A memory:

She is very small, so small that getting up on the low bed proves arduous; she hoists herself up with her arms and then jumps up and down until her father tells her to stop. Her brothers, smiling their identical lopsided smiles, clamber up after her and splay themselves on either side of her father, who is on his stomach, a book open in front of him.

The girl waits for a moment and picks at the soft cotton comforter on which they sit. The fabric is cool except for where her father has been resting; there it is warm and indented with his weight; she feels as if she is falling into him, into the book they are about to hear. They have been reading it for several days now. The girl loves the story and the characters, the thrill of hearing what’s next.

Her father begins to read out loud in his soothing baritone voice. The girl lets the words wash over her, picturing herself a thousand feet underwater, or floating out in space, or fighting dragons. The image changes with each story her father reads.

This night, the images don’t particularly inspire her, but they take on a different life when she sits on top of her father’s back. She is still small and fits easily; her brothers imitate her, one sitting on either leg. But the girl puts her head down on her father’s back and ignores them. She can hear her father speaking, but it is simply a low, steady rumble, like the sea. And like waves he breathes smoothly through the sentences and words, his body rising and falling, rising and falling.

The path always turns down and she jogs down it like an old woman, one who does not have her cane with which to steady herself. So much for the knee injuries, which complain as she stomps down to the bottom of the hill and into the forest.

Despite the nagging pain and the tightness growing in her chest as she continues on, it is a beautiful day and she can think of nothing better than spending it outside.

She runs as far as she dares to go with her injuries, and then stops, panting, at the side of the stream. It trickles merrily next to her, and the girl steps out gingerly into the water, balancing on a large white rock that juts out from the surface. It is dry there but sloped at a steep angle and she crouches down to steady herself. The movement disturbs small fish who had been hiding in the dark shadows; the girl looks down into the water and sees them, nearly invisible on top of the grit of the creek bed.

The day moves on; she stays crouched there, staring into the lazy waters, watching the water striders walking delicately from one rock to the next, the crayfish resting in the shallows, the small fish braving the open waters for a moment, then disappearing the next.

She is running again, but this time it is in light of the beautiful day. She runs under dappled sunlight, then parallel to the small stream which wanders over smooth grey stones. Her path is grass, then packed dirt, then rocks.

She has a memory of being left on the curb as a teenager during her first week of high school.

It is after practice, and all of the other students had gone home already. The sky was growing dark. There ware fireflies dancing in front of her, and she sits on the curb. Wonders where her ride was. Nobody came.
Finally, she uses a pay phone just outside the school entrance to call her house, and when she does, a tired-sounding voice mutters a greeting.

You’ve left me here, she says to the voice.

The voice tells her that she’ll be picked up in a little while.

And so she sits down to wait again. The sky turns puce with the light pollution of the closest cities. There are no stars that she can see. Just the faint rustle of the leaves in the trees across the street from her. The stone curb digs into the back of her legs. The girl thinks she feels bugs crawling on her.

She waits.

The girl remembers this and winces with the pain of her complaining knees. The path ahead is long and broken. She turns back, enough for one day, feeling the sweat pouring down her brow and back, but resolves to come back soon.