THAT AFTERNOON I went straight to the pond. I threw my backpack through the porch door and I went off through the cul-de-sac, past the Gunns’, and into the woods, between the mass of old burned-out rhododenrons and the naked oaks and tulip trees, down to the stream that was, this time of year, just creeping along, all congested with old leaves. The sun was already falling out of the sky, and my parka wasn’t thick enough for the wind that was blowing so hard that sometimes the ravens in the trees seemed tossed off their limbs. Snow, I thought, because the clouds were overwrought, because whenever I exhaled I saw my white breath.
When I finally reached the pond, I saw that changes were afoot. That the water had started becoming crystalline and the marble girl was freezing in. All around her and above her was the stuff of early ice, and suddenly all I wanted was to relieve her of her trap. She wouldn’t be able to breathe, I feared. She wouldn’t be able to disappear, either.
I try, as hard as I can, to be my dad’s best girl—reliable and solid. I try to take each thing as it comes and to forsake the sentimental. But that afternoon the cold and the wind and the poor girl’s condition made my eyes swell up with tears. Made my throat hurt again until I had to yell, and my yell was a boom, it was a thunderclap, it was what I didn’t know I had inside me. I was the only one around, save for the ravens. They took to the skies in a black swirl.
Dear Elisa,
Things have gotten worse with Stuart Small. He shouldn’t have bought Sole Food without an integration plan, and the management teams don’t get along. Small says he’s looking to me to play referee, but he’s not interested in listening. He’s like those squirrels you see out in the middle of the street that go this way and that way even as the big trucks keep coming.
You can’t walk out on your clients though. So it looks like I’m in this one for the long haul, Elisa. I miss you and I miss Mom and I miss Jilly. I’d need a few of your best metaphors to be able to say just how much.
Love,
Dad