good looking. Her father wanted more for her, something that would last, something she could count on. Whenever she saw him her heart soared, and she would wait for his smile, that half smile half frown. A year of sitting alongside the river transformed the car into what might be mistaken for folk art. Still brightly colored in places and rusted into odd blends of faded hues, like gasoline in water, in others. Old seat springs and a rusty horn, bits of jagged glass still sticks in the windows and the forlorn steering wheel draped in moss. The rear end is buried with dirt and sprouting vegetation and the rear flanks have taken a beating from target practice. Pulling the box of white chalk from her top left inside jacket pocket where it was still warm and dry and clutching it in her mouth to keep it out of the water, she scooted down the mud and kudzucovered bank until her feet dropped into the river. Cold and heavy and breathless, she waded to the front of the car where it was partially submerged; she climbed onto the rusted hood. Leaning on the roof and taking a piece of chalk in her hand, she paused for a minute, tears beginning to stream down her pale cheeks as she wrote on the roof: “Happy Anniversary. It is a sorrowful morning, my love. The wind blows and it rains. Sweet hour, blessed hour to carry me to you and to bring you back to me, just long enough to whisper goodbye.” In a low whisper she said out loud, “Sure the neighbors will talk to each other! I see behind their eyes, as they keenly follow my every move, how they carry the pain of my heart like a trophy.” Her tone getting flat as she is consumed by anger and spits, “1977 Ford Maverick, 302, V8, automatic, power brakes, power steering. That’s all you could talk about. Maverick, the American Muscle. Hell, I think it was all you could think about.” Pausing to catch her breath, she began to cry, “And all I could see were dog dish hub caps and you in a ditch or better yet, wrapped around a tree wearing that god damn thread bear pale yellow keep on trucking t-shirt.” “I must say good bye my love for my heart has grown too heavy leaving no room for my soul. Dearest you can not be.” She said sobbingly and after a moment of composure she calmly said, “I must let you go to feel summer’s shine and hear the signing of birds and the buzzing of bees.” She signed her name Mary Katherine and slid off the rusty hood and sloshedinto the river. She felt free of the weight of her heart watching the rain beat on the rusted roof top and the white chalk turn to a muddled paste. Running down the windshield to be routed by its many fractures on its way to be carried away by the current downstream. Standing in the water, still. Letting it carry away with the words and with them the weight of her heart. Letting it go and waiting…still, to feel.
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