Once upon a time there was a girl who chased butterflies and saw pictures in the clouds. The girl lived with her father far from other children and so she spent much of her time in the quiet under the sky. She wasn’t at all lonely. She had never known friends her own age and so didn’t mind not having them and if she needed someone to talk to other than the stars or the birds she had her father. Her father loved her very much. On the important papers he kept safe for her it said her name was Alice, but her father and the clouds and the stars and the birds always called her simply Girl.
“Hey there, Girl,†her father would say as she crawled into his lap. “What did my pretty girl see today?â€
Or he would say “Guess what I did today, Girl. I picked some flowers for the most beautiful little girl in the world.†Then he would show her the flowers he’d picked and tell her their names. Sometimes Girl could guess at the flower’s names, but her father usually knew finer names for them than she did.
Sometimes Girl’s father would get very tired because of all the work he had to do being both her father and her mother. When that happened Girl would make him a cup of coffee and bring it to him where he sat in his chair.
“Ah, that’s my Girl,†he would always say. And his Girl would sit beside him and do her best to give him some of her strength. At those times he would smile at her and peace would smooth all the lines from his face.
Girl knew that it was very hard on her father not to have a wife. He’d used to have a wife, but some time after Girl had come she’d gone someplace farther away than the stars. Girl knew that somewhere a piece of paper said her mother’s name was Mary, but Girl’s father always called her “your mamaâ€.
He would get a distant look to him when he was talking about Girl’s mama. He looked like he was holding too much happiness and sadness in his face and Girl would climb into his lap and put her arms around his neck and listen as he told her stories about her mama. She hoped the telling would help some of his sadness go away so that only happiness would be in his face.
Girl’s father was usually a happy man. He would laugh with his wide mouth and toss her high in the air. He would tell her jokes as they ate dinner together and sometimes she laughed so hard she’d choke on her food. When that happened he would lift her arms up until she stopped choking and then they’d go on laughing together. Other times Girl’s father would want to be quietly happy. When he felt like that they’d go outside after all the work was done and they’d show each other pictures in the stars. Girl was very happy with her father under her sky.
One day Girl and her father got in the car and drove to town to pick up some things they needed. They drove with the windows down and Girl laughed as her hair blew all around her face. When they got to town Girl stayed very close to her father as he found and bought what they needed. She was always scared that somehow she’d get lost in the midst of all those people and she’d never find her way back home. So she held on tight to her father’s jacket and tried not to shy away from all the people who stopped to talk to her.
Eventually the purchases were made and loaded into the car. Girl’s father turned the car toward home and Girl felt herself relax a bit. Soon she would be home and a then she’d be free to breathe easily. She kept her window all the way up until they got outside of town and then she rolled it down and let the wind come roaring in. Town air smell funny to Girl.
It was when they were almost home that it happened. Girl’s father had turned to her to tell her a joke and then with no warning they were thrown against their seatbelts. Girl felt herself turn over and over. There was a sharp pain in her arm and she might have screamed, but her voice was lost in all the noise and pain. She heard her father yell and then she saw black.
The first thing Girl saw when she woke up was a window. The curtains were open and she could see the sky and the clouds, but the window was shut tightly so she couldn’t say hello. A kind looking woman came in and asked her how she was feeling. Girl tried to answer, but shyness stole her words away. The woman looked at her a little sadly and then said she would be back later. When she was gone Girl pulled her eyes away from the window and tried to find an answer to the woman’s question. She seemed to feel fine. The air tasted bad, her arm was very stiff and she ached all over, but when she thought of all the noise she’d been through she was pretty sure she should feel worse. She decided to tell the next person who came in that she was fine.
The next person to come in was a woman who looked familiar to Girl. She didn’t look as kind as the first woman and she seemed to have substituted sadness for kindness. But Girl had made a decision so she went ahead and told this woman that she felt fine. The woman seemed startled by this, but recovered quickly.
“That’s, that’s nice, dear,†the woman said. “I’m, I’m glad you’re feeling fine. Um, Alice, honey…†The woman looked at Girl with so much sadness in her eyes Girl was surprised she could still see.
“Alice, I have something I need to tell you,†the woman said. And then with a few words she blackened the clouds, put out the stars, ripped down the sun and broke apart Girl’s entire world.
