Free When I Was Young and In My Prime by Alayna Munce Page B

someone, I think it was Eleanor Davies, snapped out of it and said her name. Mary. I remember how gently Eleanor said it. And I remember she looked up and stopped pouring, both at the same time, as if her chin and the spout were attached by a string, like a marionette. Only not from above if you see what I mean.  
    Well. I admit it was awkward then for a moment. As if a spell were broken or a dish or—oh something awkward, I don’t know. Eleanor got up, helped her put the teapot down and led her by the elbow through the kitchen into the front room. The rest of us still sitting there. Of course it didn’t take long for someone to break the silence, change the subject you know, and then we all gradually started to chat again. I remember we talked about that new bylaw, the one that says cats ought to be put on leashes of all things. None of us referred to the incident, except, when I slipped out to the kitchen with the tray to clean it up a bit, Margaret George followed. She touched me on my forearm with those everlasting cold hands of hers and asked me in a whisper what did I make of it. I didn’t have time to answer though, because just then Eleanor and Mary came back in and everything went on as usual. Mind you, I could tell everyone was a little shaken. When you get to be our age, it’s all a little too close to home.

Honest to goodness I never saw anything to beat it. That woman would push her plate out in front of her—just like this—and hunker down—look I’ll show you. Like this. On her elbows! Not a word of a lie! And then she’d shovel the food into her mouth, not lifting at all. Look. And she held the fork like this—for all the world like an oar! Just like this, not even lifting her arm one bit. Not a word of a lie. Well. I couldn’t eat at the same table with her. Had to take my meal afterward standing at the sideboard in the kitchen. Now let that be a lesson to you. Honest to goodness.

things that still have not left her

    1 chewing
    with her mouth closed

    2 disdain  
    for the strength of my grandfather’s  
    coffee

    3 the ability to sound out words
    from whatever’s on the coffee table—articles on  
    bear attacks in Reader’s Digest,  
    sexual assaults in the local paper,  
    the sanctuary roof leaking in the church bulletin—
    each word falling apart behind her the moment  
    she moves onto the next

    4 the ability to return a compliment
    for example: when Uncle Nick says,
    What a nice dress you have on Mom
    she says in return, And yours is nice too

    5 sight-reading the melody line from sheet music
    when put in front of a piano, she can still  
    play the right  
    hand  

    6   smiling  
    when kissed

The kiss James gave me on his way out to give a guitar lesson this morning was different somehow. A hint of a stranger. I wanted badly to know what gave it this flavour of newness. A certain restraint? A new tongue technique? Something in his bearing said, I could surprise you. His hand, on its way to my back, brushed my breast only glancingly, almost as if by accident, as if there were lines we hadn’t yet crossed together. His other hand holding his guitar case. Something in the way he kept a slight distance made me feel unexplored—curious and worthy of curiosity.  
    To hold back. Not say. Leave untouched. Camp out nearby. Admire from a distance. Go to the edge but not enter. Heidegger’s pilgrimage to the Greek island of Delos: when he finally got there he found he’d imagined the sacred site so clearly and so often and the sight of it from the boat so matched and even surpassed his imaginings, that he couldn’t bring himself to disembark.  
    To not get off the ferry. To not set foot on shore. To stay at sea.  
    We need more kisses like that one.

Lois King, on the chrysanthemums

    I think for a long time none of us admitted even to ourselves what was happening. Then there came a