The child yanks with malice at the mother’s blouse as she grinds away at the glass obelisk, the pungent juice flowing slowly down the sides. The toddler in arms is ignored with a militant blank stare into the mint colored plaster. She is taciturn, allowing her deep seated tears to fall down the recently haggard face that she acquisitioned from her husband. The grinding continues until it is nothing but pith. White flecks fall into the juice. They are bitter. She is quiet. She makes lemonade.
She dreams of widowing away in Spain as she squeezes the lemon with a faint sense of awareness. The life she had is but a vestige of reality, humorous at this point. She feels as though now the lichens of her life climb up her arms in a duplicitous fashion; she can live, but moving is a fantasy. She feels each molecule of the drops of moisture on her face, the salt ripping up her pores. The sobs have landed in the yellow fluid beneath her. They are made sourer by the salt, by the tears. They are quiet. They make lemonade.
The child now wails. Unnoticed, it begins to beat against the mother’s chest, the chest that feeds it. It does not see the tears. It does not see the grinding. It does not see the face. It, too, weeps, but out of need for the mother. The mother is busy. She needs the lemonade. The juicer is full of liquid now. She opens her arms and lets the child fall, its head hitting the counter. It is silent. It makes nothing.
