just follow the cat

Part 2 - slightly yes

today, 5 years later

Mars, Pennsylvania

the day before the summer solstice

one half of a mother/daughter phone call

As she spoke to her mother, Charon pressed the tips of her fingers so hard that her nails turned white.

"Yes, Mommy. Yes. I know that. Of course, I will. Yes. And yes again."

Although she said yes (in fact, she had repeatedly said yes), the truth was actually buried somewhere in that great chasm between yes and no – the place where all answers have a home. But this didn't bother her mother because her mother had never minded answers that were a bit off. She just continued talking as if what she had heard had been perfect all along.

"Now, what's wrong, Mommy?"

Charon waited the usual five or six seconds before asking again.

"Mommy? What's wrong? It's always something when you call me Charon Persephone."

That was true. It was always something. Absolutely always. Mother and daughter had spoken every morning for years, so Charon had had plenty of practice decoding the patterns. The conversations reminded her of raindrops falling on hot, black pavement. Some sentences sizzled when they landed, but there were so many of them that the pavement cooled. Her mother's words became so familiar that Charon was briefly lulled into believing that all was well. Soon, steam would rise off the hot pavement gathering into a strange personal cloud. For a while, it was a safe place to hide. It was as if God had built a temporary hiding place just for her. But it was only temporary. Eventually the cloud would dissipate revealing a street that was wet from curb to curb. The hot, black pavement was no longer quite as hot and the blackness would be just a little bit blacker than before the rain had started.

With all this accumulated lifelong knowledge, Charon was certain that something was coming because there was always something lurking – waiting – creeping nearby – and (soon enough) it would be right on top of her.

"No. That can't be true, Mommy. Of course, I won't. I'm almost forty years old. I told you no already. No. Please stop. Why would you say that? You're not being nice again."

Charon snapped the phone back in its cradle. She didn't actually hang up in mid-sentence, but it was close. Then she muttered the words, "All downhill." She muttered and mulled those same words as she showered that morning, as she got dressed, as she made her morning coffee, and as she stood in front of the only diner in Mars, Pennsylvania looking at the headline of the Butler County Eagle. The headline got right to the point. "Putting Out The Fire."

There was no drama in those words. No overstating the facts. The story was delivered as simply as possible. On one day there would be a fire and on the next there wouldn't. Or anyway, that was the hope.

The next day was also Charon's fortieth birthday. It was this additional fact that prompted her mother to tell Charon that life (her life) would be "all downhill" from this point forward. And nothing could be done about it.

Before hanging up the phone, her mother's last words to Charon were, "It's that damn coal mine's fault. But you can't fight fate, my love."

≡ ≡ ≡

the summer solstice forty years earlier

deep inside the S. G. Wilson coal mine