Blogging every day. It starts on April First with a topic themed on something beginning with the letter A, then every day in April, (with the exception of Sundays) another topic continuing through the alphabet ending with, of course the letter Z.
I really don’t have a theme. Some will be fiction. Mostly whatever strikes my fancy.
Another visit with Fran who first made two appearances as the F and K posts in last’s years AtoZ challenge.
April 7, 2016
Fran, The Fingerless Gloves and The Fisherman
On a chilly, early spring morning, Fran sat on
a freshly painted, dark green bench and looked out at the ocean. The
bench was anchored onto a wooden deck set high up on the man-made dunes.
Normally she would have walked along the water, picking up shells, but the
beach was terribly eroded from destructive winter storms and there was a
ten-foot drop down onto the shoreline.
She closed her eyes and let the ocean breeze
caress her face.
Her hands snuggled in the warmth of the wool
of her well-worn fingerless gloves, her bare fingers wrapped around a white
Styrofoam cup of steaming hot tea.
The gloves, cherry red when they were new, had
now faded into a rusty shade of their former brightness.
She reflected on how much her life had changed
since the day Gina gave her the gloves.
"Ah, Gina," she sighed and looked at
her watch.
Fran finished the last of her tea. She
better hurry, she thought. She did not want to be late. Today was
Gina's last day. They were going to surprise her with a cake and
presents.
Of course, Fran suspected that Gina wouldn't
be all that surprised. After 25 years at the halfway house, it was hard
to pull the wool over her eyes.
She stood up and noticed a man coming down the
beach. He was bent over, carrying an army green tackle box and fishing
pole in one hand and dragging along a large blue cooler with the other.
He spotted her and began to wave.
As she turned to leave, she carelessly waved
back.
Fran began to walk down the wooden ramp when
she thought she heard her name being called.
She stopped to listen.
Fran, The Fingerless Gloves and The Fisherman Part II - A to Z Challenge - The Letter K for Knitting
April 13, 2016
"Frankie, Frankie, wait!”
Startled, she froze. There was only one
person who ever called her Frankie.
"Frankie,
wait!"
She tried to reassure herself. No, it couldn't be she thought.
Fran slowly turned around and saw the
fisherman struggling to climb up the steep sand dune.
As he got closer, she squinted and raised her
hand up to shade her eyes from the bright sun, trying to see if it was he.
But by then she already knew that it was.
It was Tom. He was the only one who ever called her Frankie.
She wanted to run. Run as fast as she
could, down the planked path to the parking lot.
But she was frozen and like a deer caught in
the headlights, she couldn't move.
Two years ago was the last time she had seen
him.
As she waited for him to make his way towards
her she thought about the day they first met.
January 14. She would never forget it.
It had been a cold dank morning with a smoky
gray snow sky. She could still recall shivering as she waited outside of
the rehab. Gina was to pick her up
to bring her to the halfway house.
When she and Gina got to the residential
facility called “Gina’s Way”, Tom was the one who had greeted them at the front
door.
Now as she reflected back on that day, she
remembered that she had barely noticed him.
She had
been too nervous and afraid. She didn't want to be left there. She didn't
want Gina to leave.
"I'll come by tomorrow," promised
Gina.
"Can't you stay? Just a little
longer?" Fran begged.
"Listen, Fran, you're going to be fine.
I just know it."
"Besides, I have the group waiting for
me. You know we are going to be finishing up our gloves tonight,"
Gina said.
She shook her head back and forth, as if the
movement would chase the memory from her mind.
Slowly
looking up she saw that Tom was now on the wooden deck at the top of the dunes,
just a few yards from her.
Fran
clutched her hands together; her bare fingers peeked out of the faded red
fingerless gloves.
Gina had given the gloves to Fran.
"They're beautiful," exclaimed Fran.
"I knit them just for you,
Fran," said Gina.
"Do you think I can learn to do that?"
asked Fran.
Gina
assured Fran, “Of course you can,” she said.
At first, Fran could hardly keep her shaky
hands still enough to hold onto the wooden needles.
But Gina would put her hands over Fran's to
guide her through the stitches.
"First, make an X with the needles, like
this," Gina said, demonstrating.
"You see, the needle in your right hand
goes into the loop on the left needle. That's it, place the right needle
behind the left."
"No, no, it has to go behind the one in
your left, like an X," Gina patiently explained.
"Here's an easy way to remember,"
said Gina.
In a sing-song voice, Gina chanted,
"In through the front door,
Run around the back,
Hop through the window,
Off jumps Jack."
"That's it!" You've got
it!" exclaimed Gina when Fran completed her first stitch.
She remembered the very first thing she made.
It was a garter stitch scarf in scratchy blue wool.
By the time she finished it, the scarf was
full of holes where she'd dropped stitches and one side was uneven.
Gina made a fuss over it, though, praising
Fran for not giving up.
Finishing that scarf gave Fran hope that this
time she might also be able to stick with the program.
Gina and knitting. The were now the
tightly interwoven threads of Fran's complex life.
"Hi, Frankie."
He stood in front of her.
She lifted her eyes to look up at him.
He was wearing the blue scarf.
Fran, The Fingerless Gloves and The Fisherman Part III - A to Z Challenge - The Letter F for Frankie
April 7, 2017
Her
heart began to thump rapidly in her chest. She grabbed onto the handrail to steady herself.
Her
mind was racing. Her emotions were like a ball in an arcade game ping ponging
all over the place.
Anger
hit the jackpot. Bing, bing, bing!
Without
thinking she reached up and punched him in the arm.
She
stammered. “How could you…where…why?”
She
could not seem to organize her scattered thoughts into a coherent sentence.
“Frankie,”
he said softly.
He
gently placed his hands on her arms pulling her towards him.
Fran
wriggled out of his arms and pushed him away.
She
felt a searing pain, deep in her being, as the wound she had so carefully
tended to began to rip open.
“Please,
Frankie,” he pleaded.
“I’ve
got to go!” Fran turned and ran down the ramp.
Tom
stayed at the top of the deck. He
did not call after her. He did not
follow.
When
Fran got to her car she turned, half expecting Tom to be right there.
She
knew she would have to face him sooner or later, but tonight belonged to Gina.
As she
drove the 20 miles back to “Gina House”, she thought about the last night she
and Tom spent together. She
was so happy. She thought he
was happy too.
He told
her he was.
They had
sat on the front porch of “Gina
House” and planned an early breakfast the next morning. Then they were going to begin their
apartment search.
He told
her he had some things to take care of so he would have to call it an early
night.
“Don’t
forget, Frankie, bright and early tomorrow.”
“Nine-thirty,
right?” She teased.
“Frankie!”
Fran
giggled.
“Urgh!” She growled out loud.
She
didn’t want to think about those times.
She especially did not ant to think about that night, that last night.
It had
taken Fran months to trust him.
But, slowly she began to open up to him.
He knew
about her father and the hurt.
It was after
that time, the time she told him about her father that Tom began call her
Frankie.
“Fran
is the little hurt girl”, he said.
“Frankie
is my wonderfully strong woman.
That’s who you will always be to me,” he said.”
She
even began to think of herself as Frankie.
The day
he left her, waiting for him on the front porch, she became Fran again, fragile
as a hurt little girl.
I sure hope we don’t have to wait another whole year for Fran to make an appearance, right?
When I was a kid my brother, sister, and I lived with our parents in a housing complex which was built specifically for returning WWII soldiers and their families. The complex was referred to as “The Barracks”. Even though I was very young, I think about 7 or 8 years old, I have strong memories of living in “The Barracks”. 
