Soaring

Soaring

Author’s Notes: another
writing assignment. Prompt: using the person to your left’s favorite first line
from a work of fiction, write a story with that first line as yours.

          The fathers may soar
and the children may know their names, but I never did. Yes, my father class=GramE>soared, he soared all the way to New
York, leaving my mother in the middle of w:st="on">Derry, Maine
with a baby boy and no job. For years I tried to pry the name of this illusive
father from her as she bustled in the kitchen making strawberry oatmeal for my
breakfast and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a banana for my lunch at
the same time as she tried to make sure she could get to the Lucky Tadpole
Diner on time. She was a good mother that way. My father soared far away, past
the pine forests and canal that ran through this town, past the setting sun to
a city of tall, cold buildings to… who knew what was waiting for him there. class=GramE>A new wife with a new child, or perhaps an old one.
Considering how my mother would cry when anyone brought up the subject, I think
it may be the latter. I stopped asking his name when I was ten. My mother’s name
is Helen and that is a good name, better than I could hope for. My father
soared and I would never know his name. I hope his name was Icarus
and he had flown so high, he had gotten burned by the sun.

End