Too Sleepy To Tell - Bonnie Smetts

She was too sleepy to tell if what she was seeing outside the window was real. The storm had left the entire compound deep in golden leaves. The pond was gone, lost under the golden veil. From the second floor, Marjorie thought she saw her daughter. She got out of bed.

At the window, curtains pulled aside, she could now see her daughter, so small in the expansive of the garden, circling the pond. The girl poked the water with a stick. Marjorie grabbed for her robe and ran toward the stairs.

“Charlotte, dear. What are you doing out here?” She whispered toward Charlotte, knowing her daughter’s sensitivity to sounds at dawn. “Dear, please come see me, let me give you a hug.”

Charlotte stopped, stick lodged in the mud of the pond. “Mommy, Mommy. I’m looking for the duck. I’m looking for Mrs. Sarin.”

Marjorie let out a breath that only she heard. “Charlotte, remember what we know about Mrs. Sarin? She’s gone away, up in the sky, to be happy and invisible. Remember?” Charlotte starred at her mother, but Marjorie was sure her daughter wasn’t seeing her.

“And the duck dear, we think he’s just visiting somewhere else. Someone else’s pond in another garden. Right? The ducks like to visit many people in the neighborhood.” Charlotte’s gaze didn’t change, looking through her mother at …what? Where was her child in times like these.

“But Mommy, maybe they are here, here with us. I heard them last night calling. They said to come downstairs and I would find them.” She’d come downstairs as soon as they’d spoken to her. She’d seen them, a second Mrs. Sarin floated above the pond above the duck. They were there and she could see through them, she could see the moon through Mrs. Sarin, right on the other side of her. She was sure of that.

“Dear come in, how about some sweet tea. Let’s make some sweet tea, the white tea you love.” Marjorie moved slowly toward her daughter attempting to act unrushed, unworried.

Charlotte turned to the pond. She poked a few times and leaned against the long bamboo rod. Where had she found that stick, Marjorie wondered.