The Second

"How many things do you think flicker in to existence and then back out again, each moment as we just sit here?" Miranda asked, her gaze fixed out the window over the sink in to the grassy field now bathed in twilight. Abigail ran through the long grass in the pale moonlight, fingers cupped to try and catch the fireflies that were lazily rising and blinking in the dark. "What small, wonderful things quiver and become, and then dissipate because our reality can't handle them?
"You're tired," her mom said to Miranda from the kitchen table, a small chuckle in her words.
"You're dodging the question," she shot back, taking a sip from her coffee mug and smiling as her daughter curled up on the ground outside, utterly intent on the miraculous thing she had managed to capture.
"And you only ask questions like that when you're tired and your filter isn't working, honey," she said, an understanding look to her now. "You always waxed philosophical after working hard or staying up too late. Or getting up too early, which probably won't happen tomorrow after all this!" she motioned to the hallway, lined down both sides with cardboard boxes. Silent guards at attention, holding what was left of their lives. It had taken them only half an hour to move everything inside.
Miranda wished she'd had the money to send more boxes ahead via mail. It seemed like so little to start over with. Another sip of coffee, the old evening ritual of her mother's (decaf, though, so as not to keep herself awake) that she was now partaking in. Passing of the torch. Or cup, rather.
"Abby's having a great time outside. I was worried she'd be grossed out by all that nature, city gal that she was," her mother chuckled.
"She loved going to the park and the zoo... anything with animals or plants. I'm really glad she gets to have this, gets to get dirt on her hands and shoes," Miranda explained... all things said over the phone but somehow actually having meaning when spoken in person, handing over the manual of what her daughter did and was with someone who would need to know as well.
She thought back to her young daughter's toddling exuberance in the fall, picking up leaves and carrying them around. The children of New York City had been beautiful and eerily detached, staring at this leaf-toting creature like something alien. Country mother, country baby, she had thought to see her. She knows there's fields somewhere with warm soil to bury your toes in. She knows there's trees for climbing, and flowers for picking, and streams to catch frogs in...
...then, unbidden, the tears welled up and spilled over her cheeks, landing with solid taps in to the metal sink's tub.
"There it is. I've been waiting," her mother said, rising and coming over to envelop her in a huge, warm, quiet hug.
"Kids don't belong in a city, Mom... I don't know why I stayed... I don't..." her words were thin, stretching to get through a throat clogged tight with sadness.
Her Mom squeezed a little more tightly, rocking slightly and nodding, not interrupting until the tears had flown and begun to calm down, and there was more air than sobs in Miranda's lungs again.
"You stayed because Jonathan was a good man, and because it wasn't here. And I understand that. I was happy that you got out of here. Go'Tree just wasn't the right place for what you were trying to do at the time."
"And now it is," Miranda said, wiping the dampness from her cheeks and blinking away the salt-sting in her eyes.
"Not necessarily. Right this moment, it is. Don't think of it as being stuck here forever. Think of it as a stopping point while you martial your resources," her mother said, letting her go but with a squeeze to the shoulder to offer a last bit of comfort and reassurance.
"You don't want us to stay here?" Miranda asked in surprise.
"Well of course I do, honey. I love the idea of seeing my granddaughter every day, and seeing you, too. But I also know that this is a small place, and sometimes it's got a small mind about the world. You may need to move on. I'm okay with that. I'd rather you and Abby be happy than parked somewhere that chafes at the both of you," her mother explained, back at her seat and sipping her cooling cup of coffee.
Abigail had resumed chasing after other fireflies, the fate of the original captive now a mystery. Her quietness and focus in the dark was uncanny as she tracked down the small blinking lights. Miranda smiled to see her single-mindedness, then turned and joined her mother at the table.
"I don't think I've processed everything, I'm just warning you," she said cautiously, stirring her coffee with a fingertip, "so there may be more of THAT," she motioned with a circular gesture to where she'd just been crying, "coming up."
"You're more worried about it than I am, honey," her mother said simply, "It is a hard thing to uproot your life just by itself, nevermind after the death of a spouse. Plus you just drove 400 miles away from where you established yourself..."
"Yeah but this was home, I know this place," Miranda interjected.
"This WAS home, honey, but you outgrew it before high school was over. You're familiar with it. It, however, isn't familiar with you anymore. There's going to be some settling. I'm sorry to point that out, you've got a lot going on. But it's true," she pursed her lips at the thought.
The curiosity was going to be the worst part, Miranda had known. People wanting to see what someone looked like that came back from NYC, especially under bad circumstances. People wanting to gloat over what some might want to see as a failure, trying to be fancier than one's upbringing. All of it, the awkward reintroductions and the snarkiness of high school mates was perched in the back of her head and the pit of her stomach, twin vultures picking at her constantly.
"You know what Miranda? Fuck 'em. If they bug you, ignore their existance. Bunch of small town yokel sons of bitches anyway," her mother snorted, noting her daughter's look.
"Mom!" she laughed in shock.
"I'm serious. If they're so small minded as to take joy from somebody's sorrows, they aren't much of a Christian to begin with," she waved the lot of them away with the back of her hand, "so fuck 'em!"
Fuck 'em indeed, Miranda thought with a small smile. The twin vultures shied away in the face of the abrupt expletive.
They sat there quietly listening to the crickets and frogs trilling their songs out in to the night just beyond the walls of the house. Miranda thought of checking on Abigail to make sure she was okay but knew somehow within the bounds of that field she wouldn't come to any harm. Instead, the quietness of the kitchen was embraced by the two women.
It was broken by Abigail banging through the screen door to stand in the kitchen with a worried look.
"Mommy it's past my bedtime."
Miranda looked at the ticking clock over her shoulder and noted it was half an hour past the usual time. "Yup. It is."
"Do I need to get a bath and go to sleep?" she asked.
Miranda knew her daughter was seeking patterns to hold on to, in this new place. But just for that night, she thought, it wouldn't hurt to let things slide.
"Nope. You wanna play outside some more?"
The little girl nodded, unsure.
"Then get out there. No bath tonight. Just play until you're ready to come in."
The slam of the screen door again, the hammer of shoes down the steps were the response. Her mother smiled at her.
"She'll be exhausted in another half hour and come in asking to go to bed. I know her," Miranda chuckled.
"You will be too, better go get the beds ready," her mother replied, rising. Then an odd smile crossed her face. "I just realized something."
"What's that, Mom?"
"Maiden, Mother, Crone. All together in one place. Didn't they say that was some sort of powerful triad?" her mother mused.
"That's some pagan leanings, there. Maybe?" she shrugged. She wasn't sure who this "they" was she spoke of.
"Well, it feels powerful," her mother said with a smile, then swept down the hallway to the stairs, intent on clean sheets in rooms long unoccupied.