She looks across the pond, where the ducks glide carelessly across the water and the lily pads lay with their petals spread wide open. She looks across that pond, while an old melody plays in the recesses of her mind. Behind her eyes a reel of memories displays itself; images of running through the fields with her sister as they chased their dreams, her father his head in his hands not knowing how he will support the family after losing his job, her mother with her pin-up curls and stockings and red heels as she baked a pie, the perfect ideal of a 50s housewife, always put together, brave, and resourceful even in hard times. Images of jumping into the freezing lake at the start of spring, to prove herself braver than the taunting school boys, her father coming home from the factory after a long day’s work, her mother planting hydrangeas in the garden, her sister being the first one to be asked to dance at the school formal, her sister getting married, starting a household. Her declining dates, refusing to settle down as a housewife, a homemaker. Her wanting more, moving far away to start a new life, an exciting life, an independent life. Images of a man, meeting him at bar in a strange, new city where life was just beginning for her. Their eyes meeting and a feeling of knowing washing over her. He asks her to dance, and they do, they talk and laugh, and agree to meet the next day. They spend almost every day together, sharing their fears, their goals, their dreams with each other. Her typing furiously at night with the hopes of being writer for the gazette instead of a secretary, going out with coworkers, amazing women that have all different goals and ambitions. Being published in the newspaper, her first article, writing her own column. Her being with this man that is not at all something she wished or wanted or hoped for but is a man that is somehow exactly what she needed. Vietnam, her parents calling, her cousins are going, so are the rough and tumble schoolboys she used to know, so is her brother-in-law, and the man she has spent the last year with, exploring the city, talking, laughing, dancing, and dreaming with, is also going to war. A last dance to a melody which in the moment is sweet, and slow, and beautiful, will come to forever haunt her mind. He kisses her gently, then squeezes her hand, he tells her he is coming back, he will come home.
She stands looking across the rippling water as the sun beams down upon it, she is old, her skin weathered and wrinkled, her hair gray, the ring on her finger from a man she cared deeply for, who was buried years ago after a solid 44 years together, her children out in the world and married and content, her grandchildren nearly grown. She looks out across the pond, thinking of the man she lost all those years ago, the man that her husband, her children, every generation after her, never knew about, the man she truly loved. As that old melody plays inside her mind, inside her heart, she waits, not for him to come home, because she realized long ago that he wouldn’t come home, despite his promise and her hope, even love cannot bring back the departed, she waits instead for the moment they can both be home together. She sits down on the wicker chair as the ducks continue to glide on the water, and the lily pads stay in full bloom, and the sun beams down. She closes her eyes as the breeze carries the final notes of that melody, that sweet, and slow, and beautiful melody. She closes her eyes and she is home… they both are.
Written by: Confessions of a Chaotic Mind May 25th, 2019
