Her only cocktail dress flutters in the wind. She wore it for this very occasion. The sun silhouettes the sickly trees, creating an illusion of beauty in death. Will those leaves grow back?Who knows. Smaller fingers grip her right hand. Her left waves at the receding shoreline. A dot in the distance. Goodbye. The men on that boat certainly cannot see her, but she can see their wake. She doesn’t know if it's the last she’ll ever see of them. She’s losing his face already. Is that possible? How is that possible?
The little one tugs at her soft, pale legs. No tears now. He’s hungry. She wrings out the laundry in front of the fancy shingles on the white deck. Summer has come, but no men with it. A particular mosquito plagues her, and she swats at it uselessly. Her
blood must be sweet with the unfallen tears. The girl is with her, learning her duties. What now, mama? Cook, clean, and say goodbye to your family. Lose your fathers, lose your husbands, lose your sons. Repeat.
The little one turned three yesterday. A candle in a watermelon slice; they can’t afford to waste flour on a cake. His sister made him a horse and a rider out of sticks. Sophisticated for an eleven-year-old. He made his wish out loud. Daddy come home. Doesn’t he know that means it will never come true?
Daddy doesn’t come home. There were too many pieces, and they couldn’t find them all. She hears that the surviving members of his company buried his arm with a cross. So alone. Kind King George sends a letter of condolences. Thank you for your sacrifice. No tears. The girl is watching closely, back to piano lessons.
He left them enough money to keep the house with the fancy shingles and the white deck. She gets a job in a factory so the kids can stay in school. The women whose husbands were returned to them send gift baskets. You’re so strong, dear.
She doesn’t hear from the others. Factory work is dull, but it provides. Packing bullets, oh the irony. Her fingers shake against the washboard. Her now teenage daughter takes over.
The little one isn’t so little anymore. He delivers papers and makes his coin like a good boy. He wants a puppy, of all things. He is his father’s son. When he runs up the hill, shaded by the sun, his floppy tangle of hair bouncing against his forehead, she swears it's him again. His joy is contagious. His sixteenth birthday rolls around. Sister reminds him, Wish it in your head. He does.
The girl has developed into a beautiful young woman. People tell her she is the spitting image of her mother. She plays the piano, teaches music to the younger kids. Finds a sweetheart, and sticks with him. I do. She’s kind, she’s polite, she’s everything her mother taught her. She doesn’t cry on her wedding day, something else she learned at a young age, on that dock so many years ago.
