mother almonde

He’d already showered so his short messy hair had been combed back and was still damp. He was wearing his slacks and belt, but no button up shirt on yet. He liked to wait until his hair was a bit drier before he put it on. As he pulled cups and the coffee tin from the cupboards above, she couldn’t help but notice the way his muscles shifted on his back, the sparse long hairs that sprouted from his back and shoulders. He only got to the gyms on the weekends, but he walked around job sights a lot for his work, so he had a nice balance between muscle and leanness. Before last night she wouldn’t have given it a second thought, but now she sat there with her mouth open, staring like a dead fish.

The school year was coming to an end and I was busying myself with spring sports. I was doing track and field, distance events like the 1,500-meter run. I also tried my hand at pole vaulting, which did not go well. I had to quit vaulting before I really hurt myself. One particularly grueling Friday at practice, I noticed Mrs. B. in the bleachers watching. Faculty often wandered out to watch teams practice or play, but Mrs. B was rarely among them. She lingered when the practice was over, so I went over to say hi. She seemed genuinely happy to see me, even though she had been quite aloof in class or in the hallway.

Watching him work, the expertise at his fingertips, it was like watching a masterful performance. Even the act of dissection was artful. He was so knowledgeable, so capable, and he would explain how he used these techniques in the past to help people. My fear quickly turned to admiration, and I realized that Lord Noah could not be judged by such terms as good or evil. He is neither black nor white, but gray at both its darkest and brightest, a gray as deep as the ocean.