Partly Cloudy

The April shower leaked through the roof of lime-green leaves and reached Stasha’s head as she gently swung on the tire swing her father had hung for her when she was five. Her mother was opposed to the tire swing, she was always overprotective. But Stasha’s father was adamant and said, “Every kid deserves a swing to go play on. She won’t get hurt.” Stasha did hurt herself from time to time, skinned knees, scraped elbows. But the slight sting was worth it because on the swing she could touch the trees leaves, and then the sky. It seemed she reached heaven before falling back down to the hard ground. Today she only hovered a few feet above the ground, letting the mist envelope her and the warm rain mix with her tears. She had given up on swinging to heaven. At the funeral the priest told her it was where her father was. When she got home she swung the highest she had ever swung, so, so high but she didn’t reach her father. God took him away, far, far away. That was the day she fell and broke her arm. It has been two years since her arm had snapped and her father died and now she was twelve.
Tomorrow was the wedding. On her mother’s first date with Tom, five months ago, Stasha was angry that her mother could betray her father so easily.
“Life moves on Stasha,” her mother said. “Don’t you want to move on?”
Stasha did not. She ran through the slushy snow out to her tire swing. They were moving to Florida, where there was a job opportunity for Tom. There were no oak trees there to hang up a tire swing. Only palms, a sad excuse for a tree. An older couple was buying the house and who knows what would happen to the old tire swing.
Stasha tilted her head back and looked at the gray sky through the leaves. Change was too much and it made her dizzy. She lifted her head and kicked at the damp ground. The swing was thrown into motion and Stasha kept kicking off until her feet touched the leaves of her oak tree, not their ever changing world. She was going up, higher and higher until it seemed she was swimming in the thick gray clouds. Her nails dug into the swing and her knuckles turned white so that she could stay on her last tie to earth. Where was he? Where was he? Not here so she let the swing bring her back down to the spinning orb of change. Though her last swing ride left no harm on her body, the losses were still a heavy burden on her spirit.

*Age 14 (2003) Published in Norwell High School's 2005 Halyard. Winner of Boston University's Special Achievment in Fiction