The sun never rose on the day of the funeral. There was a gaping hole in the sky where the sun should have been and through the hole tears poured to earth. Girl stood on a small hill in the rain and wished her heart could cry like the sky.
She was alone in a group of people all pretending to be as sad as she was. They kept coming up to her and saying they were sorry, but she wasn’t sure what they’d done to be sorry for. They hadn’t taken her father away and that’s what had made her broken. Maybe they were apologizing to her for being there when she so desperately wanted to be alone under the sobbing sky. They kept apologizing, but when everyone finally climbed into their cars they just followed Girl back to her aunt’s house.
Girl had an aunt. She was the sad woman at the hopsital who’d broken the hole in the sky. Girl had known she’d had an aunt, but something had gone wrong between Girl’s father and her aunt when Girl’s mother had died and they hadn’t spoken much to each other since. Girl tried to believe that this woman was going to love her, but she still seemed so much like a stranger.
Girl seemed to be surrounded by strangers now that she was broken. She sat on Aunt’s sofa and felt hot and crowded. All the people who had apologized to her under the sky had all come to her aunt’s house to do it again. There wasn’t enough room for all of them so they were constantly moving and standing too close to each other. And since Girl’s heart was crying they all came and stood too close to her. She really wasn’t sure why. They’d apologized to her; they could go now. Did she need to tell them she forgave them before they would leave?
The day dragged on. Girl ate what she was given and drank when someone told her to. People came up to her and looked at her sadly while other people talked about her in hushed voices. One of her cousins was running around and laughing until someone scolded him. He stopped laughing and pretended to be sad with everybody else. The sky cried and the sun hid and Girl sat in the heat feeling broken.
Eventually everybody left. Aunt showed the last person to the door and sad the last goodbye. The house took a deep breath and settled in for the night. Aunt showed Girl to her room and left her for the night. Girl curled up around her broken heart and fell asleep.
The sun woke Girl up by gently stroking her face. She rolled onto her back and let the sun warm her face. If she lay there without opening her eyes maybe she could pretend she was home. She lay for a moment.
But it wouldn’t work. The feel of the sun, the smell of the air and the pain from her heart all told her that she wasn’t home. She got out of bed and went downstairs.
One thing Girl couldn’t get used to was that everyone seemed to have more names than they needed. She called her aunt Aunt and that worked fine, but Aunt seemed to want to be called Aunt Becky. Aunt Becky had two sons named Kevin and Mike. Girl had been told that they were her cousins, but she couldn’t simply call them Cousins. They needed to be called Mike or Kevin, but Girl was never sure why. They called Aunt Becky Mom which made sense to Girl, but it was just too different from what she was used to. Aunt Becky insisted on calling Girl Alice which just made her feel like her feet were slipping off the floor. She’s never been Alice before. Why did everything have to change just because she was broken?
“Did you sleep well, Alice,†Aunt asked as Girl sat down at the table.
Girl just stared at her trying to come up with an answer. She’d slept, but now she was awake and she didn’t feel any better. Sleeping hadn’t healed her brokenness any so did that mean she’d slept well or not? She opened her mouth to say she’d slept fine, but Aunt had turned away from her and gone to the stove. She came back with a plate of scrambled eggs and set it down in front of Girl.
“Eat up, Alice,†she said, trying to be cheerful.
Girl picked up her fork and then stopped and just stared at her food. She wasn’t hungry and the thought of eating made her feel sick. The smell of eggs wafted up to her and made her stomach turn over. She looked from her plate to her aunt and back to her plate. Aunt was looking concerned. The Cousins were staring at her.
“Alice?â€
The room was suddenly too small and smell too much like town and people and strange names and food she simply couldn’t eat. Girl bolted from her chair and ran out the back door.
There was no place to go outside. She ran as far as she could from the house she was supposed to call home and from all the changes it stood for, but even that wasn’t far enough. Aunt’s backyard had room for a swing set, a bush no one could identify and a small patch of grass. Girl ran to the very back of the yard and slammed into the fence. She wanted to run more, to run forever. She wanted to run until the wind in her face blew her tears away. But she didn’t have any room to run. She was at the end of the yard and there was no more room to run and not enough space to scream.
So she went to the swing set and began to swing. She closed her eyes and went back and forth, up and down. The wind around her began to move faster and faster. The sun kissed her eyes whenever she was up and warmed her hair when she was down. She swung with desperate engergy, like someone running from sharp teeth or claws.
