Maybe Daddy and I didn't go for a walk in the woods that day. Maybe the crisp, cold sky wasn't so blue that we had to squint against it as we crunched across fresh white snow. Maybe I wasn't so small that I had to follow in each of Daddy's footprints, my calves sinking down into snow that reached only to his ankles, in case I lost a boot breaking my own ground.
Maybe I didn't spy a cocoon hanging from a bare winter twig. Maybe I didn't point and ask what it was. Maybe he told me it was a katydid cocoon, but maybe he didn't. Maybe I didn't ask what was inside.
Maybe he didn't pull the twig from the tree, didn't pry the dry brown husk apart. Maybe he didn't show me the insect sheltering inside.
Maybe, curiosity satisfied, I didn't ask if we could put it back.
Maybe he didn't lift his hands and shoulders in a shrug before throwing the twig and the husk to the ground to be covered over and forgotten in the next storm. Maybe he didn't tell me there was no going back. Maybe he didn't turn and trudge away.
Maybe I didn't cry.
Maybe, as he drove me back to Mommy's house, we weren't completely silent.
Linda M. Bayley is a writer and textile artist living on the Canadian Shield. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Geist, The Windsor Review, voidspace zine, National Flash Fiction Day 2024 Anthology, Five Minutes, and BULL.
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