The missing limb

I’m not a sailor or a swimmer, but I love being beside the water. Which is how I find myself retreating to a quiet table atop a floating dock as my husband and our younger son gallivant around town.

I order a glass of Chardonnay and coconut shrimp and then I set to scribbling notes to myself about the day on sheets of paper that I obtained from the young man at the desk to the Marina.

As I sip and write, the sky above me is crystal clear and the mountain range across the great expanse of Lake Champlain appears as if it is a sea of blue-hued waves unto itself.

This is perfect therapy for saying goodbye to a son–my first born–I think to myself–which we did just an hour ago. This is better than all those last minute searches at Wal-Mart and Home Depot and Bed, Bath & Beyond–which we also did–with the throngs of other distraught parents of college freshmen, willing to buy anything to delay the reality of separation. Our purchases: an area rug, a standing fan, a lamp.

Before we leave town this afternoon–and leave him behind–the rest of us should take the Lake Champlain Chocolate Factory tour. Why not! We can have some fun.

A thin, blue dragonfly lands on my table and reminds me of my calling. I am a not only a mother, a grieving mother. I am a writer. I fold a second piece of paper once, and then again, so that there are 4 boxes into which I can, somewhat privately, collect my emerging thoughts as the server refills my water.

I write about how how the body has its own response to goodbye even as the mind says it’s fine…

When I have filled an entire side of the sheet, I unfold it and flip it to the opposite side, folding it up once more. I scoop out some of the ice from the water and drop it into my wine. I am almost buoyant.

“I think we should move here, Dad.”

I look up to see a boy about the age of our younger son, 13, standing beside his father who has stepped up to the bar. I recognize the longing in the boy’s voice, feel it in myself. I’ve heard the same longing  in my husband’s today as he raves about the Champlain Valley, as if to say the same: “Let’s just move here.”

I don’t hear the father’s reply, but I sense it in his wife’s face as she approaches him. She is beautiful, but her cheeks look hollowed. She attempts a smile and then she brushes her hand against her husband’s cheek while he leans over to kiss his son on the forehead.

From behind, a small girl with long brown curls wraps her arms around her father’s waist and rests her head against his back.

As the family limps away with their drinks, I brush tears from my cheek.