The Alchemy of a Story

Why is it the minute I lay down to sleep the bubbling starts?

For years I tried to ignore it, but it was never any use; after half a night spent making up dialogues and plots, I'd wake up bleary-eyed with nothing to show for it. Now I know better, so I turn on the lamp and scribble. I can see the mother--no name yet--but she's wearing a calf-length dress in moss green. It's enough and after a quick prayer and a moment of worry that the house taxes are due in two weeks, I drift off to sleep.

There's no point trying to write at work; the public is relentless, a constant parade of patrons to serve, endless questions to answer, coworkers who chat all during breaks. There is no quiet time. But then I nearly trip over a little girl sitting cross-legged, Indian fashion between the library stacks. I see her as the mother in the moss green dress sees her, tucked into the crook of an apple tree outside the living room window or sitting stiff-back and stoic waiting for the dentist to call her name. Always reading, always with a book in her hands.

Why do I bother cooking from scratch? Others buy frozen dinners. I hate them. So does the mother in the calf-length dress. I dredge the cubed beef in flour, then fry it. Dredge. What an apt word, what a dig-deep-discover-what's-buried-in-the-muck word. Quick, grab a scrap of paper and a pen, don't let the pan burn, sprinkle thyme on the sizzling meat. Time. I have no time to do this, but that was her I saw on the calendar for April, the woman with the apron and the watering can, gathering herbs from her garden, listening for someone's footsteps.

He returns and the eight-year-old daughter, full of exuberance, tackles him crying, "Pizza, I smell pizza!" Each time he brings her fast food: egg rolls, an Italian hero, pizza. Why won't the mother marry him? I'm dredging again but the woman in the garden keeps her secret.

I add water and bouillon. Bouil-lon. Could she have a French name, this woman in the apron, with the auburn hair. Claire. Elise, perhaps. Surely she's involved with the man. In love. Why isn't it one word? (I've been involved. Inlove.) I'll keep her passion on the back burner, let him stew and simmer, then turn the flame higher. A rival?

Slice the onion! You can't make a stew without an onion. My eyes burn and I struggle to see, then to not see. I won't have it. I won't write it. I'll keep this child safe until I think of a different ending!

But the stew is bubbling too hard for that and the child slides softly to the floor, caught in the cross-fire, while a scream rises from the throat of the woman in the moss green dress.