The Taste of Grief

© Marianne Paul

We watch the girls draw closer. I hear their girl-chatter, their girl-words, skipping songs and birthday parties and other nonsense. I can’t believe they don’t notice Dog and me hiding in the ditch. He’s so big, like a mountain, even pressed flat to the ground. 

Dog is taut beside me, and I know he wants to attack. I put my hand against his neck.  It calms him down, and he awaits my signal.  He’s happy here with me, happy to be part of a pack. We’re both runaways.

The girls are now within striking range. I leap from the bush. Dog follows me, barking wildly.

The wimps break ranks, scatter off down the road. Except for one girl.

“Give me your knapsack,” I demand, “or he’ll bite.”

She only laughs.

“He’s a trained killer,” I warn.

Dog doesn’t wait for my command. He jumps at the girl.  Puts his paws on her shoulders, licks her face. The girl pets him under his chin.  “He’s my dog,” she says.

“Liar,” I tell her. “He’s a runaway, just like I am. He has no one. Not a mother-” 

“You’re wrong,” she says. “Dog has me. And he has a name, too.”

“What?”

“Mountain. And I’m Lily,” she tells me. “Who are you?”

“Jack.”

“That’s a boy’s name,” she scoffs.” You’re a girl.”

“So what?” I answer.

And that’s how we meet - Lily, Mountain and me.

Four years later, I still run away, but to the church at the edge of town. The door is never locked, something about lost souls. We meet like this in the dead of night, whenever Lily and Mountain can sneak away. Once in a while, when it is time to leave, we forget to blow out the candles, and the parishioners say it is a miracle, a sign from God, candles that light without human hand.

Inside the church, I always tiptoe by the font. I used to think the priests drowned babies in the font, and maybe they do.  Then I tiptoe past the alms box, count up eleven pews according to the plan, turn left from the center aisle and lie low, wait.

I press myself flat against the pew, so flat that I have no depth. I’m a piece of paper, just the varnish on the pew, just the pew itself. Such is my resolve, my commitment, my love for Mountain and Lily. I don’t move a muscle, not even a hair, but I’ll defend them both to my death if the Reverend discovers us. But he never does, always just glides right by, his nose in the air. Usually leaves for the Rectory before they arrive, a blast of wind rushing in to fill the vacuum left by the air he has displaced.

Lily.

Such a silly name, a flower’s name, but it is the right name for Lily. Her skin is porcelain white, as white as the flower’s petals. Her hair is jet black, the kind of hair I have always coveted, wanted for my own, hair that is not the color of the moon, the color of straw, the color of corn silk. The contrast of Lily’s hair against her lily skin makes the black even blacker. It shines black, glistens black, like the feathers of a raven, or the luster on coal. 

Lily pushes open the door a crack. Mountain can’t wait, bounds through the space between door and church, and we play our game. He sniffs for me, sniffs the air, sniffs the hardwood floor, sniffs his way through the rows of pews. Plays the part of the hunter dog. Prolongs the game, savors it. He knows exactly where I am. He leaps over the last pew, unable to contain his dog excitement, his dog adrenaline, licks my face and whines and jumps. I tousle his head. He pushes his nose into my pocket, and I give him a treat.

Then Lily and I stretch out on our backs in front of the altar.

Mountain curls beside us.

“Did you see your mother today?” Lily asks.

“Yup,” I tell her. “I saw my mother at the grocery store. She was picking out the reddest juiciest apples, just the way I like them. She looked at each one to make sure it was perfect before she put it in her basket, and she wore a sweater as red as the apples, and her lips were red, too, and her hair jet black, just like your hair.”

It’s a game we play.

Sometimes the woman is a figment of my imagination, and I make her up for Lily. Other times, I watch for her throughout the day, choose her from all the people I see. The woman who would be most like my mother, if my mother were still alive – if she hadn’t died – and then I tell Lily all about her.

Mountain, too, who always listens.

One night, I wait in the pews much longer than usual and fall asleep. I wake with a start, and there is Lily beside me. She’s alone. I sit up and look toward the door.

“Where’s Mountain?” I ask.

Then I look at Lily again.

Her face is wet.

I put my arm around her, and she cries openly, loud sobs into my shoulder.

Her body moves in waves.

I stroke her black hair with my palm, over and over again. Near the end of each stroke, I can feel her neck, small and fragile in my hand. My shirt is wet with her tears, and I comfort her the best I can, since I knew grief first, and now she does, too.

Lily can’t stop crying.

I lift her face from my shoulder, cup her small chin in my small hands. My fingers brush her cheekbones. I brush her tears not to rid her of them, but to rub them into her. Rub them into my skin, too, through my fingertips. It is something we share – grief, tears. Mountain is dead.

Then I do something that seems right in the moment. I kiss Lily.

Her lips are salty with grief.

Now I know the taste of grief too, and it tastes like the ocean.

I’m not surprised that Lily’s lips would taste like the ocean, nor that love and grief would taste the same.