Cecilia

Three girls walking home, lanky, silly, chatty, all three young, all three new.

You know what they say, all the writing pundits, that the opening sentence is the most important one, the hook to reel in your reader with? To hell with that. I want to start the story of Cecilia in the most mundane way, because that is how it started.

The story starts with my eyebrows. The story is, has been, about my eyebrows, for a long while.

The question of whether I do or do not have eyebrows had not been adequately addressed before I met Cecilia. Apparently, I do have them, only that God has, in all His Mercy, forgotten to color them. I’m not choosy, any color would do, brown, black, heck, I’d even go for red, but the blondish eyebrows on my pale face ended up being perfectly camouflaged. God had not put color on my eyebrows, but Cecilia did. “Woman, you do have eyebrows”, she said, handing me a mirror, admiring her handiwork. “Who would’ve thought,” said I.

Three girls walking home, lanky, silly, chatty, all three young, all three new.

So I start going to Cecilia to color my eyebrows. The money’s not exactly tight, but I do have two teenage daughters, they’re growing, they’re assembling their style, they’re discovering makeup. I splurge on my daughters, I’m stingy with myself, no unnecessary luxuries. Coloring the eyebrows every six weeks is my little thing.

A flash of headlights, “he sure is driving fast”, then nothing.

I’ve been going to Cecilia for a couple of years now. Corona ebbs and wanes. We wear masks, we don’t wear masks, then we wear masks again. We don’t talk much. Also, what is there to talk about? The subject of eyebrows, even my eyebrows, is so easily exhausted.

The time stopps, the time disappears. She disappears. The time comes back, she is back in the time, but she doesn’t know where.

During the lock down, I stop coloring my hair. My blond hair turns silver, more white than gray, thank god for small mercies. “It’s very in,” Cecilia says, “I looks like you had bayalage.” Yeah, right, I say. I don’t actually say that, I just roll my eyes.

Six weeks later, Cecilia’s hair is almost exactly the same nuances as mine, “But I had to pay so much for it”, she says. Silly young woman, I think, just wait a couple of decades, and your hair will turn white for free!

How old can she be? Haven’t given it much thought before. Mid twenties? Late twenties? Young.

She is back in space, the space is here, the time is now. She’s lying in a field.

Eventually we start talking, a bit. We’re different. Cecilia believes in angels, I’m a staunch rationalist. I have never met anyone who believed in angels. It is a silly belief to be had, at this place, at this age. Angels, and probably the horoscope, too, and what, healing crystals? “No, just angels”, she says. Still silly. But then, I’m highly educated, and all my friends are, and my family, we’re all very well-read, we’re all very intellectual, and Cecilia, she hasn’t been much to school, her beautician diplomas hanging in her entrance. I like Cecilia. I look down at Cecilia.

Bones broken, muscles torn, insides ripped, twisted. She doesn’t know it.

Cecilia colors my eyebrows, slowly and meticulously. I find these sessions more and more pleasant, I start looking forward to them, a little oasis of piece, soft music, and our silly little chats.

Cecilia works out, I don’t. She says that exercising is important, healthy food too. I don’t work out, but I eat healthy, and that’s an easier subject than listing my excuses for not working out. We talk about healthy food, such an everyday theme, we all eat, food is something we can all talk about. I could have talked about my love of cooking, perhaps she likes cooking too, but, no, here I am, lying on the soft table, under a blanket, a blanket she had put over me, and I am talking about science, about the latest nutritional science research: Because, you see, I’m highly educated, very clever, very knowledgeable. I like Cecilia. I look down at Cecilia.

Fragile girls’ bodies left lying for dead by the road. They are dead and they are alive, she doesn’t know.

I have gotten up from the table, still rolled in the blanket, still muzzy after sinking into that well of relaxation, I’m thinking of the cold winter evening outside “No way I’m leaving here, Cecilia”. I lift my gaze, I look at the framed drawings on the wall. I’ve seen them before, I haven’t seen them. I examine them carefully. They’re excellent. They’re beautiful.

“Who made those?”

“I did.”

“They are really, really, good. Are you self taught? Or did you study drawing?”

“I attended an art academy for four years.”

“And then you went to a beautician school for, what, two years?”

“Yes, six years in all. I could have become a lawyer.”

