Being raised as she was it all seemed normal. No one around her hankered after more and she pretended not to, either.

She made do with the undercurrents of desire that at times made her jaw clench in frustration. A tiny square of soap from Barcelona.  A coyote pin covered in rabbit fur, rubbed almost naked.  A rock containing small, gold-coloured flecks that were pronounced as “real” and left in permanent idle uselessness on a mantel-shelf.

On her knees scrubbing the kitchen floor and hanging out the newly washed denims and shirts in the sun to dry, the barely controlled dreams charged each other in a mind-jumble.  Her bed with its rough-smooth sheets and the extra pillows sometimes clenched between her legs and the hot water bottle against the cramps. The closet with many work clothes and one Sunday dress.

To leave. To get away.

To love. To experience a passion that could inspire novels.

To eat mysterious foods and drink from green bottles.

To wear silk. Even though she had only read about it and had never touched it in her life.

But.

How to get there.

Already her mother was eyeing the environment. Sizing, evaluating, casting off, considering.

The boy with the crooked leg. The screaming widower who already had four small ones.  A friend from school – a brother, really. The men with the muscles and grins of youth who fished and hauled lumber. There were many of them.

She could envision all of them in her dreams, encoiled.

And not happening, nothing at all. Except scrubbing floors. And hanging fresh laundry in the sun. And killing chickens. And remembering when anything was possible.

Even staying.