Visual Prompt

The Waiting Sunset

It didn’t matter that Helena’s reputation was spotless white. It didn’t matter that she was on the President’s list in college. It didn’t matter that she volunteered in soup kitchens. It didn’t matter that she dated the pastor’s son who would also be a pastor. It didn’t matter because what she was doing right now cancelled all that other stuff out, and she didn’t even care.

It was an urge, a necessity, take Waylon’s hand and walk with him to the cliff. He was magic and power and relentless and she wanted to orbit him like a planet or moon. She had since she met him at sixteen years old, and now that he was standing in front of her after such a long, painful absence, she couldn’t resist.

She felt herself fade with each step she took, reduced to a watermark, a memory. The cliff was a silhouette in the sunset, causing the clouds and the water that reflected the sky to look more heavenly with its golds, purples, and whites. Waylon only notice Helena and caused her thoughts to falter by grazing his thumb against the inside of her hand.

A good girl would not have such a reckless friend.

But if she did, the friend would not be a boy.

But by chance it did happen, the girl definitely wouldn’t fall in love with the boy, certainly not after the boy told her what he was.

But if she did, a good girl wouldn’t act on her love. Not with her lips. Not with her hands.

Especially not after the boy told her what he did.

But even if she did, good girls would not forgive him his past, but would forget her feelings for him, shun him, and keep herself pure.

Helena was a good girl but couldn’t leave Waylon to suffer alone, though everyone who knew him before he became what he is had no problem with it. Waylon took Helena’s choice to stay away, disappearing one night and not returning the next, or the next, or the next.

Five years had passed. Five years of convincing herself that Waylon was a dream—a wonderful, complicated dream that had been the high point in her very good life. On the day he came for her, Helena was leading her very good life. She had graduated college in Public Relations, she’d racked up hundreds of volunteer hours, she held a job at Children’s Services, and she fostered stray cats until homes were found for them. She was everything she was expected to be, and she wasn’t unhappy. She just wasn’t happy.

At the bus stop, she stood with her arms wrapped around her waist and she closed her eyes. Helena allowed herself this small indulgence today because it was her birthday; she remembered. Not Waylon’s look or his eyes or his smile, although those things were memorable, but Helena chose to remember the way he made her feel. So important. So alive. So complete. If Helena was honest with herself, all of the good things that she threw herself into were just attempts to replicate the way Waylon made her feel. And normally that wouldn’t bother her, but since today was her birthday, the day one is supposed to be self-aware, she remembered what life could have been.

Helena pulled Waylon to a stop before they reached the edge of the cliff and asked, “How did I get here?”

Waylon stroked her cheek and said, “I missed the way your mouth twitched when you were just about to figure out an answer to a question.”

Helena touched her lips, embarrassed, but he moved her hand and held it to his still heart. “You’re getting there.”

“I’m no longer…” The word alive wasn’t audible, but Waylon always knew what she wanted to say.

“I’m so sorry.”

“Are you here…” to stay. Helena was afraid of this answer.

“No.” but then he smiled and said, “And neither are you.”

“Don’t send me back. Please.” Helena grasped his shirt pulling him closer. “I can’t go back now that you’re here.”

Waylon breathed deeply. “You have no idea how much that means to me.”

“I hope as much as it means to me.”

The sun sank lower and Helena tensed with fear and unknowing. “What do I have to do?”

“Just choose. The cliff or the land.”

Her voice climbed as high as her disbelief. “Jump from the cliff?”

“Have some faith, Lena.” Waylon’s smile was a dare. “You have to choose. Jump or turn around and walk that way.” Waylon pointed to an expanse of land that blurred the harder you tried to focus. “I can guide you through either gate, but I can only stay on the side of the one I chose.”

“And which one did you choose?”

“I can’t answer that.” He shifted feet. “Against the rules.”

“When have you ever followed the rules?” Helena asked, memories softening her face.

“Since they were the only way we could have a chance to really be together, even if it is a fifty-fifty chance.”

“Let’s just be for a while. Can we?”

Waylon shut his eyes for a moment, and then nodded his head. “He’ll stop the sunset for a while, but when it begins again and before it gets fully dark, you have to choose.”

Helena tucked her hands deep in her pockets. “Okay. Who is He?”

“I can’t answer that, either.”

She lifted her chin toward the coloring clouds and said, “Well, thank you, He.”

Waylon’s expression lightened and he lifted Helena, spinning around and around. She laughed whole-hearted for the first time in five years, and they fell disoriented in the cliffs high grass, a deep breeze cleansing Helena’s numbness. She thought about asked why—why did he leave, why didn’t he love her enough to stay, why didn’t he say goodbye. But that would be a waste of time, so she told him how—how much she missed him, how he made her whole, how she wished she had more memories to pull from than the two meager years of high school.

Waylon didn’t offer an explanation. He just talked about what he thought about her boyfriend, what he thought Helena deserved in life, what he wanted to do to her for the rest of their existence.

Helena blushed and curled into Waylon’s lap and they kissed until they could no longer distinguish individual blades of grass. The sun was sinking again.

Waylon brushed the grass from her shirt. “It’s time.”

“I know.” Helena crumpled her face.

Then, she unfolded and revealed a level of peace she’d not known in her earthly life. “I was happiest when I took a risk to be with you.” Helena looked toward the cliff. “Maybe that would be the same in death.” She looked to the sky. “Do you hear that, He?” She yelled. “I choose the cliff.”

