O Say Can You See

By Jody Hobbs Hesler

Frankie’s new stepbrother, Tommy lights the first bottle rocket, and it screams into the twilight. “Let the cops try to find us up here,” Frankie’s dad says. He makes a joke about cops sticking their heads out of cop car windows somewhere far below, straining to match the sound of fireworks to any of the sprawling properties blanketing the mountainside. 

Tommy tosses Frankie the matchbook. His turn. This is Frankie’s first visit since his dad married Tommy’s mom, so now he and his stepbrother share a bedroom. His dad says it’s his room too, but Frankie’s old posters are rolled and rubberbanded at the back of the closet, and Tommy’s motorbike posters plaster the walls. Plus, Tommy gets to be with Frankie’s dad all week long, every week and on weekends.

Frankie switches places with Tommy and slips his own bottle rocket into the coke bottle. Only the person with the match is supposed to stand in the clearing, and only long enough to light the wick, and everyone else is meant to keep back.

Not five minutes ago, when Frankie’s dad handed Tommy the matches, he lectured them about being careful of the wind, and a steady breeze now rustles the grape vines along the fence and bristles in the peach trees. The air is so wet it’s hard to believe it’s not raining, and the wind barreling up the sides of the mountain does nothing more than stir the hot damp air, but it’s still wind. 

Frankie peels the book open and tears a match from the bunch. Everything feels soggy, including the matchbook. Around him, lightning bugs flash, katydids click, crickets chirp. Frogs bellow down at the pond. Ice tinkles in his dad’s scotch glass. How’s Frankie supposed to know what too much wind feels like?

“Even if the cops found us, we’d see them driving up,” Frankie’s dad says. “We could be roasting s’mores at the grill by the time they got out of the car.” 

Frankie’s dad thinks he’s scared, but it’s his sister Tara who’s the scaredy, not him. She worries and complains, and that’s why she went home halfway through their two-week summer visit. “Just waiting for the breeze to slow down. Like you said.”

His dad nods, but maybe he doesn’t believe him. His lips have a way of playing sideways on his face, like he’s always in on a joke you’re not smart enough to get. 

“Toss it here,” his dad says. He sets his scotch on a tree stump and makes to catch the matchbook. Frankie doesn’t want to, but he lobs the matches and steps away from the coke bottle. His unused match falls to the ground in the dark. 

His dad knew the guy at the fireworks stand. Asked for the stuff they keep in back. Just don’t let on you got it here. We’ll lose our license. He zipped his lips with his fingers. Now their stash is about the same height as Tara. She’s so small sometimes she can hide in plain sight, so Frankie pretends she didn’t leave after all and she’s standing behind the fireworks. She’s quiet like that. When she’s around, you hardly know it. It’s almost like you want her there. But, of course, she’s gone. Their mother came all the way up the mountain to get her. Their dad lets her leave visits early, but he won’t drive her. He didn’t come out to say goodbye when she left.

His dad roots around for the next firework. At least he’s not lighting Frankie’s for him.

“Stand back,” his dad says and swims his arms in the air as if he means to scoop Frankie and Tommy out of the way with his hands. He drops a cube, half as big as a shoebox, into the center of the clearing. Frankie’s never seen a firecracker that big. “Hello, Armageddon!” 

Frankie’s dad likes to put on a show. His mom says that like it’s a bad thing, but Frankie likes it. Most of the time. He hopes his dad will throw the matches back to him after this one. He has to do it right. He doesn’t want to spoil things like Tara.

At the flash of the match strike, Frankie half-steps backward and laughs. His dad presses the flame to the wick, and it licks and licks then races up the length of it. Frankie’s dad hoots as he thunders a few steps backward. 

Wind lifts Frankie’s curls and blows dirt and night bugs in his face. His eyes water. Everything blurs. Then, a noise so loud and a light so bright he thinks for a second lightning must have struck in front of him. The smell of earth and grass and sulphur. A pink and green shower of sparks. Confetti stars. 

