The sun warmed her bare legs as its rays just began to touch the water of the bayou. The porch was very high, twenty or thirty feet, or was it fifty? It made her dizzy to look down, but the railing felt solid at her waist. Sometimes there were ducks, or little fish that made the water shimmer and vibrate across the surface of the bayou. Little waves lapped at the sides of the fishing boat.
The warmth climbed up her body and the sky began to take on the deep blue color of summer. A sudden urge began deep inside her body. It hadn’t started with a thought as in normal urges where your mind decides something and your body follows. Instead, it was the other way around. The body trying to get the mind to remember. She lifted both arms above her head reaching high, stretching and swaying a little. The stretch felt good. So did the sun on her arms and chest.
‘Mama?’ Her son’s worried voice. ‘What are you doing?’
She had to make an effort with the interruption to stay there in that place. To keep going back as though something had been lost, a key in the dirt, and you walk over the spot slowly, slowly searching every inch.
‘Mom,’ he said. ‘Did you sleep okay? It’s early.’
She lowered her arms. ‘I’m enjoying the sun.’ Her mind finally caught up with her body’s memory and she saw the lines against the blue, felt the grass tickling her feet, smelled the china ball trees and the dark humidity of New Orleans. The sheets taut, swaying in the wind, the clothespins lined up straight like toy soldiers.
He said, ‘I made some eggs. I’ll bring them out here.’
She sat down a white rocker near the railing where she was still in the sun. ‘Oh, thank you. You treat me like a queen.’
The urge remained in her belly like a child waiting to burst out of the door to run to their daddy. That joy. She had loved hanging clothes.