Tuesday

1999

Sandra knew she must have finished the day on set. Maggie and their friends must have descended behind the wall. Joey and the rest of the puppeteers must have congratulated her on her first day as an actor. Dorian—Dory, she had to remember he wanted to be called that—must have grabbed her in a smothering hug after he called it a wrap. She must have returned it.

She didn’t remember any of it. When she began to sing with Maggie, holding herself together with small-town hunger and grit, she had gone somewhere else. Something else—someone else had taken over her. Someone better.

When she came back to her body, Sandra was in the middle of another performance. This time, the venue was Saint Beatrice’s United Methodist Church. The network had decided she had to go to Mama’s funeral after all. The public relations department had insisted. The network couldn’t chance a scandal so early on in their newest talent’s career. They had even sent Caroline along to keep their eyes on Sandra and make sure she made it back to set within 24 hours.

Sandra reminded herself that she only had to get through the song. At the reading of the will, Attorney Pruce had told her and her father that one of her mother’s final wishes was for Sandra to sing her favorite song at her funeral. At least Sandra wouldn’t have to learn a new piece. Mama had sung this one to hear every night before bed.

Sitting in the hard wooden pew where she had spent every Sunday morning as a girl, Sandra thought of all the lessons she had learned in the small sanctuary under the eyes of Brother Joel and the beautiful dead man on the stained-glass cross.

Make sure the hem of your skirt never rises above your knee.

Never ruin a conversation with talk of unpleasant things.

Smile kindly when a deacon’s eyes linger on you a little too long.

Smile kindly when Brother Joel starts to scream about you and everyone you love burning in hell for eternity.

Always smile kindly.

And, most importantly, do all the good you can for all the people you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, as long as ever you can. No matter what.

She tried to keep her mind on that last commandment as she watched her black heels walk up the thick blue carpet of the stairs. Singing this song was what Mama wanted. It was doing good. She was commanded to do it.

The smell of charring salt on fresh fried chicken from the kitchen behind the stage brought her back to Mama’s kitchen in their little white house. She looked down into the casket and saw her mother in an old-fashioned rose pink cotton dress. The funeral director had painted the makeup on her corpse with a precision that she would have appreciated. Looking down at her mother, Sandra hoped she was finally happy. Not just smiling, but happy.

In the moments before Dr.  Jo, her old piano teacher started the song, Sandra felt the eyes burning her skin again. There were only a few dozen people in St. Bee’s on this Tuesday morning, but Sandra’s heart pounded like she was in the center of the Coliseum. Her father and Caroline, the two people she most needed to please, were in the front pew staring up at her with expectation. Everyone in the church was waiting for her to do good. Her head reeled at the thunder of Dr. Jo’s cough and the earthquake of Brother Joel opening a peppermint. By instinct, she looked towards her mother.

She was gone. Maggie was lying in the casket instead. Dr. Jo played the first lilting notes of “The Rainbow Connection,” and Sandra went away again.

2024

The next day was more of what had become Mikey’s normal. He woke up at 7:55 to Bree’s compulsory good morning and text-message briefing. He left for the firm at 8:50. He tried to enjoy being a lawyer while he still could. Then he left for the campaign at exactly 5:00.

He turned right off of Main and left onto Reading. Coming to a stop sign, Mikey wished he could take the ramp to the interstate and leave town. He could hang another shingle in another small town—maybe Redford or Gaynor. That’s all he had ever wanted to do: practice law and help people. He knew that winning this campaign would mean going into politics as a career and leaving the law behind for good.

Driving down Reading towards Highway 130, Mikey remembered that he had at least been able to take a new client that day. Dr. Wei Tate, the family doctor who had seen Bree and Mikey their whole lives and seen their parents even before then, was finally retiring. Mikey was happy for Dr. Tate. The old man certainly deserved to rest.

