Deep End

On a sunny day, the girl is back. The sun makes her think about things she misses like beaches and pails and buckets. Water lapping at the shore. She knows that those things will come back, but the color of the day has changed in her mind.

She reads in a short story: "But sad-- sad means there is love to be missed, or had and lost and maybe had again, or at least to be longed for, missed and remininsced about and carried in you in a place where safe has never been. Sad is the deep of feeling. Sad tells a person that good is." She thinks the writer of this story is brilliant for writing this. When she reads it, she thinks, oh yes, this is exactly what I think too but never knew.

The girl thinks about pulling everything out of her house, just throwing out stuff and cleaning everything down. Bleach on the floor boards, sinks scrubbed and scrubbed. Right now her hair seems to be falling out everywhere. It's her hair too, no one else's. Pieces of her floating around the house. She vacuums twice a week, but still, the crumbs and cat fur and hair. The dust and spiders.

Is that what her sadness means? That good is? She hopes so. She thinks about Oscar Wilde: "What seems to us bitter trials are often blessings in disguise."

Maybe that's true. Maybe the sad is like a fire, bringing things back to the core, making her brave again. It's hard to believe today. The bitter cold. The biting sun.