Communicating With Batted Lashes

_____She gripped the newspaper page with straight fingers, as if it was supposed to be natural. Her pinkies locked, but she didn’t notice. She was trying to forget things beside this as they happened. Her eyes scanned the page, up, down, side to side, still trying to look natural. Natural was a lie, she knew it, but didn’t know that it showed. It’s hard for a nine year old to control their body language sometimes. Her fingers ached. Her eyes ached.

_____“No! No!” She could hear them sobbing and their voices crack as they tried to compose themselves. She didn’t need to try to compose herself. She’d been lying that she was composed this whole time, wasn’t she?

_____“You win.” Garfield said to Jon. She went back to the beginning of the comic line. What did Jon win?

_____She focused her eyes even more intently on every line across Garfield’s back, but focus didn’t help a thing when her mind could only imagine the entire newspaper being blank and made of clear plastic wrap. All it does is make what’s happening on the other side a little bit fuzzier for your mind. She could see them touching him; she could see them holding each others’ hands with tears in their eyes and red faces.

_____“You win.” Garfield said to Jon. She went back to the beginning of the comic line. What was it that Jon won?

_____She could see him. His head was tilted to the side, and he was shaking. He looked like he was choking. Mostly she could only see his wife, sitting at his side and laying her hand on his. She could almost see her silent praying as she stifled her cries.

_____But the girl could see him still. Above himself, his hand on his wife’s shoulder, smiling. He turned to walk out of the house, and looked at them. She was still staring at Garfield. She tried to ignore even him too. Why today? Why now? Stop, stop. What did Jon win?

_____He walked down the steps, to the left, and down the jagged sidewalk stones. He didn’t turn around to wave until he was out from under the tree, finally making noise as he crunched down the red gravel driveway.

_____"You win." What was it that Jon had won? She stroked the page with her thumbs until the ink was fading.

_____They were making telephone calls now. They still were sobbing. Their voices cracked still. The doorbell rang; they hugged people. They called more people. They got more phone calls.

_____She set the comic down with all of the normalcy that she could muster.

_____“I need to go to the bathroom,” she said to no one in particular. She snuck one glance at him as she passed on her way to the hall, and wished she hadn’t.

_____“I was there,” She said to her cousin. Her hands had less of a death grip on the dwindling ropes of the swing than they had on the newspaper that morning.

_____“I know, Mom and Dad told me,” Her cousin pushed her again. “I’m gonna miss him.”

_____“Yeah,” she kicked her legs forward. “Me too.”