*Fiction — May 14, 2018
Too many families live in this town. Look out our kitchen window—plastic sleds left on the sidewalks, a child’s mitten blowing down the drive. Every passing car is a station wagon. I can’t buy milk at the ShopRite without the wheels of a stroller crushing my toes. The schools are full, the skating rink’s crowded with puffy moms, the diners are packed with morbid teenagers who drink coffee and smoke cloves and complain about the crusty rock’n’roll on the jukebox. The dads all line up at the bagel shop on Sundays and talk about football. Everyone complains about Carter and the gas prices and the crime in the city and the weather.
It snowed again today. They closed the library and sent me home.
I pick up the chess pieces strewn in the living room and unclog the basement toilet.
I bake a ham.
February. It will be my birthday next month. I will be old, but everyone will tell me no, it’s not true, thirty-three isn’t old, just look at your skin, and the kids will be older soon and you have your whole life ahead of you. I want to be seventeen. Or I want to be ancient already, calm and wise with my Sanka and spider veins and memories of hard times.
The neighbors are having a party and I told them I’d go, but I won’t. I want to see Benjamin as he walks up the driveway. I won’t talk to him much at rst. I’ll let Walter berate him about money. At night, when this house is asleep, I’ll take him down to the basement, or we’ll walk out to the woods. I know what he’ll look like— younger than he is, tougher than he is. Will I look like a mother? Will he be surprised at how fat I got? He was just a kid then, kicking down the back stairs in his torn-up jeans, cocky-smiling when he saw me with Walter in the grass. He hated everything I had to teach him— how to hold the pot in your lungs, how to make a woman come, how you should never suddenly pull out from inside her. She’ll feel you not there for years.
Noah falls skating in his house slippers on the driveway ice and cuts his lip. While I’m nursing him in the living room, Dahlia runs away. She’ll be thirteen in two weeks. I’m not worried, no one’s going to murder her in this sleepy town, but she’s grounded and she’s not supposed to leave the house. She knows which buses go to the mall, which ones go to the city, but I know she wouldn’t dare. I know she’s at that creek in the woods, hanging her head, probably smoking. No one’s going to kill her but me.
Our Volvo conks out every time there’s an errand. It only works when there’s nowhere to go. I try for twenty minutes, freezing in the driver’s seat, turning the ignition key again and again, but nothing. I stroke and kiss the steering wheel. Blue, I say. Come on, show mama you love her. I give up after a while, decide to walk, and take a shortcut through the yard of the abandoned house—the grey Victorian where nobody’s lived for years. Kids go there to drink their parents’ liquor. I hear them sometimes, late at night. The windows are hollowed, the roof might collapse any moment. Weeds and dandelions cover the lawn in summer; in winter, the snow reaches the front door.
I find her at dusk at the creek in the woods, where she always goes. She’s making snowballs and throwing them at a tree. I watch her for a moment, my oldest. Her hair would be a lion’s mane if it weren’t such a rat’s nest.
She throws another snowball at her tennis shoes this time. The wind blows, shaking the trees.
You’re not wearing a warm enough coat, I say. That’s not a coat at all. You’re going to get ice in those shoes.
I hand her my scarf, but she won’t take it. She pulls the hood of her black sweatshirt over her head, covering those eyes.
You look like the Grim Reaper, I say.
Maybe I am.
Is it my time?
It depends. Have you been good?
I’ve tried.
Try harder, she says.
She pulls a stone out of her pocket and cleans it with snow. She started her period yesterday. She didn’t tell me about it. I saw a spot of blood on the toilet seat and it wasn’t mine. I didn’t ask her. Instead, we had a fight about her failing math. She’s wearing Walter’s shirt right now. She’ll be a middle-aged woman with tangled hair, one of those crones you see on the street, who carry too many bags.
Do you know how long you’ve been gone?
Five thousand years?
What do you do out here?
I just want to be alone.
Can’t you be alone in your room?
I like the cold, she says. I like the trees.
Let’s go. Uncle Benjamin is coming in tonight and the house is a mess.
Who’s Uncle Benjamin?
Your Uncle Benjamin. Your father talks about him all the time.
Oh, he’s the kid on the dock.
He was. He’s not a kid anymore.That’s an old photograph.
Isn’t he in Vietnam?
The war’s over, sweetie, many years.
So where has he been?
A lot of places.
I want to go a lot of places.
The trees tower over the houses, their branches curve and bend and twist in all directions. The gnarls of the roots are bulbous and perfect for sitting on. They’re red oaks, maples, sycamores, birches, cypresses, pines. They’re bare now, but the snow on the branches turns pink in the sunset. When we first moved here, I thought I’d never miss the city. I just wanted to have children and read to them under trees. I pick up a pinecone and hand it to Dahlia. She sniffs it and chucks it into a ditch.
