The Cow, The Cat, The Captain and The Church Mice (Part 1)

 Her knee bent unlike knees bend.

Watching stirred pity, then curiosity.  Each step folded into the next until the wobbly cadence shamed any doubters.  Slew footed or not, she would claim her ten thousand steps.  Ready or not, she would lead her retinue of eager women.  Moistened in morning mist, a flock followed in gratitude.  To be invited to walk was a big deal; pity and curiosity were replaced by loyalty.  If she walked in the street, they all walked in the street.  If she chose the sidewalk, they followed in overt recognition of tacit realities.

Most walked as followers do; more attention paid to someone else's stride than their own.  Am I going too fast?  Am I talking too much?  What do they think of me?  I wonder who didn't get the email with this morning's details?  Will I get an email about tomorrow's walk? 

One or two in the group took responsibility for sending instructions.  Preternatural certainty of communal offenses, subtleties and ascensions were communicated by osmosis.  Deciphering who belonged was a matter of fit more than logic.  One towered above the rest: tallest, strongest, largest.  Her knowing eye pegged the aging cohort's drama each morning.  Seeing all, she said the least.

Decades before the dew moistened her ankles, her silence began involuntarily.  She was playing with her sister behind a cracked bedroom door.  Her father paused in the hallway to watch them play with a roulette wheel.  Dizzying simplicity made each spin a muted wonder.  One watched the other's artistry in deciding when to slide the ball.  Slight delays and giddy starts ended in the clickety clack.  Numbers and colors mattered less than the sisterly glee.  A flick of the wrist powered the wheel.

A creaking floorboard announced the voyeur.  Their father's attention added to their satisfaction.  Ignoring him was a different game she learned from her older sister.  Body language worked without words. "Don't look at him," filled the room just as truly as the sound of the wheel and the ball, the floorboards and the clickety clack.  They were aware of the power daughters hold over a doting father.  On a Saturday morning, simple pleasures sufficed. 

When he walked down the hallway, his youngest daughter turned inwardly.  She simply knew that by the time she finished holding her breath, she would never be the same.  Her deliberate inhalation was interrupted by perverted familiarity.  A family friend's voice was familiar but the way he called her father was fruity and hollow.  Her mother's bare feet shuffled like always, but they sounded clumsy and frantic.  An engine idled in the driveway but the gathering neighbors muffled the sound.  Her father was familiar but the odd angle of his neck and knees choked her.  His blood ran and her words failed.  He left a letter that spoke into the dumbfoundedness.

You are a wonderful wife.
The girls are a gift.
I am sorry.
Give the girls my watch and pearl pen.

Her mother spiraled, remarried quickly and suffered.  Her older sister translated the change for her, until words failed.  Seeing answers scurry beyond her reach, like mice under furniture, showed questioning's uselessness.  Why bother asking what no one could answer?  She stopped asking; then stopped talking. She sat with her thoughts as a cow sits with cud. 

She thought of places families went when driveways emptied.  Eavesdropping in cafeterias and doctor's offices, she learned of the Green Fjord Music Camp.  Before applying for camp, a child's music teacher  had to write a recommendation.  Before finding a music teacher, a family had to be able to afford an instrument.  Camp, teachers and an instrument were far from her reach.  Her father's death placed her on a cliff.

A narrow river of insanity ran underneath her adolescence, the same way his blood ran into the gutter.  She was able to pull the memory of death, at will.  Jumping into the invisible inlet underneath was an irresistible rumination.  She was sorry he was dead.  "I'm sorry," was as much as she could get from his letter.  She was sorry she had a stepfather already; sorry her older sister's invicibility was melting under reality's rays; sorry unanswered questions sat in her stomach like rotting vegetation.  Still her sorrow and the terse sorrow of her father's letter were not the same.

At first, joining him in death seemed an act of love and loyalty.  His note was small and searing like a brand but she knew boils formed over burned areas.  Boils filled with puss that gathered, stank and eventually ran out of wounds like snot.  Following in her father's footsteps would take away the intriguing tomorrows: the soreness, healing and scar.  Ten and a half years of tomboyishness confirmed the routine.  Burns were instant but recoveries took time.  Death would keep her tomorrows unopened.  She was dimly hopeful about seeing Green Fjord, but hope took time.

She learned that grief took time.  Dizzying waves of sadness, rage and confusion ambushed her at inopportune moments.  Lunch tables and well child visits were routine enough but little things reminded her of the knot in her stomach.  Grief forced her to belch the pain, mix in saliva and chew the angst like cud.  Spewing the bile would have been another kind of loss: a loss of her last memories of her father.  She ruminated the bitter sludge until onlookers dabbed the corners of her mouth.

Well meaning classmates, family members and teachers dabbed.  Through her mother's second and third marriages, her high school career and longings for Green Fjord's depths she chewed.  Cud and grief, she learned, took time.