The brilliance silhouettes everything around it—the craggy old peach trees, his father’s tall lean body, Tommy with his hands clapped over his ears, Tommy’s mother Sueann with her arms crossed by the fence. Once the darkness settles in again, Sueann says, “Holy crap, Doug. You’ll kill us all,” before she scuffs away toward the house. 

His dad shouts and tosses the matchbook before Frankie’s eyes have readjusted to the darkness. Somehow, he catches it. But before he heads back toward the coke bottle, there’s another crackle and a loud whistle as his bottle rocket jerks into motion by itself, knocking the bottle over. The beast his father lit must’ve set his rocket off too. It shoots backward toward Frankie, and he screams and runs for it. 

“It’s just a bottle rocket!” His dad lets out a roar of laughter. The misfired rocket lands in the gravel driveway with a fizzling screech. Tommy’s laughing now too, and it suddenly feels twice as dark as before. Frankie folds himself over and catches his breath from sprinting. Now he is scared, which means he has to prove even more that he’s not. 

Tommy slaps his shoulder as Frankie rounds back toward the stash of fireworks, so maybe they’re laughing with him instead of at him. He laughs too. Extra loud, like when his sister gave him one last chance to stop teasing her before calling their mom to go home. 

 Down the mountain, a dog howls. A sprinkle of pink lights flares above the trees with someone else’s fireworks. The wind pulls up more moisture from the earth. Tommy picked a bottle rocket, but Frankie wants one of the mammoth ones, like his dad. He doesn’t ask, just leans in and grabs the biggest one he sees, stalks away toward the clearing. 

Tommy lit the match like it was nothing. Frankie grips one like he’s done it before and strikes it against the bottom of the matchbook. Scritch. Scritch. Not even a spark.

“You can do it, son.”

But Frankie can hear his doubt. He scrapes another match. It lights. The small flame wiggles against the wind, blows out. Again. Then again. The next one burns long enough to singe the tip of his finger. He squinches tears from his eyes. Tommy didn’t cry. He laughed, and Frankie’s dad clapped him on the shoulder. Told him, Good job after Tommy jumped clear of the wick and watched his bottle rocket spume into the sky. 

The firecracker Frankie picked is as wide as his own two knees. At least as big as the one his father set off.

“Light it and step back, son. Light it and stand clear. It’s a doozy!”

The next match quivers to life, but the wind damps it out again.

“Lean over it, son. Lean over for a split second to stop the wind. Then run like hell!”

He can do this. He has to. He’s not a scaredy. 

“The goddam wind!” His father is laughing again. “The goddam wind!”

The front door squeaks, and his stepmother crunches toward them through the driveway gravel.

“Hurry, son! Before she sees what we’re up to!” his father shout-whispers. Sueann made him promise only to let the boys light bottle rockets and sparklers. “You can do it! Cup your hand around it. Then run like hell!”

Frankie crouches low to the ground, makes a cavern of himself over the wick. Then, the scratch of the match. A flame. It wobbles in the wind, but it stays lit this time. He touches it to the wick. He can’t look away. The spark climbs like a bright orange bug beetling up the string. 

The whole night flashes. The negative image of trees against sky. Then a sound so loud it stops all sound.

The blast smacks him backward onto the ground. He screams. He can feel the scream, in his throat, in his chest, but he can’t hear it. The fire. He can’t see it. But he feels it. On his face. He can’t see. He can’t hear. No one is here anymore. He’s alone. 

Dad? Dad? Where are you? He can’t tell if his voice is working.

First thing he hears: his stepmother. “Goddam it. Goddam it, Doug. What were you thinking? Telling the boy to lean over. Goddam thing blew up in his face.”

What do you mean? He thinks he’s shouting. He means to be shouting. What do you mean? A hand hovers onto his shoulder, lightweight. His stepmother. The scent of her too-sweet perfume, filtered through a thick smell of rotten egg and smoke that won’t go away.