Mikey only wished he was doing something to help Dr. Tate instead of representing Quality Care, the regional hospital chain that was buying out the old doctor’s clinic in an offer he couldn’t refuse. Mikey had read about how hospital monopolization hurt small towns like Dove Hill, but their grand opening would bring dozens of new jobs and a guaranteed ribbon-cutting. Mikey told himself it was the greater good. Even if it wasn’t, Quality Care’s offer to start a financial relationship with a rising star politician was one that Bree couldn’t let him refuse.

Lost in dreading work on the Quality Care acquisition, Mikey realized he had arrived at the publicist’s office. Set as close to the town line as it could be, the building looked ashamed to be in a place like Dove Hill. It wouldn’t have been within the municipal limits but for a favor the construction company’s owner owed Mayor LeBlanc. Mikey wasn’t sorry for the distance. The building’s ostentatiously corporate aesthetic would definitely have disrupted the streets where he grew up.

“Walking in,” Mikey texted Bree. Bree responded with a question mark.

Passing the two-story’s unnecessary stainless-steel elevators, Mikey walked to the end of the entrance hall and took the stairs. He found the publicist’s office at the end of the hall that smelled like fresh ink and cold paper. The glass of the door was frosted and printed with “SCARNES AND BLUMPH” in large red letters.

Mikey entered a small overwhelmingly white lobby with a kind looking older lady sitting behind the desk. Her name plate read “Mary Ann.” Mikey approached her. “Hi there,” he smiled. She smiled back a bit surprised, like she had not been spoken to in some time. “Excuse me. I’m here for a meeting with Mr. Scarnes.”

“Of course,” she answered. It seemed like she was happy to have something to do. “Right this—”

Before Mary Ann could stand all the way up, Ryan Scarnes entered with the energy of a used car dealer. Without so much as acknowledging Mary Ann, Ryan reached out to shake Mikey’s hand. It was a demand. “Well hello, Mr. Dobson. Welcome to our humble abode.” Mikey glanced at Mary Ann who was already back in her chair as though she had never moved.

“Hi,” Mikey said while feeling his hand reach to meet Ryan’s. Mikey knew it was the right thing to do, but he thought his hand might leave the shake coated in grime. Despite Ryan’s clearly tailored suit, razor-straight teeth, and stone-set hair, Mikey couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something filthy about him. “I’m Mikey Dobson. Nice to meet you. Thank you for meeting with me today.”

Ryan looked down at Mary Ann. “Mary Jane, would you please get Mr. Dobson a sparkling water in a champagne flute?” Mikey didn’t bother to mention that he didn’t drink sparkling water. Turning back to Mikey, Ryan forced a laugh. “It’s a little early for champagne, but we can pretend.”

Ryan walked back down the hallway where he had emerged while continuing his monologue. Mikey assumed he was supposed to follow. When they reached the large conference room stuffed with as many mirrors and gilded paperweights as Ryan Scarnes’s idea of taste would allow, Bree was poring over a table covered in pictures of Mikey.

“Hey sis,” Mikey ventured.

“Hi,” Bree said, partially looking up from the oversized conference table. In the second she turned her eyes to him, Mikey saw that same flash of warmth.

“Good to see you…again,” Mikey joked while opening his arms for a hug.

Bree responded with a polite laugh and a reach for a more professional welcome. “You too. How long has it been? 21 hours?” Of course she knew the precise time.

Sinking into one of the gold-trimmed leather chairs, Mikey thought that Bree and Ryan looked like the actual politicians. Bree in her dark gray pantsuit and Ryan in his bespoke charcoal coat and glaring red tie. He laughed at himself as he looked down at his department store slacks and wholesale button-down.

“Now where were we, Ms. Dobson?” Ryan asked with a humility that almost broke under the weight of pretense.

Bree seemed not to notice. She seemed not to notice a lot about Ryan Scarnes. In her mind, the campaign was all too fortunate to have signed with a publicist as young, tenacious, and data-loaded as him. She promised Mikey that Ryan’s discounted prices were worth the implicit promises of access she had made on Mikey’s behalf.

“We were just reviewing the options for the final mailer,” Bree reported.

