September 2018 by Jeffrey S.
Goodbye. It seemed like such a permanent, concrete word and for just a moment, it jumped off the linen stationery and into Daisy Degnan's mind. It rattled and echoed for only a moment before she let it form in her throat and roll off of her tongue. "Goodbye," she whispered. No one there at the Yosemite Post Office heard her say it, but saying it out loud made it real; the act of saying it out loud somehow made it less scary. She closed box number 321, and still clutching the letter, made her way outside. She turned too quickly in her plain, navy blue dress and looked down to watch the flour shake free from the pleats, dissipating into the breeze of Yosemite Valley. She watched as long as she could, until each little particle disappeared, floating upwards to El Capitan, Half Dome, Yosemite Falls -- standing outside the post office she could see them all towering around her. They were old friends. Protectors since birth. Why had she ever left this place? "Miss Daisy Degnan left Yosemite Valley Thursday for an indefinite visit in San Francisco," the newspaper had said. She had memorized it, not because she was particularly fond of the Mariposa Gazette, but because it was all she had ever wanted and it was the fulfillment of that dream; the black-and-white embodiment of her desire to get out of her mother's bakery, and out of the Valley, and go to the city where there were automobiles, dress shops, and even an honest-to-goodness French baker making real baguettes. So, against her mother's wishes she had packed her canvas backpack and taken a ride all the way down the bumping roads to the train station and purchased a ticket to San Francisco. A loud crack suddenly broke her gaze and she looked back towards the post office. It was just the door slamming into its frame; although the post office was still new, the door spring had already malfunctioned and there was no easing it back after it opened. Every time someone went in and out, the door would slam against its frame before slowly sliding back into place. It was 1925 and they could make automobiles that drove all the way from the city to her Valley, but they still couldn't make a door that didn't slam like that? Her mother would be needing her soon in the bakery. She had loathed those peasant loaves as a young woman, and had wanted so badly to try one of the city's proper loaves when she arrived. But when she finally found the Parisian baker and tried his baguette, her heart sank. She found herself longing for the family recipe; Yosemite imparted some kind of magic into each round boule, and she missed it. That was the first time she wondered if she had make a mistake. Before making her way back to her mother's side to help with the next batch of dough, she needed to go see The Old Man. She promised it would be a quick visit, but she also knew that with him, there was no such thing. She followed the road, crossed over the bridge, and headed back down underneath the stones to his shores. "Old man," she said to the river, "he said goodbye. I mean, I didn't want him to. I wanted him to come to me, and for us to live all those dreams we had..." she trailed off. The Old Man quietly took all this information in. This particular stretch of emerald pools was her favorite, because more than riffles, falls, or rapids, the pools of the Merced always listened, but today the muted gurgles urged her to say even more. "Please don't make me say it," she pleaded. She didn't want to say the thing. The true thing; that thing that neither time, nor distance, nor any goodbye letter would ever change. But already she knew she would have to say it. That urge to speak truth was strong; It was the same feeling she had when she finally admitted that leaving the valley had been a mistake. It was the kind of truth that flowed even stronger and swifter than the Old Man and had to be said out loud because keeping it in would even
