ruling by the front door shielded with a hanging red, white, and blue flag.

The hose snakily slides down slate steps cut by Grandpa, to the driveway, and ends in my sister Barb’s hand, where its shiny, copper-threaded connector sprays Mother Mary’s magic water onto the asphalt driveway, making it glisten wildly in the sunlight.

Standing next to Barb, I watch the water spray from the driveway to the hill that slopes easily from the front porch to Maple Street.  My eyes fly over the scene, take everything in.  The street is named after Great-Uncle Mike’s maple tree, now aged and regal, at the top of the hill.  Barb wears a yellow t-shirt and brown barrettes clip back fly-away hair; a red rubber kickball waits for my red Keds sneakers to kick it, make it fly through the air; the open mailbox holds an Italian newspaper for Grandpa; and the stone walls hug the driveway to another stone-cut stairwell leading to the back door of the kitchen.  Grandpa, warmed by a gray sweater, waves hello and smiles at me from where he sits at the kitchen window.  Across the driveway is his zinnia flowerbed that caps a stone wall.  Bees zip-zap and orange butterflies flitter-flutter through the hardest-working flowers of the summer garden.  The zinnias are waiting, expect me to stop by with scissors soon.  The ironed-down grass path that runs alongside the flowerbed is the way to the neighbor’s old gray cat, asleep atop another stone wall, on a bed of coppery pine needles, fallen from shadowy pines. Sparrows dart and dip, swoop from tree-to-tree over his head. 

We are in our own world, under the blue sky, where Uncle Pippi’s wheelbarrow, filled with just-picked sweet corn from his garden, waits by the garage door, where my older sister Donna, in a yellow dress and white knee socks, hands an Italian cookie to little sister Maria; flick-flecks of snowy white sugar dust her pink-and-green flowered dress.  Barb sprays water in an arc, up at the zinnia bed.  I look back at Nanny on the porch.  She smiles at me. 

The Blessed Mother is no longer there, by the spigot near the porch.  She’s gone.  Yet, not entirely gone, as she is in my heart and intercession prayer –  O, most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known, that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession, was left unaided.  I need to fly to her, for her mercy, to answer my humble pleas for help. 

The magic water of sisterly love sprays the stone wall near the slate steps, hits the green grass of the sloped hill, to the sidewalk and quiet street.  A surge of water reaches me, drenches my body and the constant, blue feelings of being trapped in a painful loop, like a twisted snake, with the back and forth of opposing emotions, fearful fight or flight thoughts, the mental anxiety of childhood abuse. 

“Did you ever want to fly?  I want to fly!  Fly, fly, fly!”  The magic water makes me freely shout.  Fly, fly, fly, to get away from sin and sorrow.

“It’s magic water!” whoops Barb.

Suddenly, my wet hands turn into giant, rainbow-colored parrots that wave their wings with great strength and lift me upward.  Off I go!  I fly up, up, up, as Barb sprays more magic water from the hose onto me.

High above the driveway, I am in blue-tinged, white clouds that are shaped like an airplane and a sailboat.  The translucent clouds puff along slowly in a faded polaroid dream.  A blue cape around my neck flows behind me, fluid, like water, and my legs, with red Keds-sneakered feet, are out-stretched.  My arms extend as the parrots disconnect from my hands and soar away in a bright-colored flash.  I am flying!

I call to my sister in the driveway below.

“Barb, I’m flying, I’m flying, I’m flying!”

And here I go, towards heaven, far above the driveway and Nanny’s house.  Above the street and then to Uncle Pippi’s garden, where I wildly zoom down, low to the ground, to see the tomatoes, peppers, green beans, basil, parsley, whatever he’s planted, so low to just touch the top of the cornfield, where I see Uncle Pippi working.  He smiles at me.  The garden gate is open, the hoe waits for me.  The garden, a daily dose for peace from devil-evil wartime serpents of his own.

Up and up I go, fly away over the Noroton Heights neighborhood, until I see our Noroton Avenue house, where I live with my sisters and Mom, and then swoop over to Mom’s sisters’ homes that I know so well – Matheline on Relihan Road, to Joyce on West Avenue, Mae on Park Lane, and even to Dee Dee on Sterling Place, on the border of a neighboring town.  I fly over to Weed Beach on Long Island Sound, where I label everything mine, and it is all my Darien.  It will always be my Darien, that freely fills my spirit with joy.  The blue flowing cape falls off from around my neck and drifts slowly away to the clouds.

