Member-only story
The Secret Lives of Women
Examining a hidden book of poetry to find meaning in the life of our grandmother and what she might share with us.
The bright flash of light followed by window rattling booms wakes me as a young girl on a hot, humid Florida night. There is no rain pelting the slightly open awning windows of my bedroom. Only the whine of the storm wind sweeps through. The terrazzo floors of a thoroughly modern 1960’s home are warm under the feet. The powdery smell of the fresh cinder block construction weighs heavy in the air.
Mixed with the ozone from the storm, the smell smothers me, new to this home, this state, these storms. I seek the open air of the large screened patio unafraid of the thunder rolling away to echo in the dark. I’m drawn to the violent, arcing lances of lightning thrown from black night to the ground of the vast empty field behind this home.
As I turn the corner from the hall to the open living room, I see my grandmother framed in the open wall-to-ceiling sliding glass doors. They are open to the screened patio, open to the wind and fury of the thunder and lightning strikes. In the black night lit by the strobes of lightning, my grandmother takes on an ethereal timelessness. She is dressed for the night in a flowing peignoir robe that billows in the wind.
