He assailed her with his words, bruising her in ways that wouldn’t raise any annoying questions.
Those words were simply a fresh bouquet atop the coffin of her dreams, which she buried six feet underground the day she said, “I do.” A coffin she couldn’t afford, in a plot she shared with her mother, and her mother’s mother. She was grateful for her son. It was too crowded there, in the dirt.
Carnations for the fabrics she’d find, and put to use in a little shop of her own. Daisies for seven years old, and the conviction that a treehouse is the best kind of house to live in. And lavender, with echoes of that summer outside Paris, when she learned to do wicked things, and how to hide the evidence.
Like smoking. And flirting. And sometimes both at once.
Her mother understood all along that Claire was destined for a different life -- and when the time came, she proudly announced to the village that her daughter had been accepted as principal flame swallower in the nearby circus. Her father had more trouble reconciling that life with the habit she’d adopted among the sisters of Our Lady of Perpetuity.
For Claire, every choice was obvious, even if her reasons were occasionally problematic. She wanted a family -- a great big one -- and while she loved her sisters, conventical life separated them too much from the petty conflicts raging in their prayers for one another. But the circus! Every group had its politics, but at least in the circus, everyone’s judgments tumbled through the open air.
In the menagerie of clowns, animal whisperers, and contortionists, Claire encountered a communal life that embraced its mess. In fact, the parade of misfits catalyzed conflict. She had never felt so alive -- one day in love with the tightrope walker, the next morning, enchanted by the hypnotist. She found equilibrium each night, swallowing the flames and breathing them out again.
One breath -- one prayer -- at a time.