Sphinxes and Daughters

Behind closed doors insinuation escaped instead of voices. In the fifties with a kid to support divorce was a dirty word — her daughter born months early, blinded by hospital error: too much oxygen.

White on her finger flushed to a glaring, scary un-ring. The neighbors’ sympathetic noises became empty rooms and undelivered invitations. As silence raised her daughter from toddler to tween, the girl saw what was missing.

The school kids called her “Missus” but what they really meant was “Don’t matter.” So she went home to a teenager now too busy for a worn-out singleton parent.

What could she show her daughter about love? A lonely road, as they say: the teacher, not the doer.

Family paths moved away and turned sharp corners out of sight while she walked unhurriedly through the decades strong and silent as a Sphinx, arriving at last to where textbooks couldn’t reach.