It’s another day at the zoo. 

From where Lucia is perched, she can view both the elephants and the macaques. She thinks this apropos, given that the elephants smell of their shit while the macaques make sport of theirs. 

Since the beginning of July, she’s taken to doing her embroidery while sitting on this particular bench. She needs to be around other living souls. Being at home by herself – which once brought her solace – feels too much like imprisonment these days. 

It’s 9:20am, but already too hot and humid for her taste. A peacock walks by and emits his standard-issue broken car alarm shriek as if in protest. “Speak it, brother,” she says in response, as he fans open his impressive feathers. She laughs in delight. “You’re wasting your time on me,” she says to him, retrieving her latest embroidery piece from her bright purple bag. It’s one of her larger works – a complex and abstract piece portraying hands in various sizes and colors (including the signature bright purple that adorns her bag), intricately intertwined with one another. ‘She specializes in hands,’ her daughter once said when showing Lucia’s latest piece at the gallery. Her gallery. Back when she believed in her mother.

‘I can see that,’ the curious but ultimately disinterested viewer had said before walking away.

Lucia leans back and watches the elephants swatting flies with their tails and lumbering in slow motion. She is certain that some of the animals at the zoo know that feeling of being passed over. After all, what sort of person wants to stare at an earth-toned mule deer when the intrigue of a large and showy black and orange striped cat beckons nearby? With this thought, she questions whether her work is nothing more than the embroidery equivalent of an unremarkable brown ungulate. She just as quickly shakes off the ridiculousness of the thought. Still, she’s amazed that after all these years and amid her continued success, that insidious thought still has the gall to stroll out onto center stage and make itself known. 

A monarch butterfly flits by and circles her for a moment before moving on to milkweedier pastures. It makes her smile as she places her plastic bin of floss – meticulously organized and sectioned based on color – and chooses three bobbins in variegated colors. She lays them carefully on the bench. She plans to embroider the detailed rings that will adorn a few fingers on the brightly colored hands.

She stares intently down at her work when she is shaken by what she believes is an auditory hallucination. “That’s pretty,” says a small voice that sounds like her granddaughter, Bella, who is in Vermont. She looks away from the bobbins and is startled to find herself staring into the hairline of a young girl standing in front of her, her mouth gaping open and looking down at Lucia’s work. The girl has a warm copper-colored aura that surrounds her as though she’s been dusted with glittered cinnamon.

“Well, thank you,” says Lucia, taken aback by the precociousness of this child. In the past month, she’s been on this bench at least a dozen times and few children are ever brave enough to make eye contact let alone approach her. But this child smiles at her, pulls herself up onto the bench next to Lucia, and with no preamble whatsoever, tells her that she was recently kicked out of preschool. 

“Ooooooh,” says Lucia, looking around for a parent. “Were ya now?” 

The little girl nods. 

“Well, you must’ve done something awfully naughty to have that happen,” Lucia says, continuing to scan her surroundings for this little girl’s caregiver. She takes a sip of the iced hibiscus tea she brought. It’s cold as it moves down her throat – a sensation that vaguely reminds her of the injections she’d had all those years ago. She shudders a little, even in the heat.

“Maybe,” the little girl says tentatively. “I mean, I keep asking people if what I did was wrong,” she says pensively. She’s wearing a small ring which she twists and turns on her finger. 

“Do you mind if I ask you what you did?” Lucia asks, taking another sip.

“I called my teacher a mother fucker.”

Lucia lets out a gasp, more of a laugh really, that would have sent a spray of hibiscus tea all over her work had she not moved it off to the side.

“And I guess you’re not supposed to say that,” the little girl says. 

Depends on the situation, Lucia thinks, but decides against verbalizing it. “Well, I guess not,” she says. “Not to your preschool teacher, at least.”

The little girl nods, but then tilts her head to the side and squints her eyes as if she’s pondering who, then, would be the appropriate recipient of the moniker.

“So tell me this,” Lucia interrupts her thought before the child can ask. “What’s your name?”

“Montana,” the little girl says. “What’s yours?”

“Lucia.” 

No sooner does she finish saying her name when Lucia hears a man’s voice approaching. “Ech! There you are, Montana!” She looks up to see a young man who is a larger male carbon copy of Montana coming toward them. “I’m so sorry she’s bothering you,” he calls out, throwing his hands up in the air. He sidles up next to Montana and shoots her a glance. It’s hard to read the emotion behind it though. And when he speaks, it’s without rancor. There’s even a taste of compassion. “She just has a very… different way of going about things.”

“No bother at all,” Lucia says. “To be honest, it’s refreshing.” 

“Look what she’s making, daddy,” Montana says, pointing to Lucia’s work. The father frowns for a moment, but then leans over her to take a look. “Wow,” he says, his eyes widening. “That’s really amazing!” 

“Thank you,” she says. His response is nothing new. It’s not that she’s some revolutionary visionary. Of this she is certain. Rather, people see an older woman sitting on a bench with an embroidery hoop and assume she’s stitching a pastel pastoral setting with some sort of syrupy sentiment.

“No, I mean it. YOU are an artist,” he says, acknowledging something that she already knows but seems to think she does not. This is also another common occurrence. Especially among men. “Seriously. You should have that hanging somewhere.”

She smiles warmly. “I intend to.”

“Will you make me something!?” Montana asks. 

Montana’s father laughs. “I think you’ve bothered her enough for today,” he says, holding his hand out to her. Lucia is about to protest, but is surprised to see Montana take his hand so willingly as she jumps off the bench. Even once she’s landed, she doesn’t cease to hold his hand. Instead, she holds it tighter and gives it a kiss.  

“Goodbye, Lucia,” Montana says with a sweet smile, pronouncing her name ‘LOO-cha.’ Lucia notices she’s missing one of her front teeth. 

“It was truly a delight to meet you, Montana,” she says. “And I’ll make you a deal.”

Montana perks up her head and raises her eyebrows. 

“Next time you come to the zoo, I will have something especially for you. Just look for me here,” she says with a wink. 

“I will,” Montana attempts to wink back, but only twists her face into a hilarious expression. This makes Lucia’s heart ache all the more for her sweet Bella. She watches Montana and her dad walk away, still holding hands and swinging their arms in unison. Once they are out of sight, she gently threads her needle and inserts it on the side of the embroidered bright purple finger upon which she wants to place a ring. She has chosen the ring finger and utilizing a chain stitch, she begins to work. The irony of the chain is not lost on her – bound by her old familial demons as much as the animals at the zoo are bound to their exhibits. She sighs and shakes her head. Then she takes a deep breath and thinks about Bella. 

She’s always believed that if two people think of each other at the exact same moment, the atoms will coalesce into invisible forms and connect them. She lets out a long exhale as the floss passes through the cloth with a muted popping sound. She knows full well where things went wrong and her role in it. But knowing is only the beginning of a treacherous journey.

And today, she’s just too tired to start that trip.  

*(modified excerpts from The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese)