New York

The light in New York was beautiful.

The sun was different there; diving through the leaves, shaking the branches, falling like snow everywhere she looked.

She sat with her mother waiting for the train to arrive. Something about her mom seemed older than before. Softer, slower, sadder.

God, my mother's beautiful, she thought.

Looking at her felt totally new. She didn't understand why. Leaning against a tiled wall that said 56th Street, she watched her mother's face like stop-motion animation. Was she okay, now that she and her brother were getting older? What would she do? How would she spend her days, with more time and more space than before? Was she lonely?

Then a voice broke out, echoing amongst the tracks and cement, hitting her like a shot in the dark. She turned to her left, and saw a middle-aged man with long hair and worn shoes, singing. He had a sorrowful voice but it was hopeful. He held his guitar like a woman and with such aching tenderness, that she knew he'd been lonely for years. She could hear it in the high-notes.

She turned back. They were both crying.

"Life is so beautiful," her mother said.

They held hands until the song finished, until he started another, until the train came, until they were all the way home.