The Heart's Silent Dance

She ran up the stairs and burst through the door. Her hands trembling slightly, she tore the curtains open. The immediate arrival of the rays caused her to blink for a few seconds and then she felt the warmth of the sun and she started to smile.

Kneeling down, she looked through the old, tattered box. Her mother had died long ago but she left behind this big box that was filled with now-vintage dresses. Sitting at the sewing machine, her feet constantly pushing the presser-feet was her mother's only indulgence. Taking care of the housework, the farm and the 7 kids filled up the rest of her time, filling her life up like an inflated balloon.

Her hands met with sequinned blouses, chiffon scarves, cotton and lace and a heart that was broken countless times. Her mother was resilient. That was the perfect word to describe her. Her husband's infidelity shattered her but none of it that she let her children see. But in this box, scraps of paper that she recorded her sorrow tell another story. Sewing and making pretty dresses were her ultimate source of solace.

And now, it is those dresses that Janine had searched for. Putting on the simplest dress of all, a white, knee-length dress that fitted her as how a lover's embrace always seemed to fit, she felt as ease. She wanted to run through the fields, pick lilies and bathe in the scent of grass but alas, the only fields that existed in the urbanised cities is when you close your eyes.

Imagining herself in those vast greenery, she twisted and turned, twirled and twiddled. Moving to the sounds & beats of a band conjured in her unconscious, she danced away yesterday's pain. As she gyrated, her frowns and worries was picked up by the wind and her plastic smile discarded.

Today, she felt that she had brought justice to her mother. She had slept with a man that was not her husband. Her first infidelity.

But it was a start.