4 of 12 - Track 4

[KB.]

This one leads into "Further On Up the Road".

"If You Could Read My Mind"



Kate rolled over in bed and looked at the old clock as it blared silently in loud red numbers the fact that Patrick was still not home. It was almost a quarter after three in the morning. Sometimes she wished he could read her mind, or at least read between the lines. He took everything at face value most days, and the days he didn’t his mind was as scrambled as the eggs she fixed him for breakfast every morning. She knew when he told her he was going to work he was lying, but not fully. She wished she could read his mind as well as she read between his lines.

Some days she felt like a ghost he couldn’t see; no matter how he looked at her. She felt chained inside her own mind; it was made of stone, and it looked like the dungeon of some dark old castle. She only wanted him safe; she knew he did what he did to feed her and their son; to keep things easy for the rest of them. The hospital bills and the medicine for their boy were not cheap; and Patrick was forever unable to abide a normal job. He said it made him feel like half a man some days. He rode that old Harley and the only company he kept outside of his family was that of Jonas. Patrick was as much of a ghost as she was; Dickens should have studied her man when he wrote about Marley’s less than flesh and blood incarnation. Every night in the last minutes before the day met midnight and turned into tomorrow; Patrick would kiss her on her forehead as soft as the rain was falling outside. He would disappear out of their bedroom and walk the old Harley down the sidewalk before he started it. Gone like the life giving seeds from a white capped dandelion as a strong summer wind blew across the ground.

She wanted to be strong for him, be the hero and hold his head when the aches came. Heroes often fail she thought; her heart just wasn’t strong enough some days. She felt like an old dried up wishing well; nothing but dirt and orphaned silver at the bottom of it. She didn’t know where it had all started to go wrong; she didn’t understand. She wanted to be a movie Queen to come along and bring all of the good things out in him. She had to be real; the feelings were leaving like some old freight train carrying caskets from a lost war. She didn’t know if she could stop it in time to bring the living back.

She had told John about Patrick when John had confided in her about his debts, and his disease. She told John that Patrick didn’t know she knew what he did on those dark nights. She also told John to be careful; Patrick wouldn’t hurt him too bad if he came up short, but he also didn’t know that John was suffering and dying already. She had given John a little cash to help him finish the debt that Patrick would be coming to collect. Folks had been generous with tips the last two days.

As they argued over the money Patrick had walked in; he rarely came in this early during the week. He was usually still asleep, or in a medicated stupor trying to rid himself of his headaches. He looked happy this morning, like someone had been praying for him to learn how to smile again. She watched his eyes, and marveled at how much they told. She could see the love he had for her in them. Kate looked at John and saw him smile almost as wide as her man was; he must see it as well.

After Patrick left John had asked her if she thought he would “retire if money suddenly became a non-issue. She said he would, and she figured he would gladly. The only reason he did what he did was to protect his family; even if by doing so he put himself in danger every night. John had winked at her, and told her to hold on for awhile longer, tell the ghosts to leave for a bit. That heroes didn’t always fail.

John looked at her and told her he would see her further on up the road. He said he had a song to sing, and a cold bullet to warm. Kate watched as he walked out of the bar, he wasn’t a young man and the disease had taken it’s toll on him; it had stolen what youth he might have had left. Walking further up the road would probably be the death of him.

KB

[RedGlitter]

I too appreciated the line about the "orhaned silver." Very well put.

I like how this story seemed to effortlessly unwind itself from the previous one; I could see where the parts fit, if that makes any sense.



She had given John a little cash to help him finish the debt that Patrick would be coming to collect.

This part too. Yet it caught me by surprise. Such a "woman thing" to do.