Today meant visitors. The thought drove Charlotte from bed before dawn, into the home her husband had built in the sober moments between bad years. It was a small place, just a wall of cinder and block built around one of the abandoned cabins that littered the valley. She hadn’t minded the move, not after the company folded, not after he agreed to leave windows for her stained glass. She’d never once bothered him to remove the flaky pink shingles that hung still on the hall's inner wall. In her time since him, Charlotte filled that that thin gray space with her fascinations; stacks of costumes she had sown for community theater, carved and painted wooden clowns, a cabinet of homemade wine. Age and memory had coated it all in a warm unknowing familiarity. But now the thought of other eyes gripped Charlotte, gave her a sharper vision than she would have liked. The stacks of dresses were settling into a slow, sweet rot. Her halls were awash in the scent of desperate things. Only the glass remained as she had meant them. She ran a hand across her handiwork and dust fell in furious swarm, whorling in the mottled iridescence of the dawn.
There was little to be done; she had promised a tour. She cleaned as best her knees allowed, and hid the more decrepit memories within the deeper recesses of her home. The pastor and his family came with carols and a cookie platter, and it occurred to Charlotte for the first time that this was a holiday visit. She drew them in; the parents studying the painted glass as the child busied herself with dollhouses. The somberness of the parent's steps piqued something in Charlotte; few understood stained glass, hung as they were in churches alone. So often mistaken for sacrament. Charlotte knelt to help the child better explore, guiding her through the tableau's she had built; a family dinner, Christmas, a wedding. Charlotte had built them in the wake, in the moments after sorrow when she craved the specificity of small things. She knew the disappointment of the bed's weight before the girl grabbed it; just a pretty bit of styrofoam and fabric. All of it shaped into a home, fashioned and formed to a gleam. It was something the nice boys who came with their bibles and ties never remembered to carry with them. Truths are splinter and glue. The child moved to the wedding scene. A tired groom paced the upstairs bedroom; bride radiant in the sitting room. This one the child did not touch. “Were the married people happy?” “They aren't married yet, but they will be and then they will be very happy.” “But they're already old.” Charlotte lost the child's voice. The bride's tiara stilled her, a band of gold that glittered amidst the plastic flesh and fabric. Epiphany met Charlotte’s touch. The band had once belonged on her finger. It's loss had meant days of silent panic, searching as he slept, the guilt half settled by a pawn shop replacement and the loss of her sewing money. She rubbed the counterfeit on her finger, trying to steady the trembles of age and emotion. She had grown old around the false ring, it would be difficult to remove. The girl moved into the next hall and Charlotte followed her. The pastor was examining the last of the stained glass; her largest window, a medieval ship riding steady through uncertain waves. He set his hand against the ship, followed a twist of pewter as it curved into a mast. It was an appreciative gesture, knowing in some way the comfort of this place. He moved his face close and watched the waves dismember, pewter fading into battle lines, bits of sand and shrub peaking through the lighter shades of ocean. Charlotte had rescued the glass from the bar she met her husband in; after it closed, before it burned. She never told him. Charlotte led the family to the door, taking what she could from the kindness of their goodbyes. She offered the the girl a blown glass nightlight; a dragonfly, little wings of mauve and flame. It shed little light, but there was shimmer in it. The girl took the bauble with a smile that betrayed enchantment. She locked the door behind them. Charlotte paced the gray halls, fearing her bedroom. Her bed held the darkness of sieged places, untouched by the few circles of burnt light her lamps cast in the gloom. In her more desperate moments, the bed still held something of him. She watched her glass worlds fade with the sunset, hating the stars for unweaving her illusions. Their light was their own, to be spent amidst the clouds and mountaintops, unconcerned with all her din and tinsel. But there were other ways to fill the dark. Damn the stars, she would drown them in firelight.
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