Finding Frances

My name is Sandy, and this is my story.

I am twelve years old. I have friends. I’m cool - yeah, I said it. We live in Bursburry, which is west of Anapolis by about 50 miles. It’s a nice place. There are lots of evergreen trees - the type that never lose their leaves when it gets cold. I like that those ones stay around all year long, but it’s fun to stomp on the crunchy leaves of the other trees when they die and fall down. My dad always makes a pile of them and lets me run and jump into it, like I’m jumping into a swimming pool - “cannonball!”

My friend Marissa and I walk to school each day, and of course, this means we also walk back. On our walk, all the houses look the same. Their yards look nice, and the houses too. That is, except for one. 

While every house we walk by has yards full of grass, there is one that only has dirt - just some brown dirt and a few weeds. When my dad has his friends around, I’ve heard them talk about this house. They use words like “eyesore” and “no shame.” I’m not sure what they mean, but I can tell they don’t like the house. 

________________________________________

My name’s Sandy, and I’m sixteen years old. A lot has changed in my life since we last spoke. I’ve grown up quite a bit, gotten myself fit, my parents have split - well, mostly my dad quit - the only thing that hasn’t changed is it: that house on the street. The dirt’s the same. The weeds are the same. But, my dad’s not around anymore to complain about them. People have grown used to it, I suppose. There was some talk about making the old man who lived there do something about it, or else. I was never quite sure what the “or else,” was supposed to mean, but I imagine it wasn’t something you’d wish for when you blow out your birthday candles. 

The house was a frequent target of pranks when Halloween came around. It was ding-dong-ditched - but that never worked because the door never opened. It was egged. His yard was forked. And, of course, the perennial teepee. Not a Halloween went by that this house wasn’t covered with toilet paper by the end of it. I actually threw a few rolls onto it myself last year. In the morning, there was enough toilet paper around the house to clog all the toilets in a small country. 

That’s how this story all started - with enough toilet paper to destroy the pipes of a small nation. 

________________________________________

My name’s Sandy, and I’m fifteen years old. I have just teepeed my first house. It’s not Halloween any longer, but the early hours of November 1st. I sneak into my house through the backside, thinking I did a good job of it. But, clearly, I did not, because over breakfast the next morning, my mom confronts me, asking me where I was, why I came home so late. I tell her a lie, but I’m not even sure why I bother - there’s no believable excuse for a fifteen-year-old girl to come home at 3am, and sneak in the back door. 

Then, my mom casually mentions, “so, Mr. Larson’s house was teepeed last night.”

She waits, clearly looking to see how I would react. I keep a stone face as best I can. “‘’Appens every year! What’s strange about that?” I say, trying too hard to sound casual. 

My mom, as moms do, sees right through this, and looks me straight in the eye and asks the question. I confess. 

If my parents hadn’t gotten divorced, my mom probably wouldn’t have acted this way. But, now that she was a single parent, she had to be the nice one and the strict one. 

She tells me that I must go and clean up “every last ply” of toilet paper from that “poor old man’s” house. Remember, we threw enough toilet paper to clog all the toilets of a small nation. 

I tell her it can’t be done. It’s not possible. There will be toilet paper on that house until the end of time.

“I’m not moved, so you’d better get moving over there,” she says. 

I can see that she’s serious. So, I walk down the street, past all the houses with their nicely kept yards, until I get to the only one that sticks out - and it really sticks out today. While the other houses have a variety of Halloween decorations out from the night before, our house in question looks like a place where the ancient Egyptians practiced making mummies. You could hardly even see the house. 

I’d brought along a garbage bag, and so I started picking up the toilet paper and shoving it into it. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the tradition of teepeeing - it’s not a very nice one. People do it because it takes about 500x longer to clean it up than it does to throw it, and if it happens to rain that night - forget about it. You’re going to have toilet paper in your yard until you sell the place and move. 

Luckily, it hasn’t rained so far. I pick up the toilet paper, and shove it in the garbage bag. And I do it again. And again. And again. 

After about four hours, I’m only just starting to see myself making progress. At this point, the front door opens, and an old man walks out, and stares silently from the porch. He’s old and gray, but at least he’s still got his hair. His shoulders are stooped over, his back a bit hunched forward. But it doesn’t look like he needs to use a walking cane. 

He stares at me for a few moments, and then hollers, “C’mon over. ‘Been ‘bout four hours at least, your belly’s got to be achin’. Come inside. Eat something!”

What he guessed at was true, so for the first time I walk into the house that I’d walked by a million times before.

