Night has come again, blanketing us in darkness and we sit, my sister and I in our matching rockers rocking, and mixing our tinctures, crooning the words that will bring about what we seek within the ingredients. The light of the fire is bright and burning red, swathing the walls in its rudy glow and making Etta when her face is mostly in shadow appear as she once had when she was young and all the men followed her with their eyes, their bodies springing to attention. She feels my eyes upon her and she glances up and smiles through her words at me exposing her toothless mouth. I smile back and my mind wanders back to long ago when we were both young, when our bones didn’t ache and our muscles could bend quickly and resiliently.
Next to me, Etta's rocker stops and when I turn to her, I can see her pale eyes staring at me, into my mind, perhaps envisioning herself through my memory. "Why do you travel there, sister?" She asks, her voice a mumble. "Those days only lied to us, spun our lives out from under us and burnt what was left."
"I was only remembering you." I say, glancing furtively at her, hoping that the anger that accompanied her in those years is not leaking back into her.
She simply shakes her head. "I don't remember who I was then." But I know she remembers. Sometimes I watch her pull out the paintings that painters came from miles around to paint of her, painted as the Madonna, the whore and Eve. The roles those painters cast her in never were simple, never bore a resemblance to who really lived beneath the sheer white skin and sky blue eyes. When she looks at those pictures, her eyes grow distant and somewhat dreamy, and I wonder if she is thinking of John or her children.
"Stop!" Her rocker has stopped altogether and she is staring at me, reading my mind, following me down the echoing caverns of time. "I can not go there, ever. Again!"
I look at her and nodd, pressing current concerns into my head, hiding my face from hers'. But time has grabbed me, has yanked me back in its sprialling circle and refuses to let go.

Encounters

When Laura left the room, I turned to Papa and stared at him, at the lines that created his face and the colors that blurred like blue marbles to make his eyes, and I didn’t recognize him.
He shifted under my gaze, glancing up at me briefly before turning away and towards the door.
“Papa?” I asked, stepping after him quickly, shifting Avi on to the ground where he immediately grabbed on to my legs and turned his head into me.
Papa paused and the room seemed to freeze with him. The air seemed to hold a stillness, a waiting in it that it had not before and I turned and glanced around me expecting someone else to be waiting and watching with me, but we were alone.
“What, Martha?” Papa’s words came between clenched teeth and squared lips.
I moved towards him then, placing my hand on his back, that shuddered into stone beneath my fingers. The silence stretched out around me shutting me into a sorrow that throbbed through me and pressed at my lips and eyes. Sobs welled in my mouth, around my tongue and escaped my lips in a blubbering sound that contained no words.
Papa turned back to me, glanced at my face, guilt etched in the corners of his eyes and the shadow of his mouth. “Stop it, Martha. Stop it.” He reached down and grabbed Avi who clutched me even harder, his own little body racked with tears. Papa wrenched Avi from me and tossed him up into his arms as if he weighed nothing, Avi cowered into him, his round hands gripping Papa’s neck, Papa’s hands gently stroking circles on his back.
“Papa.” I said, again and reached out towards him. “Why? Why?” I could feel my face contorting with the words that whined out of me in their self pitying sobs and watched Papa’s look of guilt turn to one of disgust. I quickly tried to control my sobs, swallowing the emotion that was errupting out of me and attempting to straighten my face out of its pleading expression.
“Stop it, Martha. We will talk about this later, when you are calm.” His voice held the same patronizing slide that it had held so often with Mama, when she would come crying to him at times, and he would shake his head and run from her clinging hands and weeping eyes.
When she had done that I had pitied her, had shaken my head as Papa had done at her, but now as the emotions racked through me I knew what she had felt. The emptiness that he could create in one, the feeling that one was not good enough for him no matter what they did.