“Right. Our focus group suggested that they liked seeing Mikey outdoors. They said it made him look approachable, friendly. You’ll see the outdoor shots in the top-left quadrant.”

As Ryan and Bree walked to the other side of the table, Mary Ann gently entered the room. She was like a friendly mouse: eager to help but afraid to be seen.

“Here you go, sweetie,” she cooed to Mikey.

“Thanks, Ms. Mary Ann. I appreciate it. I’m Mikey by the way. How’s your day—”

“That’ll be all,” Ryan interrupted. He looked at Mary Ann like she had been caught.

“Yes, Mr. Scarnes.” Mary Ann and Mikey exchanged a smile as she snuck back out the door.

Bree and Ryan continued to talk about Mikey. Or at least about the face in the gallery. Ryan had done his job once again and made Mikey unrecognizable to himself. They examined every picture on the table as if it were a unique masterpiece with hidden details in every inch. Mikey just saw the man he didn’t know. In one, the man was sitting on a bench. In another, he was standing in front of a tree. In another, he was leaning on a brick wall. The only thing Mikey especially liked about the pictures was that they were all taken around the Mason County Courthouse.

“I’m torn between the ones standing in front of the doors and the ones sitting on the steps,” either Bree or Ryan said. They had both long since forgotten Mikey was in the room.

Mikey felt their conversation grew louder and louder as it went on. It grew from a business transaction into a cable news debate. Looking at all of the photos of the man who was not him, he felt his breath catch in his chest. “Who is this?” he thought. His head began to spin into lightness. “It’s not me.” He wanted to scream. That would have been inappropriate.

Inching his eyes up and down the rows of pictures of the other him, Mikey caught something strange in the corner of his eye. In one of the pictures on the courthouse steps, Mikey saw something in a bright shade of blue. Not the cautious blue of a politician’s tie. The rich, glowing blue of a gemstone.

Mikey stood from his seat and leaned over to the picture with the blue presence. He saw it. Sitting over his shoulder on the white concrete steps was a smiling blue turtle. The turtle sat like a small child with its legs out in front and its eyes looking straight at Mikey. Mikey couldn’t tell if the turtle’s eyes were looking at the him in the conference room or the him on the courthouse steps. But they were looking. Watching. The turtle’s smile was stretched so far that it looked like its felt was going to rip at the seams.

Mikey didn’t know how he knew the turtle was made of felt. He just did. He also knew it’s—his name was Tommy and that he liked trains. Mikey had met Tommy before. But it hadn’t been at the courthouse. No one had been there except for Mikey, Bree, and Ryan. Mikey remembered that because, despite his silent objections, Bree and Ryan had convinced the city judge to end court early that afternoon.

Looking into Tommy’s eyes, Mikey felt two conflicting emotions. His panic continued to build. He knew that turtle had not been at the courthouse that day. Why were his eyes telling him otherwise? But he also felt a sense of peace. Even though Tommy’s eyes were watching both Mikeys like they were afraid he would stop smiling, Mikey somehow felt like Tommy was an old friend. Like they had played together as kids.

Before Mikey could decide what he was supposed to feel, Ryan turned his schmooze away from his conversation with Bree. “You have good tastes, Mr. Dobson. Ms. Dobson and I were just deciding to use one of the courthouse steps pictures on the mailer.”

“Yeah, sounds good,” Mikey said without turning away from Tommy.

Ryan turned back to Bree. “Now just to decide which one.”

While Bree and Ryan carefully discussed which of the nine seemingly identical photos to use, Mikey carefully picked up the one with Tommy. When he looked at it more closely, Tommy was gone. If Bree or Ryan noticed one of their pictures missing, they didn’t show it as they continued their deliberations.

Folding the picture and placing it into his shirt pocket, Mikey noticed a new sensation. Pressing against his skin, the picture felt warm. It was a comforting heat—a log fire at Christmas. But it was also narrow and pointed—an eye staring through his heart.

* * *

By the time Bree ended the meeting at Scarnes and Blumph, Mikey had convinced himself to forget the burning in his shirt pocket. His skin felt it, but he decided he didn’t. Following Bree’s car back into town, he could only think about Tommy. How did he know the too-friendly turtle? And how had he seen him?

