Saturday's Storyteller: "She always walks with a limp on Sundays."

by Belinda Roddie

She always walks with a limp on Sundays, and she won't tell most people why. She's a very private individual, and therefore not everyone has the privilege of her spilling her personal stories to her over tea or a warmed up chocolate croissant. But she tells me, it's at a small French-influenced restaurant, where I feast on rabbit chasseur with scalloped potatoes and she cuts into a chunk of cheese-smothered cordon bleu. We both drink White Zinfandel.

She tells me that the limp is nothing to worry about, that it has been with her for a very long time and she has dealt with it for so long that it really didn't impede the speed of her walking. The question remains, though, as to why the crimp in her step only seems to occur on the Sabbath day.

"I don't know," she replies with a small smile. "God's vengeance, I guess."

She calls it His vengeance. I call it an alcoholic father mishandling a baseball bat. I call it the splintering of a premature bone as a five-year-old scrambles for the nearest sliding glass door. I call it a subpar healing process where the ivory doesn't fix itself properly and the foot is always pivoting at an awkward angle. I'm sure he did it on a Sunday.

I try not to believe in God, let alone His vengeance.

But maybe it's just for her to remember.

This week's prompt was provided by Arden Kilzer.