DEATH OF A MAYFLY - Chapter 13

Pink and red streaks of early morning sunlight stretched across the low ceiling, making little pock-marked shadows in the dusty popcorn as he snored loudly next to me in the bed, smelling of beer, cigarettes, and sweat. I slid my tongue back and forth across the roof of my mouth: tasteless. I traced the seams of my pajamas with two fingers: clean and dry. Reaching down, I felt my feet: not rough, not dirty as though they’d walked all night barefoot in the park. My stomach gurgled; time for breakfast. Not as if I’d eaten the best meal of my life just hours before. I sat up on the edge of the bed and took a deep breath of his rank air, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

Only a dream.

Ask anyone and they’ll tell you how quickly dreams fade, replaced by life and reality and time. And so I waited, expecting the memories—which weren’t memories at all—to disappear. But they didn’t.

Tom, the Australian farmer who loved science, with one missing finger and deep dark eyes, stayed etched in my memory as well as any real person I’d ever known. I still felt the loss of his sudden good-bye, but also like I could pick up the phone and call him. I could see the shape of his face and the way his hair stuck out behind his ears. I could even smell him, sort of outdoorsy and sweet. And his laugh, the best I think I’d ever heard, a great bursting guffaw like nothing else in the world mattered.

At first I tried forcing him from my mind, scouring an already-clean house from top to bottom, changing sheets, and opening all the doors and windows to let in the stifling summer heat that always smelled like baking bread this time of year as the stalks of wheat crisped along the flatlands. Every once in a while I’d catch myself daydreaming, picking at the dirty laundry checking for silt, feeling for dirt in my hair. But I was as clean as the shower I’d taken last night and my skin still smelled like Ivory soap.

He wouldn’t go away, this man who’d become an overnight friend, a confidant, a kindred spirit and someone with whom I could get into perfect trouble, but lived only in a dream. And try though I might, I felt his presence as deeply, or even deeper, than the tired old man passed out on my couch, and found myself waiting for a knock at the door.

July 1

I don’t know why I trusted him, and even now don’t know why I should. But more that him why do I trust myself, losing my wits in what is so obviously a dream? Maybe in dreams men are as opposite as the circumstances—safe, easy, kind. But then I’d expect flying cows and green sunsets, the impossible and imaginary. But he was unequivocally normal, if that is indeed normal. He was a friend, my friend, and a world that felt simple for once. And if that’s the only place I’ll ever know him then I’ll have to memorize that moment for the rest of my life.

But life goes on, and like most days I had only seconds to myself before Otis needed something, moaning at me to fix it, get it, rub it, make it, and take it away. I’d grind at the gout in his knuckles, massaging away the little white dots that poked through his sallow skin, until he hollered at me to stop hurting him.

“Fe, give me the remote. I want to watch the game.” I got him the remote. “Fe, a pillow?” I’d get a pillow. “Christ Fe, I’m starving. Make me a sandwich.” I made the sandwich. Never a please or thank you, but it was enough that he stayed quiet for a little while and I could find myself again for a few minutes until the tremors or something else kicked back in. Then, “Fe, grab me a drink, would you?” I couldn’t move fast enough. “Dammit Fe, look at my hands.” I’d bring him a beer and he’d down it without taking a breath. “I need another one. Hurry up, goddammit.” He’d stop shaking after two or three, but once he started he couldn’t quit—first irritated, then screaming, then sloppy and emotional, then sleepy—like a Ferris wheel that never let me off. And if the phone rang he told me not to answer, another day or two missed at work and always on the cusp of being let go. Then he’d slump back onto his pillow, sleeping all afternoon.

But if I’m honest, I actually preferred angry-and-sleepy Otis to incessantly-good-husband Otis, bent on saving my soul over breakfast and ignoring the last ten years of hell.

He lay there snoring like a wood-chipper, flat on his back and choking on his fat tongue that never quite killed him. I tossed a few more beers on the floor beside the couch, hoping he’d see them and leave me alone. Today I needed space.

I started up the pickup and turned on the wipers, sending dead mayflies catapulting in every direction and swirling behind the tires in a cloud of broken wings as I took a right onto the highway and coasted down the hill toward the depot. To my left, Shep kept watch from his hill overlooking the railyard and I slowed, bumping over the three sets of tracks. Fort Benton didn’t look any different, but it felt different, and I wanted to retrace every step I thought I’d taken, beginning with the bridge.

I parked in front of the drugstore and stepped out onto the dry pavement, imagining my bare feet deep under the warm water, crossing the street, past the old firehouse, and up onto the bridge. At the far end, volunteers were bagging up spent mortars and shells and pushing a broom back and forth over dark burn marks in the wood.

