Beate Sigriddaughter, www.sigriddaughter.net, lives in Silver City,
New Mexico (Land of Enchantment), where she was poet laureate from 2017-2019.
Her poetry and prose are widely published in literary magazines. Unsolicited
Press published her latest poetry collection Emily in 2020. Other collections are forthcoming in 2021 and 2022.
She posts other women's work on her blog Writing
In A Woman's Voice.
The Answer
by Beate Sigriddaughter Her
feet dangled from the low stone wall. Len looked like a young Hemingway, but
with the full beard of Hemingway's later years. He hugged his left leg which
was drawn up on the wall. His right leg dangled like hers.
A pot of
geraniums stood between them, salmon-colored and pungent. The wind kept playing
with the scent. "Sally planted those," he said. "You might like
them for your balcony. She told me to talk to you. You would know why she left.
I need to understand. I love her so much. I thought she loved me too. It's not
another man, she says. Then why?"
Once
in a while, the wind sent up a spray of mist from the river below. Mary didn't
know what to tell him. She felt important and incompetent. Sally was her best
friend. Mary had been maid of honor at their wedding less than two years ago.
Sally had never complained about Len. Her sudden decision to leave him and move
into an efficiency apartment downtown had surprised Mary too, but she hadn't
given it much thought. There had been no drama and no apparent pain, at least
not on Sally's part. Just a simple decision. Len, meanwhile, seemed to be in
great pain. And he was waiting for an answer.
"I
don't know, Len," Mary finally said. "I simply don't know. Maybe you
were fencing her in. I really don't know."
"But
she said to ask you," he insisted.
Mary
scrunched her forehead. She thought of her own yearning for freedom, for
independence, for making her own way in the world. She wanted to put salve on
Len's obvious wound, but she didn't have any.
"I
really don't know what to tell you," she finally admitted. "I just
don't."
Len
let go of his drawn-up leg and looked down into the frothing water. They sat
side by side for a long time on either side of the pot of geraniums, not
speaking, guarding each other's silence, honoring each other's presence and
confusion. She felt closer to him than she had ever felt before. She wanted to
protect him.
When
night fell, and hunger started asserting itself, and they became aware of the
bicycles and dog walkers and yells of children on the path behind them, they
finally stood and hugged and went their separate ways.
"I
wish I could have helped," she said.
"You
did. You were here."
Thirty
years later he still looked like Hemingway when they met by chance at an
airport, both on their hectic way to somewhere else. This prompted Mary to ask
Sally when they saw each other again: "What did you mean by telling him to
ask me to explain why you left him?"
