Flight

Her mother had once told her the story of a girl who fell from the stairs and became a carved wooden sparrow as she hit the floor. This was around the age of five, when the world was her bedroom, her home, her street, the daycare two minutes away by car. This was when her mother herself was still young — 35 years old, without graying hair, far away from death. The wrinkles of her face were still then retained to laugh lines in the corners of her eyes.

When she fell from the top of the stairs her eyes could only stare at the tile as it moved closer and closer to her body. She woke up in a hospital — herself. Not a sparrow carved from wood on the mantle of a lonely man or on the table of a summer yard sale. It was never so easy. She pondered feigning amnesia as she looked through the glass in the door, watching the body of him move back and forth impatiently. It was never so easy. When she was let out on the grounds that it was not an attempt on her life and there was no damage worse than a few bruised ribs, her friends welcomed her back with poker and wine not from a bag. He watched her, not for a hint at what cards she might have, but for a way into her thoughts, a way into her inner self and why she would throw herself off a flight of stairs like Dido onto the pier of Aeneas’ swords. Why did you jump? It is hard to be natural with someone’s eyes drilling into you.

In the heavy seconds after the words were said, she wondered if she would fly or fall from this jump, but the expression on his face then as he stood was a good indication of which it would be.