6/8/11

Skipping Stones
by Brian Biswas


The rains of the previous week had ceased. For seven days and seven nights--a relentless fury. It was mid-afternoon. Big, black birds slowly circled in the tarantula sky. The slow-moving creek that ran by their house had swelled to several times its normal size and she watched in morbid fascination as the frenzied waters rushed by. She picked up a stone--a flat white stone, the kind good for skipping--and slung it into the water, but the current was too swift and it refused to hop.

”Laura.”

She turned. She saw her father at the top of the hill. He was dressed in his favorite white suit with the tan fedora. His eyes somber. A scowl upon his face.

”Yes, Dad?”

”Are you coming?”

”In a minute.”

She turned back to face the water. She had no desire to return to the house. She knew what her father wanted and she could not acquiesce. Not now. There was a stick lying several feet from her and she picked it up and tossed it into the brackish water. It swung about, buffeted by the current, then disappeared around a bend in the creek. She climbed up onto the granite rock that overlooked the creek like a vulture. It was the place she always came to when she needed to get away. The rock was shaped like an hourglass with a hollowed out section in the middle in which she would sit and look out over the creek like a captain surveying the open sea. When she had first come upon the rock she thought that perhaps it had been sculpted by an artist from long ago. It certainly seemed out-of-place on a bank covered with thousands of skipping stones. She even asked her mother about it once, but she merely shrugged and told her not to worry about such things.

She remembered her mother, her long, wavy hair, her amber eyes. That gentle way she had of speaking. She had never known a more gracious person, nor one filled with such self-confidence. Her mother had an advanced degree in chemistry, but had never sought employment in the field. She married John while in college and Laura was born a year later. She would stay home with the child. Her career could wait. The child could not. She sacrificed everything for her family. And yet had Laura ever really appreciated her?

She lay on her back and looked up into the discolored sky, so narrow and dense. She closed her eyes and her thoughts melted away.

When she awoke, the sun was low in the sky. She frowned. It must have been nearly five o’clock and they would all be gone. Her father would be furious, of course. She hopped down off the rock and brushed off her clothes. Then she picked up another stone and tossed it into the creek. Ker-plunk it went as it fell into the water with a splash, concentric rings flowing out from the point of impact. Ker-plunk, ker-plunk, ker-plunk.

She trudged up the winding path that led to the house. The path was muddy from the recent rains and by the time she reached the house her shoes were caked with red mud. She took them off and went inside, walked trembling down the long hallway that led to her father’s study. The study door was open and she went inside, saw the green armchair and the majestic oak desk that her father said she would inherit when he died.

She would apologize for not coming to the house when Catherine was there. She had been sleeping (or dreaming) down by the creek and had lost track of time. It would not happen again. But when the green chair pivoted and she saw the stern face of her father, she shut up like a clam. He picked up a cigarette and puffed at it. He wanted her to begin but she was silent. A fly buzzed near him and he swatted it away.

He asked why she had not come before and she tried to apologize. He told her she had been rude. He was right, she said, and as she looked at the wooden floor she felt his eyes staring fixedly upon her. He wanted to know why she would not accept Catherine--didn’t she realize she was hurting him? His voice was filled with reproach. It was all too much for her to take and she burst into tears.

He told her to leave; he did not want to look at her. She left the study and went to her bedroom. Her cheeks were bathed in tears. She went to the closet and picked out her favorite dress, the bright yellow one with ruffled sleeves, and a dark-blue sweater with white buttons down the front and she returned to the creek where she could be alone. Her right hand was trembling and she tried to control it, but it would not be still.

Dusk was approaching and a yellow fog was settling over the creek. The speed of the current had not abated. If anything the water flowed faster now and the water level was higher. She reached down and touched the water. It was icy cold. She shivered and pulled back her hand. She picked up a flat rock, white and very smooth. She flicked it into the water, throwing it with the current. It hit the water at just the right angle and skipped twice before disappearing into the depths.

She thought about the last time she had seen her mother. At the funeral. Her mother was wearing a red dress. A pearl necklace Laura had given her on her thirty-eighth birthday around her neck. She had never looked more beautiful, Laura thought. Laying in her coffin. Uncle Bob came over and put his arm around her. He told her about the time her mother had brought her home from the hospital. A pretty girl with serious blue eyes. A warm smile. That is how he described her. He had never seen his sister look so happy, he said. Nor John so proud. Everyone, it seemed, was crying. One of the happiest days of their lives.

Laura smiled.

Yes, Laura, he said to her softly, you must never forget. Promise me you will never forget.

Uncle Bob moved away on the arms of Aunt Ruth and two of her cousins came over. Jenny with her freshly-scrubbed cheeks and her iridescent eyes. Steve with his fine, dark hair and his elegant hands. Steve who three years later was to die--like her mother--in a freak car accident. Oh, Lord. Why did her mother have to go out that night? Why did she take that route to the grocery store? Why did she swerve to avoid whatever it was she felt she had to avoid? Why did she do exactly what she did? Only questions, of course. There were always only questions.