You should always ask before you leave the house. I should always know where you are.
You never know where I am.
Because you don’t tell me.
I’m just walking. I’m not smoking or anything.
Always tell me where you’re going.
Fine, she says. I’m going to the movies with Tanya tonight. We’re going to be out until very late. We’re going to meet these guys.
Which guys?
These boys I know.
You’re going nowhere tonight.
You’re fucking horrible.
Your vocabulary is stronger than that.
You’re fucking odious.
Better.
You’re fucking abhorrent.
You’re only twelve.
I wish you would go away.
Me too, I say.
What’s for dinner, anyway?
I baked a ham.
I don’t eat pigs.
Then starve.
I wish I had the discipline.
Are you coming home this evening or should I let Noah have your clothes?
Give them away to charity.
I like that you’re always thinking of others.
She smiles with half her mouth, and I resist the urge to smack her. I hold out my hand instead. To my surprise, she takes it, and we walk through the woods in silence. It’s going to be one of those winters, the kind that never ends. We’ll have a quick thaw in March, then blizzards in April. Dahlia’s hand is cold and red. I bring it to my lips to blow on it, but she shakes herself free with a sigh.
You’ll like your uncle, I say. He likes to read, like you. He likes to think a lot. And he’s shy.
I’m not shy.
Don’t leave the house without telling me. Especially when you’re grounded.
I’m not a kid.
No, you’re a woman now.
No, I’m Death, she says, pulling the strings of her sweatshirt. The End is Nigh.
Promise you won’t do this again.
She shakes her head.
Cross your heart?
Hope to die, she says.
Do you love me?
She looks at the trees.
Are we friends?
No, she says, running toward the house.
The four of us sit at dinner, moving the potatoes around with our forks. Walter has opened the good wine. I’ve set a plate for Benjamin, just in case.
The four of us sit at dinner, moving the potatoes around with our forks. Walter has opened the good wine. I’ve set a plate for Benjamin, just in case.
Eight o’clock, Walter says. And he hasn’t even called.
He probably got caught in the snowstorm. Maybe you should go out and look for him.
I’m not going anywhere, he says.
Eat your peas, Noah, I say. He eats one pea at a time scrunching his face and his nose. The Band-Aid hangs from his lip. I reach over and try to fix it, but he squirms away.
Nope, Walt says, pouring more wine. Not going out in that at all. I’ll stay right where I am.
He’ll be here, I say.
How do you know that?
Noah, elbows off the table.
The ham tastes like the sole of a shoe. I’ll have to make him
something else when he gets here. But maybe he’ll like that I still can’t cook. Maybe it will make me seem young. I’m not going to look out the window because I’ve looked seven times in the last fiteen minutes.
something else when he gets here. But maybe he’ll like that I still can’t cook. Maybe it will make me seem young. I’m not going to look out the window because I’ve looked seven times in the last fiteen minutes.
What kind of books does Uncle Ben write? Dahlia asks.
He hasn’t written any books, Walt says.
He writes poetry, I say.
He wrote A poem once. It was hideous.
It was about a horse. Don’t you remember? He was only in high school. The horse was beaten by a pack of boys in the middle of the night. The kids broke into the barn and tortured it with hammers.
That sounds horrible, Dahlia says.
Horses are stupid animals. How are a couple of boys going to beat up a giant horse? It doesn’t make any sense. Your uncle Benjamin gave a recital in the gym and he stood up there in his blazer, shuffling around like he couldn’t find his shoes. You couldn’t understand a goddamn thing the kid said. Sounded like he had marbles in his mouth.
The poor horse, Dahlia says.
It was nonsense.
Walter, he was fifteen.
At fifteen, I’d already played Lear.
Good for you.
It was a lousy poem and he couldn’t recite it to save his life. I told him I would give him acting lessons.
Well, I liked it.
But he’d rather smoke pot and go to the beach.
All I remember is that it was beautiful. That’s what’s important,
isn’t it?
isn’t it?
I’m sure she loved it. It was just the kind of crappy poem your mother would love. Full of moonlight and waltzing and roses.
And a beaten dead horse, Dahlia says.
Noah, drink your milk. He stabs his fork into his ham and waves
it around making robot noises.
it around making robot noises.
Eight-fifteen. For the love of love. Walter stands up and looks out the window again. Dahlia reaches over and turns on the radio.
That was a good ham, Walt says, bringing his plate to the sink. Maybe your best ever.
Dahlia sits on the ledge in the hall, her cheek pressed against the Bay window. She looks like him—his coloring, his eyes. Her eyes are the only beautiful part of her. You’re getting old, girl. Twelve going on ancient.