“That was some intense weather, kept me awake half the night,” one of the men said. I leaned over the railing pretending not to listen.

“Yeah,” said the one pushing the broom. “My girlfriend said the river crested out by Loma and messed things up pretty bad. Lots of debris and trees down.”

“I heard that, too.”

I imagined the waves crashing into the pilings, so far from the mud that oozed slowly under the bridge now, catching on the reeds that stuck out once again from the middle of the river.

Inside the entryway of the firehouse wet mayflies lay in heaping piles in the corners by the bathrooms. I knelt and scooped up a mushy handful of flies, not soft and delicate anymore, but sloppy and smelling like spoiled spinach. I let go with a wet splat, wiping my hands on the back of my jeans. But when I stood up I smelled something different, warm and delicious, coming from down the street. I imagined lamb shanks and roasted red potatoes served on linen tablecloths beneath a crystal chandelier, and wanted so badly to go inside and sit down at “our” table. But I had no reason to be there, and certainly no money to spend.

A menu hung on the wall next to the door: duck confit, beef Wellington, bouillabaisse, pork loin chops, ribeye steak. My mouth watered and I could actually taste melting rosemary butter and feel the wine in my throat.

You’ve never been here before.

I swallowed, trying to ignore the food I’d never eaten. Of course they had ribeye on the menu, what fancy restaurant doesn’t serve steak and salad? Maybe I’d walked by one too many times, inhaling the sophisticated aroma and locking it away in my memory. Nothing strange about that. But the intense feeling of déjà vu told me I’d read this menu before, held the black vinyl in my hands, the gold braid running down its spine with little tassels that hung below. The only places I’d ever eaten didn’t have menus, just a dry erase board with the soup of the day, pie, and all the crummy heat-lamp specials that hung behind the register by the cigarettes and gum. I looked at the menu again, tracing my finger all the way down to the very last line: pork spare ribs, cornbread, and coleslaw. My heart ached.

I retraced my imaginary steps all over town, peering through fences, looking for scuff marks in the gravel, evidence that someone, anyone had been there talking and laughing late into the night. I wandered over to the Culbertson House, leaning over the ice cream case and reading the labels: vanilla, rocky road, pistachio, chocolate chip mint, and lemon custard.

“Can I get you a scoop?” A young man in an apron leaned over the counter.

“No, I don’t think so,” I said. “I just need to use your bathroom.” He pointed to the back of the shop and I went in and locked the door. There was the little changing table just as it had been, stacks of clean rags underneath, the sink, the mirror. But I saw my own face this time, the only one I should have ever seen, eyelids sinking low, and lips thin and frowning at the corners. My salt-and-pepper hair had receded at the temples, scraggly and like an afterthought, unbrushed. No sign of the carefree girl I’d thought I’d seen.

July 1

I was beautiful, which is funny to think. I used to find flaws in every inch. But I know for sure that was me looking back, at one time. And so can something be real if it was real? If I was really that girl once upon a time, skin like milk, all the scars gone, is it time giving me something back, looping back around for a last look? Is that what he was? Just a look?

I walked along Main Street back to the museum, wishing I still had a bike to get around town. To the right of the building was the broken fencing leading back to the homestead, and I squeezed one elbow through the opening, trying to push my full frame through the crack.

“Hey,” a sour-looking woman leaned out a side door. “If you want to go back there you need to pay for a ticket.”

“Oh sorry, no,” I pulled my arm back. “I was just...looking at something.” She glared and shut the door, watching me through the glass. I looked out across the open courtyard at the buildings, clinics, combines and tractors, and the little red caboose. I’d never been in or around any of them, but I knew exactly what they looked like from the inside. Take half the deck, flip a card, slap a match... I’d learned an entire card game in my sleep. I stared at the make-believe little town, as imaginary as anything.

Just a dream.

There was one place left to go and I’d saved it for last, knowing how utterly disappointing it would be. I drove slowly up the highway, taking a right in front of the depot and letting the engine idle.

Keep driving.

A few grain trucks sat empty near the bins and I knew there wouldn’t be any traffic until Monday. I opened the door and walked up to the rails, feeling their heat through the toes of my shoes. This would hurt. After a long minute I stepped out onto the first set of tracks, walking end to end across the tie, then up and over the other side.

I stepped onto the second set of tracks, slower, inching across. The pounding in my chest told me to stop a minute and breathe. I focused on the third track. Everything felt so still; even the grass didn’t move as I waited, deciding what to do next.

