The girls brought me a gift the next day; a pudgy penguin candle that looked up at me with a beseeching smile. They forgave me, but I couldn’t forgive myself. I know it was one of those moments where nothing but a twist of fate could have changed it, but still…
Speeding home the evening before, I was beguiled by the first beautiful day of spring. I wanted to get home and enjoy the evening. I swerved to miss a cat and took my foot off the gas. “THWACK” “What was that?” I pulled over into their drive, and as I got out of the car I heard their mother, screaming, “Oh My God, Bill!” She was running toward the road, then she saw me and stopped. We looked behind the car. There lay the family dog, who had taken that same spring moment to chase their cat in the wrong direction. Its death was imminent. The girls often fought over who would sleep with it each night, and now I intervened in an all too drastic way.
My whole body sunk in a quagmire of guilt. I lit the candle just one time that night. It shed a flicker of forgiveness.
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Elusive and tricky in just the right distancing way--the reader has to lean in and then lean in even more to follow, but it's good for us to get a little mental exercise. Reading is not meant to be a passive exercise and the reader is more than a receptacle for the writer's thoughts.
ReplyDeleteWow, And I thought I was just putting in the random inconsequential detail of the candle to create the distance. I guess I was even more elusive than I thought I was being.
ReplyDeleteNo no--that's exactly what the candle does; that candle also is a week 11 special.
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