Scales

"There weren't always dragons in the Valley. "

-- From a book of legends Aunt Millie gave me when I was ten.

That birthday was a rough one.

My grandmother hadn't yet passed. Dad was only six months into his recovery. My brother's first year had still gone well; he wasn't going through it on his own, at least. The dragon was out at least once a day, every single day. It took no notice if we ran or hid or didn't move a muscle and the world felt as still as if there were ice everywhere, too deep even for frost.

This is how my father told the story later: "Aunt Millie got us up, put our pants on without complaint even after being pulled back to bed twice, then told us she couldn't get to school because dragons. I looked outside."

He held up his hand for silence as his son started to laugh quietly over something.

***

The world then was still green and the ash was far in the future. Fairy tales weren't broken shards of pottery lining the closets.

***

Dad went quiet for a minute more, but before I thought of it too much I let him start the account himself.

It must have taken courage to walk outside into that morning like nothing more than that moment, with no idea what lay on the horizon other than fire and smoke...

Dragons outside us. Dragons deep inside us. Dragons holding a Thanksgiving feast with our personal demons. Our past mistakes. Our fears. All of them at the table together, laughing like kids in front of a cake. And Dad had the audacity to be happy that Mom was making him an apple pie again.

***

None of us were sure when things shifted among us. Between us. Slid away like some scaly thing in the darkness. We only saw the flickers of movement out of the corners of our eyes. Something where nothing should be. Feelings that had no business being there.

We weren't talking that week between when Dad brought Mom up to his room alone and the first fire. But it seemed like that's the only time all of us were together, though we never spoke about that time. When the second one started, that's all anybody could remember doing or feeling at all.

I'd gotten old enough, even for my young age of nine. It made all three of us older, and even younger by the looks on Mom's and our faces when we talked after. We all aged that day. No one could say just how, but the truth hung heavy on us all for years.

"They were both afraid that morning," Mom said softly after it came to her. "Neither knowing why. Neither thinking it possible it could end like this, in death. The fire... it's all the world has ever given them now.

***

So often we say that we want the truth. Truth is this magical creature. Some living, squirming thing that somehow has the power to fix everything. It's a miracle, we say, until it crawls in and shows its teeth. Truth bites. It has claws and it will bite you clean in half.

Afterwards, there was nothing left for us but the fear as our home burned before us.

But it's easy for me to believe that part of them still clung. We were the only place they felt at all welcome, so long they hadn't left us completely to each other and ourselves...

***

Mom came downstairs just long enough to give herself to Dad.

She said yes while she did it and no as soon as they had both finished. It would be a different sort of hell later if we found out it wasn't true.