The Spell

Every day when I pick up my four-year-old daughter from preschool
she climbs into her back booster seat and says, Mom–tell me your story.
And almost every day I tell her: I dropped you off, I taught my class
I ate a tuna fish sandwich, wrote e-mails, returned phone calls, talked with students
and then I came to pick you up.
And almost every day I think, My God, is that what I did?

Yesterday, she climbed into the backseat and said, Mom
tell me your story, and I did what I always did: I said I dropped you off
taught my class, had lunch, returned e-mails, talked with students…
And she said, No Mom, tell me the whole thing.

And I said, ok. I feel a little sad.
And she said, Tell me the whole thing Mom.
And I said, ok Elise died.

Elise is dead and the world feels weary and brokenhearted.
And she said, Tell me the whole thing Mom.
And I said, in my dream last night I felt my life building up around me and
when I stepped forward and away from it and turned around I saw a high and frozen crested wave.

 And she said, the whole thing Mom.
Then I thought of the other dream, I said, when a goose landed heavily on my head—
But when I’d untangled it from my hair I saw it wasn’t a goose but a winged serpent
writhing up into the sky like a disappearing bee.

And she said, Tell me the whole story.
And I said, Elise is dead, and all the frozen tears are mine of course
and if that wave broke it might wash my life clear,
and I might begin again from now and from here.

And I looked into the rearview mirror—
She was looking sideways, out the window, to the right
where they say the unlived life is.

Ok? I said.
And she said, Ok, still looking in that direction.

by Marie Howe