“Well I guess that’s it then.” she said to the ground, staring at the faded cotton hemline of her shift. It fluttered in soothing, water like rhythms, mimicking the forever-consistent Mississippi wind.
He had his back to her, his hand rested on the crisscrossed wood fence. Strong and planted, she knew he’s rather keep it there forever, than leave. But like so many other things, time had a steel grip on him, and would wrench him away kicking and screaming before the world even had time to blink.
“You know, there was a time when I thought this place was magic.” He tilted his head towards the sky, pale white lids closed against the baby blue palate. “The way the sun hits the trees every day at noon, and the way the leaves always rustle together and sound like angel’s whispers.” He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the fence. “The way that here, and the world, are two completely separate places.” He paused. “Sometimes I thought, that if I took a big ol’ leap into the air, I would fly. I would go up and fly with the birds, leaving every trouble I had far behind me.”
Gracie stared out at the shivering bluebells and wildflowers dotting the ground, spinning a carpet of exotic colors. The trees warm and oaky, smelling rich and delicious after last night’s rain shower. She closed her eyes and listened to the wind in the leaves, a great rustling like the surf of an ocean, collecting, peaking, then spilling over in a dance that pulled the heartstrings.
The cottage in the woods was a place unlike any other she’d ever seen, ever imagined. The very air around her swirled into her lungs, tingling the pink skin inside her, making it feel like magic. How could Tom go? How could he even imagine leaving? This place had belonged to his family for generations. Here was the kind of place where you wanted to stay a child forever, just so you could never leave.
“But then you had to grow up.” Her voice carried a throaty, almost jaded tone in the hush of the early morning stillness.
He nodded; somberly. “Yes, yes. I did.”
“I’ll miss you.” She said decidedly, wishing this mess were already over and she was watching him come up the drive, face expectant of their reunion.
“I’ll miss you too. I’ll miss you every night at six o’clock when I’m not able to come out and watch the sunset with you. When the absence of our nightly talks start to wear deep into my heart.” He turned to her, his face stony; guarded. “Dammit Gracie, if I don’t come back…”
“You will come back.” She said, her voice like the strong blue flame of a burner, trying desperately to warm him to the slightest shred of optimism.
“If I don’t,” voice firm, throat tingling, “Everything is yours, the house, the money, the land. The papers are all in a tin box under my bed.”
Gracie’s bottom lip popped ever so slightly from her top, her eyes soft and innocent, “Your son…” she almost whispered.
Again he placed a firm hand on the fence. “My son hasn’t contacted me in five years. I don’t even know him, he’s a fool, a bastard. No… it’s all yours.”
She went to stand next to him, taking his aging hand into her own, seeing the prominent blue lines dance under the rough skin. “Thank you Tom, but you’re going to come back. I know it.” her smile of reassurance ignited a little sliver of hope in his sorrowful heart. She would be okay without him. She would be okay. She was strong.
The world flashed then, turning the night a hopeful black velvet, not too dark, and the sky aglitter with stars. Seven years had melted from his heart as he watched the single form of a young girl make her way along the path to his door. No possessions except for the clothes on her back and a little doll nestled into the crook of her right arm.
Her hair like sticks and brambles, her eyes like a frightened doe’s, and her cheeks, ruddy and tear stained. Newly orphaned, painfully abandoned by the harsh cruelty of death. She wanted to stay for a night; she stayed for seven years, carefully branding a single name into his heart, Gracie.
Now he had to leave, following the dreaded mists into the grey mystery that is war. A mystery he’d thought he’d given up on back in his twenties. He was aged now, with a slower gait and greyer hair, he wouldn’t come back, there wasn’t any way. He’d always be sorry that he couldn’t have been there for her longer, seven years just wasn’t enough.
