November 20, 2024

SWEET MAGNOLIA
By J. B. Polk

Click here to listen to this story on the Kaidankai Podcast.


The day my daughter was born, my universe erupted into a thousand hues and turned into a dazzling impressionist painting. I'm not sure if the color palette includes a thousand shades, but on that day, I saw them all—vermilions, amaranths, chartreuses—both individually and collectively, melting into Monet's "Garden at Giverny" or aurora lights, creating a symphony of colors that I never knew existed. Because my world was bright and happy that day.

We decided to call her Magnolia after considering various flower names, such as Rosalie, Margarita, and even Hibiscus. None seemed to fit the picture we had of our unborn child.
When my wife Laura returned from the birthing room, the nurse brought the baby, zipped up in a yellow sleepsuit, and placed her quietly in her mother's arms, babbling softly like a duckie. All I could see was her wrinkled face and hairless skull bundled up in a raspy hospital blanket.
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Inside, I was melting with love: "You are one ugly kid, but I would die for you right here and now. I’m your daddy, baby. I will love you no matter what. Please get rid of the wrinkles and grow some hair. Life is tough for ugly kids," I said in my head because love needs no words. A look or a touch is enough.

I took the well-wrapped package from Laura and crooned my version of a nursery rhyme into her ear. When I offered her my finger, she grabbed it as if her life depended on it.
Dance to your dad,
My little lady.
Dance to your dad,
My little baby
 
I thought the song made her smile, but perhaps it was just a newborn reflex, or, as Laura insinuated to my outraged gasps, the child was passing gas.

I had to leave immediately. There was a bushfire 50 miles west of Riddells Creek, where we lived. Captain Farrell was revving the engines and furiously paging me to join him. I left Laura cradling Magnolia and telling her how much we loved her.

When I finally caught up with the crew, the fire had already devoured a hundred acres of bush, scorching dozens of wallabies and kangaroos, including several joeys still in their mothers’ pouches. I’m usually not oversentimental, but thinking of Magnolia, I wished I could unsee the charred remains. Or, at least, forget them. But I couldn’t do either. The parental instinct had already kicked in.

Two days later, Laura was back home from the hospital. After dinner consisting of celery, cucumber, and goat’s cheese salad, plus a celebratory bottle of wine for me, we sat in the dining room, planning Magnolia’s future. Well, Laura and I planned it, and the kid just dozed off. She essentially agreed with everything we proposed, including the school she’d go to (the pleated uniform skirt just above the knees and shiny patent leather shoes), the flowers she’d carry to her graduation party (magnolias, of course), and how we’d select her first boyfriend (a non-smoker with a decent haircut and no tattoos).

"You think she’ll be OK with the plans? Laura asked, munching on the last celery stalk while I drained the rest of the wine.

"Of course she will. "She's our child, and she'll do just as she is told," I said, my gaze resting lovingly on the little monkeyface, slowly beginning to shed the afterbirth wrinkles and turning pretty. No hair yet, but I was hopeful.

As she grew, so did my affection for her. I'd never imagined that love for one's child could fill up all the space in one's heart, leaving no room for other emotions. None at all, and for no one else—not even Laura. And I didn't think it would ever end. I took it for granted because it was a permanent feature, like a refrigerator or a towel rack. And nobody believes a towel rack will vanish one day.

We did a million things together—sweet Magnolia and me. We watched television and laughed at Thomas the Tank Engine. We baked Lamingtons and Tasmanian apple pies. We even joined the Adopt a Koala Firemen Support Foundation and held raffles and fundraisers. We went on picnics and chased Sharkie, the dog. And when I sang, my daughter danced barefoot to my version of her favorite nursery rhyme, "Dance to your Daddy, my little lady."

But the garden was always our favorite spot. Magnolia would trip over something as we walked through the long, swishing grass to our preferred area by the pool, where we'd spread a blanket under a maple tree and relax while Laura read a Beatrix Potter story while Magnolia got drowsy, resting her head in my lap.

I wished she would always remain Daddy’s little girl. I wished I could always care for her, like when she had a cold or a bruised knee, and I kissed it better. But as she grew older, she began to resent being fussed over.

"I’m too big for silly dances, Daddy," she sulked, and it hurt.

She was barely eight, but instead of me, she went to Sharkie, the dog, for comfort because he didn’t embarrass her publicly or ask her to dance with him. He just yapped, wagged his tail, and left her alone.

Laura understood Magnolia’s growing-up process much better than I did. Rolling her eyes, she said I was wasting my time trying to stifle our daughter, who was developing her own mind. I worried she’d probably choose a boyfriend with a dozen tattoos and dreadlocks in the future—and maybe even a smoker.

But she never got to pick out her graduation gown or even go on her first date. Three years later, we found her floating face-up in the pool, dressed in her yellow jammies. Her skin was creamy pale, her hair the color of wheat straw in fall, and her cornflower blue eyes wide open, staring directly at the sky. Sharkie, the dog, sat by the poolside, strangely quiet.

We never really knew why she’d gone to the garden in the middle of the night. Maybe she’d had a nightmare, gone looking for Sharkie, and tripped again on the hem of her pajamas?

With Sharkie at my side, I cradled her wet body until the police arrived, knowing Sweet Magnolia would never dance for me again. All I could do was croon into her ear, hoping she could still hear me wherever she was.

