Golden Hour, Months Ago

Outside, the air is full of water. It isn’t rain or fog. It isn’t mist either. It’s just water, water that can’t decide if it would rather fall to the ground or hang in the sky. Out the kitchen window is a mossy, hidden nook surrounded by sheltering trees. A rabbit huddles at the foot of one, though it can hardly be seen. Sunrise was a few moments ago, but it was a sunrise only for those above the clouds. What a glorious thing it was, too. Pity the poor earth-dwellers who missed it. 

In front of the small house, on the other side of the old white fence and gate, runs a street, one of the few left in the town that’s paved with bricks. The air-water lays itself gently on the street and on the moss growing up between the bricks. It’s beautiful, and Mari knows it. Rather, she knows in her mind that she ought to find it beautiful. This quiet, soft, early-morning kind of beauty used to be hers. Mari doesn’t mean to, but she accidentally wishes for sunlight. 

Sunlight doesn’t flood the room, but Tom does, and they’re basically the same thing. In the light before her she sees his smile, hears his laugh, feels his touch. She may be standing in the kitchen looking out at the yard, fence, and road, but her heart is yanked back in time to him.

They sat on the front step, Tom with his coffee, Mari with her ice cold water. Mari shivered a little, and Tom leaned over. He was warm, always warm. 

“You,” he said, “are beautiful. 

It was true, though it was not a generally held belief. Mari really was this kind of beautiful only for him, early in the morning with sleep still in her eyes and clinging to her smile, when she looked out across the field opposite the house to see the sky full of color, or at a little spiderweb beaded with dew, or heard the bird calls echoing from the trees behind the house. Mari was living proof that beauty is reflective. 

He was beautiful too, but Mari didn’t say so. She just looked her fill of his changeable eyes— green today— and his large, peasant-esque face, and loved him. In her mind she whispered her thanks to the Creator, the creator of this morning and every other, the creator of the man sitting next to her, and the creator of the child that had just begun to cry.

Neil was the child’s name, and Mari thought he was as beautiful as his father (though Tom thought he was as beautiful as his mother). Unlike Mari, Neil was a widely acknowledged beauty, with green eyes, a head full of dark, curly hair, and the sweetest face you’ve ever seen on a baby. Mari went in and retrieved him, changed his diaper, and carried him out to Tom on the front step. There they sat, whole.

Mari comes out of the memory feeling heavy, like she could lie down again in bed and stay there for a few hours more. These visits with Tom and Neil aways leave her drained. They are infrequent, but the days they choose are always hard. 

“Teddy!” she calls to the small dog that helps fill the gap. “Need to go out, boy?” 

He prances to her, feathery tail wagging. He’s actually Neil’s dog, not hers, but who else is there to take care of him? Mari would never admit it, but she had cuddled Teddy in bed many a night when she was missing either of them too much. If one of Tom’s coats didn’t help, Teddy sometimes would. Poor Teddy is a poor substitute, but that’s hardly his fault. 

Mari spends her Saturday cleaning, reading, and taking Teddy out at intervals. The air-water eventually decides that it is indeed rain, and falls accordingly. It’s a depressing rain, and though Mari used to love this kind of quiet rainy day, she can't enjoy it anymore. She has real pain now, and it really does ease with the rain, but she hates that it does. Mari longs for the sun, longs for it to burn the sorrow right out of her. She wants it to force its happiness on her. Rain is for remembering and reflecting, but the sun is for forgetting. Oh, to forget. 

The rain clears in the evening just in time for a golden hour, one of the most brilliant ever seen. Our lovely Mari doesn't see it; that is, she doesn't see it at first.

She has yet to realize that the rain has stopped. Teddy wagging his tail at the door fixes to change that. 

The moment Mari opens the door, Teddy bolts down the street. 

