EVERY DAY ABOVE GROUND

Chapter 1

“Every day above ground is a good day.” – Big Kat Kaylor

JAN 1, 1985, Tuesday

DAD

          Outside this apartment window, New Year’s morning stirs still wet behind the leaves.  The sky above is eggshell blue.  The clouds toddle curly and wispy.  A small airplane grumbles overhead.  Sunlight dives right down into a pool of water rippling and shimmering on the roof below, and then it somersaults onto the backs of the parked cars and it lounges.

I hear the soft shuffling of powder and perfume and the careful clicking of lipstick.  She is a shadow’s touch behind a nearly closed door.  Goddess of the moon and the hunt, I am forbidden to look at you.

Outside this apartment window, birds pip and cheep.  The willow trees slouch but do not weep.  The red tiles on the slanted roofs grow green moss…