Mikey was reassuring himself of his senses when he and Bree pulled up to Delano Plaza, one of the several strip malls that had risen from Dove Hill’s ground during the early 2000s. They got out of their cars and met each other in front of China Delight. Their town’s sit-down dining options had dwindled to not much more than a handful of nearly identical Chinese buffets.

Mikey appreciated Bree making the time on his schedule for this. Every Tuesday since they had moved back home after school up north, the Dobson siblings had kept the standing commitment. During these weekly dinners, they tried to avoid talking about work. Or politics. Or anything “real,” as Bree had put it. When the campaign started, Mikey made her promise to keep their sibling dinners sacred. He wondered if she could with only weeks to the election.

Bree followed Sue Lee, the restaurant’s newest waitress, through the winding path to the back of the building. Sitting the Dobsons at a table next to a wall strewn with red and yellow lanterns, Sue Lee asked about their parents. Bree confirmed that they were doing fine. As Sue Lee handed Mikey the menu that no one ever read, he asked her how she liked working at China Delight. She said it was a job. Still, Mikey was happy for her. He had known Sue Lee in her harder times in high school.

After they made their plates of fried chicken, fried rice, and fried donuts, Mikey attempted small talk. That had never been the Dobson family’s gift.

“So have you heard from mom and dad?”

“Yeah,” Bree said with all the care of someone saying they had seen that afternoon’s episode of Judge Judy. “Mom texted—either last week or the week before. She asked how you were.”

Between sips from his oversized red cup, Mikey looked at her with expectation and mild dread.

“Don’t worry. I told her you were fine. She said that dad said to make sure you were keeping up at the firm. Still not sure why I’m always the messenger.”

“You know how they are. Honestly, though, I’m glad they text you and not me.” Mikey wished he meant that. It was one of those technical truths that their dad had taught him to use to avoid making anyone uncomfortable. Truthfully, Mikey would have loved to feel his phone vibrate with a text from his mom. But ever since spring of his senior year, and everything that had happened, his parents’ words to him had faded from well-meaning smothering to benign silence.

“You’re welcome,” Bree smirked. Mikey knew she was only half joking. Even when they were kids, Bree had taken care of him. When their mother scolded him for using the wrong fork for salad, Bree would change the conversation to her recent science fair win. When their father had had too much wine and soap-boxed about the wrong kind of people coming to Dove Hill, Bree would distract everyone by playing “Clair de Lune” for the twenty-second time. As they blew the powdered sugar off their donuts, Mikey realized he had never told Bree how he felt.

“Really though, thanks,” he said. Bree paused with dough in her mouth and looked at him like he had spoken Welsh.

“For?”

Mikey hesitated as he worked to express something “real.” He laughed to himself when he saw the bit of dough sitting in Bree’s mouth. He hadn’t seen her that unpolished in years.

“Oh, no,” Bree said, laughing and finally swallowing. “I’m not paying again this week. You’re the fancy attorney after all.”

“No,” Mikey stammered. He mentally smacked himself for ruining the fun and tried to find the words he had lost. He needed to say this. “It’s just… You’ve always taken care of me. Especially with mom and dad. I appreciate it.”

He could tell he had struck a nerve. Bree Dobson didn’t like to receive gratitude. At least she didn’t think she did. It felt unwieldy.

“Well, you can start paying me back by ordering me a beer.” Looking at his sister, Mikey knew that was the best he was going to get. Bree was her mother’s daughter after all.

Mikey turned his eyes towards the ceiling in an attempt to escape the awkwardness that had come to sit with them. He noticed the television sitting in the far corner.

Pointing towards it, he asked, “Do you remember watching TV on Saturday mornings? When mom and dad were on their weekends in the country?” Mikey had always loved those weekends. “I can’t believe our eyes didn’t fall out from staring at the screen that long.”

“Those were good days. Not exactly how I remember them though.”