“Get my car keys, Doug. This boy needs a hospital.”

“He’ll be fine, Sueann. Don’t get hysterical.”

Frankie shudders, like a reflex. I can’t see. Is he making any noise? His stepmother squeezes his shoulder. “I’m staying right here with Franklin until you bring me my keys, then I’m taking him to the ER.”

“His mother’ll love that. Never let me forget.” His dad.

“Let me send up a few more bottle rockets while you decide what to do.” Tommy.

“Put the goddam bottle rockets away.” His stepmother. “We don’t need anything else exploding. We need to get this boy to the hospital.” 

The katydids are back. The katydids and the frogs and the crickets and the rustle of wind. He’s not sure about his voice, but his eyes definitely don’t work. He can’t open them. It feels like he fell eye first into a sandbox. He touches his face. It’s hot. He thinks he’s crying, but no tears come out. 

His father stumbles. Ice tinks against his glass. The stink of scotch hits the back of Frankie’s throat. “We’ll save the rest, son,” he says, patting Frankie’s shoulder a little too hard. He was mad when Tara cut her visit short. He’s probably mad now because they have to cut the fireworks short. “We’ll save them for your next visit. How about that? We’ll have Fourth of July all over again in August.”

“For Christ’s sake, Doug, please bring me my keys.”

“It’s going to be fine, Frankie. Don’t let Sueann scare you. You’re going to be fine.” His father’s footsteps crunch toward the house. “Just tell them you don’t know where the fireworks came from. They weren’t ours.” 

“Please? My keys?” Sueann braces Frankie’s shoulders and leans close. He feels the weight of her hands, her breath in his face. He hears a flashlight turn on and a raspy sound from the back of his stepmother’s throat.

“Can you see my hand in front of your face?” His dad again. Frankie didn’t know he’d come back.

“He’s got no eyebrows,” Sueann whispers. “His eyes are sealed shut.”

“He’ll be fine.” 

“He’s not fine, Doug.”

The sound of keys jangling. His stepmother’s long hair brushes his forehead as she stands. Her hand smooths his hairline. 

His father says he’ll come along. Then he and Sueann mutter to each other. Frankie can make out about half the words. Something about not leaving Tommy alone with the fireworks. Something else about how you can’t show up at the ER if you can’t walk a goddam straight line. Something about lawyers and custody arrangements and not getting to see Frankie if he’s not careful. Then, “Call his mother,” Sueann says. There’s no cell service up here, but they have a landline. “Tell her we’ll call from the hospital.” 

Sueann takes Frankie’s hand. The sound of a car door. Frankie pokes the air with his fingers. Sueann guides him to his seat and shuts the door behind him, halving the outside sounds. Sueann’s door opens and slams. The engine cranks. 

“It’s going to be fine,” she says. 

A hard knock on the car. The hum of the driver’s window powering down. “Doug, get out of the way, all right? Let me go.”

“It wasn’t ours. It was just something he found, yeah? We tried to stop him, but it was too late.” Two more slams on the hood, like sealing a deal. 

His stepmother guns the engine. Gravel skitters and plinks against the hubcaps. “It’s going to be fine,” she says again, but her voice sounds wrong, too high. “Just fine. Can you hear me?”

“Yes ma’am.” His voice works again. 

“I’m your stepmother now, remember? Not Mrs. Bennish anymore, not ma’am. I’m your stepmom. You can call me Sueann. You can call me Mom if you want.” 

He twines his fingers around the car door handle and turns in the direction of the window. The rumble of driveway gravel gives way to a softer thudding against dirt road. His stepmother doesn’t usually smoke in front of him, but he hears the crinkle of the cellophane pack, the pop of the lighter. He breathes the smoke. He can tell when they reach the banks of the Shenandoah from the rushing sounds that float in through the window along with the warm wet breeze. He can tell when they hit the highway from the way the speed makes wind rip and snap inside the car and from the sounds of other cars swooshing past outside. He knows it’s dark because it’s night, and even later than before, but it’s weird not to be able to see anything, not even other cars’ headlights or brake lights. 

