The Doll
Two little girls walked into their first day of school with their hands clasped tight, with kisses on their cheeks from their mamás and with letters in their jackets from their papás. Ribbons in their curls and palms over their hearts as they pledged allegiance to the same flag their mothers feared being handed neatly folded. A new generation dying and a new generation watching yet another attempt at the war to end all wars.
Too young to listen to the radio’s bulletin, too old to miss the way their mothers’ eyes go wide with every knock on the front door. Handwritten news from the postman is better than any that could be received from the serviceman, time moving slowly as he solemnly read out the transcribed and hurried tap, tap, tap of a telegram.
Stop.
Two teenage girls strolled arm in arm through town with their smiles painted on bright. Poodle skirts and ponytails still tied with ribbons, hands raised in practiced waves and eyes searching the face of every boy with slicked-back hair and a black leather jacket. Looking to find true love before their mothers found it for them.
Too young to stop believing in happily ever after, too old not to wonder how to plan a life in a place that seemed to have no future. Trying not to dream too far past Friday night as they each played with stolen moments in trucks parked at the drive-in. Excitedly sharing the evening’s report at the bathroom counter in a borrowed letterman jacket and a swiped cowboy hat that neither had any intention of returning. Time ran out when the porch light flicked on.
Stop.
Two mothers sat across from each other at a worn wooden table, whispered words and bitter worries exchanged over the whir of a box fan and refilled glasses of sweet tea. Ice melting and condensation pooling on summer-heated glass, ribbons holding back hair now streaked by age and sleepless nights. Burning up in yet another record-breaking heat wave that seemed intent on shoving them all away.
Too young to imagine a time when they would have five children grown between them, too old to still have their own parents to ask for help. Their smiles were back in place whenever I wandered in with my yellow magazine, pulled into laps for tight hugs and the safe cover of the childhood ignorance they never got for themselves.
Stop.
One woman stands on the hilltop looking down on gray stone, an old oak tree swaying in the wind and shading out the sun. Sunday church clothes on and a red ribbon in her hand. Still hoping for a sign.
Too young to have said goodbye, too old to learn how to do this alone.
Stop.