“What do you mean? We would watch TV. And eat our weight in sugary cereal. And—” He stopped. He could tell Bree was forcing a smile now. It was the polite thing to do. “Hey…what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she lied. “It’s just…I’m glad you were happy. But for me, those days were for cleaning the house for mom.”

Mikey went quiet with a guilt he couldn’t name. He had forgotten about it, but Bree was right. While he was watching cartoons, Bree was doing the chores for the whole family. “You…you could’ve asked me. I would’ve helped you.”

“I know,” Bree said with a proud smile. “I know you would have. But I wanted you to be a kid. To be happy. I was happy to help.”

Seeing the faintest hint of longing in his sister’s dimples, Mikey felt the burning on his chest again. Sue Lee brought Bree her two-bit beer. Even on a supposed night off, Bree was minding the money. The heat rising in his pocket, Mikey remembered the picture. And Tommy.

“Do you remember me watching a show called Sunnyside Square?” The burning stopped, but Mikey didn’t notice. He was onto something.

“No. But honestly, you watched so much TV that it would be a miracle if I remembered any of it. You would even wake up before I did to start. And that was an achievement even before I started Adderall.”

Mikey kept thinking out loud. “I think it was like a puppet show… Hand puppets maybe?”

“Well, I may not remember what shows you did watch, but I know it wasn’t that. I never saw anything but cartoons. I tried to turn on a science show for you once, and you asked where the talking animals were.”

Mikey paused. Describing Sunnyside Square to his sister, he remembered more and more. It still wasn’t much, but he knew he had watched a show called Sunnyside Square. He remembered seeing the blue turtle sitting on a brick wall: the brick wall from his dream. His mind felt like there was someone else there. Someone he loved—but didn’t know.

“Really? I remember puppets I think? And always feeling…happy…”

It was more than that. Mikey couldn’t see Sunnyside Square, but he could feel it. He had felt lost so often as a kid—and as an adult. He had felt left behind when his parents went to the cabin and Bree went to work. But, when he would watch that show, it felt like home. He always felt seen.

“Must have been some show,” Bree teased, taking a sip from her bottle. “But yeah, I’m sure I don’t remember it. It was cartoons or…well, different cartoons.”

No. Sunnyside Square was something better than cartoons. Something real. Someone real. With that thought, Mikey remembered. Her name was Sunny Sandy. She was perfect.

* * *

Mikey wanted to drive straight home. Instead, he tried to finish the sibling dinner as normally as possible. He read his fortune from the freshly stale cookie, paid Sue Lee a 25% tip, gave Bree an awkward hug, and then rushed back to his apartment going as fast as he could without speeding.

He didn’t stop to undress when he got home. He pulled his laptop from his bag and sat at his desk. He couldn’t stand to lose any glimpse of Sandy’s face in his memory.

Then he realized he had no idea what to search. All he knew was the name Sunny Sandy and the title Sunnyside Square.

Searching “Sunny Sandy” led to a handful of beach-focused social media models and a few cloyingly cute children’s books about a yellow cat. He spent what felt like an hour looking through the results only to learn that both the models and the smiling cat in the books looked almost desperately “sunny.”

Searching “Sunnyside Square” at least brought up places, but none were the park that hauntingly graced his dreams. He wondered why a name that was anything but subtle had been used for everything from parking garages to a neighborhood in Cambodia. Still, trying to find anything that would lead him to his Sunnyside Square, he spent an hour—or two—three?—working through every turn on the phrase he could think of.

Pausing for a breath, he looked at the clock in the corner of his screen. 1:52. He had to be back on the campaign trail in a little over six hours for the first of his morning meet-and-greets. He needed to rest. He was going to face a firing line of voters all wanting a piece of him in exchange for their ballot. He could already feel the exhaustion. He felt the dread in his bones. The guilt in his marrow.

Then it came to him. The words that Sunny Sandy used to start every episode of the show. “Welcome to Sunnyside Square—where the sun can never stop shining!” He had always been struck by that phrase. Not “where the sun always shines” or even “where it’s always sunny.” Sandy said the sun could never stop shining. He didn’t know whether that inspired him—or petrified him.