The place is quite normal. There’s nothing creepy about it, even so soon after Halloween. It’s clean, it’s pleasant, maybe a bit plain. The only thing that stands out to me is that it feels a bit bachelor - it was missing a woman’s touch, as they say. Word was that he’d never had a family, nor a wife. So, I should have expected this, but in a neighborhood full of families, I hadn’t thought about it until I walked inside. 

“We’ve not met. My name’s Larson. Garry Larson. You can just call me Garry - and that’s Garry with two ‘R’s should you ever need to spell it,” Garry says. 

“My name’s Sandra,” I say as I walk down the hallway toward his kitchen. 

Garry with two ‘R’s fixes me a sandwich that is surprisingly tasty – but what is even more surprising is the relaxed, friendly conversation he keeps up as he makes it. Garry was, by all accounts, what we called a “shut-in.” None of the neighbors ever heard from him, and I’d lived right nearby for 15 years and never laid eyes on him. 

“’Spose you’re ‘bout – what – first year of high school? I remember that time: being told that this is the first year that really counts. That, now is when your grades will decide the rest of your future. Well, don’t worry – they’ll say the same thing right ‘fore they ship you off to your first year of college.”

I finish the sandwich and there is nothing else I can say: “Mr. Larson-”

“As I said, dear, call me Garry.”

“Okay. Uhm, Garry. I’m really sorry for what we did to your house last night,” I say with shame. 

Garry loudly exclaims, “are you kiddin’ me? Don’t you sweat it for one second! This sort of thing happens all the time – likely ‘cause of my tendency to forgo the tending of my lawncare. But, you’re the first person I have ever seen spend so long trying to remedy the situation. I just had to invite you in to say personally: apology accepted.” 

I immediately feel guilty because the only reason I am here is because my mother made me do it. If she hadn’t, I would be sleeping in instead of sitting across from Garry. 

I look up into Garry eyes, and he can read the whole situation.

“Mom made ya come clean it, am I right?” Garry says. 

I look down at the table and tell him she did. 

“Well, good to hear there are still some strict parents out there. ‘lot of ‘em gone soft this past generation. Aren’t a lick of good at givin’ a punishment when a punishment’s what’s needed,” Garry says. 

That was all Garry had to say about the teepee incident. He began asking me about my life, my dreams, my aspirations. But he didn’t ask the normal, run-of-the-mill questions that uninterested adults ask teenagers, such as: 

• What grade are you in?

• What’s your favorite subject?

• Have you given college any thought?

• What major would you pick?

He first figured out the things that mattered to me, and then always asked a series of follow-up questions until he fully understood the answer. I think Garry was the first adult I had ever met that talked to me like I was just like him – an equal. He treated me like a peer. And it was shocking how well a 76-year-old man could remember what it was like to be 15. 

I left his house that day with an expanded understanding of what friendship could mean. I also left a lot of toilet paper in his yard, but Garry told me not to worry about it in that warm, Garry-kind-of-way, so I believed him when he said it. 

________________________________________

In the week after Halloween, when I walk home with Marissa, I am drawn towards Garry’s house every time I see it. So, I knock on his door one day, and without hesitating, he invites me in, and sincerely asks me how I am. Very quickly, I make a habit out of this. Soon, I say goodbye to Marissa, and visit Garry every day after school. He always has so much to say, but more importantly to me – he always has so much to ask. He had a way of talking to you, where he would find what mattered to you, and then wouldn’t stop asking you about it until he was sure he understood you entirely. This feeling – of being understood – was the greatest feeling in the world to me. 

I would try to do the same back to Garry, but I wasn’t as skilled at it. Somehow, he could get more conversation out of a fifteen-year-old than I could out of someone with 5x the life experience. 

But, over the passing weeks and months, I improved. Finally, one day chatting across the table in his kitchen, a name comes out of Garry’s mouth for the first time: Frances. His whole demeanor changed immediately, and for a few moments he seemed to sink back into himself, lost in thought. 

I ask him who Frances is. 

“She was… the one,” he says. 

Garry tells me that Frances was the love of his life, and he should have married this woman. The always sunny, friendly, smiling, joking Garry is stone-faced with regret. 

Garry’s smile and conversational skill was gone for that rest of that afternoon, and all he was able to say was:

“I should have married that woman.”

“I should have married that woman.”

“I should have married that woman.”

________________________________________

After that afternoon, conversations with Garry were never quite the same. Well, he was mostly the same, but after that first confession of his love for Frances, he couldn’t help but bring her up at least once or twice every time I visited. 

