sustenance - three (part one)

To Kaela, days were either fast, or slow. On fast days, she told her parents about a fivepetal blooming in the cobblestones, or that the coffee at Hellen's smelled extra nice today, or the exact melody she heard from the mama finch by the bridge. Fast days were simple, dominated by some semsory morsel she vivified with wide-eyed awe.

She remembered very little from fast days.

The day before had been a fast day. Papa came home late, Mama didn't come home at all by the time Kaela went to bed. So Papa was the only one to hear about the newest painting at Velia's gallery.

"And the colors swirled together like this." Here Kaela wrapped her hands around one another and spun them. "I sometimes think I see a penguin in it, but then it becomes a slug, and after that an anteater."

Papa bit his lip and continued nodding as he had been. He had passed that painting on his way in and saw nothing but splotches of careless paint.

"I'm going to go to school tomorrow and color something swirly. It'll be green and orange and lav -- lavvvv..." Her brows furrowed as she struggled to recall the difficult color. What had Miss Velia called it?

"Lavender?" offered Papa.

"That's it!" cried the daughter, throwing her arms around him. Then she let out a yawn, wide and unashamed. "Lavender. Sounds nice."

Papa held her tight to his chest as he carried her to bed. He took longer than normal to tuck her in, but she failed to notice.

"Good night, Papa."

His hand, a giant, fleshy mitt of security, patted her head twice, three times, four times. He paused. "Good night, Kaela." He switched off the light and turned away, coughing into his sleeve.

The day's images rushed through Kaela's dreams as if a movie projector had gone rampant. Her time in the classroom with the crayons meshed with the boulders at the bottom of Vista Heights ridge, the tolling of the chapel bell merged with the meows of the tomcat browsing through her neighbor's garbage. Kaela's dreams were pastiches, vignettes, combinatory until she saw things only she could comprehend.

In Kaela's dreams, Liliota's downtown district whirled and folded on itself, danced with the harbor it circled, until she saw a different city entirely, with great islands in the harbor and rivers cascading down the surrounding land. Proud buildings of stone and glass and metal rose, extended into filigree spires toward an amber sky. People hung from these spires, jumped from one to the other, each of them defying the earth's pull with lithe, animal grace.

A black-haired boy, cobbled together from her classmates' faces, sat beside her on the curb, his mouth agog, his eyes looking up in worship at the jumpers and swingers. She could tell he wanted to be up there with them.

But then they both dissolved into a chaos of colors, and she materialized on mountaintops of piled cobblestones, waded through the floes of a volcano. She found herself in a city of clouds and pastel hues, touched hands with angelic folk bearing the faces of the baker, or Papa's drinking buddies.

Her parents had long since learned not to ask her about her dreams, as Kaela happily spent all day doing so -- one detail was meaningless without the rest.

Rrrrrrrrrrring-thuck.

"Good morning, Kellie."

"Good morning, Haust."

"Good morning, Mama. Good morning, Papa."

"Good morning, Kaela."

As Kaela took her turn in the bathroom, Papa pulled Mama in and gave her the biggest kiss she'd ever had out of him.

Once the family was downstairs, Mama had a surprise waiting to be dropped into the hot pan.

"Bacon, Kellie?" Sitting behind the table, Papa ogled the wrapped package in Mama's hand.

"Isn't it my perogative to cook my husband a great breakfast before he goes off?"

One by one, the bacon strips splashed into the pan with a celebratory sizzle. Mama left the window above the stove closed, to let the rich smell linger as long as possible after the meal.

And Mama wasn't done with that. "Kaela, could you get the milk, the butter, and an egg from the icebox for me?"

"Pancakes? Is it pancakes?"

"You bet it's pancakes."

Kaela cheered and jumped up and down. "Can I help make them? Can I?"

Mama nodded. She pulled out a stool for Kaela to stand on and took the flour, sugar, and salt out of the cupboard.

"What will you -- what will there be to eat all this week?"

"It's all right, Haust," said Mama. "I've been making a little extra at the clinic lately. We won't go hungry, I promise."

To Kaela's puzzlement, an ugly scowl crossed Papa's face. Wasn't it nice to have things to eat?

"You're not skipping dinner again, are you?"

"No, Haust."

"Providence." Papa put a hand over his face and fell silent while Mama pushed the bacon to the side of the pan for the eggs. A wonderfully bubbly, rubbery aroma rose from the stove.

Breakfast was served as the sun crept in through the window and splashed warm light over the table. Kaela pinched herself, as she knew other people did while witnessing something marvelous, but she didn't understand why they did so because it hurt. Steaming on her plate was a quartered pancake, stacked and slathered with butter and syrup, two strips of bacon, and an egg cooked her favorite way.

"Thank you, Kellie," said Papa.

"You're welcome," said Mama.

He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, which she accepted with a satisfied smirk. Men, as Mama once told Kaela, were faithful to their stomachs, and their stomachs were faithful to whatever put food in them. While Papa attacked his pancakes with abandon, Kaela ate counting to seven with every bite, another trick Mama had taught her. Between the smell of food and nut coffee in her parents' glasses and the clink of utensils on plates, Kaela didn't have anything else to contribute.

As the meal went on, her parents glanced at each other, resumed eating, then glanced back more and more. Papa started to spin a fork in his hand, a trick from the processor to pass the time.

"Kaela?"

"Yes, Mama?"

She took a sip of her coffee. "Today's going to be a little different. Papa and I will excuse you from school, and we'd like to take you down to the harbor."

Papa's fork spun from his hand like an acrobat, splashing down in his coffee glass with a rude clang.

Kaela hardly noticed. A day without school, after this delicious breakfast? "Really?"

Mama smiled, running a hand under Kaela's chin. "Yes, really. How would you like to meet a ship's captain?"

"Like a pirate captain?" Be-tassled coats and peg legs danced in Kaela's mind.

"No, silly, he'd be arrested. He's a fisherman."

"Oh." The pirate accessories evaporated into white smoke. Then Kaela had a thought that blew the haze away. "So if we ask nicely, maybe he'll give us some fish?"

Mama removed her hand. "He'd probably have to sell it to us, dear. He can't give it away -- he would make no money otherwise. But it's good you thought of asking."

"Look for the good and you will find it, right?"

"Of course."

Kaela ate her last bite of pancake. When Papa went upstairs and returned with a huge duffel bag on his shoulder, she was helping Mama with the dishes, her mind too content with the coming day to ask any more questions.