Her fondest memories. She remembered how her mother used to bake bread on Sunday afternoons. She would climb atop the counter and watch as her mother kneaded the dough and rolled it out into loaves and put the loaves into pans. While the bread rose, they would tell riddles and play word games and she would reveal her dreams and then her mother would tell her about her own childhood. She was always asking questions, her mother said. Lord, she had never heard so many questions. She saw her mother before her now. Her bright face. Her pretty figure. Her smile that had always filled her with warmth. She was so smart, so elegant. Nothing would ever stop her, she had thought. Nothing.

Her mother was speaking:

”I’ll never forget the day, Laura, when I was walking across the tobacco fields, minding my own business. It was the month of July, the air hot and sticky. I saw the cows and the chickens, the happy pigs rolling in red mud, and I saw that wretched farmer. He was the meanest man I had ever met, his eyes dark and filled with rage. He saw me and he hollered. I was wearing my red dress with the ruffles on the sleeves. A yellow sunbonnet. That man never liked me. He thought I was out to steal his hens. And so I did once. Just to spite him. He found out it was me and he talked to my parents and I had to apologize the next day and I wasn’t let out of the house for a week. And you won’t believe it, Laura, but I talked to the farmer’s wife several weeks later. She was a charming woman, intelligent, worldly--not what I’d imagined her to be, not at all. She told me her husband had always admired me. A spunky girl, he said. And her husband was a good man. With a kind heart and as honest as anyone she had ever known. If he appeared bitter (she seemed to be able to read my mind) it was only because he saw in me what he would never have. She did not elaborate, but I knew what she meant. And it was then I realized that people are often not what you take them to be. Are often quite different.” She smiled and looked off into the distance. Remembering.

Laura recalled the time her father had introduced her to Catherine. It had been over a year ago, yet it seemed as if it was yesterday. Hello, Laura, pleased to meet you. John has told me so much about you. Why, just now he was saying how proud he is... And her voice trailed off into oblivion for Laura would not listen to another word. How many times had they gone out together before she moved in with them? Half-a-dozen, perhaps. No more. And what had been her impression? She was a kind woman, certainly. A sympathetic woman. A gentle usurper. She had wanted to talk to her father about her feelings but she never found the courage to do so. And he...what had he wanted? He never confided in her. She did not know what he felt--could only imagine. He missed his wife, certainly, he had never been the same since she died...but...but what? That he wanted Laura to forget? That he wanted her to be happy? Didn’t he know that she would never forget, that she would never be happy? That she was drowning in unhappiness?

She looked into the mauve twilight so steady and peaceful. A cool wind was blowing and the pine trees looked like matchsticks as they gently swayed. Her concentration was broken by the cries of a flock of birds overhead. She looked up into the opalescent light of dusk and she saw them there and she could not help herself but she began to cry once again. She felt as if she was floating in a sea of dark jelly. Surrounded by the waters of loneliness, there were no longer any stars to guide her.



Laura. Laura.

Yes, father?

Are you coming?

No, Father, I will never come.



She had nothing against Catherine, really. (Catherine with her long brown hair and her hazel eyes and her perfect manners.) And she wanted her father to be happy of course. (Her father. What was there that she could say to him? Without hurting herself. Without hurting them all.) But... But what? Was it that Catherine was not her mother? That she was not her? That is what they all thought, of course. But of course that was not it, that would never be it. Yet how could she put it into words? That which could not be explained, could only be felt. It was simply the way things stood that no matter how much she might have wished otherwise, there was nothing she could do or say that would satisfy them. And it would never change.

The art of stone skipping had no beginning and no end. Dapping, skiffing, ricochet. Ducks and drakes. Every language had its own word, but the physics was the same the world over. What did it mean to skip stones? You took a stone, a flat stone, about the size of your palm, smooth of course and oval, and you slung it into the water. If released at precisely the right angle, fast and with plenty of downward force, it ricocheted off the water, sweeping out a long parabolic arc. Several times, if you possessed enough skill. Or if you were lucky. Defying gravity. She’d done a six-skip once. Of that she’d been quite proud. But usually it was only two or three. She wasn’t very good at skipping stones.

She loved this time of day when everything was changing. She closed her eyes and she saw not the blackness of the night which was fast approaching but the whiteness of infinity. It was like a winter snowstorm. She saw the ghost of her mother in the distance and she called to her but her voice was drowned out by the sound of Catherine laughing. A cold, cruel laugh sharp as hail. She clung to the granite rock as if it were a lifeline. Everything, it seemed, was dissolving.

She thought about what there would be if she could choose what there would be. There would be no girlfriend, no Catherine, no love affair. There would be nothing, nothing.

”If you were to ask me, Father, I’d say she’s very much in love with you,” she said, her voice a mere whisper. ”You’re both very much in love.”

She slipped into the raging water, like a swan.


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Brian Biswas has been published in the United States as well as internationally.
His most recent publications are in Cafe Irreal, Skive, and Weirdyear and he has work forthcoming in Bewildering Stories. He lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
You can read more of his work at: http://www.brianbiswas.com