“If her father hadn’t disapproved of me so much, she would be here with me right now. I know it.”

“If I had just had the courage to run away with her and get married, I’d have a granddaughter by now, probably about your age.”

“If I had married that woman, I would be happy.”

“You’re not happy, Garry?” I ask.

“Well, I think you know me well enough by now. I’m happy – enough. But, I’m not whole if you know what I mean?” Garry says. 

I thought I did, so I say so. “If you could go back, what exactly would you do differently?”

“I’d ‘ave married that damn woman,” Garry says firmly, but in a joking way. He pauses, then says, “Okay, I know I’m avoiding the question. What would I do differently? What would I do differently?” he repeats. 

Garry’s mind seems so far away. It gives me some appreciation for how long life is, and I try to imagine what it would be like to try to remember something that happened to me over 50 years ago. I’d been alive 15 years, and I could only really remember 10 of them at the most. 

Garry finally snaps out of his reverie. “Well,” he starts slowly, “If I had ignored her parents, I think things would have worked out. They were the cause of all our issues. They just plain didn’t like me – her brothers too actually.” 

I don’t know many people, but Garry is certainly among the most likable I have ever met, so this is strange to me. “What didn’t they like about you?” I ask.

“Well… same story as ever: they didn’t think I was good enough for their precious little girl,” he says. “I wasn’t educated enough, from a proper enough family. They wanted more for her than me.” Garry stops again and looks down at the kitchen table. “But, I ‘spose if I had acted differently, they might have grown to accept me over time.” 

“Acted differently, how?”

“Well, Sandy, when you’re young – hell, when you’re any age – you want the world to take you seriously. But, when you’re young they don’t. I’m an old fool, and yet if I put on some nice clothes, the world will take me very seriously. You, even as a pretty girl, they won’t – simply on account of you being so young.”

“But you and Frances were the same age, weren’t you?” I ask.

“Yes, we were.”

“So, shouldn’t they expect her to date someone her own age?” I ask.

“Yeah, you’re probably right. I guess I mean if I had been born into a better family, they would have accepted me. But also – what I was getting at – is that it’s not right to separate someone from their love, just because you want to pair them with someone more practical. I resented them from the beginning–”

“You what?”

“Resented them – I didn’t like them. I held a grudge because of it, y’know?” Garry says. 

I nod. 

“So, I ‘spose I never gave liking them a proper chance.”

Garry stares off again. “I ‘spose if I’d known what the consequences of being disagreeable with them would be, that I would have tried harder. Looking back now, I would give up all my principles and core values, just to have Frances back.” 

Garry pauses to take a sip of his drink. “But whatever the method would be to get her back – if I could go back – that’s what I would do: whatever gets her back to me. Whether it’s playing nice with her family or running away from them altogether – it doesn’t matter. Because if I had married Frances, I’d be happy.”

Garry and I look around at his house, and it never felt emptier. 

________________________________________

After that conversation, Garry only got worse. I think he had been hiding how sad he truly was from me all this time, and now that he’d told me all about Frances, he felt more comfortable sharing his negative emotions with me as well as his positive ones. But it seemed like his only negative emotions were about Frances. 

One day, I ask him if he has any photos of her. He runs (as fast as a 76-year-old man can) downstairs to his basement and returns with a box. It’s full of relics of their relationship. Apparently, they had spent a long time apart – or maybe that was just how people communicated 50 years ago – because there were countless love letters exchanged between them. They wrote to each other for many years. 

Then Garry shows me a picture of Frances. She’s beautiful – I mean, any woman that keeps a man awake at night 50 years later had better be. But what shocks me is that Garry – my Garry Larson with the worst yard on the block – was stunning. He was so handsome that he could have easily been a model if he had ever wanted to be. My eyes dart from the photo to the old man, and back again. It was unbelievable. It makes me wonder if losing the love of your life somehow changes your face. Can 50 years of unhappiness make you ugly? I don’t know.

I look over the letters again. There are so many of them. On them, I saw her surname: Christenson. Frances Christenson. 

Suddenly, a thought occurs to me that I’m surprised hadn’t yet.

“Garry, have you ever tried to find Frances?” I ask. 

Garry heaved a deep sigh. “Many times,” he says. “All I know is that after our time, she married another man, and divorced him after a year or two. That’s the last I know of her, and that’s got to be about 45 years ago now.” Garry looks me right in the eye and says, “I don’t know if she’s married or unmarried. I don’t know if she’s alive or dead.”

________________________________________

Garry was a smart, wise, and kind person – but he was also old, I reasoned, so as a 15-year-old, there was something I knew about that he didn’t: Facebook. 

