I’ve got stories strung in my head like lines of wash. I remember this one. The time I got a fortune cookie at Ming’s Restaurant that said: “Love is a few moments in the lives of lovers.” I read it to Len and he snorted. “Now, what the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Summed up an entire marriage.
Twenty-six years. Would have been longer but he died.
After that there was the story of the singing kettle. I drank a lot of tea and there was always a kettle on the stove ready to boil. When it went off it made me laugh. Made me think of a man at the peak of sex.
By then I’d decided all men were alike—a penis and a list of demands.
The time we buried Daddy is another story. The grave was too shallow and then it rained. The coffin had to wait overnight for next day’s ceremony to cover it with dirt. It floated to the top, bobbing like a boat.
Everyone laughed. The old bugger wasn’t making it easy as usual. We had a good party on that.
This new story concerns a summer afternoon. My bed is beside the open window. A breeze is blowing the lace curtains. Outside everything is white, even the flowers—clematis, alyssum, the late roses. Even the sky is bleached. The important part is the horse. This is a serious story. There’s a white horse with a black star on its forehead and it’s waiting for me outside the window—frisky, full of life.
When I was a kid I loved riding horses. I have never forgotten that power between my legs.
I would like to gallop away from this world on a horse. Is this too much to ask, considering?