Page 19 - Vol. VII #1

ask. She only knew that somehow, she and Lidia had gone from BLT sandwiches at the river in the morn- ing to Marion skipping her first class each day so that she could supervise her mother’s limp body falling backwards in the bathtub, her breathing becoming shallow and her eyelids fluttering like the wings of a trapped bird.
The storm returned abruptly. Large raindrops struck and splashed the windshield like water-filled bal- loons; steam rose from the asphalt and hissed as they drove on. Brian cursed something but Marion couldn’t hear him over the drumming on the roof; he pulled over and stopped the car.
Lidia cracked the window open to clear the fog on the windows and took Marion’s hand, her face tilted upward as she listened to the rain, her breath leaping forward in little clouds. Looking at her mother now, drained of color but serene, even a small smile on her lips, Marion felt that the blue envelopes didn’t matter anymore. Whatever they were, the pain they conjured was left behind in San Francisco. She lifted Lidia’s hand and kissed her fingers, just as Lidia had kissed hers when she was younger, and they were shaping cookie dough on Saturday nights; and Lidia turned to Marion in delighted surprise, while the fresh scent of pine rushed through the window and the river behind them roared freely.
“I’m pregnant. You’re gonna have a sister. You think that’s okay?”
~
The rain eased itself into a drizzle, the wind sending torn leaves scurrying atop the rain-slicked road. The air was dry and scrubbed clean. Marion still held Lidia’s hand, or rather—a wonderful shift in her per- ception—Lidia was holding hers. She stared at her mother amazed at how powerful Lidia seemed now, not at all in need of her, only in want of her. Marion didn’t notice that Brian was driving unusually slowly, until the car came to an abrupt halt about fifty feet from a diner.
“Out. It’s a fuckin’ flat.”
~
The diner had a statue of Elvis standing above its front door with a guitar, hips tilted forward, knees bent, toes barely touching the ground. Marion closed her eyes and pictured Elvis swirling around like he
“They were fish in the water,
happy and free. For a suspended moment, Marion believed that to be true.”
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