She presses her face against the glass, as if it is possible, as if she could find a way through and not be in this world but in the one on the other side and everything polished and shiny and new there.
The man in the shop scowls at her and waves his hand towards her as a man who would frighten chickens or cats from his garden. He does the same thing every morning, for she is there regular as clock time, her breath misting the glass and her pressed prayer-hands with their greasy fingers and her tears running like rain down the window.
Her name is Lynnell and she is a tale of loss, and loss ever gives shape to the life that we have, and for Lynnell it is so. Lost her would-have-been-husband to the war, years back, a black edged letter to tell her he was lost, but not before she found herself with a child growing inside her. Lost the child when it was born; taken from her rather than lost, and she looks for the child in the face of every girl that she sees, and sometimes she thinks just maybe, and she follows this girl or that, and follows her home or follows as far as following can and until she is lost again.
And Lynnell lost her father and mother one year, except she knows where they sleep for the place is marked with a stone, and some days she kneels in the grass by their graves and she tells them stories of the girl that is their lost grand-daughter. And she kneels so long that the minister, bike clips holding his trousers tight to his ankles, must help her to her feet if she is to stand again; and he takes her into the church and a room there where he gives her tea in a china cup and biscuits arranged on a china plate, and he does not ever know her name.
Lost her wits so far back she could not tell you when. Lost them and does not miss them now they are gone, for there is a sort of freedom in everything now, and she moves from shop window to shop window, peering in through the glass, and she does not see the men on the other side with their black brows knitted and their shoo-away hands waving; Lynnell looks for a way through the glass, hoping, for if only she could step through to the other side, there she might find everything she has lost waiting for her, everything polished and shiny and new.
My response:http://judithlindenau.wordpress.com/2013/05/10/may-10-2013-she-peered-in/
She presses her face against the glass, as if it is possible, as if she could find a way through and not be in this world but in the one on the other side and everything polished and shiny and new there.
The man in the shop scowls at her and waves his hand towards her as a man who would frighten chickens or cats from his garden. He does the same thing every morning, for she is there regular as clock time, her breath misting the glass and her pressed prayer-hands with their greasy fingers and her tears running like rain down the window.
Her name is Lynnell and she is a tale of loss, and loss ever gives shape to the life that we have, and for Lynnell it is so. Lost her would-have-been-husband to the war, years back, a black edged letter to tell her he was lost, but not before she found herself with a child growing inside her. Lost the child when it was born; taken from her rather than lost, and she looks for the child in the face of every girl that she sees, and sometimes she thinks just maybe, and she follows this girl or that, and follows her home or follows as far as following can and until she is lost again.
And Lynnell lost her father and mother one year, except she knows where they sleep for the place is marked with a stone, and some days she kneels in the grass by their graves and she tells them stories of the girl that is their lost grand-daughter. And she kneels so long that the minister, bike clips holding his trousers tight to his ankles, must help her to her feet if she is to stand again; and he takes her into the church and a room there where he gives her tea in a china cup and biscuits arranged on a china plate, and he does not ever know her name.
Lost her wits so far back she could not tell you when. Lost them and does not miss them now they are gone, for there is a sort of freedom in everything now, and she moves from shop window to shop window, peering in through the glass, and she does not see the men on the other side with their black brows knitted and their shoo-away hands waving; Lynnell looks for a way through the glass, hoping, for if only she could step through to the other side, there she might find everything she has lost waiting for her, everything polished and shiny and new.