With a birds-eye view and out-stretched arms, I fly over Nanny’s house, the yards, the gardens, see the clothesline in the backyard, where Aunt LaLa smiles as she hangs pink, billowing sheets, see Grandpa’s prickly cactus plant sitting on the back porch, and cucumbers that grow in the kitchen garden, a place where everything is beautiful and safe, and where the Blessed Mother sent the magic water through the garden hose to Barb.  Mom is there now, in the driveway, with my sisters.  She smiles at me.  I turn and call down to her.

“Mom, look at me!  I’m flying, flying, flying!”

And, off I go again, sprinkled with sisterly love from the garden hose, fly into the blue sky of heaven in this magic world, guided by the forces of Mother Mary, as she teaches me the healing power of sisterly love.  I fly and search for Mother Mary, to stand before her, with my sins and sorrows, to beseech her never-ending shield of firm protection over my sisters and me.                    

As sunlight plays tag on the roofs of maple trees, dappling leaves glitter and shudder in the gentle breeze.  These trees surround a beach where four, young girls sink in warm sand.  Their father is there, too, and he picks his way through rocks bordering an inlet of the blue Long Island Sound.

I am one of those girls, searching for treasures of shells and other mysteries washed upon the beach. 

The heat crawls along my skin and I pull off my t-shirt, revealing a faded, pink bathing suit.  I fling my t-shirt down onto an old blue blanket that holds my sisters’ found treasures and a green jug of red Kool-Aid and melting ice cubes.  And, undoubtedly, sand, too.

The ocean stretches and stretches, shimmering and flickering, as sunlight bounces upon gentle bumps of waves.  I watch my father, waist-deep in the cool water.  He wears a sleeveless shirt; his white shoulders and arms bulge as he bends down, seeking for clams to pry up out of the dark sand.  He quickly finds them, and, one-by-one, chucks them into a wooden basket bobbing near-by.  The clams clink against one another.

I long to be there, digging my fingers deep into the ground, blindly searching for the hard, familiar shape of a clam.  I’d like to see my father’s curly, light hair become wet and curlier as he dunks down again and again.

His voice trails out to my youngest sister, who is five years old now.  “Don’t come out any further, Maria.”

Maria stands up to her bellybutton in water, squints her dark eyes, and splashes at Barbara, who quickly splashes her back.  They both giggle delightedly.

I gently rest my palms on the water, carefully, so it slips in-between my fingers.  I walk slowly about, pulling one leg up, down, then the other.  Suddenly – ouch!  A creature rudely snapped and bit my foot.  Hurriedly, I splash away.  A crab!  My fright makes me shudder and I cry out.  My father, now coming in with the basket full of gleaming, black clams, looks at me, and frowns, “What’s wrong?”

Tears build up behind my eyes as I force words up and out.

He listens to my cry and tells me, “Don’t worry, I am sure it was nothing.”  He busily sets the basket on the water, examining its contents.

I swallow hard, making my tears disappear.  A struggle bursts inside and I try not to be a child, but stronger, like my father.  He tells me, “A nine year old is a big girl and you shouldn’t cry.”  I tilt my head and listen hard.

I decide all I wanted was some sympathy.  I pretend the snap was my imagination and the stinging lessens.

Donna, who is eleven, and a big girl, runs down the beach to my father.  Her plump, pink toes bounce up and down, momentarily disappearing in the pebbly sand.  My sisters splash my father and he laughs heartily, his tall, great body towering above, his smile reaching the bright, blue sky.

Letting my sisters hold clams, he beckons to me.  I wade over, silently grumbling about my stinging foot.  Picking up a large clam, I hold it in my palms and inspect the graininess of the rough shell.  I decide this clam must be a big girl, too, because it is strong and hard.  And, then I think, beautiful, too.

Note:  This little story was written by me when I was twenty-one years old, for a college creative writing course, Childhood in Literature.  I copy it here, word-for-word, to enjoy the simplicity of my writing at that time.  How often I think of Professor Parry, who encouraged me to write.  Her comment about this story:  “Jean, you write very sensitively about a vivid memory of someone you have lost, except in your mind and spirit.”  Yes, I think – memory, mind, spirit, and clams go hand-in-hand, and are all treasures and mysteries found on the beach.