Losing our Balance, Part II

Excerpted fiction - copyright 2011

The Wall.  I have this Wall, you see.  It’s at the cabin.  I started building it back when I first started losing my balance.  It was my first wall and my husband - well, now he’s not my husband, but he was my husband then - David, that’s his name, anyway David said I couldn’t do it, but that just made me want to do it more.  So I got Wesley to help me carry the rocks. Wesley’s my son.  He’s thirteen.  He’s—not here anymore. 

They say he’s dead.

You know, if Jesus can raise people from the dead, what’s the point in dying?  What makes it any different than, say, sleeping?  We sleep, we wake up.  When you’re dead you just sleep longer, that’s all.  I hate funerals. 

David always called it The Wall, like it was the Berlin Wall or something.  I hated it when he did that; we used to fight about it.  Married people fight about the stupidest things.  Funny, because I call it that now, too.  The Wall.  Only not Berlin.  It’s the Wailing Wall.  Because I cry there.  And I write things and when I pray, I sometimes put my prayers on paper and fold them until they are very small and slide them into the cracks between the rocks.  When the cement is wet, it works best, because then the words become part of the mortar that holds it all together.  And holding it together is important when you’re building a wall.

It’s also important to me.  Very important. 

Because I’m not that great at building walls.  And sometimes I lose my balance..