Reunion Picnic for Elaine and Rosemary

it whirred on the dresser, the air sweeping the room. Maggie wept and shivered under her damp covering. She had wet herself. "We have to stop, Maggie," I told her. Her back was to me. she lay on her side, staring at the wall. Then someone knocked on the trailer's front door. We jumped, looked wildly at one another with panic. Neither of us moved. The knock came again. "My face," I said, and covered my mouth with my hand. Maggie tried to sit up but collapsed, her cheeks white. "I can't," she said. "I'm sorry." Knock. Knock. Knock. I pulled open the door; it was Herb, out in the sunlight, the first time I'd ever seen him up close. I had always only waved to him when I passed on the road. He stood now with his armful of vegetables , a paper sack full of tomatoes by his feet. "I know I'm imposing," he said. "I know you girls have busy lives." He thrust the vegetables into my arms so that some peppers fell to the wooden steps and rolled. "But my garden is overflowing." He peered past me into the dim living room, his brittle body tipped forward, blue eyes moving until they rested on the broken set of dishes, the bottles on their sides on the floor. Then he looked at me, but it wasn't only my bruises he was seeing, nor the stitches, though they all registered. "Mag's in bed," I explained. "I live next door." "Are you all right now?" he asked. I knew he meant both of us. "His line's still busy," I say. My cup of tea is empty. I stand by the sink and shake the coffee can to determine if there is enough to make a small pot. I peel off the plastic lid and find that what rattles is just the measuring scoop. "I have the strangest feeling," Maggie says. I have that feeling too. I put the pot of water on to heat again, but what I want is coffee. I want the water to perk upwards and filter down like magic, from clear to brown. Reunion Picnic for Elaine and Rosemary We should have danced: three solitary women, comrades from another time, rejoined by mountain wind and newly careful hands into one circle turning, turning, through summer grass and thistle, Queen Anne's lace and trumpet vine. We could have graced that gentle hollow with our green gold spinning: our single thread of common light restored, of common land reclaimed. —Judy Odom 38 ...