Rivals

My older sister and I each wanted Dad’s undivided attention. If he read a chapter of Winnie-the-Pooh to me, Sandy asked for two chapters. If he pushed me on the swing for two minutes, she wanted three.

As we grew up, our shared bedroom developed an invisible line down the middle, and we were absolute rulers of our separate territories. I could cross her side to get to the stairs, and she could cross mine to go to the toilet, but that was it.

Sandy was taller, with shiny black hair and radiant brown eyes. I was shorter and plumper, with dirty-blond curls and green eyes. When our artist uncle came for a visit, Sandy was witty and articulate and monopolized him. At our middle school, she played a beautiful Virgin Mary in the Christmas pageant, while I worked the lights. In our ballet presentation, Sandy was the elegant swan, while I was an unmoving tree.

Things didn’t improve in high school. The first boy I ever dated was enticed away by Sandy’s charms. Feeling bad, he fixed me up with his friend Peter. Then, while I was working a month-long summer job at the shore, Sandy fixed Peter up with a friend of hers.

Our rivalry diminished when Sandy went off to college, but the subtle jockeying for position continued: Who was accepted to the better school? Who earned higher grades? Who had the more lucrative summer job?

As adults we both married. Sandy had one child, while I had three. We tried to avoid competing through our children, but when her son was accepted to medical school, I sensed an air of superiority.

Our rivalry ended last Christmas Eve, when Sandy died of pancreatic cancer. I miss her every day.

Harriet D. Odlum
West Simsbury, Connecticut

My mother’s birthday was approaching, and I was determined to do something special for her. Even at sixteen, I could see how sad she was, and I wanted to make her happy.

A year earlier, as part of a kitchen renovation, my father had installed a new electric stovetop. When he’d removed the old one, it had left a long hole in the face of the cabinetry. The hole really bothered my mother, and I often wondered if he had left it there just to aggravate her. As my gift to her, I decided to fix the hole.

My father was a talented woodworker who built everything from hand-carved chairs to whole additions to our house. His basement workbench felt off-limits to me, but I mustered my courage and clandestinely used his tools to cut a board that exactly covered the hole. Then I glued three decorative ceramic tiles to the board and epoxied it in place the night before my mother’s birthday. It really did look good. My mother was thrilled, and I was proud to have pleased her.

Later that day my father let me know that he was not happy with what I’d done. It was his job to fix things around his house, he said. I was never to do it again. I feared my father, and I heeded his warning. But I had won a small victory: my gift remained intact as long as they owned that house.

Alex B.
Corning, New York

In the maximum-security housing units, many inmates join a prison gang for protection. If you do, chances are you’ll eventually be placed in an exercise group that contains a rival gang member. Even before you’ve returned to your cell, word will have spread that they’ve assigned two rivals to the same yard. Everyone knows there will be a fight tomorrow. The shot-callers tell you to draw blood. You don’t want to, but you wonder if you should carry a shank anyway. Your rival probably will.

Notes are passed from cell to cell. You listen for the sound of metal scraping on concrete, sniff for the smell of burning plastic — telltale signs of a weapon being manufactured. You’re able to convince the shot-callers that you’ll do better with just your fists. You don’t want to kill this guy you don’t even know. You hope he is smart enough not to use a shank, to realize that you are both only pawns.

The next morning, after a long night of planning and praying, you stretch, shadow-box, and psych yourself up. As you are led to the exercise yard, your legs quiver slightly with the adrenaline rush. Those who don’t want to be involved begin moving away from the open area. The guard manning the gun tower readies Big Bertha, a nonlethal weapon that fires wooden blocks to quell riots.

The gate opens. You and your opponent eye each other’s hands, looking for weapons. Relieved to find one another unarmed, you butt heads like rams during the rutting season. Blows are traded. Guards are running toward you. Boom! Boom! The wooden blocks hit your flesh and bounce off onto the concrete. The guards use pepper spray. It’s all over. Aggression spent, you lie prone on the ground: a split brow, a busted nose, cuts and scrapes all over. You and your rival meet each other’s eyes, both pleased with the outcome.