I stepped up to the third set of tracks, not ready for what I knew wouldn’t happen, but determined to break away from this dream, or better yet, fall back into it. I reached both arms forward and stretched my hands as far as I could, watching the ends of my fingertips. Nothing happened. Inching forward again, I wiggled my fingers back and forth, up and down, shaking out my hands. Come on. I shut my eyes and with clenched teeth jumped as far forward as I could, up and over the third set of tracks.

A long pause; a deep breath.

I couldn’t see anything, just the blackness that had surrounded me the last time, and for a minute I let it all be true. But nothing pushed on me now; nothing forced me back like the heavy winds along the coulees. Only a gentle breeze teased my hair telling me to stop playing games—I was simply on the other side of the tracks.

High up on his hill Shep watched, mocking me with his little painted eyes. Still, I couldn’t stop the disappointment from washing over me, annoyed that for a second I’d let myself hope for something so irrational. How had it all felt so damn real? I’d tasted food, good rare steak, wine that burned in my throat. I’d dragged my toes through the gravel and pinched mayflies between my fingers. For God’s sake, I jumped into a river and nearly drowned. I must have the best imagination in the world.

I popped the tailgate down and sat for a while with my feet dangling, staring at the tracks and trying to let it all go. I needed to leave everything here; I had to. Yesterday this was just a place, one more unhappy memory of Otis and our life together. But now everything looked so different and I couldn’t unsee it or forget. But forget what? Nothing happened, not really. A warm gust swept through the granaries and along the railyard, whipping up the mayflies and swirling them around in the dirt.

I don’t remember the drive home, but when I got there I sat outside for a long time, refusing to let myself feel sad about something that didn’t exist, or someone. But that meant that my life, this life, was more real than it had ever been, and was all I’d ever have—a sweaty, stinking, needy husband, bad food, no money, invisible except when he wanted something from me.

Happy people don’t just jump off bridges in the middle of the night.

I went inside and Otis hadn’t moved, limp and pale on the couch where I’d left him. He looked dead lying there half off the pillows. I untied my shoes and washed the dirt off my hands—still only 3 o’clock—I probably had an hour or two to myself until he woke up and started demanding things. Maybe I could go to sleep, try to get back there somehow; I could dream up another nighttime drive along the river. But other than the nightmares I’d never had the same dream twice, and I’d read somewhere that the “happiest reverie is soonest lost.”

I sat down on the bed and opened the drawer. Inside was the Bible and the butcher knife, and behind them the journal. I grabbed it, remembering my mother, remembering all the promises I’d made to her, and now a new promise: go have a good life. But keeping that promise—had I promised?—felt insurmountable.

July 1

It’s too late. I’m a dog at the back of the depot being offered a bone, a bath, a warm place to stay, and all I can do is cower and growl at anyone who tries to help. I’ve been given a choice that I cannot choose. Real life will never afford me the fortitude it takes to be the 1 woman out of 100 who was brave enough to leave.

I listened to Otis snore in the next room.

But maybe what I’ve been given is a chance to escape on the inside. No one is checking in on me, making sure I haven’t lost my mind. What if I choose to lose it? How worse off can I be?

And so I did. I let myself go.

His name is Tom, and he’s a farmer from Queensland. He’s short with tan skin and bushy eyebrows. His ears stick out a little, and he has brown eyes and a wide mouth. His hair was messy, but looked like it might have been curly if he let it grow. He had on a red button-up shirt, jeans, but no shoes. A missing little finger on his left hand, just the tip, from an accident with a “cow doughnut” he said.

I wrote down everything I could remember, not wanting to forget even the slightest detail—not the card game, the taste of the wine, not his soft, soft hand on the side of my face as he said good-bye. I left out the part about jumping in the river, just that he had pulled me from the water, and I retraced every step ending at the railroad, freezing at the edge of the tracks, and trying to understand why that was as far as I could go. Hadn’t I driven across them on the way in? Or was that part real? And if so, where did it end? When had I fallen asleep?

He kept looking up at the lights, watching the mayflies I think. I told him how much I loved them, about the mayfly snow, but he didn’t seem to agree. When he said good-bye he touched my cheek. He made me promise to be okay.

I don’t know how.

I closed the journal and shut the drawer, again going over every detail in my mind—the places, the flavors, the wind, the flies. I thought about the nightmares I’d struggled with for so long, but even then I always knew it was a dream. I’d touched the pavement with my bare feet, sloshing though the warm river water that pulled at my pajama bottoms. And the waxy slivers of chocolate melting against the roof of my mouth...