I asked Garry if he remembered what she changed her name to when she married, and he’d told me it was to Jacobs. I searched for “Frances Jacobs” on the website, and printed out the profile picture of any Frances Jacobs that seemed to be the right age. 

During my next visit to his house, I tell him what I had done, and pull out all the photos. He looks through the photos carefully, one at a time, until he gets to one. He stops – frozen. He looks as if he might never blink again. Then finally, he softly says, “that’s her. That’s my Frances.” Tears fall from Garry’s eyes. 

I ask Garry if he’d like to see her. 

“More than anything.”

________________________________________

Frances had moved nearly across the entire country, to some small town outside of Detroit. It would take us about 15 hours to drive there – and I know what you’re thinking – of course, I asked my mom. She thought it was a strange request, but when I explained it, she understood. 

Since I was 15, I had just gotten my driving permit, which means I was allowed to drive before getting my license, so long as an adult was in the car with me. This was good, because Garry would get tired quickly and ask me to start driving again. I don’t know if we would have made it if he had to drive the whole way without my help.

“Do you know what you’re going to say to her?” I ask him.

“What is there to say, except: ‘Francis, I love you and I should have married you’,” Garry says with conviction.

“Do you think she still loves you?” I ask.

Garry fell silent, then says, “She must… I know she does.”

Minutes passed. “She could be married,” I say. 

“Yeah,” Garry sighs. 

We drive on, until we get to a reasonably priced hotel near Frances’ house, and stay there, so that Garry wouldn’t be tired when he made his second, first impression on the woman he loves. I think of the strangeness of that: having to make a first impression on someone you were prepared to marry. It sounds much worse than a normal first impression on a date, during an interview, and so on.

We get up  the next morning, and our plan is to drive over soon after. So, we do just that. We drive over to her house – I do the driving. I figure I should let Garry think about what to say. Frances’ house is in a wooded area, with lots of plant life, and houses with long driveways. It was the kind of place where you couldn’t really even see the house from the road, you just know it’s there because there’s a driveway and a mailbox with an address on it. 

We find that driveway with the right mailbox, which has the right address written on it. I pull the car to the side of the road, and tell Garry we’re here. He looks nervous. 

I sit in the car with Garry. He doesn’t move. He’s frozen. I don’t know what to say. But, after 15 minutes of this, I feel I have to make something happen. “Garry, it’s that house right there,” I say, pointing. “You’ve been waiting 50 years for this.”

Finally, Garry says something: “I can’t do this!”

“Garry?”

“I just can’t do it,” he says.

“Okay, that’s fine, Garry. That’s fine,” I say. I drive down the street a little bit to get away from Frances’ house while we decide our next move. 

“Garry, I have her phone number. You could call her. Do you want to do that? Could you do that?” I ask. 

Garry nods, and agrees. 

“You ready?” I ask.

“Ready,” Garry says. 

I hand the phone to Garry. 

“Hello,” says an old but cheery female voice.

“Hello Frances, how are you?” Garry asks.

“Fine, who’s calling?”

“Well, I want you to guess,” Garry says. 

“Oh, I can’t,” Frances laughs. “I don’t know.”

“Well, you think hard. Doesn’t my voice sound familiar to you?” Garry asks.

There is a pause, then Frances says, “no.”

“No,” Garry repeats quietly. 

“No.”

“It’s been a long time, Frances,” Garry says.

“You got me wondering now: who is this?”

Garry doesn’t say anything. 

“Hello,” says Frances. 

“Yeah, I’m here,” says Garry

“Okay.”

There is a long pause, so I whisper to Garry, “tell her who you are!”

“Uhh, you don’t know who I am? Think hard. I don’t sound familiar to you?” Garry asks.

“No… Oh, wait a minute. Is this Jim Beckley?” Frances asks.

“Who?”

“Beckley.”

“No,” Garry replies.

“No… Oh.”

“Tell her who you are!” I whisper.

“Yeah, alright, I’m gonna tell you who I am,” Garry says.

“Okay.”

“Garry Larson.” There is a long, awkward pause. “Hello?”

“Hello,” Frances repeats.

“Garry Larson,” Garry says again. 

Frances pauses, and says, “Garry Larson?”

“L-A-R-S-O-N.”

“Okay, hi Garry, how are you?” Frances asks.

“You remember me now, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do – well of course I do. Well, what are you up to?”

“Oh, tryin’ to do right.”

Frances laughs and says, “Okay, is that hard?”

