Moon years ago, we shared a canal house awaiting historic restoration, full of small surprises, moss and field mice, though every rain was dangerous and in winter, when the darkness of her disease made her specific about numbers, setting the thermostat at 52 degrees while parading naked in the small kitchen, measuring her food intake; I chopped wood, cooked her favorite foods.


We drank herbal teas and her wealthy father's wine until he suddenly died a week before her wedding; then her mother committed suicide after the rehearsal dinner. I tried to teach her how to shift gears in a rusty, dull green Karmann Ghia while the family lawyer made arrangements.


My four year old daughter and I walked the towpath as she tried to outrun the voices in her head, until being escorted to a discrete place for rich people's mental health problems in Princeton.


In her absences, I would gather kindling to keep the house warm, never knowing how long she would be away, getting medications adjusted that once home, she'd dump into the canal, laughing, as if it were confetti or rose petals. A private rebellion.


To this day, I don't know if it was her wild hazel eyes or the scientist hidden in her tortured soul, but one summer, oh how we danced in the darkness in the soggy back yard, barefooted, having seen hummingbirds darting in the daytime trumpet vine and far too many fireflies to count and I said please stop counting and sing a new song with me.

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