Free This Body by Laurel Doud

Katharine knew exactly how glad Anne would be if it were true. She knew how she'd feel if it was true with Ben.
    Katharine looked over and saw that Anne Bennet was crying, silently and discreetly, tears slipping off her high cheekbones
and sliding down to the corners of her mouth.
    Katharine sucked in her cheeks and held the spongy flesh with clenched teeth.
What we parents go through. And our children are clueless. To be fair, we were clueless when we were kids too. And I don't
think kids ever really know what parents go through until they have children themselves. Only if you can live long enough
as a parent — as a grandparent, really — to see it. Hal Holbrook said in the movie about Mark Twain, “When I was a boy of
fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was
astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.” But I didn't get to live long enough for Ben and Marion to find out
how much I had learned
.
    I think I'd be better off dead. Really dead.

    Katharine was dreaming. It was one of her recurring nightmares. She's back in high school, a new class schedule in hand. The
backs of her fellow students are disappearing behind slowly closing doors. They know where they belong. She is frantically
searching for T-2. She reaches a room numbered “2,” but to her horror, it's S-2. Running through the fat air to get to the
“T” wing, she sees that the numbers on the class-room doors are up in the hundreds. Time ticking by, and the tardy bell soon
to ring. She can feel the second hand clicking over to the next minute. She will be late. She will be reprimanded. She will
get detention. She will be noticed.
    The tardy bell was ringing in her ears when she jolted herself awake, shaking. Her heart slammed offbeat. She could still
hear the bell and realized it was the sound of a Piccolo Pete firework, screaming and then dying in the warm air. The pool
deck was empty, the sun low on the horizon. She had been asleep for some time.
    She tried to shake the shards of the dream loose but then realized why her heart pounded so and why she was trembling. It
had been the same old scenario — new schedule, wrong room, tardy bell. But the dreamscape had been different. The classroom
she had been searching for had not been at James Marshall High School with its sprawling, barrack-style wings. She had been
lost in a two-story building of white stucco and Spanish tile. She had been lost in Thisby's high school.

    The dream still clung to Katharine like a sticky cobweb as she started up the steps to the back door. Through the window she
could see Anne Bennet working at the center cutting board, the light in the kitchen rosy from the setting sun. Katharine wanted
to stand there on the outside and watch forever, but Thisby's mother seemed to sense something and looked out to where Katharine
stood. Katharine sighed, opened the door, and stepped into the kitchen.
    “Did you have a nice rest?” Anne Bennet paused in midchop.
    “Yes, thank you.” Katharine felt awkward and formal again, like a first-time houseguest.
Well, aren't I
?
    “We decided to just let you sleep. I'm sure you needed it.”
    “Yes, I'm sure I did. Thank you.” Not wanting to stand there and do nothing, Katharine offered to prepare the vegetables.
Anne moved to the stove.
    As Katharine cut up the carrots, she picked at them. They were quite good, not store-bought but garden-fresh.
    “Trying to change your eating habits as well?”
    Katharine jumped. She had forgotten she wasn't alone.
    “You used to love vegetables when you were a baby,” Anne said, reminiscence in her voice. “I could never figure out just what
happened. I guess it was trying to get you to work in the garden with me. But you preferred photography with your father.
And you were so good at it.”
    Katharine turned; Anne had stopped stirring and held the spoon poised and dripping over the pot. She looked at