A Willow and the Moon

I. It was once a sanatorium high up in the mountains. My mother worked there. In the summers I woke with her early and took the wooded trail near our home. She brought us breakfast, usually some bread with cold jam and butter, and halfway up the slope we found a spot with a view and rested. In the valley there was the town and the distant river. On some days we could see the train come up from the city, blowing smoke into the sky. South of this was our house and the horse farm my father was employed by. Sometimes I could even see my father cross a paddock; I recognized his strange gait, from when a horse kicked his hip before I was born.