The Life Before Her Eyes Read Online Free PDF
Author: Laura Kasischke
dirt—Diana turned the minivan onto Maiden Lane, and there was a moment in which a space parted between the tree branches overhead, and she caught a glimpse of the sky through the windshield.
It was absolutely clear and without a center.
The transparent vacuum of it startled her, and then the trees bent together again, blocking the empty blue, and she pulled into her own driveway and saw her husband sitting on the front porch in a white wicker rocking chair, waiting.
There were two of them—two rocking chairs. One was rocking emptily in the breeze beside the one in which her husband sat. They'd been part of the dream of the life she'd someday have. For years those very same rockers had sat on the front porch of a house down the block from the apartment building where Diana lived with her mother. Every winter they'd disappear, but every spring they would return, freshly painted. And even though Diana never actually saw anyone sitting in them, as she and her mother sped past them, the rockers spoke to her gracefully about the nature of
home.
By coincidence she and Paul had just bought
their
home, many years later, when Diana drove by that same house on
a Saturday morning and saw a sign out front that said ESTATE SALE.
She bought the rockers.
Now her husband was sitting in one of them. The intricate wickerwork rose above his shoulders and settled into gentle curves behind his back, exactly like a pair of wings. He was drinking from a can of Mountain Dew and waved hello with great exaggeration for Emma's benefit, an absurdly happy clown smile on his face.
Diana drove past the vision of her husband sitting in a white wicker rocker and into the garage, where she parked beside Paul's beat-up Schwinn. The minivan was their only vehicle because Paxil rode that dust red Schwinn to his office and classes at the university, and the sight of him every morning rolling down the driveway into the road was one of Diana's favorites:
The gray-bearded philosophy professor in a tweed jacket and jeans, a pair of wire-rimmed glasses, pedaling furiously into the sun, the rain, even the snow.
Diana opened the driver's side door and stepped out of it into the garage, which smelled of oil-soaked rags. It was narrow as a coffin, and she could only just squeeze herself out of the minivan because the door wouldn't open all the way. Stepping down into the darkness, for just a moment she remembered being a child, easing her way into a lake, and how the silt and seaweed under her bare feet had given way suddenly to nothing and she'd found herself floating in shadows. Someone had been urging her forward...
Come on, Diana, don't be a chicken
... and then she was swimming.
Emma jumped quickly out of the minivan and hurried out of the garage, and Diana followed her, blinded by the late afternoon sun bouncing off the house and its bone-white clapboard.
"Hi, honey," she called into the glare in the direction of her husband.
"Hi, sweetheart," he called back from behind the wall of light.
Daisies
R OUNDING THE CORNER TOWARD HER HUSBAND, D IANA noticed that the daisies she'd planted years before off the sunny side of the porch were already flourishing wildly in the warm weather, smelling like a musty salad and spreading like ... like what?
A cancer?
She stopped to look at them.
What would make her think, she wondered, suddenly of something like cancer, and find the fusty-earth smell of those daisies suffocating?
"How are my gals?" Paul asked, and Diana was startled away from the daisies and whatever ugly message they might have been trying to send. She could see that on the porch Emma was giving her father one of her mighty hugs. She was sitting on his lap. It was a picture of perfect father-daughter
familiarity.
Family,
Diana thought as she stood and watched their embrace. Her daughter's small arms were flung around his neck. His eyes were closed. A crack of light broke through the green leafiness of their front yard, and it shone all over the
It was absolutely clear and without a center.
The transparent vacuum of it startled her, and then the trees bent together again, blocking the empty blue, and she pulled into her own driveway and saw her husband sitting on the front porch in a white wicker rocking chair, waiting.
There were two of them—two rocking chairs. One was rocking emptily in the breeze beside the one in which her husband sat. They'd been part of the dream of the life she'd someday have. For years those very same rockers had sat on the front porch of a house down the block from the apartment building where Diana lived with her mother. Every winter they'd disappear, but every spring they would return, freshly painted. And even though Diana never actually saw anyone sitting in them, as she and her mother sped past them, the rockers spoke to her gracefully about the nature of
home.
By coincidence she and Paul had just bought
their
home, many years later, when Diana drove by that same house on
a Saturday morning and saw a sign out front that said ESTATE SALE.
She bought the rockers.
Now her husband was sitting in one of them. The intricate wickerwork rose above his shoulders and settled into gentle curves behind his back, exactly like a pair of wings. He was drinking from a can of Mountain Dew and waved hello with great exaggeration for Emma's benefit, an absurdly happy clown smile on his face.
Diana drove past the vision of her husband sitting in a white wicker rocker and into the garage, where she parked beside Paul's beat-up Schwinn. The minivan was their only vehicle because Paxil rode that dust red Schwinn to his office and classes at the university, and the sight of him every morning rolling down the driveway into the road was one of Diana's favorites:
The gray-bearded philosophy professor in a tweed jacket and jeans, a pair of wire-rimmed glasses, pedaling furiously into the sun, the rain, even the snow.
Diana opened the driver's side door and stepped out of it into the garage, which smelled of oil-soaked rags. It was narrow as a coffin, and she could only just squeeze herself out of the minivan because the door wouldn't open all the way. Stepping down into the darkness, for just a moment she remembered being a child, easing her way into a lake, and how the silt and seaweed under her bare feet had given way suddenly to nothing and she'd found herself floating in shadows. Someone had been urging her forward...
Come on, Diana, don't be a chicken
... and then she was swimming.
Emma jumped quickly out of the minivan and hurried out of the garage, and Diana followed her, blinded by the late afternoon sun bouncing off the house and its bone-white clapboard.
"Hi, honey," she called into the glare in the direction of her husband.
"Hi, sweetheart," he called back from behind the wall of light.
Daisies
R OUNDING THE CORNER TOWARD HER HUSBAND, D IANA noticed that the daisies she'd planted years before off the sunny side of the porch were already flourishing wildly in the warm weather, smelling like a musty salad and spreading like ... like what?
A cancer?
She stopped to look at them.
What would make her think, she wondered, suddenly of something like cancer, and find the fusty-earth smell of those daisies suffocating?
"How are my gals?" Paul asked, and Diana was startled away from the daisies and whatever ugly message they might have been trying to send. She could see that on the porch Emma was giving her father one of her mighty hugs. She was sitting on his lap. It was a picture of perfect father-daughter
familiarity.
Family,
Diana thought as she stood and watched their embrace. Her daughter's small arms were flung around his neck. His eyes were closed. A crack of light broke through the green leafiness of their front yard, and it shone all over the