Otis stirred on the couch, groaning as he tried to sit up against the pillows and reach for his remote. He’d be hungry soon and had little patience with me these days, so I put the thoughts to rest and popped some leftover biscuits and gravy to warm in the oven. He didn’t eat as much now, drinking most of his meals, but late in the day he’d try to get a little food down between the bouts of tremors.

Some days I felt guilty, trying to appreciate how hard everything was for him. But he’d brought it all on himself. Most men his age were still quite young, relatively speaking, and could work a full week without aches and pains. But I hadn’t seen Otis work more than two days in a row in the last year and wondered how he hadn’t been fired. But I also knew that the foreman drank and played cards with Otis after work, and had a sad little wife hidden away at home. Just like everyone else.

Otis shuffled off to the bathroom on stiff ankles, complaining about something under his breath.

You go have a good life. Take care of yourself and stop trying to make everyone else happy.

I looked around, trying to remember what made me happy, and my eyes stopped on the piano. It had been so long, and I hadn’t had the heart even to dust it. So it collected, graying the tops of the sharps and flats, sifting low between the keys. I walked over and sat down, silently wiping the keyboard with my shirtsleeve. From somewhere deep inside I could still remember all the notes, triplets in staccato, not fast. A soft nocturne. My fingers rested for a minute then found the melody, holding, then one, two, three, up again, hold. The same keys refused to play, thudding on the lower notes, strained and out of tune on the uppers as they jammed against hardened hammer pads. But I drew out the sweet, sad song one measure at a time and let myself drift away, trying to do exactly what he’d said.

“What the hell are you doing?” I stopped. Otis leaned against the wall, breathing hard, his fly still open under his bulging stomach.

“I was just playing the piano.”

“No shit.” He looked frustrated. “I’m starving. Where’s dinner?”

Back to it.

“I just put the biscuits in the oven. They’ll be done in a few minutes if you want to go sit down.” He needed a drink and waiting for food always set off his shakes, beginning with his fingers and moving up to his shoulders. He clenched one fist against the wall, shaking the panels.

“I can’t today, Fe,” he said, sounding defeated, but not mad.

“It’s okay, I know.” I sat him down at the table, easing him carefully into a wheezing kitchen chair, and poured the first drink neat to settle his nerves.

“Good,” he said, his lips shaking against the glass, taking little breaths but never setting it down. He opened his Bible and began reading aloud, pausing every so often to make sure I was listening, repeating the ends of verses and emphasizing every third word or so just like Daddy always had. I knew them all by heart, or at least from memory, and I played the part well. Then he shut the Bible and we ate in silence, like we always did. I cleared the table, washed the dishes, and brushed my teeth, the same as every day. We put on our pajamas and crawled into bed by 8 o’clock, the same as we had every night for ten years.

I lay there next to him pretending to read, the familiar depression seeping back in like cold river water. For once in my life I’d experience freedom, happiness, and whether it was real or not my mind wasn’t prepared to let that go. But this life, real life, had no end—day after day spent caretaking, scrubbing at the sticky patches of urine where he’d missed the toilet, the yelling or the silence, and the painfully long stretches of just waiting for nothing, waiting for the sun to set, one day closer to whatever came next.

At my lowest, when he screamed at me for being too slow, too ugly, a worthless waste of his money, I’d close the door and crawl into bed, covering my head with a pillow to shut out the light. I could still hear him out there, shouting a long and creative list of names he’d come up with over the years. Still the bitch, the whore, the slut for leaving him all alone when I knew he needed me. And I believed every word. Eventually he’d fall asleep on the couch or in a puddle next to it on the floor, a half-empty bottle in his fist, and I could come out into the air again, greeting the quiet like an old friend. Only then did I give in to his memory, opening the journal and reading it over and over again—his dark eyes and bushy eyebrows, no shoes...

Summer changed to autumn, and autumn back to short winter afternoons, frigid and blowing in isolation out on the prairie. The railroad closed down until the spring harvest, and I didn’t go into town much in the weather, only for essentials and only when the roads were plowed low enough to maneuver on bald tires and no power steering. Once in a while a chinook blew in, melting through a layer of ice on the highway, and I could go into work for a shift at the paper. But most of the time it was just the two of us sitting alone in the trailer with nowhere to go.

Some days Otis felt good and didn’t battle the tremors and gout. I even taught him how to play Slapjack, and he seemed to really like it, but was so slow he never won the pile. Unlike with Tom, the games were always over pretty quickly, and he never wanted to play more than once.

