A taste of THE BRIDGE (c) 2016
If you looked closely, you could see the uncomfortable summer haze hanging like a curtain in the air of the Gardner house this morning. It was thick, warm, and oppressive. Leah thought the summer haze matched the mood of her family. As she entered the living room, she saw her mother Georgie sitting on their tired old yellow couch. As Leah moved in front of her, she noticed her mother looked completely exhausted. Her face was red and she was sweating, and she appeared to be staring at the blank wall in front of her. She didn’t seem to notice Leah was there. A gentle breeze came through the open window that made the gauzy brown curtains flutter. Georgie turned to face it for a little relief. Her hands were shaking, and there was a lot of dirt trapped under her fingernails, like she had been digging without her gloves on. She ran her hands through her long, stringy brown hair.
Georgie’s exhaustion wasn’t new, since Leah’s sister Esther–or Essie, as they called her–had run away. The mood of the entire family had changed when her sister had left in the middle of the night, leaving a note saying Goodbye, don’t try to find me. Since Essie had left, Georgie had been in a perpetual state of emotional exhaustion and worry. She was on the constant lookout for Essie to walk in the front door, expecting her to be singing a new song she’d heard on the radio. Georgie stuck close to the house, and gardened all day, and she left the lights on in the house all night, in case Essie came home.
Leah went into the kitchen. The sink was filled with two days of dishes no one had bothered to wash. Next to the coffee maker, a bag sat open with a half-eaten loaf of bread in it, and had two flies crawling on it. When Leah moved into the kitchen they got up and started buzzing around, hovering over the bread, then circling around the faucet, and finally heading off into the darkened hallway of the house. Without anything to do, Leah followed them. She didn’t need the lights to find her way to the front door, and the staircase next to it. She knew the hallway, and everything in it by heart. She passed the front closet, with all the family’s shoes next to it, piled on the floor, and went up the long staircase and down the hall to her room. Her bed was neatly made, her clothes were hanging straight in her closet, and her riding boots were in the corner, waiting for her morning ride. Why aren’t I on my morning ride?
Leah looked out the window and saw the farm she simultaneously hated and loved. Leah looked out onto the cornfields. She hated planting, harvesting and shucking corn. She hated everything about corn, and wouldn’t even eat it. It was the bread and butter of her farm, and she resented all the time she had to take to harvest the fields when her friends were having fun doing other things, like watching movies or going shopping. She saw the barn, which held the horses, cows and their tractor. She spent a lot of time in that barn growing up. It was her job to milk the cows and clean up the stalls, and those jobs couldn’t wait; you couldn’t skip a day. But those chores were worth the time she spent on them when she got to ride her horse. Leah and Essie both felt like the farm was holding them back from starting an exciting life.
I feel I’ve walked into a dark and dank, over-fabriced room with people slouched on old stuffed furniture in the half lite.
The drawn curtains allow certain shafts of light with dust slowly floating in the shafts of sun. I feel neither amused or engaged.
My hope is to observe as little as possible while I walk silently through the arched interior passage into the next room. There I might increase my chances for more worthwhile observations.
My sincere wish is that I’ll see neither Betty Davis or Anne Bancroft before I reach the adjoing room or after entering it.
Jim