Girl’s Aunt stood on the back porch and watched her. Her sadness made her forehead wrinkle and her concern made her mouth pucker. She stood and watched and mourned for the pain she could do nothing to touch.
And so it went. Girl spent most of her days in the yard either swinging or under the bush. Her aunt spent most of her time worrying about Girl. Kevin and Mike spent most of their time either ignoring their cousin or frightening her with their attempts to play with her. Girl couldn’t get used to so many people all around her with all their confusing names. She couldn’t get used to only the small patch of sky the houses gave her or the way the air tasted of town. Mostly she couldn’t get used to being broken.
It was Kevin who saved her. He was the older of the two boys and he was just old enough to notice something was wrong with his cousin. Mike was too little to notice he should care and usually overwhelmed Girl with his energy and excitement. But Kevin started to notice that her face never smiled and her eyes never laughed. He noticed that his mother was worried and that the house hadn’t been the same since Girl came with her sadness. He saw her brokenness and decided to fix it.
One day in the middle of summer Kevin went out to the yard where Girl was swinging. He stood in front of the swing until she felt his presence through her eyelids. When she came to a stop he held out his hand.
“C’mon, I’ve got someplace to show you.â€
Girl was confused and wary. She didn’t know of anything in this new place that she wanted to go see. But Kevin was looking so pleased and he wasn’t the cousin that bothered her. So she put her hand in his and let him lead her away.
They walked out the front gate and down the street. Girl looked nervously at each house they passed and wasn’t sure she wanted to do this. She had never walked down a street like this before with all it’s cars and houses and people. She held tightly to Kevin’s hand and was relieved when he held tightly to hers.
They walked for several blocks turning here or there. Soon Girl was completely lost. Every street looked the same except that there seemed to be more people the further they went. The houses started to crowd closer together like people at a party and they were starting to loom like an angry man. Girl was about to ask to go back when Kevin stopped.
“We’re here,†he said.
And then he led her into a piece of green that looked like it had been carved out of the city by a giant’s masterful hands. There were trees that towered like buildings, but someone had left enough space between trees to see the sky. There was grass that lay flat like a blanket and looked like it would hold you up as you ran and ran and ran. In places there were flowers that looked so well loved Girl suspected they already had names. The sun streamed down from the sky and Girl was so happy she started to cry.
Kevin tried to explain.
“I knew you liked grass and I thought you were sad so I thought maybe you’d like it here.â€
He fumbled for more words, but something whispered to him that maybe this wasn’t a time for words. So he closed his mouth and he put his arm around his cousin’s shoulders and let her cry. There, with the sunlight on her hands and her cousin’s love around her, Girl felt the hole in her heart close just a bit.
They had a wonderful time at the park. Kevin had brought a lunch and after they ate he chased Girl around and she ran and ran and ran. The green brought a smile into her eyes and made her face full of laughter. They played ball with some children Kevin found at the park. Girl chased the ball and for a moment almost thought it was a butterfly. The wind ran with them and the sky drew pictures in the clouds for them. Kevin showed Girl how to find faces on cars and they splashed in the fountain together. Girl finally felt like she had space to breathe and laugh and cry. So she did and her brokenness healed a bit more.
When the streetlights began to turn on Kevin said it was time to go home. They packed up and took hands again and started for home. On the way Kevin told Girl stories about the streetlights and the gnomes that live inside them. They came up with names for all the streetlights they passed and laughed all the way home. And Girl never once noticed the looming houses or the passing people.
After dinner that night Aunt Becky, Kevin, Girl and Mike got into the car and drove out of the city. Kevin told Girl he had something else to show her and that he had made Mike promise to be good. They drove in peaceful silence, going away from the lights and the people and the noise. Girl leaned against the window and watched it all go by.
They drove until the lights outside were few and then up a tall hill. Aunt Becky parked the car by the side of the road and Kevin and Girl got out. Kevin led her to the edge of the hill and told her to look.
At their feet lay the city. Its thousands of lights twinkled and glimmered like stars, its buildings rose and fell like waves. From up here the noise was muted and all the sharp lines were softened. Girl looked down on the city and realized it was beautiful.
She took a deep breath in and healed some more. And Kevin, who was standing close to her, felt it happen and smiled.
The End