Tatamagouche, opening scene. (Patreon)

1.

A weight will lift, a leaf will fall.

It seems obvious that a branch will only hold a certain weight, but it is more complicated than that. It seems obvious, because people think of a branch as broken or not broken. But if the tree is alive and strong, the branch might only half break. It might twist with fibrous strength and hold on forever, a body strangling and swinging wild instead of hanging still with an efficiently broken neck.

I am glad my mother did not hang herself. I am glad that she jumped. There was no chance of a mistake. No chance of winding up swinging on that strong broken branch any longer. My father's death had broken the branch inside of her, and even though she would never say it, my sister Sunday and I were the living fibrous wood inside of that branch, holding the rope, keeping her alive, and strangling our mother ever since. She had been swinging for too long.

She deserved to fall.