The Myth of Summer Fins

Dusk hangs in the air, temporal longing, as the trains make their steely paths announcing the coming and going, something solid you can count on. Trains. Coming. And going. And Amelia breathes, in, and out, and attempts to slow this moment as Jenz chatters on and lightly foots at the white painted two by fours fencing the patio in.

"What're we gonna do, girl?" says Jen as if there were a choice.

Amelia inhales, searches the dead flat horizon beyond, and brings her vision closer into the lit windows of the houses on the street and good ol Mouska the cat, fat and furry, mozying down the street like nobody's business but her own.

She turns her gaze toward Jen and allows her eyes the pleasure her husband has had, to search and enjoy and examine the vision of Her. Jen's tan face, bare legs. Skirt hiked up just over the knees. Jenz always looked good. Dressed well. Took her damn near long enough, for Christ's sake. Town like this. Who did she think would come through and sweep her up? Nobody barely alive here, wouldn't so much as come through long enough to change a flat tire. But Jenz looked good. It was admirable, her dedication to vanity. Amelia would just think, 'maybe, someday. Maybe I'll look good' but in the meantime seemed to tend to the needling needing wringing hands at hand: trying to hear every second and survive every hour.

"Stick together," said Amelia.

Jenz looked at her with that look like she didn't understand a word she was saying. Amelia attempted an explanation, as if she was the one who should do the explaining.

"I guess."

"Yeah. I got you, girl. I love you."

Each of them searched the sky, the overhang of the porch, the grass, the breeze through the trees. Hope and destiny and the future and the past were contained within the connecting atoms passing between the bending of the boughs, the blades of grass, the exhales of mutual and intuitive surrender.

"You want another?" asked Amelia.

"Yeah. Fuck it. Why not."

Amelia swung open the door and kissed Em on her head as she sat in her wheelchair reading People magazine. She pulled open the door to the fridge, grabbed two beers, and walked into the kitchen where the small change purse knicknack with the lid that Gammy kept small unforgettable items in was, and walked through the living room to once again foot open the front screen and plop down, left hand extended with beer toward Jenz.

"Thanks, beeeeeyatch," Jenz took the beer and realized with a shot to the heart what else was in Amelia's hand.

Hanging from her palm was the gold cross necklace Jenz and Amelia had each received from Gammy when they were confirmed in the church. White dresses, full communion. An admission of sins, coming before God. Or whatever they told you to be pure.

"Where'd you find that?"

She could have done it. She could have blown the whole thing wide open. But that's not what she wanted. And if she had anything on either of them, it was that she knew what made her happy, what she was grateful for, why she was here, and What To Do. And What To Do was to keep the last remaining remnants of some life she was handed down to and not add any more fucking misery to this God Damned Fucking World.

"Musta left it here," shrugged Amelia.

"Oh." Jenz said. Act like nothing happened, and maybe, maybe, by erasing it in your mind, nothing did. "Thanks."

Amelia traveled the line of Jen's face again and smiled, smirking down some beer. "Sure thing." She laughed to herself and repeated it. "Sure thing."


*****************************

After she left, the usual talk to you/see you later, meaning within a few hours, Amelia shut the front door with the final gratifying release of the cylinder to unleash the latch into the undying solid wood of the door jamb. Em was asleep and Will was cold-cocked out.

In the low light of the dining room, Amelia pulled open the drawer that nobody ever opens and pulled out the photo.

She sat and exhaled and looked out the picture window. A sliver of golden light under Em's door was reflected in the picture window. But she wouldn't come out. She couldn't.

Staring at the photo Amelia attempted to pin any understanding or hope about the event onto the grainy photo. Maybe it could understand. The only other person who knew, who would ever know. Like a wispy cloud over a dark sea. The tiniest spot. The tiniest spot that breathed, maybe. That pie shaped portion. That would have sucked it's thumb. The blackest sea. The darkest Maybe. The tiniest spot that couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe here. Especially not here. Amelia knew. And she would stop that pushing, pulsing, tearing pain from anything and anyone she could. No she would not have any more misery. Not this time around. Not now. Not while she was alive. Not while Amelia could help it.

It was nothing but blood for a day, and cramps.

And anyway, baby would probably have betrayed her too.