My Cardboard Balcony

by Belinda Roddie "I'm not scared." She said that when I first took her out to sea in my puny sailboat, watching as the currents propelled us toward the shattered bridges of yesterday's metropolitan triumph. She also said it when she learned to swim in that same sea, and when she saw the first dorsal fin of a shark rising from the foam like an arrow pointing to the heavens. I watched her observe it all with eyes that bore a glint of vigilance, glassy irises casting a thousand rainbows against the sun. She said she wasn't scared when she first met me. That I was different than the others she had talked to. The last time she had been in a taxi, the driver had leered at her while asking, "Where are you off to?" Her answer was, "The void," which seemed to shut him off. It was safer than saying, "home." I had picked her up from a movie theater where a date had ditched her. I had asked no questions. And that made her much more comfort

"Do not talk to her." "I won't." "Do not enable her." "I won't ." "You promise?" "Yes. I promise ." My mother seemed satisfied by this. She returned to her knitting, while I focused on my silly baking show, checking to see if Archie's three-tiered wedding cake would taste better than Rachel's or Marley's. My cat, Chuckles, slept beside me. I hadn't named him; my brother has when he was five.