From "BYOL Party (1966)"

I was dreaming of my mother marooned on our dock, which bobbed like a cork in the middle of the lake. As I sat up in bed, gazing into the cobwebby dark, the sound started again. I leaned my head against the screen and listened. There it was: the low, choking sound of a woman weeping.

I crept downstairs and stood at the closed glass door leading onto the porch. My mother's bare toes and the white edge of her nightgown shone in the dim light. After setting a chair down by the window, I stood on it and pulled the half-open window wide, peering over the sill at my mother huddled at one end of the swing. Her pale neck was visible beneath the line of her hair, which tumbled forward on either side of her face. She was rocking slowly back and forth, her arms cradling her knees. Sobs slipped down the front of her nightgown and seemed to strangle there. I could hardly catch the few muffled words.

"Never ... what does it matter ... never, never ... not once ... not in my whole life."

I'd so rarely heard my mother cry. It was even more rare for me to see her like this—all alone, not a mother or a wife, just a woman who'd once been a girl. There wasn't a thing I could do to help her.

Copyright 1994 by Mary Rockcastle. All rights reserved.