Maybe She'll Stay: A Novel by Robyn Lucas

Author:Robyn Lucas [Lucas, Robyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2023-02-27T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

Sleep had refused to visit Nancy. She’d sat in the dark all night, lit by the television’s glow until the sky outside slowly lightened. Morning met her exhausted in every way. Her mind felt like it’d run an obstacle course: over, under, through every possible scenario at least ten times. Physically, she felt like she’d failed the obstacle course and had to attempt it over and over again until she had nothing left.

After forcing herself out of bed, Nancy shuffled over to the window and drew the curtains. Squinting against the bright sunlight, she took in the flurry of fall colors painting the trees from the highway all the way into the horizon. The scenery breathed life into a quote by Lin Yutang she’d had in her office that spoke of the seasons and the colors of life. Of how spring is young and innocent and summer is too proud. Of how the yellowing of autumn leaves parallels life as one matures and grows mellow, richer in the wisdom of approaching age, and yet tinged with sorrow and a premonition of death. Of how out of the richness and experience of life emerges a consonancy of colors: the greens of life and strength, orange of sweet content, and purple of acceptance and passing.

While she had displayed the quote as a beautiful arrangement of words, she’d never quite understood the full meaning behind it until now. The greens and oranges and purples outside her window bled into each other as tears claimed her eyes once again. Her father had been green and strong and vibrant in her youth. As she grew up and her own green matured, Hank’s orange shone, content and brilliant as they grew closer. As they became family. And now, in his own twilight, Hank’s purple was a deep and knowing hue filled with purpose.

Nancy stilled, imagining the life cycle of leaves. Once they turned purple, slowly, they dried out as the last bit of life relented. When they fell, they danced along the wind as it caught their final moments back to the earth. Nancy remembered once trying to put fallen leaves back on the old oak tree in their neighborhood. She’d scooped handfuls, searching for the perfect leaf—the one that still had some shades of green in its veins—to try to attach back to the branch.

Chewing on that memory made her remember how Lucy had made fun of her for trying to rescue the leaves. Lucy had said Nancy’s efforts had been as futile as mopping the beach. Lucy hadn’t been wrong. None of the leaves would ever reattach. Never come back to life. It’d done something to that ten-year-old version of Nancy. It’d hardened her in a way, changed the way she’d hoped for things.

It hit Nancy as she stood in the window, the soft sunlight warming her glistening face: words were a lot like leaves. They sprouted and grew, but once a word or a leaf fell, there was no putting it back. Once a leaf fell, it died.

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