An unlikely frame

This is the heart of the matter.

Ada died before becoming a woman. Like a coward, she marched into the grave rosy-cheeked and beautiful. Jocey despises this piece of ancestry.

January bit into the city until it bled slush. Slipping on ice, missing appointments, forgetting errands. Looking up into the sky like a child watching airplanes traverse pieces of sky from tree branch to tree branch. 

With Paul gone, she feels winged Possibility nudging at her heels. Provoked into movement by freedom, she clothes herself in grace and stays in the house. 

She dreams, she writes, she takes Paul's dog for long walks in the neighbourhood.
Once, she bumped into Tommy outside the record store. He looked more handsome than ever. He was wearing blue flannel and holding some groceries in a big brown paper bag. Who knows why there's kindness in eyes that once were so cruel. 

*
The truck sits waiting in the heat. An elephant. Fatigued. The unbearable weight of the sun rests on the boxes brought out in the open. Boxes moving this life from one place to another. Rays glint off the bed rail and fall, scattered, to the dust. To be swallowed up by New Mexico. By the tireless plains that sit in wait for the footprints this family won't ever bestow upon them.

Daddy stands far out in the garden. Havin' a last smoke. Contemplating. Waiting for the final sun to swallow the far side of the earth. I go out and stand with him. Side by side. Looking out. I want to reach out and hold his hand. I want to say something. I think of the earth opening up and swallowing my words. And in its place a tree will grow. Our family tree. And it will hold not our genes, but our promises. It will hold the seeds of this fight. This land. This fight. 
Before I begin, unprepared, to open my mouth our neighbour comes by. A heartbreak of a man. Clothes arranged untidily on his fragile body. He limps to Daddy to say goodbye. He has seen many family fights, he has been on our side. Once, when Rex came runnin' out of the house cuz mama was so upset with daddy she brought out the shotgun Mr. Oliver took Rex in. Brought him by the next day and sat down to tell us why the love hurts and glows in equal measure. He said, "Now look here Joce, love won't not hurt. Cuz the opposite of hurt isn't pleasure. It's light"

Now, with the sun goin down, the lack of light brings light. He stands beside Daddy. We form a very curious line of defence that faces the Sun. We sit and wait out its daily death. We say nothin'. The more we watch the heavier it grows. What? I'll be damned if any one of us knows. But, through each other, we feel it. We stand tall, we collapse into our shadows, we wait out the Sun. 

Then, in a flash (flash flash), darkness. Darkness sits with us now. At our table. Eating the remains of light. Full, heavy with a tenderness shared that won't be replicated or spoken about, we disperse. A farmer, Daddy, and me. Some kind of triumvirate of rural light. Some kind of echo of genetic acquiescence. 
Each one of us. 
In its own way. 
We disperse. 
*
Much, much later I will try and explain to Paul how I felt standing on my land. My own land, you see. This clay vessel holding bones, holding potatoes, holding mice nesting out. This clay vessel holding me on top of it.
Paul will pull me close, will trace the boxy state of New Mexico on my hip bone and stomach, will wrap his arm around my ribcage. Will turn my head and kiss me.
Will understand nothing.
The boxy outline of New Mexico. An unlikely frame that imprisons the child I'm pregnant with. An unlikely frame that shows off the child I'm pregnant with.
Altogether, an unlikely frame.