“So, uh, I’ve been thinking about you a lot of times and I said finally I’m just gonna call ya.”

“Okay.”

“And… so…”

“Well, what’s going on in your life?”

“I’m out in Washington now, still working.”

“Well, good for you, that’s what you always wanted to do.”

“Right.”

“Do you have any children?”

“No, I should have married you – maybe… you – you know how it is.”

Frances laughs and says, “Well I have 9 grandchildren.”

“Really?”

“So, I’m a grandmother with 9 grandchildren.”

Garry talks to Frances for another 10 or so minutes about their past, about things that didn’t seem to matter. Then he asks her, “Well, are you happy?”

“Am I happy? Yeah, I’m happy… why?” says Frances.

“You’re on your second marriage, right?” says Garry.

“Mmmhmm,” replies Frances.

“Doesn’t seem possible. How many years has it been?”

“Well, let’s see. David and I’ve been married for almost 47 – oh we have been married for 47 years.”

“Hmm. Well, the years go by.”

“They do go by.”

“The snap of a finger, they go by,” Garry says. 

Frances laughs.

“Have you thought about me much through the years?” Garry asks. 

“Of course.”

“Did you ever wanna pick up the phone and call me?” Garry asks.

“Of course.”

“But you never did… was it hard?” Garry says. There’s a pause. “Hello?”

“Yeah.”

“Was it hard to do that?” There is an even longer pause. “Can you hear me, Frances?”

“Yes, I can hear you. I can hear you.”

“Well… I, uh, you’ve been on my mind so much and I just had to call you.”

“Well, thank you.”

“You know, just to hear your voice. My life is… it’s cheered me up so.” Garry rambles. 

“Well, good for you, are you alright?”

“Am I alright?” Garry asks.

“Mmhmm. Yes, health-wise.” She replies.

“Yes.”

“Well, take care of yourself, and it was nice to hear you, and God Bless you.”

“Bye bye, God Bless.”

Garry hangs up the phone, looks at me, and asks, “how do you feel?”

“How do I feel, how do you feel?” I ask.

Garry looks off into the distance and ignores the question. Eventually, I ask, “Do you still want to go inside?”

“No, I talked to her. That’s enough. I couldn’t marry her. It wouldn’t work – now,” says Garry.

“Do you feel like she’s over you?” I ask.

“Well, she sounded like it was just memories. She didn’t even recognize my voice,” says Garry. 

“You okay?” I ask. 

“Yeah.”

“You wanna go home?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

Questions

·         Does Garry sound like a good person? What makes you think so?

·         Garry and Sandy’s conversation from P4, L14 to P5, L24 uses many if… would sentences. What are these sentences trying to communicate? Can you notice anything in common with all of them?

·         Have you ever met anyone old that never got over a lost love?

·         Do you think Sandy would have become friends with Garry if her dad hadn’t left?

·         Do you think Garry and Sandy will continue to be friends?

After our failure outside of Detroit, I continue to see Garry. In fact, I feel more obligated than ever, because I feel responsible for causing him all this disappointment. If I hadn’t found Frances, Garry would still be thinking that she was out there, somewhere in the world, still loving him and wishing he was with her. If I hadn’t found Frances, I wouldn’t be feeling so guilty right now. But, if I hadn’t been feeling so guilty, I wouldn’t have had the desire to go downstairs and look at his collection of photos and letters from Frances.

I start reading the letters.

They were written by someone who truly loved Garry. You could look anywhere and find bits like: “each day makes me love you more. It’s hard to explain. In a way it is unexplainable,” or “we can work together for the kind of future that we want.” But, then as I read more, I started to find much more troubling things in the letters, things like, “One thing that I’ll have in the man I marry is purity. If you don’t want a girl like that, I’m sorry,” or “I knew that you wanted to know just how far that would go. Well, you know now. Let us drop that subject now,” or “I don’t believe you can love anyone if you don’t respect them.” Frances would underline things when she was angry – and there were a lot of things underlined in the letters.

The more I read the letters, the clearer it becomes. Garry had cheated on Frances – many times. She stayed with him. He did it more. The more I read, the more I saw how he mistreated her. He wasn’t a nice man. He wasn’t a good boyfriend.

I sit in the basement and wonder what the man in the house above me is really like.

Questions

·         Does this ending change the way you see Garry? Why or why not?

·         Garry’s bad actions happened 50 years ago. Is this enough time to forgive someone? Do you think Sandy will?

·         Famous movie director, Orson Welles, said: “If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.” Do you think this is true? Why or why not?

·         Do you think Garry and Sandy will continue to be friends?