The Swing

Cher Smith

The red and white swing hung from the tree in the front yard, bereft of child. The sun had scorched the plastic bottom and warped the vinyl-covered cushion. Summer came and went and now fall shriveled into a winter as bitter as a barren old spinster.

The mother watched from the window. Silent as the dark rooms above. Pale as the waning moon that crept across the charcoal sky.

They had bought the house two summers before when her belly was huge and ready. Sweat gathered under her breasts and ran down her stomach as they drove and looked at houses. None had been right for one reason or another. Until this street. Children of various ages gathered around a basketball hoop. A man with the ball between his arm and hip, held court as several boys and a small, scraggly girl pleaded their cases.

When the baby kicked, she knew it was right. They could make a home there. Now, she watched and waited and yearned.

The father watched her wait and yearn as he had for days and weeks and months. Silent as the swing he had carefully rigged on the jutting tree limb.

He had tried to make love to her in the silence that enveloped them. Came up behind her as she sat in the chair by the window, and though she was as silent and as pliant as a rag doll, he kissed her neck and massaged her breasts. She moaned like a wounded animal. Breathless, he stumbled back, turned, and left.

He cried quietly in the shower upstairs.

The next time he tried, he pulled her from the window. She went along until the swing was out of sight. Then she flew at him with flailing fists. Her spittle dotted his chest as she screamed. He let go and she returned to the window. Swift and silent, sure as metal to a magnet.

The last time he let her stay at the window and avoided her breasts. He stroked her thighs and moved his hand up under her skirt and she cried. He didn't know which was worse, the rage or the tears. He wouldn't try again.

We have to watch, she said. Everything has to be ready.

I don't think he's coming back, he said.

You don't know that, she said. It’s not like he died. They will find him, they will bring him back.

He couldn't bear the hope in her voice, nor the truth in her words.

He stood back and watched and waited in the silence.

The swing hung from the tree limb in the front yard.

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