Only a Wish

A wish for understanding between Daughter and Mother...

Karen gazed out the window, her head pillowed by the crook of her arm. A cloud parted to unmask a cascading beam of faded sunlight. Its rays bathed a young colt prancing around one of the older cows. The cattle grazed on the grass, paying no special attention to the colt. The cows grazed on the grass while a flock of geese gracefully glided across the lake. There they swam. They were foreign, the geese were. And here they were, on a little farm in the middle of no where to start a new life.

She gave a large sigh and got off her bed. She looked around at the boxes still stacked high in her room. Karen still needed to unpack her stuff, but that could always wait until later. As of now, she left her bland room with a flourish and went downstairs.

“Karen?”

“Yes, Mom?”

A small, middle-aged woman came to the living room where Karen waited. She had fair skin, weather beaten from days working outside in her gardens and tending to her farm animals in the recent years. Her small business had been swallowed by a much larger company, leaving her on the land where she had been raised for her source of income. Her bright-green hazel eyes took in Karen’s apparent depressed attitude.

“Karen, would you mind corralling the horses for me? They can graze for a while, now that they have used their energy teasing the poor cattle.” She smiled and added, “Sweetheart, I know it’s going to take some time to get used to everything, but -”

“Don’t worry about it, Mom,“ Karen interrupted, “It’s not like you were around while I was growing up.” Karen saw a flicker of remorse in those wise eyes. “It’s not necessary for you to give me the ‘it-just-takes-time speech‘ Mom. I’ll corral the horses, but then I’m going to the old tree house, like I wanted to in the first place.”

“Sweetheart,“ Karen’s mother sighed, “if you’ll let me explain.” She crossed the short distance between them and touched her daughter’s shoulder. She watched her daughter’s eyes smolder to an earthy color, and she felt her hand fall to her side, useless, as Karen slammed the door.

“God, I hate her!“ Karen spat the words at the burnt sky, as if the sky were to blame…so free and encompassing. She thinks she can take over for Dad; well she can’t, and she never will. Karen lay in the grass, next to the oak structure she and her father built while her mother was on one of her two-week long business trips. Good ol’ Dad. Wonder where he could be? Sitting in that old rocker of his smoking his pipe? Or off to one of his grand hiking adventures; Dad, I just wonder.

It gets so much darker here. Where are all the lights?

As if summoned, Karen saw a small star peek out from behind the tree house. She flipped to her belly and settled her head in her hands. Back where she used to live, one couldn’t see the stars, yet now, here in the country, stars appeared- twinkling majestically. So perfect; those stars are made by wishes.

“Daddy, I want to make a wish. How do I make a wish?”

“Well, Princess, all you do is close your eyes real tight. And say these words. Karen closed her own eyes, as she did when she was four.

“I wish I may, I wish I might….“ Karen spoke with her memory, feeling childish while she made her wish.

Never tell your wish aloud, princess, or you’ll never get whatever you wish for.

Her wish made, she sat up. The picture of her smiling, young father on that day, burned in her mind’s eye.

“Dad,” she cried “why?” Karen’s fists slammed into the earth. She bowed her head and found the crook of her arm, gazing at the stars’ decent into the night. Something tickled her ankle; she paid it no mind.

The apartment was empty. Everything was gone. It was like you never lived there. I believed it was another hiking trip. A trip to the bar down Fourth Street Avenue. A trip to the Gambling & Gun just around the corner, to Flour’s seedy café next door. Those hiking trips took a lot out of you, but that day, that day everything was gone. Two months, I stayed, hoping you would return. Then the cops came, dumping me on Mom’s doorstep like I was some bag of trash.

Karen’s vision turned misty. Is that why Mom left? You did the same to her? Why did you feed me numerable lies and why did you give me your hate towards mom? What has she done? Why did you marry her? I don’t understand!

Karen cried.

All the built-up emotions inside her spilled over as a cloud would break due to the heavy weight of the water lurking amongst its fluffy, grey folds.

You never loved Mom; you broke her heart.

 

Karen tried to picture her mother smiling lovingly at her father. There was no such image she could conjure. She tried seeing them together on the plush couch. To no avail, she couldn’t see. It was an eclipse.

The sun will bow to the coming night every day, but it’s the sun that keeps the earth nourished and lit. The sun offers something the moon can’t offer; its own rays. The moon reflects the light, taking in the sun’s glory in his own arms. The sun’s charm encompasses the moon’s brittle, waning form. The sun never wanes. Karen gave the stars a fleeting glance and stood. “Dad, you’re gone. Behind that cloud, there is no light for you here.” The dark cloud disguising the beauty of the moon lurked ominously.

Mom is that sun.

Dad, you’re the glory seeking moon.

 

Karen walked slowly toward her new home. She paused to look at her pale, freckled arms. Remembering her flaming copper hair, she knew her own eyes matched her mother’s. She smiled her father’s crooked smile.

“

Mom loves me.” She tasted the words- so unbelievably foreign. It’s been too long.

Karen opened the door carefully.

“Mom?”

She warily crept into the living room. Her mother sat on the plush couch, pretending to be absorbed in the program she was watching. Karen closed the distance between her and her mother in four long strides and eased down beside her mother.
“Mom, have I told you how sorry I am?”

Without looking away from her program, she answered, “Not recently.”

“Have I told you how much I love you?” This time, the words tasted sweet.

A tear rolled down her mother’s cheek, her green eyes locked with her mirrored daughter. “No.”

Karen smiled. “Mom, I love and appreciate you more than you realize.”

She blinked twice as more tears started flowing. Karen wrapped her arms around her mother as she herself started to shed a few tears-her wish coming true.

Her hiccups died, and she was breathing steadily again. It was dark, all except for the mockery of her perfect stars and the cheshire smile called the moon.

Author's Note

Understand, I wasn't insulting Fathers. I love my dad to much to be insuting them.