Some nights he asked me to play from the hymnal and he’d sing, his face so relaxed and at peace, if not happy. And every so often he let me play whatever I wanted, and I knew he was trying to be good-husband-Otis again. Whether it was guilt or something else, it tugged at his insides, telling him to try a little bit harder to be human around me, treat me better, even if we both knew it was temporary. But I never forgot my promise and did my best to be thankful for the small things that didn’t hurt or harm, playing softly for him until he fell asleep on the couch. Then I’d shut myself back in the bedroom, safe and alone with my memories.

But over time I felt myself slipping backward, not sad or upset, but just an endless marathon of nothingness. Nothing to look forward to, nothing to look back on, just the same thing day after day, after day. I could see more gray hair in the mirror, the lines etching deeper around my eyes and across my forehead. Boredom? Maybe. Not fear or anxiety, no pain. Just endless doldrums. I wondered if Otis was satisfied with this life, the quiet routine and seclusion, living on pennies but somehow getting by. We could never pay off his debts now, and the idea of the men coming for their due weighed heavily on my mind. What could they take from us? I hoped I’d never find out.

Only the music took me back, sometimes just a minute or two at a time. And I imagined Tom sitting beside me on the stool, humming and adding a little part here, a little part there. Did he play the piano? I didn’t know. But right now, here with me, he did.

And then back I fell into real life, Otis pulling me from the chorus and into the bedroom. Despite his size, despite his health, he would always and forever be the man on the corner of Mitty’s Garage, touching me or making me touch him in some way, orchestrating what he needed from me. He reminded me of a big, slobbering dog, hairy and fragrant beside me in the bed.

“You’re my wife, Fe,” he’d remind me when I told him no, I was too tired. And I didn’t argue, moving quickly to do whatever he asked, so I could roll over and pretend to sleep.

And eventually I drifted all the way back to the beginning, to the person I’d been before the long walk in the dark, before flying off the bridge. I woke, ate, lived, and breathed under water, my body moving slowly and always pushing against an invisible wall. Inside I felt numb and stupid, checking off the same boxes every day and waiting only for sleep. Sometimes I had enough energy to play the piano, but it was so hard to imagine Tom there beside me with Otis in the background. He’d turn up the TV as high as it would go, filling a tumbler, a can on the side, eventually drinking straight from the bottle when everything else wasn’t enough. If he looked asleep I could play something quiet, no pedal. But if I woke him I could expect a flying remote control to the head and a lot of shouting and sputtering from the couch cushions. So most of the time I’d shut my eyes and let my fingers rest, hovering just above the keys, between and on top, to guide me measure by measure silently through the music. I heard it all in my head, every note, every chord, the octaves and trills, again floating away to an empty auditorium somewhere. Sometimes Tom was on the stage with me humming along, a hand on my shoulder. There you are, I thought, embracing the fine line I walked between sanity and just letting go.

January 24

Crazy is better than feeling nothing at all. Here is where I’m supposed to write my truth. “Be honest,” she said. Okay, I will. This truth is nothing to write about. But that truth is everything I’ve ever wanted. Where would we go? What would we do? And even though I don’t know what’s on the other side, a night of crawdad-catching is more than enough. Maybe he’d teach me to fish, get dirty, do and say the things I’ve never been allowed. Does time matter? Does he exist before the things that happened to me? If I ever get to see him again…

We didn’t see the grass until late May, last year’s wheat broken and bent from so many months under the wet. Finally the warm chinook blew, and at long last water poured from the eaves, overwhelming the gutters and shrinking the massive icicles that hung from the corners of the house. I stepped onto the porch and stretched high and then low, shaking out the long months of numb sleepiness, rubbing my face, stomping my feet. Cars sped by on the highway, spraying mud in every direction. Spring had finally arrived, and with it the purple and blue wildflowers that speckled the flatlands, prairie dogs poking their heads up through the clay with cheerful chirping hellos and chasing the killdeer through the dead grass and down into the coulees.

Life resumed, the long hibernation over, as carp filled the river and fishermen backed their boats down the levee one after another. Men went back to work at the railroad. Shopkeepers hung banners and swept winter’s mess from the gutters and sidewalks. Up went the booths, in came the food, and with it the lines, the laughter, and happy movement. Inside the Culbertson House the big stainless steel espresso machine loudly pulled shot after shot, making cappuccinos for sleepy visitors camping out at the fairgrounds. They scooped ice cream and pulled hot glazed cinnamon rolls from the oven as the long line of cars stretched under the trestle and out along the highway toward Great Falls.

June 25

Summer Celebration.

Copyright© 2025 Eleanor Leonard All Rights Reserved

Ellie is an author, editor, and owner of Red Pencil Transcripts, and works with filmmakers, podcasts, and journalists all over the world. She lives with her family just outside of New York City.

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12