Dragons

I remember the dining room in my parents’ house.
Growing up, there had been a beautiful upright piano standing against the white wall. One had to pull the chairs away from the dining table in order to gain enough space to play the thing.
I remember the upholstery on the mahogany stool, covering the seat cushion. An ornate design, it was almost oriental in its floral pattern and, as a young girl, I would trace the stitching with my small fingers. I would do this while I looked at and learnt my scales.
My mother would sometimes come and watch me at the piano. This would last a short while, before she would idle to the window and stare at it all, that green world we’d cultivated.
I can see her now, a never quite finished cup of coffee hanging loosely from one of her fingers. On Sundays she may sit instead, with a glass of red wine.
I would watch her while my hands leafed through the sheets of music my teacher had set for me to learn. She would never stir unless I stopped making noise, so I always made sure to accentuate any rustling of papers, any shuffling of my bottom on the seat.
My father never came into the room while I played. I was never sure he heard me play yet, often, as I would retire to my room while the table was set for tea, he would call out to me upon opening the dining room door: “Bravo, Lizzie. Bravo.”
And that would be enough to send me racing upstairs to curl up on my bed, my smile beaming, my little heart dancing. To see my father was something rare and, to be acknowledged by him, rarer.
One summer, when I was just eight years old, I was taken ill with a fierce fever. I was aware of very little during those two weeks and mother told me, years later, how I had come close to death.
I had often thought I saw a dragon in those days. I remember, a dragon whose shadow blistered the walls. Whenever he came, the room choked in heat and I would perhaps see the black slither of his tail, or his nostrils blowing out arrogant trails of smoke.
It was after one such struggle with this dragon that my father came alone to sit by my bedside. My mind had cleared and I was quite lucid, though too weak to raise a hand or open my mouth.
He sat there, just staring. Staring at me for a long while. His poor eyes seemed to be tracing every inch of my blanched face, mapping the contours of my cheeks and the patterns of my freckles.
I raised my eyes to meet his gaze with recognition and saw plump tears slowly well there, then trickle across his face and drip down onto his lap.
He sat there, perfectly still and upright, as if he were attending an important speech, or meeting a client in his office. Every inch of him remained stoic and exact, except for the slow-filling pools of his eyes.
My little heart danced there again, and I longed for him to hold my hand and stroke my hair, and not to stop until I fell fast asleep.

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Hope you enjoyed the tale. This one is not unrelated in subject: An unquiet