Woolgathering

  ***

  I remember wishing it could last forever. I loved it there, in that sheltered space, sharing Miss H—'s company in silent appreciation. But people like us, the thinkers, their lives are always changing. And most of the time it's our own fault. Most of the time it's curiosity that does it. I'd like to taste of this disease, complacency, that everybody talks about. I hear it feels good.

  Miss H— and I naturally didn't interact much. I don't know who was more afraid of whom, but I do know it was usually me that spoke when it did happen. And that meant that when she opened her mouth it was something almost holy in significance to me.

  “I think you should be in school,” she said one day.

  “It's summer,” I reminded her, wondering that the heat billowing in angry droves around us didn't touch her, but then, she was wearing a turtle neck and a world away at that. “'Sides. School's nothing special.” Just a bunch of boring, trivial tasks and teachers wondering why a good kid like me with perfect grades wouldn't show a little more initiative. To this day I don't know what definition of 'initiative' they operated under. I was plenty self-motivated; everybody else got help with their homework, but not me. I'd learned not to need it.

  “Oh,” Miss H— said, and she turned a page of the novel she was reading.

  It was then that I noted the splotches of color that stained her veined hands and fingers. I regarded them surreptitiously all day, half hoping she would notice and explain. She didn't, though, and I had a pernicious combination of shyness and inquisitiveness that made me just sit there, dying to know. I would rather have sent myself to the grave with the bleeding of an unanswered question than offend the only person in the whole world I had just then.

  Nevertheless, I had to investigate. The next few days tormented me without any leads— I suppose part of it was the old cynicism in me. The last words I ever heard my Dad say before Mom took me were that the whole world has an agenda and that I'd better get one too. I tried to tell myself it was just because he was bitter with the courts for believing Mom loved me just ‘cause she said so and she was a woman. But when he'd said it it had sounded like an awfully old truth in his heart. It didn't help that I had a mind that wouldn't take anything at face value. I wasn't even sure that I'd have trusted him if he finally won and the courts let him have me.

  I wasn't even sure he was trying anymore. Maybe he'd started just paying the checks Mom wanted so bad every month. Maybe he'd forgotten how special he told me I was, once, after listening to me for a while.

  But I was sure going to try and trust Miss H—, which was why I ended up making the effort to get to know her better. When you think too much you get to caring too much about people, too. That's why you avoid them, and that's why you stop blaming them for misunderstanding.

  I thought all that while I hid under the library's table at closing time, while I watched people shuffle out. There was a boy with a pug nose and flab who checked out a real old book I liked, and I smiled because one of my friends was being read. His mother looked patient, too; I might've envied him bitterly if my head wasn't full of excitement for my secret mission, if I wasn't terrified. My brain had already conjured all kinds of punishments for my transgressions ranging from seraphs raining fire to the utter dissolution of my character.

  These concerns slid from my mind when Miss H— stirred, however. I had to restrain a gasp when, jerkily and with a grimace, she lifted herself from her chair. It was an act the equivalent of Yggdrasil uprooting itself and walking away from the seat of existence. That chair was her throne. I'd never known her outside it, and the merest act of her crossing to the gate to her quarters transformed my tiny act of delinquency into an adventure.

  She opened the door and went in. Simply. I found myself feeling cheated that there hadn't been an incantation required, no secret compartment to speak of.

  But then I was faced with a different dilemma I should have come to grips with ages before I ever followed through with my schemes. I wanted a peek at Miss H—'s secrets, yet they were all behind that door. If I opened it she would know what I'd done.

  Then I remembered how far I'd come already. To a degree, I suppose I was swelled with pride at my own bravery, for staying in a grown-up land. I almost didn't realize I was crawling out from under the table, my heart beating against my ribs in time to my feet padding timorously over the carpet.

  Behind the desk I went. Past the corner Miss H— had given me, and if I weren't but a child maybe it would have given me a guilty pang. Parents should be gentle with their children— everything we do is a mix of curiosity, confusion, entitlement, and the defiance they seem to fancy everything to be.

  So yes. I laid my hand on the portal to Miss H—'s secret gardens and a thrill galvanized me. I twisted the knob to that door, bursting headlong through it.

  Miss H— might have screamed, if only she wasn't so astonished. I'll never forget how wide those bruised eyes of hers got— so wide I could see them as perfect white circles, the pupils all small and quivering inside as though begging to escape.

  Callously curious creature that I was, I let the sight of what adorned her room steal my attention. There were paintings. Dozens of paintings, scary but beautiful, and they told stories, and I knew those stories were hers because you always spill your soul into stuff like that— if you don't you're not doing it right. Most all of it was black, but it was as though that shade were a beam of darkness filtered through a prism. A scintillating play of colors fluttered just below its sable surface, and it was into those colors that images— of stares that burned and sound that deafened— were carved. My mouth must have dropped open at those horrific and captivating scenes. Only the things that should chill you to the bone as a child do, and those paintings were disturbing but sacred, those purest reflections of Miss H—'s heart.

  “Out!” I almost didn't hear the first shriek I was so engrossed, but then Miss H— was scrabbling to her feet, spreading her baggy skeleton out to try and hide as much of the canvas as she could. “Out!” she cried again, frantic and pained, and I cringed from her.

  “W—why?!” I gasped. “They're beautiful!”

  “You have no right!” she insisted. “No right to be in here!”

  That hurt, and tears welled in my eyes. “But they're so lovely; why would you keep them in here?! You could sell them, or display them, or—!”

  “No!” She seemed horrified by the idea. “No they're my only joy— mine!”

  “But they'd make other people happy too!” I pressed, angry now because it hurt that I wasn't a joy, too, and all children are selfish that way. “What's the point if no-one sees them?!” What was my point, if even she couldn't hear me?

  “I— They make me happy,” she repeated, pleading inconsolably, and I saw her gaze dart across the room before she could think to retract it. I followed her eyes, felt my stomach twist at sight of what I faced.

  It was a slashed canvas, but somehow I knew that she hadn't done it. It radiated the bitter air of a cruel and frightened monster. Suddenly I realized why she was so terrified.

  “This is all I have that's worth anything. This is all I have. Don't judge it. Don't hate it. Its the only part of me I can stand. Don't...”

  I started really crying then, when with those silent pleas ringing in my conscience I turned to Miss H—'s crumpled form on the floor. Her knees were all drawn up to her chest and she lay her face in them, weeping. I cried for the same reasons we always cry, because it wasn't fair. 'They' judged us, they tore us apart, they cowed us. And instead of fixing it, instead of giving them the one thing that might be able to help them understand, we ducked and clutched it frantically, selfishly, to our breasts. It was such a dreadful cycle, so hard and agonizing and vicious.

  “Miss H—” I croaked, hoping to drown out my thoughts.

  “Shut up!” she cried, clamping her hands over her ears, “Shut up and leave me alone!”

  My lip quivered, and my feet moved to carry me away. I almost left her ther
e in that ruinous heap; already I stood without the door, primed to flee. But something stopped me. I couldn't move my legs. I couldn't because she was my friend, my only friend, and that was the most precious thing in the world to me.

  So I turned back and I knew what I had to do even though I hated it, even though I was trembling with fear. It was to be the hardest thing I'd ever tried. It was to be the most important decision of my young life.

  Slowly, I crossed the floor to sit down next to Miss H— and I said, very quietly, almost in a whisper:

  “No, Ma'am. You see, I have a story to tell you, and I— I'd like it awfully well if you'd just listen. You don't have to like it. You can hate it if you want. But please listen, because it's all I have...”

  She stared.

  I forced myself to smile.

  And with that I began.

  An Aged Love