86 The Meadow A Flight, A Thunder Meredith Davies Hadaway And if I keep these scraps of it, what did it keep of me? —Paisley Rekdal Her husband fell from a darkening sky. It was wartime—these things happened. Wartime—she volunteered, sat by beds, stitched blankets to send overseas. Now we tuck her into blankets and tell her not to worry. My grandmother’s worries stack like thunderheads: the ones who died, could die, or stayed away. Stay away from the piano, she’d tell me during summer storms. As if the rising scales could draw down thunder. Her legacy: the rising pitch, a fear of flying, chords that crash beneath my fingers, one eye always on the darkening sky.
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