After I assembled this tray, it took me awhile to figure out whose story this was. At first I assumed it was the green woman because her size dwarfed the other characters. Then the little boy drew my attention but I couldn't figure out his relationship to the woman. I studied the props, the rifle, the safe, the lock, the nest, the Thespian mask, but nothing came to me. The large building seemed to indicate that this takes place in a small town but nothing more than that. The small rapper guy was a mystery and then this story began to take shape.
"It's not right, leaving Oliver with the housekeeper. She hardly speaks English, for godsake."
As though it were all her fault, Rupert steered Maudie with a vengeance through the thicket of bicycle messengers and taxis that clogged Main Street these days. Maudie didn't need his guiding hand, of course. Except for her mantle of grief, Maudie was neither ill nor frail. It had become his habit, this claustrophobic hovering of his. It began the day Ruth told them about the accident. In front of mourners, and after forty years of a distracted, irritable attention, Rupert assumed the expected pose of tender husband supporting his grief-crushed wife. But as soon as the bewildered well-wishers delivered their awkward condolences those first wrenching days, he would slip into the den, not appearing again until breakfast in a fresh crisp shirt, Windsor knot in place with no inquiry as to how Maudie spent her own anguished night. Eighteen months later, he was back in the nuptial bed, but that was the only change. In public, he doted, in private he disconnected himself from her the way he would unplug a lamp from the wall, speaking to her only when he had one of his frequent grievances about their daughter-in-law and the way she was raising their four-year old grandson. Rupert had wondered if he still had to refer to Ruth as his daughter-in-law, and he determined to relieve himself of that insult upon her marriage.
"Ruth knows what she's doing, dear." Maudie jumped back as skateboarder aimed for the curb she was just mounting. "The woman has her own family and knows how to care for children."
"Her children are barefoot and selling orange slices by the side of the road in the Yucatan jungle while she's set up here in the guest room of my son's house."
"Rupert, you don't know that about her children. Ruth was lucky to find her, the state she was in after, well after it all."
"She's not a proper au pair. She was hired to clean the toilets and scrub the floor not attend to the needs of boy who has lost his father. Ruth just dumbs Oliver into her lap whenever she pleases and runs off to do god knows what. Lay about with that salesman and abandon her son to a stranger, a foreigner, that's what."
"Rupert, women don't wear widow's weeds anymore. Allen owns his own business and does very well, better than Rod would have. I don't know why you can't give him that. Anyway, things will be different after the wedding. Men don't understand about weddings, how much work they are. Ruth is moving on with her life. It is what Rod would have wanted."
"I know what Rod would have wanted. A wife who kept his memory alive for their son."
Maudie knew enough to let the matter drop there. When Rupert started down the road towards Ruth's deficiencies, it would end in a frenzy of anger against Maudie for defending her. Distraction was her only defense.
"Any news from the lawyers?"
The mountain lodge belonged to Rod's boss, who, on the advice of a consultant hired to address flagging morale in the company, hosted a bonding weekend for the executive staff. A newly hired finance guy with skin the thickness of cellophane had embarrassed himself by losing badly at Texas Hold'em. One of the R&D guys further humiliated him by advising to sit out a hand and wait for his luck to change. He sulked around the room while Rod scooped up the cards, shuffled them in one hand and dealt a new round. The fellow who took his seat won the hand. Rod dealt again.
"Is this real," he asked, pointing to a hunting rifle hanging on the wall of the game room in the basement of the house.
"No need to own a gun if you don't plan to use it," the boss said. He was looking at his cards and without looking up, added $20 to the pot. A moment later the finance guy said "Stick em up," with a mock gangster leer. The startled card players looked at each other, one gaffawed like an adolescent until the boss said, "Put that down, you idiot, it's loaded." The guy's gaze settled on Rod, sitting next to the boss, who waved the prankster away with a fist full of cards. Rod and his chair fell backwards before he ever heard the shot. Rupert's lawyers were suing the man and his company for wrongful death.
Rupert opened the door of the Richmond Day Cafe for Maudie and said, "I'm thinking of suing Ruth for custody of Oliver. She's clearly unfit."
I learned some interesting things about this story from the props. The headless mannikin gave me the clue that Ruth was getting married, and she is losing her head. She is still grieving Rod and the marriage is an escape I think. She is looking for safety, she has lost her nest. The tragedy/comedy faces mimic her life, the gay marriage plans masking her grief. Oliver is in the background, distant from all of them. They are too consumed with their grief and anger for him to be in the center of their world. The gun is near him, about to go off again when the custody battle ensues. The scales of justice have appeared to introduce the legal fight, and address the question of justice, from exacting justice for Rod's death, to what is just for the boy Oliver, to the issue of Ruth's competence. But ultimately, this is a story about grief, and it is the heart-which is an empty box in fact, that is the clue. Their grief has left them with nothing in their hearts, especially Rupert's. He is the least appealing character to me, but really the one in most need of compassion. He has no love with Maudie, he has lost his beloved son, and has no resources to help him care for those who are left. He has a hard road ahead of him, to fill up that heart.
As I look at the sandtray after beginning this story, I see that the exercise helped me focus on the point of view, and after I finished the writing, I saw how the props influenced the story, though I was not conscious of them, except for the rifle, as I was writing. Now I can see everything in tray playing a part in the story, though none of that was clear until I completed the piece and went back to look at the tray. In retrospect, the props anchor this story.
