Honey Feathers

Honey Feathers

In the corner of my eye, I see him drop the paper in the air, and blow. He wants it to float gently down onto my chest, like a cartoon feather. I look at the sheet, at what he's drawn.

Do you like it?

Of course I do.

It's a map. You have to find all the clues.

It's very clever.

*

She excels at picking. She even has a picking smile. There is something mischievous about the way she looks, and you can tell she's in the mood. You say something, and you know that she will answer it, sarcastically, in a way that confuses you. She sounds angry. She smiles.

Did I do something wrong?

She picks.

Mrs. Kittrell says that you can't just brush your teeth. You also have to brush your gums.

You're a little hypocrite.

I'm too young to know what the word means. I don't know if it's good or bad. She smiles her picking smile.

What's that?

She rolls her eyes. She uses words I understand without the smile, until I'm angry, then silent.

*

Why do you do that?

What?

Why do you expect that every time you say those things that I'm just going to keep forgiving you?

Because you do. It's meant to sound like a joke. I smile the picking smile.

But I don't.

She sits far away from me in the car, near the vent window, which is broken. Cold wind whistles in, and blows a pretty lock of hair over her eyes, swollen.

You shouldn't sit next to that window. You're going to catch a cold. The words fall like I was taught, like feathers, meant to land softly. Like honey. But honey is sticky, and displeases the skin.

You're a hypocrite.

*

At your lowest, after the bonds have been broken, the door always knocks.

I don't want us to be mad.

Words fall from her lips like honey, or like feathers, gently landing on your bruises. She lives for the making up. The hug and the tears. The never agains. It's her way of strengthening the bond. Breaking and re-setting the bone until it's thick and solid at the site of the fracture. Callus to bone. Bones heal without scarring.

I think ahead to the future and wonder at how pliable children are, like the very bones we break when young. How quick to heal. Hello Kitty stickers on a cast like cherries on a sundae like apologies at the door.

I would die if I ever lost you.

*

After the worst episode, I wait at the door. But I don't answer when she comes. She enters.

If you ever lock this door, I'll break it down and take it off. He does this once. I remember watching him with his toolbox, meticulously lining up a nail at the bottom of the hinge pin, tapping it out with a hammer. He strikes his hand on the second hinge and curses. That would be another break.

She throws her arms around a sack of bones. The flesh doesn't give this time.

I don't want us to be mad.

If I could go back I would say to her, This is how we're taught. I'm not mad.

*

He brings a sheet of paper to me. Letters scrawled, broken and jagged. I look at the words, at what he's written.

Do you like it?

Yes, very much.

Those are the clues. Do you want to help me solve the mystery?

Lead the way.

And I wonder, will he be okay in the world, bones unbroken? How will he possibly cope with the hurt we inflict upon ourselves? He still thinks that honey is sweet, and that feathers float softly like words of forgiveness.