I was proud of my mother and father just then. Until that night, I had never said those words to myself. Gwen scraped her plate clean, and Mom gave her more macaroni and cheese, another heap of green beans. “You need your vegetables,” Mom said. I saw what a mother’s concern meant to Gwen. She rubbed her eyes with her napkin. And I was thankful to my friend, realizing how much more difficult it is to accept kindness than it is to offer it. After dinner, Daddy went out on the porch to smoke a cigarette in the dark. I washed the dishes while Mother sat with Gwen, drinking pale tea.
Just before nine, I walked Gwen to her house, kissed her cheek and promised I’d bring her oranges and chocolate when I came tomorrow. I turned and ran down the block. Night had broken clear and cold. A touch might have shattered the frozen sky if human arms could reach that far. Above me the thick stars of the Milky Way spun in the blue-black air, all the eyes of lost children, of those missing and those dead. My eyes on them murmured a prayer that had no words. Soon there would be one more child in this world, a child Gwen meant to give away before she could be tugged and bound by love. And this child too would disappear from our lives and become a star to watch over us without pity or judgment. This child, his eyes locked in Heaven, would see us night after night but would not ever find a path to lead him home.
About the Author
Melanie Rae Thon is an American author of novels and short stories. Originally from Kalispell, Montana, Thon received her BA from the University of Michigan and her MA from Boston University. Her writing has been published in The Best American Short Stories, the Pushcart Prize anthologies, The O. Henry Prize Stories, Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists, Conjunctions, Tin House, and the Paris Review. Thon is a recipient of the Whiting Writers’ Award, the Reading the West Book Award, and the Gina Berriault Award, as well as two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and one from the Tanner Humanities Center. She has also been a writer in residence at the Lannan Foundation. Thon’s works have been translated into nine languages. She lives in Salt Lake City and teaches at the University of Utah.