“After that, she came for every storm. I loved her. And then she moved to a nursing home in Poughkeepsie.
“I think about that lady sometimes, when I think about what happened on Maple Street. I won’t pretend to be as smart as her, but Rhea and I were alike in a lot of ways. The difference was, I wasn’t as scared to show people my mess.”
Gertie broke here, to feed her grandson. She then cranked the generator and turned on a static-riddled screen. Reception on the West Coast is better than most other parts of North America. The child watched, transfixed.
I asked her whether Larry had moved to Canada for a reason.
“The thing is,” she said, leaning forward. “Everything’s falling apart. The heat’s so bad I can’t walk in my own neighborhood. Long Island’s pretty much underwater, so I guess nobody over there’s worried about white trash like me and Arlo lowering property values anymore. Everybody smart moves to Canada. I wish Julia would go, but she’s loyal. She won’t leave those foster kids. And I won’t leave her… People talk about how the children of Maple Street suffered after what happened, like it’s evidence of what Arlo did. But except for those poor twins, the Rat Pack turned out [okay]. They get together every year. They have a ball. Sam’s family keeps complaining about how he stopped playing sports. Who cares? He was the youngest kid to start an LGBTQ club at Garden City Middle School. Dave turned out okay, too. He’s a family therapist. Charlie followed Julia out to LA and makes vegan desserts. They’re gross but he makes Julia happy, so what does my opinion matter? Lainee manages offices. Larry’s earning coin in Montreal… The kid could buy all of Garden City if he wanted. What’s left of it.
“The thing is, the world’s breaking up. Fifteen years ago, we all saw it coming. We still do. Maybe there’s even something we can do about it. But it’s so much easier to invent boogeymen. That’s all we were to Maple Street: boogeymen.”
I asked her how she could be sure, 100 percent beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Arlo Wilde had not molested the children of Maple Street, many of whom were now suffering significantly.
“The question is: What evidence would prove to you that he didn’t?” she asked.
I left soon after. I think we can clearly read this evasion as an admission of guilt.
From Interviews from the Edge: A Maple Street Story,by Maggie Fitzsimmons,
Soma Institute Press, ? 2036
“I remember being scared that my parents were going to be taken away. I thought it was my fault. I don’t remember the murders. I don’t even remember getting hit or being in the hospital. I guess it traumatized me. But I’m not haunted. I don’t have flashbacks. The only thing is that I’d never set foot back on Long Island. I can’t even say the name of that street out loud… Okay, I’m traumatized.” —Larry Wilde
“Your first real best friend is almost like a romance. I still miss her. Every day.” —Julia Wilde
From “The Lost Children of Maple Street,” by Mark Realmuto, The New Yorker, October 19, 2037
It’s apparent that the Maple Street murders captured the American imagination, but the reason has nothing to do with the spectacle. It’s got nothing to do with the parents, who acted predictably, if horrendously. Nothing they did was remarkable.
We remember this story because of the children of Maple Street, who did the unexpected.
In our national discourse, we assume that we’ve taken wrong turns in our lives, and it is these forks that define us. There is Rhea, and her Jessica Sherman. There is Maple Street, and its brick. There are the Wildes, and their flight from Brooklyn to a hostile land. There is our national chaos, each election worse than the last.
But what if these forks represent nothing? What if there are no patterns, except those we invent? What if we can reach through our own murky histories, and come out cleanly on the other side?
What if, like the Rat Pack of Maple Street, we can break the cycle?
I’ll close on this quotation from Grace Paley:
The kids! The kids! Though terrible troubles hang over them, such as the absolute end of the known world quickly by detonation or slowly through the easygoing destruction of natural resources, they are still, even now, optimistic, humorous, and brave. In fact, they intend enormous changes at the last minute.
Acknowledgments
It’s been a while, so I have a lot of people to thank. First to JT Petty, because nobody else would ever do. Thanks to my girls, Clem and Frances, for inspiring what I do. Thanks to all the people who took such good care of my girls over the years: Carole Langan, Susan Knisely, Kate Petty, the folks at Union Temple Preschool, The Co-op School, Wonderland Avenue Elementary, and of course, Marlene Winston.
Thanks to my dad, for holding down the fort, to my brother, Chris, for helping him, and to my uncle Michael, for keeping me in the loop. Thanks to my mom. I wish she was here.