The Bell Jar is filled with flowers now –
yellow zinnias, purple pansies, pink
vincas pressed smooth between worn
pages. Some leaves too, a red
maple, a pin oak already browning
at the edges. My daughter brings
another fistful to the shadowy
kitchen where I mix batter for her
zucchini muffins. Press these
in the book, Mama. She leads
me to the bookcase and points,
folds her hands in her lap,
watches me flip the pages
underlined in blue ink and dotted
with notes from a long-ago girl.
What’s this book about? she always asks,
and I read her my favorite part
with the fig tree, the fruit
falling to the ground, withering,
disappearing as Esther contemplates
one dream or another, one
perfectly good life for an appealing
alternate. My daughter
leaves me alone with my book, off
to find more flowers to save. I watch
her through the window, squatting
in the garden, and I want to tell
her why choosing is so hard, how we
spend our lives fading in and out,
how we feel happy and unhappy,
satisfied and unsatisfied, full and empty,
how faith gets some people through
but how it complicates things.
It’s the knowing and the not knowing
that keeps some of us awake—not
that we’ve made a wrong choice
but that we had to choose. Alone, I put the book
back on the shelf and return to the
kitchen, slide the bread into the oven.
Photo by frank mckenna on Unsplash
