A Temporary Silence

Francine's fingers dig furrows into the soil, pebbles strewn throughout like fallen raindrops, dropped in carefully by her other hand, placed as seeds in a row. Francine doesn't take after her mother in this respect; she will nurture even unliving stone, give it a place grow from the earth. Her patience, she supposes, must be from her father.

Placing one last stone to complete her day's work, rough around the edges but black as sin like it knew what it was doing, she covers up the gash and pats it down, smoothing the clumped edges of the primitive heart shape with the flat of her hand.

The stone in the center she leaves uncovered.

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"Daddy, how come you don't never bring us back no presents from your trips?" She demanded with an accompanying stamp of the foot and balled fists. "Alma tol' me one year you brought her back a fish!"

Her daddy looked at her sharp like she'd said a bad word, putting down the piece of equipment he'd been working on. He tilted his head at her real slow, "Did she now?"

Francine took a step back, toes digging into the thin carpet, wondering if maybe she should have asked mamma first. "Yeah," she said in a squeak.

But then he smiled—not like regular folks smiled, he didn't never do that, but him smiling little was as good as someone else's belly laughing—and opening up his hand, he gestured her over. She approached on her tip toes, hands clasped behind her back, sitting down with her eyes wide when her daddy patted the couch beside him.

"Now don't go tellin' Alma," he in the same voice he used for "don't go tellin' Mama," like when he had let her put the lampshade over her head one day to play dress up. She watched with butt wiggling anxiety as he reached into his pocket, scrunching up his face so bad he was wrinkly as an old man; she put her hand over her mouth, giggling quietly.

When he unfurled his fingers before her with flourish she was confused. "A rock, daddy?"

"This ain't just any rock, darlin'. Look it how smooth'n black it is. Mountain was keepin' it safe for me so I could find it for you." She picked it up carefully and held it before her face, examining it for flaws.

She didn't know why she felt sad when he said, "'S real special t'me darlin'. Real special. Want you t'have it."

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Francine stands, dusting her hands off on her thighs, satisfied with her work. She picks up the pile of discards at the side, cupping them in her hands and bringing them to the water; she wonders if this is what her mother did when she came to scatter her daddy away, just held him between her hands and let him fall into the river, bit by bit. Her pocket feels empty without her familiar talisman in it, but it is where it belongs now, at the center of the only memorial she knows how to offer the man she never quite knew, but somehow, knew all too well.

The stones drop noisily one after the other, plinking and plopping, until she holds only one more, white, sharp, pure. As it falls the wind and water seem to fall into an accord, stilling in a strange honorary chorus, a temporary silence.