Parallax
(An apparent change in the position of an object when the person looking at the object changes position)
When my husband and I walked into her house, one late rainy afternoon last November, it was overflowing with people who came to deliver their condolences. S. spotted us immediately and took me by the hand. Completely unaware of my obvious discomfort, she pulled me to a small stand in the middle of the living room and pointed at the two urns, sitting one next to the other. With a dark blue patina they appeared as if they were made out of porcelain. Delicate gold edging in the shape of intricate graceful leaves, adorned their base. They looked completely identical, except that the left one was holding Ss’ late husbands’ ashes (he passed away few days earlier) and the right one was empty.
“So what do you think?” She beamed at me.
When I did not say anything, being in somewhat of a shock, she kept on going.
“R. and I picked them together in one of our last visits to the dollar store, for $5 each. I liked them right away, and this way we can always be together.”
When I still did not respond, she pointed at the kitchen, where trays of food where laid for friends and family.
“I asked everyone to come here this afternoon, instead of the funeral home, because the weather was so gloomy and here it is warm and with all this good food so much nicer.”
With that she passed her hand lightly on her husbands’ urn and continued to explain the memorabilia she staged around it from their life together, including his favorite mug and plate.
Slightly horrified I noticed there was food on the plate,
“He always loved peanut butter and jelly,” S. said as if reading my mind.
I thought I knew S. well, every morning for the past five years she came to work as a chamber maid, in our motel. She was driven to, and from work, by her husband who took care of everything in her life. She was punctual and always cheery, yet no one believed she was capable of taking care of herself.
While some may think identical, dollar store urns, placed in the middle of the living room are a bit tacky; I saw in it a sign of strength and independence, I never saw in her before. At that moment, watching S. surrounded by her family, and so completely in her element, I knew she was going to be OK.
I think your last two paragraphs come at the reader too fast and fail to reverse our expectations--you tell us what you came to realize but without quite giving us reason to come to the same realization. That is, you're depending on exposition in those last two grafs, quite a change from the earlier narration.
ReplyDeleteIt's an interesting piece, worth thinking about and maybe revising. Imagine you had betrayed your own realization and just ended with the peanut butter on the plate--it would have been a stronger piece. But the parallax part can't be denied, of course, so how to make that section as strong as all the rest?