Blind Date

I told her to wear a red scarf so that I would know who she was. Unfortunately this seemed to be the going trend at the Starbucks. Red scarves were everywhere, worn around the waist as a belt, around the neck and in one circumstance around the head.
I had almost given up when a dark haired girl came in wearing a blue scar with a thin red line through it. She walked with a long confident stride, her eyes grazing above the heads of those around her as she approached the counter, nodding knowingly at the cashier, who nodded back.
“The usual.” She said, her voice low and strumming, her hands holding out a credit card while she turned and gazed around the room. Her eyes were a pale blue, like an ice pond in winter, hiding their depths by their surface and they clipped from one person to another searching for me. I rose slightly and waved, her eyes bounced back to me, her eyebrows lowering slightly and she nodded.
She turned back to gather her coffee cup from the cashier, her calves tightening as she rose on tip toe. She proceeded to the cream and sugar counter, where she gracefully removed a glove to reveal a well manicured hand and with cast down eyes poured two sugars into her coffee before covering it again. My rubbed my hands that had suddenly become sweaty with nerves, down the sides of my jeans and wiped a quick napkin over my mouth.
She finished preparing her coffee and replacing her glove walked towards me. And then past me to an empty table behind me. Startled I reacted with out thinking. “Carrie?” I asked turning towards her.
The woman looked over her shoulder at me, gazing at my face for a moment before her lips turned up in a slight snarl. “No.” She said, dismissing me.
“I’m Carrie.” I heard and turned back around to see the girl with the scarf around her head standing at the other end of my table. The scarf had come lose and had fallen back to reveal hair the color of straw, pulled back into two clips.
Confused I stared at her and then back over my shoulder at the woman with the long black hair, who wore a slight smirk on her face. Embarrassed I turned around and gestured at the chair across from me.
Carrie shifted her feet and sat down, plunking a rather large purse down on the table. “I thought that was you.” She said, breathlessly, pulling the scarf off and slipping it into her purse. She still wore her coat, a pea colored vintage piece with large brass buttons and high collar. She looked up at me and smiled, her lips rather chapped and her teeth slightly smallish, giving her a malnourished look.
I smiled back as best I could, absurdly angry that she wasn’t the girl who sat behind me. “Did you find this place alright?” I asked, the only thing I could think of saying.
“Yes. Thank God for map quest.” She laughed, a slight hiccup sound. “Did you want to order some coffee?”
“No. I can’t really stay long.” I glanced up at her and watched her face fall, slightly, before it rose again in another smile.
The girl behind me laughed, a slight snort and I turned to her, unable to stop. She was sipping from her coffee cup, her chest rising and falling in laughter. Her eyes rose and met mine, and for a moment I couldn’t move, magnetized by their hypnotic blueness. “You are an ass.” She said, rising and coming to my table.
I turned as I followed her with my eyes and body. “What?”
“You are an ass.” She said again, standing at my table and gazing down at me. “Wasn’t this supposed to be a date?”
I glanced at Carrie, who was looking at me and then the girl with a perplexed look on her face, her head moving back and forth between us as if she were a bird.
“Wasn’t this supposed to be a date?” The girl asked again, this time her voice loud and bold, calling attention to us.
“Yes, yes. Why are you yelling?” I asked, glancing around the room quickly.
“A date. Then why do you need to leave so quickly?” She asked, ignoring my question as her voice rose even louder.
“Stop it!” I hissed at the girl, before rising. “I have to go. Sorry.” I said to Carrie who was now gazing at me with outrage dawning on her face. I tried not to run from the Starbucks but I could feel everyone staring at me. I know I walked pretty quickly, and almost tripped once, which was followed by girlish giggles. I stumbled into my car, relief filling me as the darkness of my window’s hid me from the outside world. It took me a moment to regain my composure.
How dare she call me an ass, and why did she have to yell it? It was just a misguided blind date. I had met Carrie on line and we had talked quite a few times, her quick humor and sweetness beguiling me into wanting to meet her. Perhaps if I had met her first, before seeing the dark haired beauty things would have gone differently, but disappointment had raced me into not wanting to continue.
I was just about to start up my car to leave when the door opened and Carrie and the dark haired girl came out into the bright sunny day. They were laughing, heads thrown back and bodies bending with their laughter. Carrie no longer wore the vintage coat as old woman might, she wore it hip and young on shoulders that were thrown back carelessly. Her hair was down now, falling in waves past her shoulders and she was talking a mile a minute to the dark haired girl, as only old and dear friends can.