Fiction Fix Seventeen

Firefly Night 12
actually speak but would mouth words into
the dark, afraid Connor would hear her from
the other side of the wall. But some nights,
the problem wouldn’t be talked out. It gnawed
at the foot of her bed like some goblin and
seemed to promise her that it would never be
finished with her. On nights like this, Hallie
would whisper away away away, and then she
would tell herself it would be okay to ignore
it for one night. She would just get one night’s
sleep, one night’s worth of good dreams, and
deal with the problem later.
Only now, watching her family in the pulsating
light, does it occur to Hallie that not all
problems can be slept away. People can’t just
postpone their sorrows for a day when they
feel strong and refreshed, just as they can’t go
back and take photographs or paint pictures
of what they love once it’s gone. The infinite
leap between having and losing is beyond
Hallie’s comprehension, beyond anything her
physics teacher has tried to explain to her.
And yet she knows that it happens. She has
friends whose parents have divorced. A boy
at her school was killed in a drunk driving
accident after Homecoming, and there was
the vacant seat in her speech class, a space
everyone orbited for months. And like a much
older woman, Hallie knows exactly where
her love for the baseball player is headed:
she’ll keep going to his games and going to
dances in hopes of stealing a few minutes
with him while his beautiful date is in the
restroom, and then one day he’ll leave on a
scholarship, and so will she. And in the history
of her life he’ll be a few lines scrawled in her
yearbook—Thanks for all the help with English
class!—a man oblivious to the fact that she has
given him four years of her love. More time
than she’ll give any man until she meets the
one she’ll marry.
The pinpoints of light burn her eyes
because her eyes are already stinging. She
tries to memorize their patterns as she has
memorized piano notes and the constellations
of stars. She tries to project Connor’s name
into what she sees. I will paint this, she promises
herself. No matter how much it hurts.
She looks again at her brother, who is
still watching the firefly she has given him.
Silently she prays that he will say something
to her before he lets it go. Just one thing she