Waylon walked her to the edge hand-in-hand. She couldn’t understand his neutral expression. Had she chosen well?

They faced each other in silence. There was nothing left to say. He would take her to her chosen gate now, and he would either enter or turn away. Helena nodded and they both pushed their weight over the edge.

On the way down to the water speckled with the fading sun she heard Waylon’s voice shout. “Good choice.”

Photo prompt for short story

“Improvement, I think,” Dad said after he got over the shock of the freshly printed handprints all over the wooden walls of our living room. I found a can of white paint in the shed, wrenched open the lid and began to create before I could even contemplate that anyone else would see anything but the beauty I saw. Sixty-two thirteen-year-old girl handprints might cause some to scoff and turn their nose up. But not Dad. He patted my head and asked what was for dinner.

This was one reason I loved him: in the midst of war and work and worry, he could see something others couldn’t. He laughed more than anyone I knew, finding enjoyment on a side street, in a jar on the table. I had no brothers or sisters and nights were lonely while he worked the late shift. I told him this one time, and the next day I came home from school, he had added his handprints to mine on the wall, and I didn’t feel quite so lonely.
I was sixteen when he died. Factory said it was an accident. Some piece of some machine had corroded and some person had to fix it. Dad always was the “person” when no one else wanted to be. He crawled under heavy metal shapes and tried to make them fit, but they would have nothing of it and fell onto him in protest.

My uncle took me in, but I screamed and threw his things until he let me stay in my childhood home. My first night back there, I leaned on the wall covered in hands and cried until I slept. When I awoke I pressed my palms into my swollen eyes and went to the bathroom. When I came back in the room, the wall looked strange. All of the large, fatherly handprints moved to outline the shape of where I’d lain, as if they were trying to cover me. But…paintings don’t move. Walls don’t comfort. Father’s don’t die.

I crossed the room and touch the prints. They were warm when the rest of the wall was cold. I traced the palm and thumb and wished I could lace my fingers through the imprint of his and pretend. I called his name and the index finger flinched. I flattened my hands on the walls and pressed my cheek there, too, and hoped and hoped and hoped until I saw another twitch. A whole hand moved. Then, two…and three and four. I backed away to see the white handprints swirl like a hurricane on the dark wall until the collage of them resembled an abstract portrait of my father’s face. The hand-eyes blinked. The hand-ears listened. The hand-mouth spoke. “Hello, Rilla.”

My mouth dropped open and my tears were scared away. “Dad?” I inched closer. “How do I know it’s you?”

The portrait smirked. “My smart girl. That is the right question to ask. You know it’s me because your heart tells you so and because I know that you have a passion for agricultural studies and for…Marcus who sits in the third pew.

“ I…” I stammered because it was true.

“I’ve seen how you shy from him at church and how you flush as you are now when he does speak to you.” He winked. “I’m not as unaware as you think.”

“You aren’t as alive as I think.”

“That’s true,” my father said. “But I feel this is a gift nevertheless.”

“A gift from who?” I asked.

“From me, I suppose.” And the face smiled through the hands and I couldn’t help but feel joy-sunshine joy, blooming flower joy, forever joy.
My father stayed with me as the years passed. Marcus and I began dating. Then, we married and had a child. The farther into life I got, the less I came to the wooden wall. Not because of a separation between us. I suppose it is just how creating a new branch of life with another works. You don’t love the trunk of the tree of life less; you don’t forsake it, even. You just…aren’t focused on it so much, tending to your own offshoots and leaves.
I came to my father’s wall after news of our leaving. Marcus could no longer support us here. He had to search for something new, and he found it somewhere new. Rosie was three.

For the second time I sobbed to my father, but this time it was me who had to leave. One whitewashed handprint floated to my cheek pressed against the wall, while the others formed his face and begged me not to cry.

“It’s time for you to live fully in this life. If you stayed with me you would always be only half here and I wish more for you than that.” His kind face drooped. “In truth, it has long been time for me to wholly embrace my death. I, too, have only been somewhat existing.” The fingers making up his eyebrows twitched upward imploring my understanding.

“I didn’t know you were unhappy.” I clasped my hands and backed away, shamed by my selfishness.

“Oh, no. Not unhappy. You have always been my happiness on this earth, and because of my stay, I have seen you marry someone who loves you without condition. I have seen my grandchild grow to favor your lovely mother’s face and your sincere soul. I would not trade these years. But,” my father heaved a sigh, “I am tired.” He was quiet for a long moment, and then said, “This is welcomed. You will not have to leave me behind and I will have my rest.”

I placed my hands on my father’s faux face. “You have given me your life and your death. I can’t tell you how grateful…” tears pressed my voice back down my throat. “I know you love me. Please tell me you know how much I…”

He looked to the side, distracted. He nodded and came back to me. “I have to go.”

“Forever?” I asked.

“No, not forever. Just until you can find me again.” His fingers created a marvelous smile. “Your mother and I will be here.”

“She’s with you there?” I wiped my cheek clean, but new tears dirtied it again.

He nodded and two hands reached for me. “Now. Live a strong, brilliant life. Love your husband and your child with everything you have, and when you are old and have worn out your days, we will be together again.”

I watched each hand print, one by one, join mine, as if all those years ago they had never moved at all. And as each hand found its permanent place, each piece of my father I grasped so tightly floated away until I was full of his sweet memory but not the jagged shards of grief and loss. I left the house once the hands stilled. A cleansing rain pelted my face and I promised myself I would be strong and I would be brilliant. For my father and for me.