Her

Her is part of a series of essays/short stories from a body of work I am writing entitled Butterflies Crossing Highways. Additional stories will be added here as they are written and completed. Thank you for reading.

She grew tired of living a life of half truths. She sat on a park bench with her legs crossed underneath a royal blue floral skirt. The one with the pleats, scattered with large pink and white peonies. It was the fabric of spring, of rebirth; and she wanted to believe that was her truth - so she did. Less than one month earlier her father sewed the waistline of this very skirt, cinching it because it had gotten too big. Her father could no longer remember what he had for breakfast, but he remembered her name, the deep love he had for her and his gift of sewing. He learned how to sew from his mother, it was one of the many gifts he inherited from her.
She looked up at the trees until she cried. Trees could always make her cry - their age, their wisdom, their closeness to God - it’s why she loved them so much - they made her feel covered by God. They protected her in a way she never felt as a child. And even though she loved her family with profound depth and understanding of their stories, it was the trees that protected her. Since she was a child they spoke to her, and she always whispered back. Throughout the course of her life, when she was in need, she looked to the trees. As a child she looked from her bedroom window at her neighbor's tree with a small tree house built within it. She would often escape there after school, and imagined what it would be like to live there, forever, in her tree kingdom. 
Today she sat on a bench, far from home but the closest to herself that she had ever felt, and as she continued to look up at the trees, she watched flowers fall to the ground. It was as though God himself were plucking them from the Jacaranda tree; sprinkling them on the top of her head and feet in what seemed and felt like an act of beauty and love, to be covered in flowers. They trickled on to her coral off shoulder blouse, her skirt, mingling with the peonies and becoming a part of her. They danced along her shoulders, the freckled shoulders he kissed in bed and told her, “they look like the universe.” She dismissed the thought of him and went back to thoughts of God and climbing up this tree where she would like to live. 
An older woman sat directly across from her on another bench in the park. The older woman was petite, about 70, and wore a short sleeved burgundy shift dress with tiny white flowers. She sat on the bench, alone, tapping her feet which were clad in wedge nude sandals with unpainted toes. She tapped her feet as if waiting for someone or something to happen. Her eyes roamed, skin brown, sunkissed and very slightly wrinkled. She was very beautiful and also very sad. She tapped. Maybe twenty taps per minute, succinct and timed as though mentally counting the moments with her feet until something happened. But what was she waiting for this whole time? 
Couples continued to walk by holding hands - “this is life,” she thought as she looked down at her own feet, clad in nude sandals with unpainted toes. Her own skin tanned and sunkissed. She wiped the tears from her face, hot from the sun and the afternoon rain; adjusted her royal blue floral skirt and let the purple flowers fall to the ground and join the pile surrounding her feet. She closed her eyes and smiled one final thought “I think life is the empty distance between waiting on a bench, tapping your feet and finding someone to hold your hand or kiss your shoulder in truth.” She rose from the bench, no longer waiting.