Hazel
The car trundled along the shady dirt road, to arrive presently at a small but friendly cottage nestled among the tall trees. Its two occupants climbed out and lingered on the doorstep of the cottage, both engrossed in the small bundle they held in their combined embrace (rather clumsily).
"Hazel," said the mother fondly, tasting the unfamiliar shape of the name.
"Hazel." agreed the father happily, because his wife was happy, and gazed down at his daughter, who was small, pink, and wrinkled.
When Hazel was three, she no longer resembled a pink balloon two weeks after the party. Her eyes were the color of her name, her nose was sprinkled with freckles, and her favorite food was spaghetti.
When Hazel was five, her mother packed three suitcases and took a red-eye flight to California, in search of sun, surf, and stardom. On the table i her husband's study, she left a note hoping they would understand that she just needed to find herself, and requesting that they not try to follow her.
Hazel's father bore the loss of his lovely and vivacious wife with surprising equanimity. He had never understood her moods, her caprices, and least of all why she had married him. On the whole, he felt, she was probably better off on her own. Besides, the house was much quieter now. He took her at her word, as he had always done, and never gave a thought to pursuing her and begging her to return. (Later, it occurred to Hazel that perhaps that had been his trouble all along.)
He folded the now-crumpled sheet of notepaper with its two lines of hasty black scrawl, his forehead likewise creased in contemplation of the enigma that had been his wife; after a moment, he took a black composition book from the stacks that littered the room, thought deeply, and began to write a novel about love, and loss.
The press was unanimously enthusiastic upon its publication almost a year later.
When Hazel was six,
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I know where this is going to go, I dreamed it. The trouble is getting there....and the words keep getting in the way...so no more at present.
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