The Frozen River

by Ariel Lawhon

Listening is a skill acquired by the doing.

Like all mothers, I have long since mastered the art of nursing joy at one breast and grief at the other.

Memory is a wicked thing that warps and twists. But paper and ink receive the truth without emotion, and they read it back without partiality. That, I believe, is why so few women are taught to read and write. God only knows what they would do with the power of pen and ink at their disposal.

This is what it means to age, I think. The days are long, but the years are short.

We are in the twilight years of a long love affair, and it has recently occurred to me that a day will come when one of us buries the other. But, I remind myself, that is the happy ending to a story like ours. It is a vow made and kept. Till death do us part. It is the only acceptable outcome to a long and happy marriage, and I am determined not to fear that day, whenever it arrives. I am equally determined to soak up all the days between.

Witchcraft. As though there is no other explanation for a woman who excels at her work.

The fining of unwed mothers is a cruel system, meant to humiliate women, and therefore dissuade them from carnal activity. But given that women do not conceive children on their own, and there is no law that fines men for their participation, it is the worst kind of hypocrisy as well.

The act of mothering is not limited to the bearing of children.