Tying Knots

The rain made its way on the leaves.  It dripped to the dry ground underneath and stained the raw dirt patches throughout the yard.  The samara on the ground lay brittle and torn.   He smoothed out a blade of grass between his finger and thumb.  He stood, tying knots.  Are you ready? he asked.   She shook her head but he rolled toward the house.  Too much chill in the air for a body so frail she thought but ached to stay outside. Making their way to the door was a chore.  As they approached the door, the bump of the wheel on the lip of the doorway jarred her pain awake and moved her spine.  The living nerves seared; the dead ones lay dormant.  He angled her chair back toward his front and hoisted with enough reserve to muster a final push.  For him, of course, inside out of the rain.  Never about me she thought.

No, never about me.  But I’ll have him.  I’ll have him move me and halt me; dirty me and bathe me; feed me and wipe me; love me and hate me.  When I sleep and when his touch chisels the shale of a frayed life.  I’ll have him.

She pulled the only living arm up out of its place atop the vinyl right hand rail.  She stroked her thanks on his arm but he did not notice.  The left arm twitched its approval but could do no more.  Its only salvation an exercise of right angle pushes and pulls to keep its memories of movement living.

She rested her arm back in its place.  A samara stuck in the tread of her wheel caught her attention.  She removed it and put it in her left hand almost sensing the wetness of its mark. If only to remember this day.  She looked out a level window to where she had just resigned herself to him.  The wheels marked tracks in the wet grass and trailed their leaving for the watching birds.