Glinting Like Silver

I missed her most at chore time. I kept her out of my mind at breakfast, when she used to toss her food down and roll her eyes. I never thought of her in the evenings, when she’d sigh loudly and wish she lived anywhere but here. It was during chores, weeding the garden or painting the fence, that she sometimes filled my eyes. Nothing good, mind you. She’d be complaining and sighing and muttering under her breath. I was well rid of her, the day she ran off. I was grieved when I got the news, but not surprised. She’d been chaos from the start.

I hadn’t wanted to take her in. I was old, and I hadn’t had children for my own good reasons, but when my sister’s youngest child died, there was nobody else to take in the baby. Well, not exactly a baby. She’d been ten when she’d moved here, ten and already furious at the world.

Raising her up hadn’t been easy. She’d fought me at every turn. She hated the farm, hated her stiff bed, hated collecting eggs in the morning, hated working under the sun. When school started, she’d hated that too. The kids were mean, the teacher close-minded. Nothing pleased her, and she wouldn’t listen to me.

It would have been torture, had she not looked exactly like my sister. Three generations apart, but every time I saw her face, it took me back to my own childhood right here on the farm. She’d been the baby, and the fiercest of us all. When I’d gone vegetarian and Dad had insisted I eat meat, she took my plate and dumped the food back on the platter, facing up to him like a mouse to a dog. She’d done the same when our brother came out as bi. No matter the scenario, she took our side and Dad had backed down to her every time. Of course I’d take in her grandchild. Of course the child was trouble.

I stood up, my knees creaking. Today was tree trimming day. Ice lay thick on the lake and snow mounds had set up permanent settlements in the northern field; time to cut back those peach trees. But where’d I left the shears?

I thought for a moment, then pulled on my boots and went outside. They’d be in the old garden shed, the one I kept meaning to put a new roof on and never got around to. It would last another year or two. Us old’uns stuck it through, when we had to.

Lord, if that girl were here right now, how she’d be complaining. Why can’t we go to a movie or something? We never do anything fun. My life sucks and you’re making it worse.

She hadn’t inherited any of her grandmother’s spunk, or if she had, she’d kept it secret. How I’d ached to see her tilt her chin up and plant her fists on her waist, the way Sis used to. No, she’d spent her energy whining and complaining, never happy with anything.

I twisted the wooden peg that passed as a lock and swung the old door open. My grandfather had built this shed, hung the pegs that held the ancient tools, and tapped out the small metal labels. Every tool in its place.

Inside, the smell of the place hit me like it always did. Musty, old dirt, leather, metal. I’d spent hours in here with Sis, waiting for Pop’s rage to pass. Light shone through the cracks, enough to see by, not enough that I couldn’t ignore the huge green spiders that nested in the roofbeams. They weren’t mean spiders, but I never took too close a look at them.

The child had.

The memory hit me like a bucket to the head. Her first summer here, she’d worn that sullen little scowl every day. When I’d led her to this shed and she stepped inside, her face had opened up like a tulip in spring. She’d looked all around, her mouth slightly open, as if she’d walked into a wonderland.

“Haven’t you seen an old garden shed before, child?” I’d snapped, still in shock at the change in our fortunes.

“Look up there.” She’d pointed to the ceiling. The light filtering in turned those spiderwebs to jeweled thread, the long-legged green bodies in the web’s centers like crouching royalty. “They’re beautiful. It’s like they’re flying. Or floating.”

That child had sat right down on the floorboards and stared up at those spiders for I don’t know how long. At first I wanted to shoo her on, to grab the tools we needed and get to it, but for some reason, I hadn’t. I’d stood there, watching her watch those spiders, and seeing my little sister in her face.

Now I sat down on an old chest, not minding the dust or the cold, and tipped my face up to the roof. The spiders were many generations older, but those webs still glinted like silver, their bodies hanging in the centers as if they’d never heard of gravity.

I could almost hear her voice, my little girl.

“You’re free now, like them,” I whispered.

In my memory, the child smiled.