1944 (walking)

Walking barefoot upon damp soil turned for seed, Mary spoke: Late at night, in bed, when I close my eyes, I can still smell of him, still feel his weight against me, feel a flush upon my face, a warmth, and it feels as it did, his breath washing over me, the two of us gently rocking. And I think of a porch, of Tennessee, sunrise, him standing behind me. I'm in a rocking chair, eight, maybe nine months pregnant. We don't talk. His hands on the chair. I can smell the wetness of his shower, clean, fresh shaved. Birds chirping and the chair creaking. The three of us. He is making breakfast. Maple bacon, eggs, fresh squeezed orange juice.

We live in the country. A small ranch house with a red tin roof. His parents live just down the road. We watch them walking up the drive, his mother with a basket, his father, a handful of books. They've been married over forty years, each looking much like the other, walking the way one walks when one is walking just to walk, the way one walks in the country, upon dirt and gravel where turkeys roam the woods and deer are not afraid. His mother is bringing lunch, his father, conversation, another book to discuss, to read, to be read aloud, a tradition I've been told, one page at a time, stopping at each sentence, wearing the author's words like jewels, a dignity given as only writers give to the written word.

Of course you know, said Mary, this only exists in my mind.

I know, said Kathrin. I've lived an entire life with Erich.

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We would eat on wood. Natural light flooding the table. Silverware heavy and balanced in the hand upon plates resonating with the sound of artisans and kilns. We would have what we needed and no more. A house where one could breathe, where space was as important as furniture and light would be honored of window and lamp, of candle and torch. There would be pictures of friends and family and a room for guests with a sturdy bed he had made himself with oak and cast iron. And everywhere would be books. And not a day would pass without reading, to me, to my belly, and eventually, to our child. We would live with words as we did with vegetables and fruit, bread and whole milk, of butter soft as Sunday morning. There would be horses too and a barn. And the smell of hay after a rain, of grass grown to mow, of the neighing of life out our window. In the summer we would walk the land barefoot and in winter with the wool of local sheep, warm in the company of community, of friends and neighbors who knew sacrifice and knew the difference between noun and verb, lip and hand. If I'm going to go insane, said Mary, I'm going to this place.

Kathrin stopped and looked at Mary. If you go, take me.

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I wasn't finished.

Sorry.

We would also have music. Teach me he would, of bow and string, of the heart in a note, of wood and flesh conjuring spirit. We would dance, rain or shine and let our hair grow just so we could feel the sweat and lather of honest labor, of the hoe and axe, of the hammer and nail. And the barn would grow and we would raise our own sheep, have a dog too. A family. Laughter in the evenings watching fireflies, serenaded by crickets under a sky so dark it was light, our own private field of diamonds he would say, teaching constellations with stories of boys and wolves and perhaps a bull. He would kneel in the yard, his arm pointed to the heavens like an arrow, a cherub of a child on his knee and within me would warm the womb to bake another and grow, multiply this love, this divine manifestation.