He typed “where the sun can never stop shining” into the search engine. This time there were zero results. If Mikey ever allowed himself to feel anger, he would have felt it then. He had been so sure that that was the one. Standing from the thrifted office chair, he walked to his kitchenette. He wasn’t hungry after all the fried rice, but he wanted to consume.

Reaching towards his dusty counter for the hard candy he had taken on the way out of China Delight, Mikey found an invitation in the dark. After seeing what his father had become, he never drank alcohol, but a corporate client had recently given him a bottle of what Bree had told him was bottom-of-the-barrel red wine. He had wanted to throw it away, but it was a polite gesture. Looking at the glass reflecting the moonlight, Mikey decided he had earned a drink. He was working hard—for Dove Hill, for his parents, for Bree, even for Ryan Scarnes. He was happy to do it, he reminded himself. It was his job. This would make it easier.

He took the bottle back to his desk and took a long drink. He almost spit it out, but he was supposed to like it. Lifting his hand to close his laptop, he noticed it. He figured the search results had refreshed while he was picking his poison. There was one result now. “Keep On the Sunny Side.” A PDF file with the URL https://www.dovehilldaily.com/news/1999/alwaysonthesunnyside. He clicked it.

A black-and-white scan of a newspaper clipping appeared, pinched and pulled in strange places. Whoever had scanned it was shaking. The distortion made him think of the screeching scrapes of a dial-up. He started to read. SANDY MAKES GOOD. He trembled and told himself it was from excitement. He took another drink.

Right below the title and the byline, surrounded by faded text, was a picture. It was her. She was on a stage receiving a bouquet of flowers and a sash that said “Miss Mason County.” She held a friendly-looking puppet at her hourglass side. A dairy cow. He couldn’t be sure through the grayscale, but her ballgown looked pink—almost electric. Her hair was a lighter gray than the rest of the picture.

Mikey’s mind flashed with memory. On TV, she always kept her hair in a stone-stiff blonde beehive. Here, it was natural and flat. Her face was the brightest part. She was happy, or at least she was trying to be. In the caption, the journalist nicknamed her “Sunny Sandy.”

Mikey drank more of the cheap wine and kept reading. The article said that the woman was Sandra Alan. When she was in community college, she had won Miss Macon County and a scholarship to finish her degree in elementary education at the state school. The cow in the picture was her talent: Maggie the Magenta Moo Cow. On the day the article was published—June 22, 1999—her mother had just told the editor that Sandra and Maggie’s show Sunnyside Square had been picked up by the National Television Network. They wanted 20 episodes. Sandra had been in Los Angeles for 5 years, and she had finally caught her dream.

Mikey remembered it all. Sunnyside Square was about a girl named Sunny Sandy and her multi-colored menagerie of farm animal friends. One was Maggie, the cow from the picture. She always sang a song when the mail came. Another was the turtle from the picture: Tommy the Turquoise Turtle. Every episode, Sandy would help one of the animals learn how to be sunny. Whether they were sad, angry, tired, hungry, or hurt, Sandy fixed them.

Mikey had loved the show. He felt like Sandy understood him in a way that no one in the real world did. She knew that all he wanted to do was make people happy.

Mikey looked at her smile again. Even reduced to black and white, it felt like looking directly into the sun. Then he looked at her eyes. They looked at the audience—at him—like an old friend lost in time. Like a ghost who knew his name and saw him too clearly. Mikey finished the bottle and fell asleep.

* * *

That night, he dreamed of the park again. This time, he was in the park. The benches were still white, but they weren’t polite any more. They were like still specters surrounding him—their frames carved from bone. The trees were still green, but they had spread beyond ominous. Their branches formed cages in the air. And the wall—the wall that Mikey finally remembered Sandy and Tommy and Maggie playing on—looked like its bricks had been dyed in blood. Even through his sleep, Mikey felt relief when the park faded into pink. Then the drowning started again.