“You could have become a lawyer.”

She is dead and she’s alive, she doesn’t know, not yet.

Cecilia is standing in the center of the room, not moving. Cecilia is telling.

I’m in the entrance, I was on my way out, that’s not a natural distance for talking, normally one or the other would have moved closer, no one talks over three, four, meters, but neither of us can move.

I’m shaking my head, I’m whispering no, no, no, I can’t take in her words, the scene she’s describing, all those years back.

Cecilia is telling.

Three girls walking home, lanky, silly, chatty, all three young, all three new. A flash of headlights, “he sure is driving fast”, then nothing. The time stopps, the time disappears. She disappears. The time comes back, she is back in the time, but she doesn’t know where. She is back in space, the space is here, the time is now. She’s lying in a field. Bones broken, muscles torn, insides ripped, twisted. She doesn’t know it. Fragile girls’ bodies left lying for dead by the road. They are dead and they are alive, she doesn’t know. She is dead and she’s alive, she doesn’t know, not yet.

Fragile girls’ bodies, broken.

Fragile girls’ bodies, broken.

I know those bodies, I know those ages, I know them deep in my core, I know them viscerally: Those are my daughters’ ages. Those are their ages, now.

I look at her, for the first time, I really look at her. I look at her hair, gray but not gray, at her face, her face is smooth, young. I look at her eyes, behind the makeup, behind the glasses. Her eyes are not young, not young at all. She’s much older than I thought, she may be closer to my age.

How old are you, Cecilia?

Fragile girls’ bodies, broken.

I know those bodies, I know those ages, I know them deep in my core: Those are my daughters’ ages.

One is still growing, shooting up in an unfathomable tempo, she’s all arms and legs, I don’t understand how those long legs don’t get tangled at every step, how she knocks things off the tables and shelfs only occasionally, and not all the time, how can she coordinate them at all, those long arms, those long legs. The body invests all its resources in height, she grows one way only, only up, she’s tall and slender, and fragile, so fragile.

The other one has finished that insane growth spurt, she’s now consolidating her new feminine body, her new curves. Her body is not new, but those forms are, they are brand new, never lived in. She’s trying it out, that unknown, womanly form, slowly, tentatively, like a new coat, like high heals. There’s a different fragility to it, a fragility of a young female body, a body brand new, a body never lived in.

Fragile girls’ bodies, broken.

That fragility is a potential, the fragility of the changing minds, of the changing bodies, a potential that will bloom out into strength and life force. But it needs time, it needs space, to try, to fail, to grow, to discover, to want, to reach. I try to give it to them, the space and time, the protection and freedom, I try to give it to my daughters, all the while petrified by the unthinkable horror that they might get harmed, that something, someone, would hurt those fragile new minds, break those fragile new bodies.

I talk to them, I smile at them, I correct them, I chide them, I hug them, I feel the taut string of terror ever vibrating inside me.

Fragile girls’ bodies, broken.

“And your sister? And your friend?”

“I came out of it with least damage, I think. I can work, not a lot, not full time, but I can work. I can work out, it helps, it keeps the pains in check. They fared much worse. Much worse.”

I can’t ask how much worse, I can’t think how much worse.

A fragile girl’s body, broken.

How do you go through it, the months, years, of surgeries, of therapy, of pain and anger, of sorrow over the life ripped away from you at the age of fourteen? How do you move on? How do you accept the horror, the injustice, how do you wrestle a meaning from the bottomless hollow, from the meaninglessness of an “he was angry at his wife” — he was angry at his wife! — and that’s why he wasn’t paying attention, that’s why he mowed down three young girls, broke their young bodies?

How do you do it?

How did you do it, Cecilia?

A fragile girl’s body, broken, mended.

Cecilia is standing in front of me, her body upraised, strong, muscular, her eyes shiny with tears.

I’m looking back at her, the mosaic of broken and mended, of a young girl and a grown woman, of an artist and a beautician, of fragility and steel determination, the edges rugged, patching and overlapping, still merging together into life force, pure and raw, the unfathomable strength of reclaiming the life stolen from you.

I don’t know what to say, I don’t know what to do, I walk to her, I give her a cautious, clumsy hug, I turn and leave, I almost run out, I cry all the way home.

I’ll see you in six weeks, Cecilia.