Mari stands in the doorway holding back tears. The dog’s little escape is trivial, but heaped on top of the visit with Tom and Neil this morning and the dreary mood she has been in all day, Mari is about to give in. She hadn’t cried this morning. Hadn’t wanted to, then. But now? Mari sees the sun and wishes it away. If only she could have a nice cry in the rain.

Down the street, laughter. A man’s voice echoes through the night air, the words indistinct but the smile behind them clear. 

Mari hears footsteps, heavy boots by the sound of them. It reminds her of Tom, though admittedly it doesn't take much to remind her of him. He's everywhere anyway.  

A man comes into sight. Mari stares for a second. All she sees is the tall, sturdy build and the curly dark hair cut close to his head, though his face is in shadow as he walks east. Mari knows it isn’t Tom, though he is all she can think of for a moment. 

Teddy frolics back to Mari, taking no notice of the man. Not-Tom— Neil— sees Mari standing there, and his face turns from shadow to light. A smile plays at his lips, but chooses not to come out. It distorts, just barely, and instead of a smile, tears rise in his throat. Neil has had enough fighting. He lets them fall, lets them shake him. He never considered being embarrassed— no, there was only relief and a glorious feeling of release.

Mari runs to him then, to his silently shuddering form on the street. She, too, is close to relief. A mother’s mind has a way of imagining the worst, and it had been months since she last heard from Neil. Her mind had almost convinced her that he was dead. Of course he isn’t dead— there he is, standing on the street, smiling— no, crying. 

There he was. There he had been. Mari sinks to her knees. It’s her turn to cry now. The sun sets and clouds roll in. Teddy lays down next to her in the grass. The dew falls, and Mari stays. Eventually she picks herself up off the ground and goes inside. She’s too drained to ponder the things she has seen. Nagging in the back of her mind are suspicions that she might be going insane. Memories are one thing, apparitions are another. Mari can think of nothing better to do than to lay in bed and hope for sleep.

Across the world Neil lies still, his body screaming. He knows he’s been hit, but he doesn’t know where. He prays, as any sensible man would, and the answer to his prayer comes in the form of another man. Things are going fuzzy for Neil now, but he struggles against it. Once he knows he’s safe in the hospital, he drops off into gold. 

It’s a dream and he knows it, but his heart breaks when his mother looks at him. If only he could say he was sorry, if only he could say goodbye! The dream may not be real, but the tears on his face when he wakes up are.

It’s another rainy day when Neil comes home, the war still in every fiber of his being, his beautiful eyes so haunted by things nobody should ever see. He is only a young man, too young to be haunted as Mari is. Neil had specifically requested that Mari not be told of his injury, and did not even tell her that he was on his way home. The dream of his homecoming had been so perfect that he wanted to do it that way in real life. 

Neil walks down the road to his childhood home at golden hour, the forest aglow and the wheat fields aflame. His mom sits on the front steps, sunset-watching as is her habit.

Teddy lets out a bark and runs to Neil on the street. 

“Teddy!” Mari stands to go after him, but is rooted to the steps. It couldn’t be.

“Mama,” Neil says, his voice shaky. They run to each other. Neil tries to keep it together but fails miserably. He falls to his knees, letting it all out— but how good it feels! His mother holds him, stroking his hair as she did when he was a little boy.

 Now this—  this was real! Oh, the joy of that moment—  the moment when they collided and Mari felt him solidly in her arms—  the moment when she pulled away and he did not disintegrate— the moment when he tried to say something and choked—  oh, but he choked with sound! He was real!

She has to keep touching him to make sure he’s real. They go inside, Mari serves pie, and they stay up late into the night talking. That golden night a few months ago comes up. Neil rolls up his sleeve: Mari cries again. Her baby’s been shot. 

He goes to bed in his own old bedroom, though he’s a little afraid that when he wakes up, he won’t be home after all. Mari can’t resist peeking in the doorway at his sleeping form, even months after he’s been home. He’s home, he’s home, he’s home, she keeps telling herself. He’s home.