Regenerations

Their reunion occurred on an unseasonably warm winter's day under the arch at Grand Army Plaza. They embraced awkwardly, jabbering nervously about the fine weather and impressive architecture, finally settling into an easy stroll and a familiar silence. Released from the shroud of cold, dark days, they let nostalgia lead them on a long walk down Ocean Parkway to the Coney Island Aquarium. There they stood side by side, gaping at the undulations of the jellyfish, its dance across their reflection as light as chiffon.

They had met more than a year before in a greenhouse in the mountains. For days they stooped over hundreds of spinach seeds, their nimble fingers pressing each tiny seed into the enveloping earth. Then they lovingly wrapped a fig tree in layer upon layer of discarded newspaper, branch by crooked branch. They read the headlines aloud to each other as they worked, and laughed that their tree was swaddled in scandal. He loved to watch her laugh, though he glanced at her only when she wasn't looking, so that she never knew he studied and memorized her face. She reminded him of his wife, whom he hadn't seen in 35 years, of his daughter, whom he'd seen only once. Life, he'd told her, had knocked him to his knees, and he'd spent the last 20 years closer to the earth than most people get.

She too had tread perilously close to life's parameters. Her exile had taken her from India, where young goats sacrificed their heads to a bloodthirsty Kali, to Siberia, where the vengeful earth had cut her bare feet as mercilessly as razors. Stumbling haphazardly into his greenhouse, she'd discovered there immeasurable, throbbing relief.

One year later they were walking arm in arm along the boardwalk at Coney Island, mismatched, perhaps, but upright, and grateful. Her thawed feet barely touching the ground, she leaned over and planted a gentle kiss on his weathered and whiskered cheek, sealing it with her palm. In silent, satisfied unison, they turned to watch the waves tirelessl