Read Online All the Dancing Birds by Auburn McCanta - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Auburn McCanta
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need to have a good roll in the hay. When’s the last time you had some crazy, howling sex? Dad’s been gone how long now?”
“Ten years. Still… Allison Claire! You’re so rude.”
I make a juvenile face and stick out my tongue. We look at each other with wide eyes and then burst into high laughter. We roll on my bed like litter-mate pups. We are, at once, young girls again with coltish legs and slender arms, gasping with thoughts about boys and kisses and the forbidden delight of such entanglements.
The door to my mind (which had just moments earlier been so rudely slammed in my face) blessedly opens wide and I’m once again breezy with fresh air and words. I splash memory and language about the room as if there is no end to what I know and this bright and joyful moment will go on forever.
It occurs that this is how things will be from now on. Good days and bad. Good moments hunted and chased down by bad ones like Sherlock’s hounds. I’m learning not to expect my lips to stay bright for long.
Afternoon arrives and Allison, even with all her oven-mitted, spoon-churning fumbles, helps me in the kitchen.
Brian arrives late, sputtering apologies and excuses that seem to spill down the front of his shirt. He offers to flip the chicken breasts around the barbeque like he’s the man of the house. Nevertheless, he grumbles as he searches for just the right spot of heat.
“I thought we were going to have steaks,” he complains. “I really had my mouth ready for something large and beefy.”
“Steaks!” Allison wrinkles her nose at the thought. “That’s totally unhealthy. Cow meat is just wrong.”
“And chicken meat is right ?”
“We need to think of Mom now. Maybe it’s not good for her to have beef. Don’t you know that cows stick their tongues clear up inside their noses, for God’s sake? How healthy is that?”
“Okay, I’ll give you that one disgusting thing about cows, but chickens don’t have a lick of sense. Christ, look at the way they flip around even after their heads are pulled away from their bodies.” Bryan winks in my direction. “If we want to help Mom, we should at least feed her something halfway intelligent.”
My children are off and running with what sounds like adolescent sibling banter; I’m off and running with a lovely glass of red wine and light-filled thoughts crackling through my mind. Yes! Allison and Bryan are mid-squabble and all is right with the world, in spite of my broken brain. I move indoors to poke at potatoes baking in the oven and put the broccoli on to steam. I’m able to figure out the workings on the oven and stove—always a good sign that I’m having a rare moment of excellence.
Bryan works at the barbeque while Allison sits at the table. As I watch from the window, an amused smile still making its path across my face, my eye wanders to the strawberry patch. Due to my singular neglect, they’ve overgrown themselves this year, encroaching into small cracks along the asphalt drive, widening their influence with flourishing enthusiasm. I make a mental note to whack them back into a proper and more manageable shape.
Sounds drift in and out the open window and I’m happy with that. For the moment, I’m a flat, smooth stone, good enough for skipping many times before sinking down into my mind’s brackish pond of forgetfulness.
YOU BLESS. You bless your ears and all they pull into their secret whorls and curls: the delightful banter of your children who could as easily be looped on drugs as they are on trying to best one another in passionate discussion; the tiny scrape of metal as your son slides his chair away from the patio table; the hiss of chicken turned on the grill; the clack of your daughter’s high heels across the patio’s concrete floor; the movement of fabric, sluicing across your thighs as you walk through your house; the now-and-again silence of calm in the sweet fragrance of forgetfulness that your husband is forever gone
“Ten years. Still… Allison Claire! You’re so rude.”
I make a juvenile face and stick out my tongue. We look at each other with wide eyes and then burst into high laughter. We roll on my bed like litter-mate pups. We are, at once, young girls again with coltish legs and slender arms, gasping with thoughts about boys and kisses and the forbidden delight of such entanglements.
The door to my mind (which had just moments earlier been so rudely slammed in my face) blessedly opens wide and I’m once again breezy with fresh air and words. I splash memory and language about the room as if there is no end to what I know and this bright and joyful moment will go on forever.
It occurs that this is how things will be from now on. Good days and bad. Good moments hunted and chased down by bad ones like Sherlock’s hounds. I’m learning not to expect my lips to stay bright for long.
Afternoon arrives and Allison, even with all her oven-mitted, spoon-churning fumbles, helps me in the kitchen.
Brian arrives late, sputtering apologies and excuses that seem to spill down the front of his shirt. He offers to flip the chicken breasts around the barbeque like he’s the man of the house. Nevertheless, he grumbles as he searches for just the right spot of heat.
“I thought we were going to have steaks,” he complains. “I really had my mouth ready for something large and beefy.”
“Steaks!” Allison wrinkles her nose at the thought. “That’s totally unhealthy. Cow meat is just wrong.”
“And chicken meat is right ?”
“We need to think of Mom now. Maybe it’s not good for her to have beef. Don’t you know that cows stick their tongues clear up inside their noses, for God’s sake? How healthy is that?”
“Okay, I’ll give you that one disgusting thing about cows, but chickens don’t have a lick of sense. Christ, look at the way they flip around even after their heads are pulled away from their bodies.” Bryan winks in my direction. “If we want to help Mom, we should at least feed her something halfway intelligent.”
My children are off and running with what sounds like adolescent sibling banter; I’m off and running with a lovely glass of red wine and light-filled thoughts crackling through my mind. Yes! Allison and Bryan are mid-squabble and all is right with the world, in spite of my broken brain. I move indoors to poke at potatoes baking in the oven and put the broccoli on to steam. I’m able to figure out the workings on the oven and stove—always a good sign that I’m having a rare moment of excellence.
Bryan works at the barbeque while Allison sits at the table. As I watch from the window, an amused smile still making its path across my face, my eye wanders to the strawberry patch. Due to my singular neglect, they’ve overgrown themselves this year, encroaching into small cracks along the asphalt drive, widening their influence with flourishing enthusiasm. I make a mental note to whack them back into a proper and more manageable shape.
Sounds drift in and out the open window and I’m happy with that. For the moment, I’m a flat, smooth stone, good enough for skipping many times before sinking down into my mind’s brackish pond of forgetfulness.
YOU BLESS. You bless your ears and all they pull into their secret whorls and curls: the delightful banter of your children who could as easily be looped on drugs as they are on trying to best one another in passionate discussion; the tiny scrape of metal as your son slides his chair away from the patio table; the hiss of chicken turned on the grill; the clack of your daughter’s high heels across the patio’s concrete floor; the movement of fabric, sluicing across your thighs as you walk through your house; the now-and-again silence of calm in the sweet fragrance of forgetfulness that your husband is forever gone
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