LatinosUSA

When she was young she made an immediate impression and men were taken by her. She was poor and easy to wanna rescue and her temper had been forged in a cauldron of family fire which could throw you back like the recoil of a pistol. She caught the fearless eye of a man with movie star looks who made his fortune in motorcycle manufacturing. A dead ringer for Ollie Reed and a hit at the pub, too. Drank hard, tipped well and told brilliantly embellished escapades from the second world war, where he served in reconnaissance (though primarily a courier and convoy escort) on a Harley-Davidson Liberator.

Wading through the crowd with an armful of pints one cold and rainy night, she caught more than his eye. He was seated at a table dramatically emphasizing the size of the crater a German howitzer had made a couple meters from his back tire, August 1943, when he cuffed her. She somehow managed to fold her arms into her apron, pints clinking and sloshing, eyes widening with fear, and saved the whole lot.

He roused the men into showering her with a great and cheerful chorus of deep-throated – Bravo’s! – and helped her get the foamy heads lined up solid on the table.

She took a breath and felt like a proper star and thanked him. She was about to drift back into the sea of boisterous revelers when the magnetic field tugged on her line. All the noise was like some padding or insulation around them, and a clarity took form – an immediacy the color of pewter, the taste of dark chocolate, the scent of mint – that had her believing, insanely, that this would be her final night working in this or any tavern.

Memories. That’s all they were. But what else do we have? She pressed her finger on her orbital bone stretching the eyelid and drew an unsteady line with black liner. Sudden and unexpected. That was how it started – forty years ago – and this was how it ended. He had been fighting a chest cold and, in a violent fit of coughing, had fallen down the stairs clutching his heart and passed into the next. She tried to accept it. She kept telling herself, nothing lasts forever.

His eldest daughter, the one she had the least connection with and whom she knew had hoped for this moment, took a pinch of the finest snuff and let forth a nervous stream of justifications. Get to the point, she wanted to say. Stop smiling and acting like you care, and don’t you dare feel sorry for me. She held her tongue and managed a broken smile through the cracks in her lips below the crows feet, as the speech came to its natural conclusion at the end of a long winding breath about them being unable to brave the realities nor afford the luxuries the family previously entertained, having discovered the poor financial condition the deceased left them in, damn him to eternity.

I will not, she said, pushing past her speechless shock. She could not make sense of this. How dare you dishonor him. Excusez-moi. She packed up her room carefully into bags and a suitcase and walked out to tearful embraces, no longer in her body or head anymore, just numb. She hugged the good ones with all her heart and said a few words about bravery and change and life must go on, pressing her key into the palm of the patriarch’s grandson, a good yet spoiled boy, looking up at the balustrades in the great room one final time. She held back her emotions like horses at the derby gate, knowing full well they would rear up if she stayed longer.

The terror of facing life without him was unimaginable. Who will I care for? What will I do? She had lost her looks if not her charm. Would she be thrust back into the poverty from which she came? The loss of station led to awful insomnia and she brewed endless pots of chamomile and licorice to pass the long nights, wiping her tears with laundered handkerchiefs stitched with the initials of the deceased. She had given her life to him.

The severance check was fair if not generous and gave her time to let an apartment and get herself together. And, merci dieu, she had her son to help her. His upbringing and apprenticeship had been promised and kept. His outward resemblance harbored no secrets yet she refused to allow those thoughts any play, the ones that blamed her sudden dismissal on the simple fact of his existence.

She watched him from the window every Sunday. He rode up like clockwork on the Harley the deceased had left him in the will, all chromed out and churning the morning fog into ghostly banners. They had the same blonde and brown and red in the beard, and produced the same magnetic field tinged with chocolate, mint and pewter. He killed the engine and pulled a fresh bouquet of hand-picked flowers out of his saddle bag, stepping up to her landing with one hand behind his back, to surprise and unfetter her long lost smile.

BIO

Katya Mills is a nonbinary writer and licensed psychotherapist in California. They like to help people envision and re-author the stories of their lives. Katya holds a literature degree from Northwestern University and their creative nonfiction has recently appeared in  Journal X (Cabrillo College), New Words Press, and Meniscus Literary Journal. They are currently seeking representation. Their books can be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7276703.Katya_Mills