Note: This is a revised version of my story where Fila's idea of sin didn't seem so sinful. I have tried to strengthen her definition of sin so that it's clearer to the reader.
“Lord, my knees hurt,” Fila moans as she bends to pick up the hoe off the hard-packed soil, dried by a relentless Texas sun. Leaning heavily on the hoe, she turns to examine the neat rows of vegetables, noting the ragged progress of cucumbers, squash, and beans that manage to grow in spite of the heat. Her gaze lingers on the five-gallon water bucket waiting under the lone live oak tree in the yard. She knows the tomatoes need weeding and watering, but that will take more strength than she can muster in the late afternoon sun.
Supported by the hoe, she walks slowly on bowed legs to the porch at the side of the century-old farmhouse. “I’ll just set a spell,” she says to herself, feeling guilty about leaving the row of tomato plants un-hoed, but not guilty enough to keep going. She knows her arthritic knees will make her pay later. “Well,” she says silently, “we all pay for our sins, don’t we?”
Standing the hoe by the dusty porch steps, she holds onto the handrail and pulls herself up the steps to the rocking chair placed nearby. A glass of tea, wet with moisture, sits on the small wicker table beside the chair.
She lowers herself carefully into the rocker, settling her body to ease the pain in her back, a constant reminder of decades spent bending over wash tubs, weeding gardens, ironing shirts, and bathing displaced grandchildren in the old cast iron tub. She sighs as a nagging pain creeps down her left leg, “Yes, indeed, we pay for our sins.”
She picks up the glass of tea, wipes the moisture on the hem of her sun-bleached housedress, and takes a long, thirsty drink. Setting the glass on the table, she says aloud, “God knows I’m familiar with sin. Could write a book about it.”
Her words come to rest in the memory of a 17-year-old Fila and the courtship of an old man, bent on taking her for his wife. She wonders, “Does the Lord forgive you the sin of marrying the wrong man? Of living every day as though he matters to you, when you hate even the thought of his touch, of his rough hands on your body?”
She reaches for the glass of tea again, but stops to ask herself, “Who’s the sinner anyway? The deceiver who makes your mama think he has cash in the bank, who pretends to be more than he is and to have more than he has? Or is it the girl who marries him, all the while knowing she’s marrying a man she doesn’t love and wishing he was someone else, someone she still writes to and pines for? Isn’t that the very definition of infidelity?”
As she lifts the glass to sip the now lukewarm tea, Fila rocks gently, rhythmically, letting the motion loosen a memory of her youthful self and the dreamy romance of a long-ago poem:
Many a farewell word
And sweet goodnight
On the doorstep
Lingers in my heart.
Her thoughts drift to the young Alabama man she left behind, with eyes the color of midnight; a man of gentle speech who made her ache with sweet tenderness. But that was before the possible became impossible, before a good father ended his dispirited time on earth, leaving his widow and his daughter to pick up the pieces of a life crushed by debts and fears.
Fila has learned to live with disappointment and disillusion. She avoids too much reflection or memories of lost love. But today she is bone weary and mindful of her age and the infirmities that slow her body and mind.
She sets down the glass, now empty, and closes her eyes as she rocks. Aware only of the setting sun and the cicadas scratching the still air, she whispers a poem for a lost love:
I dream of my darling tonight
My darling so tender and true;
Oh, had I but wings for the flight
Those wings, love, would bear me to you.
The tears come, not for the first time, but with a deeper regret for the road not taken when the one chance to fly came along. “I’d have needed more than wings to shift me from this place,” she sighs.
Being careful to steady herself on unpredictable knees, she pushes up from the chair, picks up the empty glass, and turns to take one last look at the tomatoes reminding her of their need for tending. Assuring them that she will be back tomorrow (God willing), Fila says goodnight, leaving thoughts of the past to sleep in the silent air of a windless Texas night.
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