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The Ankle Bracelet
Lissome fingers knotted the end of the seven inch thread. Using a pair of dulling scissors to trim off the excess string, the woman slid the unraveling fiber between her lips to smooth the frayed ends. Closing one eye to focus the other, she directed the unknotted end of the thread toward the slim open eye of the beading needle. Her eyes were dry, making this task all the more difficult. After several frustrating failed attempts, she pushed the thread into the eye and pulled it through so that the knot rested firmly against the opening.
Tracy allowed her tired eyes time to rest before lifting the broken ankle bracelet from the facsimile wood table. The bracelet was fashioned in a string of flowers sewn from tiny glass seed beads. Several flowers had separated when the cord broke. The remaining beads were kept in a clean butter-tub. Beads of violet and indigo mingled within the yellow container. Tracy sighed as she scooped one dark blue bead onto the needle-tip and ran it down the thin waxed cord. Her daughter was too rough to wear ankle bracelets but she was in that stage, just entering middle school, and she wanted boys to notice her feminine charms.
As she ran the first bead through, several more broke from the weakening thread. Tracy expressed her frustration with another sigh as she reinforced the fraying fiber with the new thread she had just strung. This bracelet was cheaply made like all of the jewelry her daughter purchased from Claire's. She couldn't understand why Ashley wasted her money on poor quality jewelry from cheap chain stores.
Usually, she would be more irritated, but she needed something to keep her busy when her husband finally came home to find the divorce forms lying on the sunken cushion of his favorite brown chair. She knew he would be infuriated, and although she was no coward, she didn't want to look him in the eye when he confronted her with her outrageous request.
Down the hall, she heard the door to her daughter's room squeak open and the girl's thin from stretched into the hallway as she strained to hear if her father had come home yet. Tracy knew Ashley was well aware of the situation. Tracy wondered if it was fair of her to separate her daughter from her father. After all, she was still a child despite the lip gloss and perfume.
Finally, she finished the first circular flower and sweeping up another bead she moved onto the next row. She glanced to the ebony clock mounted to the flora papered wall above the kitchen sink. The hands traveled slowly across the clock's white face. She had almost fifteen minutes left until Roger returned from work. From the dining room table she could see out the kitchen window to the small porch outside. Looking out to the terrace, she recalled a conversation between her husband and her daughter on the porch swing there. It was that discussion that had lead her to make this decision almost five years later. This memory was old and fading, but she had been using it to justify her decision. On days like this, with the sun seeping through the cotton curtains and the singing porch swing, the memory came back even clearer. She recalled she had been washing dishes on a summer day as humid as this one. At this moment she could still feel her brown hair falling in wet strands along her forehead, less wrinkled at the time. She remembered the heat on her face, keeping the dish water warm as white suds soaked the grease from the ivory plates. She thought she had heard Forever Young playing on the small radio on the counter top nearby, but she wasn't sure. She remembered definitely the steady creak of the wooden porch swing, the chains chatting as they pulled back and forth. She remembered drying her hands on a dry dish cloth to turn the radio down so she could better hear her husband speak. She thought she had heard him say he was planning on moving to Arizona. Her daughter had asked him if he was afraid of the killer bees in Arizona. Tracy smiled to herself, recalling how Ashley had just seen a special on the Discovery channel about killer bees and she was obsessed with this new fear. She was timid because of her father, always telling her she would spill her milk or she would fall and get hurt whenever she tried to better herself.
A bead snapped in half as the hole was too small for the needle. Cheaply mass produced, the beads were just as fragile as the thread. This interruption disrupted the memory, but it was only a momentary disturbance.
Tracy selected another bead. This one did not break and it slid perfectly into place. With this accomplishment she allowed her mind to wander back to the memory. Eventually her daughter had forgotten the potential danger of killer bees as the obvious problem popped into her young mind.
"What about Mom?" she had asked her father quietly, afraid of his criticism. They never bonded like this and she hadn't wanted to ruin it by acting foolish, "What if she doesn't want to move all the way down there?"
Tracy remembered craning forward to hear, her elbows dripping with suds. She hadn't recalled hearing her husband’s plans before and she wanted to be filled in.
"She doesn't have to go if she doesn't want to," her husband had answered. Tracy found her anger rising at the recollection of this. She still couldn't believe he had disregarded her so easily to their own daughter who was already so sensitive.
She ran a purple bead through, but in her anger she had forgotten the pattern. She realized it should have been a blue bead and quickly removed it and replaced it in the butter tub. She retrieved a blue bead and allowed her mind to return to the thought.
"But your married," her daughter had whimpered, bothered by his answer, "You can't just leave mom."
"Well," Roger had said, not even looking at the girl. Tracy perfectly remembered the tone of voice when he said that. It was such a careless, unsympathetic tone. It was at that moment that she realized what he intended to do. As soon as he retired he was going to divorce her and move to Arizona. Her hands became sweaty, making the beads stick to her round palm. Her hands were short and stout, not meant for tedious beadwork. Yet, she continued her attempt to repair the broken bracelet just as she had tried to mend the broken strings of her own marriage. Unlike the broken thread and scattered beads of the bracelet, which could be easily restrung, her marriage was beyond repair.
She heard the truck pull into the driveway. She listened as her husband parked behind her mini-van and step out. Tracy strung several purple beads, double checking the pattern before stringing them together. She steadied her suddenly trembling fingers as she braced herself for his reaction upon finding the forms. She heard her daughter dart back into her room. She heard the front door swing open and her husband step inside. Tracy steadied herself, took a deep breath, and strung another purple glass bead.
