We live a world away here on the edge of the sweltering country, breeze ruffling hair and golden sun warming the sidewalks. Sophie is barefoot in her wheelchair, and when I pull her up and out of it we sit under a tree and listen to the ruffling. I'd refuse heaven for this, the yellow jacket's ruffle as it squirms on clover, Sophie's curled up toe, the bit of hardened callus from a slanting gait, the bits of grass stuck to my ankle where it digs in the dirt. I read a book in two hours this morning called By The Iowa Sea: A Memoir of Disaster and Love, and there is no telling in a re-telling, a book that pulled me down and back up, horizontal meandering, up and over, softly ruffled -- sweltering heat, a refusal of heaven, a walk away.
