you sat under the table with me

Fiction by Lauren Purnell

One sunny day during recess, Sarah had the clever idea to scamper under the plastic picnic table and hide. The teachers always told us to stay in their sight and out of trouble, but she never listened. 

“Look,” she whispered, “That one looks like a sword.” She picked it up—barely longer than her hand, and poked me with it. I giggled. A sparrow came and joined us—hopped toward us, turned its head from side to side, hopped closer. Sarah fed the little bird a seed. She kept seeds in her pocket, for some reason. Maybe for moments like this.

“We’re going to be best friends forever,” she said. And she told me what she wanted to be when she got older—a pediatrician—and how she would move far away from her parents and her mean nanny. And Sarah said she would take me with her. 

The next day, Sarah didn’t come to school. 

Before Mrs. Satterfield took attendance, I raised my hand. 

The teacher blinked. “Yes, Ethan?” 

“Where’s Sarah?” I asked. 

Her eyes darted to the floor, then the ceiling, then to me. “Sarah’s not part of our class anymore.” 

And because I was a curious and nosy child, I asked why. Mrs. Satterfield didn’t answer. Instead, she continued on with the schedule, promising to talk to me in private. She never did. 

I learned a week later that Sarah and her family moved to Arlington, Texas. It was a last minute decision, made by her father. She sent me a letter eight days later, in her big, loopy, excited handwriting. Sarah signed it with her name, a smiley face, and a promise that she would come back. 

I waited a year. Sarah did not come back—not even for the holidays. For the first month, Sarah sent a weekly letter. She told me about her travel softball league. She told me about the pretty yellow birds—called the American Goldfinch, I later learned—outside her bedroom window. She told me how she got into a fight at school, because some middle school boy wouldn’t leave her and her brother alone. 

The last letter from her was on April 2. When they stopped, I asked my parents about her every day. And my mother would tell me: “I’m sure she’s busy with all her new friends. You’ll hear from her again.” 

I grew tired of waiting. Every recess after she left, I sat under the table by myself. I cried some days. I build small sand castles and fairy houses. I wrote both of our initials in the dirt. When a teacher found me, I screamed and screamed until they left me alone, to play under the table. 

###

“Do you have everything?” my partner asked, loading my blue duffle bag into the trunk. I nodded. He wrapped his arm around my waist and kissed my cheek, his beard rubbing against my skin. We were driving back to Roanoke. I’d moved away ten years ago to attend college. I met Jason in graduate school, fell head over heels for him, and married him after graduation. He had a nice house in the suburbs, and two cats. 

Without Sarah, I didn’t like Roanoke, so I left. I didn’t want to visit, either. My parents were clear that once I turned eighteen, I was on my own. They only opened their doors during Thanksgiving and Christmas. Sometimes, my mother texted on my birthday. “Ethan, honey, can you pick up canned tomatoes from the store?” she said when I came home. “I’m making ziti tonight.” 

I wordlessly slipped on my coat and started up the Jeep. 

And because nothing was where it should be, it took me seven minutes—instead of one—to find the canned goods aisle. I grabbed the brand my mother liked. I grabbed two packs of dried seaweed for Jason to snack on, and a bag of mini powdered donuts for myself. 

Eyelids heavy from exhaustion, I placed each item on the conveyer belt. The cashier began: “That will be thirteen dollars and—” 

I fumbled through my wallet for cash, until I realized I hadn’t heard the rest of the total. I glanced up, and I saw her again. 

Sarah didn’t have stringy brown hair anymore; now, it was bleach blonde and chopped into a mullet. She had a tattoo sleeve on her right arm. Her lobes, helix, and septum were pierced. If Sarah’s warm eyes and lopsided smile weren’t etched into my brain in permanent marker, I would have stared blankly, impatiently tapping my sneaker against the linoleum floor. But they were, so I uttered her name, trying not to spill all of my emotions on the floor of Walmart. “Sarah?” 

Sarah grinned. “Ethan.” She disregarded the line gathering behind me and embraced me in her arms. “Is this okay?” she mumbled into my winter coat. I nodded, tears welling up in my eyes—happy tears, mixed with confusion. I didn’t understand why she came back, when I had already left. Was she waiting for her past to fully fade, before returning to her hometown? Or was she looking for me all this time? 

The two people behind me, with carts full of groceries, shook their head and went to another line. Now, Sarah and I had all the time we needed. She rung me up, then clocked out early. She assured me her manager wouldn’t mind. I didn’t believe her. 

The sun was setting, and I had three missed calls from my mother. We sat in my car and split the donut bag, powdered sugar caked on our hands as we caught each other up.  

I noticed Sarah’s eyes on me as I popped the last donut into my mouth. She had an inquisitive stare. “What?” I said. 

“How did you remember me after so long?” 

I shrugged. “You’re an easy person to remember. You did weird stuff, like hide under tables at recess.” 

Sarah laughed, and it scattered through the air like sunshine—or perhaps, like the birdseed she used to keep in her pocket. “Fair enough.”