Breath (A #Story)

It was a blue Summer Saturday borne by the arches of rainbows through the sprinklers on the lawn. He ran with her kids, shouting, burning in the sun. He blew up a red, white and blue beach ball and they kicked it across the yard and through the cedars until the lightning bugs began their flickering orgy in the twilight. 

The beach ball ended up lodged under the deck of Meemaw's trailer. Night fell and the children went to sleep and he made love to her and it was forgotten. The next morning he left before sunrise to go home to his wife. She drank coffee. She cried a little. 

She only heard about the wreck on the news that night as she ate Marie Callender's and her youngest tried to learn a C chord on his guitar. No one called to tell her. No one knew about her.

Two months later she was helping Meemaw trim back the kudzu, both of them pouring sweat. She sat down to smoke a cigarette and drink the rest of her coke and saw the red, white and blue beach ball under the steps. 

Meemaw came around the north end of the trailer and stopped. Her heart was hard from her own hurts but it quaked. She watched her elder daughter on the steps and felt helpless. Her child was clutching that ridiculous beach ball to her breasts and weeping. Saying, over and over, "It's still got his breath in it. It's still got his breath."