I remember an idyllic evening I wish I could have saved in a jar. Instead, we collected the next best thing—the fireflies lighting our front yard.
At dusk, Dad hauled out the sprinkler and pretended to give the lawn a shower. But we knew the water fireworks were for us, and so Joel and I ran to put on our swimsuits. Matt didn’t run through the spray, but Joel and I skipped back and forth through its rainbowing arc. When I picked up the sprinkler and turned it on my dad, he laughed and lay back on the wet lawn. Dad let Joel stay up later than usual. Time hung heavy in the humid air as we stretched dusk into dark.
Mom had mixed frozen lemonade, and it tasted as good as homemade. Dad disappeared and returned with a bowl of his popcorn. He sometimes put Parmesan cheese on top.
“A meal in itself.” He tossed a few kernels in the air and caught them in his mouth. Matt and I sat on the front porch, its paint peeling in layers of white, green, and then black, its wood warped beneath our feet. Mom, Dad, and Joel sat on a cheery orange-and-blue pinwheel quilt that Mom left on the porch swing for cooler evenings and brisk mornings.
Now, as the sun slipped behind the neighboring houses, leaving a ribbon of pink, the grass began to shimmer with fireflies. Especially in the vacant lot next door—thick with unmowed grass.
“What can you see, Abby?” Dad pointed to the night sky.
“The Big Dipper and the Little Dipper.” They were the most obvious. Some of the other formations were a stretch for even my vivid imagination.
“Too bad so many people have their lights on; otherwise we’d see more,” Dad said with a sigh. “Maybe one night we should take my telescope to the Ludemas’ pasture.”
“Or your folks’ farm. It’s dark there,” Mom murmured, leaning into Dad.
“I don’t want to take it on vacation with us.” Dad pulled Mom close, capturing her in his arms as the porch swing rocked.
Dad looked up at the night sky as if for the first time. “‘When I look at thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast established; what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou dost care for him?’” Dad quoted so naturally, it sounded like he had made up the question himself. The psalmist and my dad probably would have gotten along very well.
Joel stirred and then leaned away from us.
“Twinkle, twinkle!” he yelled as he tried to keep up with the on and off bursts lighting the air. God’s version of fireworks for preschoolers without all the noise. Fireflies.
“Get a jar,” Mom said to Matt as she took Joel’s hand and swiped at the air. Joel squealed.
“Shhh! Joel, you’ll scare them away,” I warned. Joel jumped up and down in his wet bathing suit, silently trying to grab at the mysterious hovering lights.
Matt returned with an empty mayonnaise jar and the little net we formerly used for his fish tank. That is, before the fish died.
“Catch fish?” Joel whispered.
“No. Catch lightning,” Matt answered. And sweeping his wand through the air, he captured a lightning bug, pushed the netting through the opening, and quickly refastened the lid. “There you go, Joel. He’s yours.” Matt handed the glass jar to Joel.
“Honey, don’t have him hold the jar. He might drop it and cut his foot,” Mom warned.
“Put it on the step, Joel,” Dad said.
“More! More!” Joel yelled, forgetting about scaring them away. I scooped the air and captured a lightning bug in the hollow of my cupped hands. Occasionally I saw the light flicker through my fingers. I transferred it to Joel’s hand. He stared at the twinkling light.
“Fwashwight,” he said and giggled. “More, more!” Joel pointed to the lot next door.
Indeed, it seemed the fireflies had escaped to the nearby vacant lot, and so we all followed Joel’s lead, Matt carrying the glass jar at the end of our processional. Even Mom swept the night sky with her hands, capturing lightning bugs and adding them to the jar. Sometimes the jar sparkled enough to be our own personal lantern, a flashlight with an inconsistent battery.
The air felt warm and thick, like a blanket wrapping up all of High Street. Every step released the pungent smell of forgotten flowers. And among the weeds, Matt even found a few misguided Wiffle balls from long-ago games.
“Did you do this when you were a kid?” I asked Dad.
“We didn’t have fireflies in Washington. I guess that’s why I think they’re so neat.” Dad reached out with both hands to capture a flicker.
“Then can we take some to Grandpa and GramAnna’s, so they can see them?” I asked.
“They wouldn’t live, honey,” Dad said, pulling me close to him. I was still in my wet bathing suit, but he didn’t seem to mind. “Time for pajamas,” he said at last to Joel, letting go of me and taking Joel’s hand. “This little monkey is going to bed.”
“No bedtime!” Joel shook his head.
“Yes, bedtime,” Mom countered. “It’s way past your bedtime, Curious George. Come back and say good night after you brush your teeth.”
“Even entomologists need sleep,” Dad said, resorting to carrying Joel. “I’ll take him upstairs, Renee.”
“I’ll bring the lantern after you put your jammies on,” I promised. Joel waved good-bye and nestled his head on Dad’s shoulder. I watched the two disappear into the darkness and into our home. A trail of light traced their journey. The front porch lit up, followed by the front hallway and the stairs going up to our room. I saw the light in the front bedroom window click on, and shadows behind the curtains, and then the center light from the bathroom sink where Dad would brush Joel’s teeth.
I am like Joel. I never want good things to end. When I unwrap Christmas presents, I dread opening the last one. At night, when Mom scratches my back, I don’t want her to leave until her tender caress soothes me to sleep and into my dreams. And how can I enjoy the Fourth of July fireworks when each explosion of color might mark the grand finale? It’s almost as though I need to know exactly how long the light show will last so that I can anticipate the dark.
Dad called out from the front window, “Joel wants his twinkles.” And so I brought the flickering lantern to meet Dad and Joel on the front porch. For Joel, the fireworks could continue; he had obviously talked Dad into another round of good nights and good-byes and hugs.
How could I have known that even now I’d wish for one more?
Dad tickled him until Joel couldn’t stand it anymore, and then Dad tipped him upside down to swing like a pendulum.
“Oh, John, I don’t like it when you do that,” Mom warned, but failed at shielding a smile when Joel’s giggles began.
“It’s TIME!” Dad said, mimicking the clock. “Hickory, dickory, dock!”
I rocked my head back and forth in rhythm with Joel’s world, until he pointed insistently.
“Daddy! Daddy! Look!” Dad stopped with Joel hanging upside down, his outstretched hand urging our eyes to follow his vision.
“Stars in the grass!”
Dad flipped him aright and back in his arms, and we studied the grass covered with shimmering dots of light. It was a silly thing to do, but we all lay down on the porch with our heads on the step below, for a moment looking at the world upside down to see what Joel saw. Joel’s world, and now ours, was lit with twinkling lights flickering through the grass, a miracle simple enough to grasp in our hands and our hearts.
And sometimes, even now, I hold on to that evening. I remember how later that night, from our bedroom at the top of the stairs, I could see the stars out the window almost as clearly as the lightning bug lantern on Joel’s dresser. It was magic. Almost as magic as holding fireflies, their glow illuminating yellow lines between our fingers. And I think about the five of us lying on our backs on the worn porch under the night sky. And I remember that when the world seems most upside down, sometimes, if you look, you can see stars in the grass.