After being treated, you return to your cell and start getting notes from members of your gang about what a good job you’ve done. You are deemed a “stand-up convict.” The shot-callers have something to laugh about until another new guy comes along.

Name Withheld

Whoever it is, I hate him. Or her. It doesn’t matter. Viewing the remains of this person’s depredations makes my skin prickle with outrage. How could anyone else have found my secret spot? I can’t even explain how I found it. One day I was driving through the Berkshires when I glanced up a wooded hillside, and the thought came to me: Maybe there. I pulled onto the shoulder, parked the car, and followed a pair of tire ruts into the woods. A quarter mile in, I spotted the first small morel mushroom.

“Follow water” is my mushroom-hunting motto. Here that meant struggling through an acre of brambles to an open, grassy glade with a few decrepit apple trees — and so many morels! Thirty, forty, fifty. The more I looked, the more popped into view. And they were huge — six inches high, at least; waxy, unreal, golden; a mycological fantasy fulfilled.

I relished each one as it went into my basket. At home I photographed the heaped bounty on my kitchen table. Then I ate some of them sautéed in cream and brandy, dried a few for winter, and shared the rest with friends.

Every year I returned, always in the second week of May if the winter had been mild, the third week if the snow had been heavy. I battled the tick-infested brambles to pluck the morels from the warm grass — until this year.

When I arrived at the glade in May, I found nothing but flat, waxy stumps. An unknown rival had found my secret clearing and made off with the harvest.

So the game is on. Next spring I will go early. I will go often. I will go as stealthily as a cat. Next year those morels are mine.

Pat McDonagh
Northampton, Massachusetts

My husband, Gordon, was in the seminary, and Will and Elizabeth lived next door to us in married-student housing. The three of them were pastors in training; I was the unholy tag-along. We cooked meals together, borrowed each other’s cars, and had Friday-night drinks at Archie’s pub. One snowy Friday in late January, after a few beers, we stole some plastic trays from the seminary dining hall and went midnight sledding on Suicide Hill, a steep incline with an imposing wrought-iron fence at the bottom. The challenge was to barrel down at top speed and bail out just before colliding with the fence.

After a couple of dizzying solo runs, someone suggested tandem races. Will climbed aboard behind me on the tiny “sled,” wrapping his legs and arms tightly around my middle. Gordon glared at Will, then took the front position on Elizabeth’s sled. Suddenly he and Will were rivals, and I had become the prize.

We pushed off. The race was a blur of white powder and icy wind. I felt a kind of electric charge from Will’s hands. As the fence rushed toward us, Will squeezed me tight and said in my ear, “We’ll bail on three. Ready? One, two, . . . three!”

We rolled off just six feet from the iron fence, while our makeshift sled sailed over the spiked posts. It took us a while to untangle our limbs and get to our feet. Soaking wet and chilled to the bone, we laughed and marveled at our narrow escape. I had completely forgotten about Gordon and Elizabeth.

Gordon’s ride had ended badly. Elizabeth had jumped off in plenty of time, but he had ridden on without her and slammed feet first into the fence. He wasn’t getting up.

“My God, Gordon,” I said, “are you OK?”

He winced with pain, then snapped at me, “No, damn it, I am not OK. Go get the car. I think I broke my ankle.”

“Let’s get you up the hill first,” Will said. We made a chair with our forearms, and Gordon grudgingly half sat on it and half hopped back up the hill, one agonizing step at a time. When we reached the top, we were sober and drenched with sweat. I went inside for the car keys. When I came out, Will was offering to come with us to the hospital.

Gordon shook his head, his face stony. “You’ve done enough for one night, thank you.” Nobody asked what he meant. Deep down I think we all already knew: Will and I were in love.

B.W.
Jacksonville, Florida

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