Peripheral Vision
Joan L. Cannon
WAITING FOR DAWN
I’m sitting in the dark, watching neon flashes spill under the
shade, as if I might find in them a coded sign to guide me. When the unthinkable happens,
you lose your ability to reason. Red, green, red green—again and again they flash. There’s
an uneven rhythm to them. I’m sure that if I studied it long enough, I could figure out the
pattern.
The trouble is, inside my head it’s like riding white water in
a canoe. One slip, and you’re boiled in a whirlpool. I feel helpless and panicky,
just like that.
The chair I’m sitting in creaks. I can’t see the bed clearly,
but I know she’s there because the flashing lights show a bump in the spread. When the call
came from the manager at Leo’s, I thought I’d never be so scared again, but I am. A different
kind of scared, maybe, since now I’m just waiting instead of driving like the devil was after
me.
All the way to Leo’s I thought about how I’d let her have it.
Catherine and I have tried to get her to take responsibility for her future. We’ve hoped
that calm direction, patience, and concern would get her to see how foolish she’s being.
We didn’t want to frighten her, so we mentioned dangers, made sure she could see stories
in Time and the newspapers, tried not to harp on things.
After the call, as I drove, stiff with fury, I prepared my
lecture. She was forcing me to be the kind of father I swore I’d never be, but if she
needed authority, I was ready to supply it. Then I saw her, slumped in that booth, and
all my resolutions went out the window.
After I got her to this room, I called Catherine, told her
we’d be home in the morning, said, “Go to bed.” I think she believed me when I told her
Dawn was all right, and Catherine isn’t the hysterical type.
Now, I’d like to break into tears or shake my rag doll
daughter into consciousness, and then fan her behind until she can’t sit for a week,
but all I do is wait for her to sleep it off, stifling panic and wrath.
I think of my grandmother, a woman who lived life between
disasters. She coped with desertion, loss of her house in a fire, her brother’s death
in the war, illness. She used to tell us that strength of character was all that was
called for to solve our problems. At age eleven, when I had a bicycle with a broken
chain and Little League practice a mile and a half away in fifteen minutes, that wasn’t
what I wanted to hear. She didn’t bother to draw a diagram just because we didn’t “take
her meaning.” She would turn her back on whatever was going on and wait for her messages
to sink in. Whether it might take ten minutes or the rest of our lives seemed to be of
no interest to her. She’d provided guidance. If we couldn’t follow it, that was our problem.
I sit wondering how she had such faith in…what? Us? The future?
Her capacity to influence us? What would she say to me now as I thrash around in my own
inadequacies, looking for a way out?
Is Dawn to be the only measure of me? Right now I can’t think
of another. And even with that self-centered thought, I’m afraid for her, not what might
reflect on her parents.
I snap my head up as the sheets rustle. She’s turning over.
The neon lights stain her arm. Even in the disjointed images coming to my mind, I’m
thinking about what to say, what to do. Grandmother’s technique must have worked for
me and my siblings. Has the world changed so much that I dare not try it on Dawn?
Catherine and I have had our battles over our daughter. My
wife says I don’t exert enough authority. “You have to make children behave. You can’t
leave it to them to decide,” she says. And I’ve agreed. Only, when the rules have to be
made or the punishment meted out, she says I chicken out. But I haven’t, have I? Just
because we’re bigger and stronger than children, have we the right to use that power
to its full extent... automatically? Of course, we know what we want of Dawn, and how
we want her to turn out, but maybe thinking of Grandmother made me take chances I shouldn’t
have.
Thinking back, I see things a little like flipping pages of a
photo album too fast so the pictures lose their chronology and their sense. I remember the
chaos that time the Christmas tree fell because Dawn pulled off the unicorn ornament.
Catherine was so angry, she didn’t dare rescue Dawn from the shattered glass. I had to
do it.
(a fragment)
isbn 1-59661-157-X
190 pages/$15
The pleasure of reading comes as much from what is withheld as from what
is given. Despite their lyricism and beautiful attention to essential,
evocative detail, these stories seem, like all of life’s most important
moments, heavily, tragically incomplete, resonant, leaving you deliciously
wanting and imagining more.
—Scott Owens,
Author of The Fractured World,
Writing teacher at Catawba Community College
These stories are quite marvelous. We are in a café with an escaped prisoner,
we are at the party where the dog does his tricks, on holidays with the sisters;
it is as if our house were on fire, our child desperately ill as the tension
draws us in. The stories make us forget everything as we take off with the
wonderfully drawn characters; the attention to detail makes sure we can taste
the food, smell the coffee…so fascinating are the details presented to us that
we can even see things from the animals’ viewpoint, whether it be a bear,
snuffling about on a balcony, or a tiny wren.
This is spellbinding writing; the finely drawn details make us feel as if we can see.
Perhaps because I am European, my favorite story was the outstanding tale of the old
man in New York painting the old world for his granddaughter; being Irish, the
collection makes me think of one of the greatest short story writers, William Trevor…
Joan L. Cannon makes an impressive addition to the list of short story luminaries…
—Jane Shortall,
Expatriate Irish novelist living in south of France,
Author of the blog WriterinFrance.blogspot.com
A native of Manhattan, Joan L. Cannon writes novels, poetry, essays, and a blog
(www.hilltopnotes.blogspot.com) in western North Carolina. Irony and loss are
frequent themes in her work. Her degree in English Literature is from Carleton
College. She has taught English and theatre arts.