For me, the world was over—or at least the impressionist, aurora-lights Magnolia world was. Full of despair, chaos, and hopelessness, my universe now resembled the darkness of Munch’s "Scream."

Uninhibited emotions had always embarrassed me, and grief was an indulgence that was supposed to rank low on a tough fireman’s list of public rituals. And because I was so tired of talking, I went silent for several months while Laura cried. She confessed that although she fully identified with my sense of loss, she could no longer stand my black despair and silence.

"You think you hold the monopoly on grief and that no one’s pain is as big as yours. No one can or will ever understand it, so there’s no point in trying. You’re convinced that if you grieve long and hard enough, you’ll manage to conjure her back to life," she said bitterly.

"Please just let her go!" she added, then left, taking Sharkie, the dog, with her.

But I wasn’t alone. Magnolia visited me nearly every night. She skipped along to my song and tripped on the hem of the yellow jammies, her shoulders seemingly too slim to carry the weight of the world.

In some dreams, I couldn't see or hear her, but I knew she was there because I felt her presence. The vision was so vivid that, if I only dared, I could stretch my hand towards that faint presence and touch her. But I didn’t, fearing that I would bring back not my little cornflower-eyed baby but that last dark and somber image of Sweet Magnolia floating in the pool with her hair trailing behind her like sun-kissed seaweeds.

Sometimes, she’d come in the middle of the day, no matter where I was or who I was with.

"Please come back. I miss you," I begged, feeling my throat and heart hurt like they were jammed full of cactus spikes. She never answered.

Laura finally moved away from Riddell's Creek and remarried. I heard she and her new husband had two boys. I remained alone and kept working for the same fire department; only the station was new and purpose-built now, and the fire trucks got bigger and equipped with fancy computers.

One beautiful January evening, the pager beeped again, and Captain Farrell called me to join him and the crew at yet another bushfire. We set off in two trucks: Jim Henderson and four rookies in the bigger one, and Captain and I in the small one. We stopped at the Granville junction, where three roads led away from us. Captain and I took the one to the left. The others went straight ahead."We’ll keep in touch by radio," Captain said as we parted.

The sky was gray with dark, tattered clouds scuttling across the horizon, but if we were lucky, we would get rain soon.

A mile ahead, Captain stopped the truck, and we jumped out.

"Get the gear ready while I check how far the fire goes," he ordered.

In front of us, sparks crackled and spat. Spouts of flame licked eucalyptus trunks and bristled skyward, attempting to escape the bush's confinement and expand towards the hills or, even further on, towards the houses in Riddells Creek. Unless we could cut it off, or if it rained,

Just as I got the rest of the gear out, I saw the darkness behind the burning trees, the orange core of the fire, where the flames arched like a cat’s back, overtake the captain. His arm was flapping in the flames, as if to welcome me or instruct me to follow, and his head, still in the helmet, came into view. The flames leaped, devouring everything around them. There were several yards between me and the inferno, but I could feel the heat hiss against my skin. Then there was no more movement. Farrel disappeared.

It was utterly dark; the smoke was so thick that I could no longer see the orange flame tongues. That's when my shortwave radio crackled, coughed, and spat out some sounds. I expected to hear Henderson and his crew, but I heard her voice—Magnolia's.

"Walk right through the smoke, Daddy. Go straight ahead until you see a clearing. No trees are burning there. It’s just a big empty space. Then, turn right and walk to a small brook. No more than a minute, and you’ll be safe," she said.

"Right through the smoke? No way. That's where Captain got burned to a crisp," I answered in my head.

"Trust me, Daddy. Just a few yards," she coaxed in that sweet Magnolia voice. "Don’t you believe me? Look. I will show you."

I saw a silhouette, sharp and clear against the thick black smoke—dressed in yellow pajamas, milky pale skin, and hair like wheat straw in autumn—looking over her shoulder, her cornflower-blue eyes staring directly at me.

"Just follow me," she called, tripping slightly on the hem.

So I did. First, one reluctant step, then another. It took a few seconds for my brain to catch up with my eyes. Yes, the clearing was there. No trees, no dry grass licked by the blaze—only a lot of fumes. I should turn right, as she told me.

I kept walking until I came to the small brook that stopped the fire. The curtain of smoke was right behind me. The heat still fingered my shoulders, but I was safe. I had no idea how, but I had walked through the epicenter without a burn.

The radio crackled again. I expected to hear her voice, but I heard the song instead.

Dance to your Daddy,
My little lady
Dance to your Daddy…

I stood quietly, hoping to see her silhouette again—a flash of yellow, that skipping gait... But as much as I strained my eyes, the only thing I could see was the moon playing hide and seek with the clouds, and all I could hear was the faint fizz of rain beginning to softly extinguish the burning bush and the wistful hum of wind that broke the silence.
And I was able to let Magnolia go.


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 JB Polk is Polish by birth, a citizen of the world by choice. First story short-listed for the Irish Independent/Hennessy Awards, Ireland, 1996.  Since she went back to writing in 2020, more than 100 of her stories, flash fiction and non-fiction, have been accepted for publication. She recently won 1st prize in the  International Human Rights  Arts Movement literary contest.