“Tell me where we are,” Frankie says. Moist summer air gusts through the car, warm as ever, but he’s shivering. “Tell me what you see.” 

“We’re going to the hospital. We’re driving to the hospital.”

His heartbeat is so loud in his head he’s having trouble hearing again. “What can you see?” If she tells him, he can pretend to see it too. He can pretend really hard and that’ll stop the shivering and quiet his heartbeat back to normal. He’s not a scaredy. “Tell me. Tell me everything.” 

But she doesn’t tell him. She thwaps her rings against the steering wheel and puffs blasts of air from her lips like his mom does when something hurts.

Off the highway, the car stops and starts, stops and starts. Traffic lights? He hears the turn signal a few times. Then the car stops. 

“We’re here. I’m coming around to get you.” 

Night sounds different in the hospital parking lot. No bugs. No wind in tree branches. Frankie’s shoes scrape against grit and asphalt. Trucks trundle past on the highway in the background. People’s voices. The air inside is extra cool and smells like rubbing alcohol. He doesn’t want his stepmother to see him shiver, so he crosses his arms against his chest and holds them as tight as he can. Sueann steers him with a hand on his shoulder. She taps when they stop. “Chairs. We’ll wait here.” 

Machines beep. Feet rush and patter. Carts roll and rattle by. He hears the snap and clank of Sueann’s purse, then she presses a phone to his ear. “It’s your mother. Say hello.” The phone smells like mint chewing gum, which makes him realize he’s really thirsty. “Remember, you just found it.”

“Frankie? Frankie, are you okay?” His mother. If Tara’s standing behind her, the sound of their mom’s voice will scare her. It scares him. So, he hopes she’s already in bed, but he’s also mad at her for being there instead of here, for not being with him right now, for not having any of this happen to her. “Your dad called. Said something about a firecracker?” 

He starts to cry before he can answer. Sueann grabs the phone back out of his hand. “He’s fine, Tricia.” Sueann’s voice is brittle. “Just a little shook up. We’re at the ER. … Yes, Tricia, it was like Doug said, we don’t know where it came from. … Don’t you go yapping about lawyers. I’m taking good care of your son. … Oh yes I am. I’m taking the goddam best care of him. It was windy is all. A windy Fourth of July. It could’ve happened to anyone. … Quit sounding like the morality police. He should have gotten out of the way.”

Sueann grunts and the phone slaps onto her lap. “Bitch,” under her breath. 

She slips her hand into his. It’s squarer and rougher than his mother’s. 

“I need to know what everything looks like.” If Tara were here, she’d tell him. He screws his eyes even tighter shut than and imagines her itty-bitty voice and the kind of things she would say. His body like a jackhammer. And he’s afraid he’ll piss himself and afraid to ask to go to the bathroom because how can he if he can’t see? 

“We’re in the waiting room. It’ll be our turn soon.”

Someone calls out a name. Maybe that’s a nurse. Maybe she’ll call Frankie’s name next. If he could picture any of it, maybe he’d be less afraid. 

His stepmother lets go of his hand and the room feels ocean large. He could be alone on the face of Jupiter. Alone on the side of a road.

“Are you there?”

About the Author

Jody Hobbs Hesler is the author of the novel, Without You Here (Flexible Press, September 2024), and the story collection What Makes You Think You’re Supposed to Feel Better (Cornerstone Press, October 2023). Her words also appear in Necessary Fiction, Gargoyle, Valparaiso Fiction Review, Atticus Review, Writer’s Digest, Electric Literature, CRAFT, Arts & Letters, and many other journals. She teaches at WriterHouse in Charlottesville and for The Writer's Room out of Chicago, writes and copy edits for Charlottesville Family Magazine, and serves as assistant fiction editor for the Los Angeles Review.