Youngs

And while I thought, I heard it again, this time closer, almost as if she and whoever had caused her to laugh so much, were approaching my home. No fire was set, and the only form which illuminated my compound was the moon that hung in the sky. I wondered if they thought that no one was home, that I’d shamefully gone back to my father’s house never to return, that when I’d taken my children to stay with my mother, I hadn’t returned?

Then her laughter rose by octaves, and the closer she got, her laughter seemed to dissolve into the air, sprinkling some of her happiness into the atmosphere. And the air carried it, really really carried it, and I knew, because at that point my heart didn’t seem so heavy. The burden in a way had been lifted, and I wondered at the feeling, at why I felt so light, at why I held myself from bursting into endless laughter, at why I felt my age, so so young.

After all, I was young, so why hadn’t I laughed like her for months now?