The Rehearsal

It was late, Easter Sunday. She was putting on her show. No one but me, my son, my husband in her audience, and we were in shadows, in the brisk night, on the wrong side of the glass. We were, I am certain, unseen.

She stood and declared. She fluttered her hands, bent forward, seemed to walk away, but then came back so that she might peer out over the empty chairs and tables, and begin again. More feverish now, more determined to enrapt and engage, and I thought of me writing. Of me in my various rooms, alone, on my walks, alone, in my head, alone, exclaiming and gesticulating just the same—trying to hear myself first, trying to persuade me, so that later, when something I write is in another's hands, the words break free.