The scene came to me, from time to time, after her death. It arose

sometimes as a memory, sometimes in a dream. It was during one of those intervals that I got the idea that I could shape something of lasting beauty to celebrate our friendship. 

I began and it went well, then not so well, then not at all. The dream and the memory faded, arose again, faded. Years went by and year by year my failures accumulated, the way moths accumulate beneath a porch light. Eventually my hands lost too much of their savvy, always dropping things, sore from arthritis. 

It was said that Don the Rainmaker could pick a speck of dirt from between the toes of an angel dancing on the head of a pin. I met him on a stretch of the Bay of Fundy shore. He put his hand on my heart, and said to me, what is it, old man? I told him of my failures, my latest clumsy attempt, of feeling useless. He pointed to the beach pebble at my feet and said, qu’est ce que c’est?

The piece of sea glass was still wet from the tide. I blinked at its radiance and, just like that, I was walking up Beverley Street. She was waiting for me by the Italian Consulate. Then we were shoulder to shoulder, laughing, off to our first class at Alliance Française, happy to be learning a new way of saying the same old stuff. The air that day was steeped in lime green, with the maples just leafing out.

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Jim Read’s (he / him) short stories and poems have been published in various literary venues. His novel THE MOLLYBUSH NUDE, was published by Unsolicited Press in November of 2018.