Dahlia sits on the ledge in the hall, her cheek pressed against the Bay window. She looks like him—his coloring, his eyes. Her eyes are the only beautiful part of her. You’re getting old, girl. Twelve going on ancient.
Counting snow flakes?
She looks at me for a second and shakes her head. She stares back out the window.
Want to talk? I ask.
She shrugs.
She shrugs.
Well, I’m here, I say.
My son turns the key of a ballerina music box and puts it up to his ear. It belonged to my mother. The paint has chipped o the face of the ballerina, so she only has two black dots for eyes. You can hear the metal wheels grinding as the girl slowly spins. The music is Satie. Night Music. It’s not a ballet at all. I played it when I was a girl. We had an out of tune upright— a present from the only doctors in town. My father kept it on the back porch through winter and the rainy seasons and the Tennessee summer heat. I taught myself. I wore my mother’s Sunday shoes so I could reach the pedals. My sister loved how I played. She was fourteen and she put her head in her hands. You play nice, Cece. Play that one again for me. It makes me feel like I could just fall in love. Don’t you want to fall in love, Cece? Don’t you want to meet your one and true? That was Frankie with her scabby knees and asthma. She never did find anyone, at least not anyone who loved her back.
Mom? Noah says. How many eights go in one hundred?
I don’t know, Noah. Twelve or so?
My head hurts too much for numbers. My brain is devouring itself. Like part of it is festering, needs to be carved out. I would love to scrape it out of its shell with a pumpkin carver. I have to shut one eye to see. They come once a month, these migraines.
My son! my husband roars from the kitchen.
My son! my husband roars from the kitchen.
Something crashes. A stack of plates or a tray of silverware.
My son! he cries again, My only child is going to sail across the sea! Only my thoughts can go with him. Now I hear the chains clanking, and there’s something flapping…something flapping and flapping like wet dresses, wet rags, old shirts on a clothes line, wet handkerchiefs, maybe, and I hear, yes, waves splashing on the hull.
Another crash, louder this time.
Mom, Dahlia sighs from the hall. What’s wrong with Dad?
Nothing, I say. He’s just a lunatic.
But what’s wrong with him?
Why don’t you ask him?
Why is he a lunatic?
I don’t know. Probably someone cast a spell on him.
Who? Noah says.
A nasty queen. Sent him a poisonous shirt, I say.
And he put it on?
And it took away his mind.
And he’ll never be the same?
Never again.
And now everyone’s going to laugh at him? Noah says.
They’ll laugh their heads off, I say.
Their heads will fall off, he says.
Yes, I say. It’s going to be a big mess. Blood spilling from necks. Probably I’ll have to clean it up.
When is the play? Dahlia asks, leaning against the doorframe. She has a habit now of leaning.
Two weeks.
Do we have to go?
Oh, You’re going, I say. You are definitely going.
Walter begins again, hammy and low this time.
Wet towels, I hear sobbing.
And up the stairs, slowly rising…
Or maybe the lost girls on the quay.
And down the stairs, fading…
But why do sailors cry so much? Well, he said, because they keep going away, and so they’re always drying their handkerchiefs up on the masts. And why do people cry when they’re sad? I asked. Oh, he said. To wash the eyes so we can see.
Noah picks a story from the stack of books in the corner. It is about the cat who ends up in firehouse. He is not a good cat and he is not a bad cat, but he gets into all kinds of trouble with the family.
We can read on our own, you know, Dahlia says.
Nobody’s making you listen. You can go to your room and contemplate the paint chips or maybe your math homework.
I can’t concentrate on anything in this crazy house, she says.
Have I told you the story about the girl with the very hard life?
If only her eyes made a sound when they rolled.
It’s snowing hard, Noah says.
Is there going to be school, then?
Oh, you’ll go to school no matter what, I say.
Even if school is closed?
If school is closed, I’ll send you into the woods and you won’t come home until you know all the answers.
Answers to what?
To everything, I say.
Can we go sledding?
No. I’ll read you a story and you’ll go to bed.
When’s whatshisface getting here? Dahlia asks.
Soon.
Did he kill anyone in the war?
You can ask him to read to you, Noah. He loves to read. Pick out some more books he can read to you this week.
I check the window again.
And now who has to read the story about the frogs? Who has to read the story about the owl? Who has to read the spaghetti story? Who has to tell him a new story, one I just make up on the spot? The one about the wolf family and the one about the witch. The one where the witch and the wolf meet at her hut in the forest. The witch and the wolf are friends. She has a party and invites the children from across the highway. They wear cone hats and eat cake. They sing songs and pin the tail on the donkey. There are hula-hoops at the party and the prettiest girl can shake her hips for hours. The wolf shows up with a present: the stomach of a boy. He keeps it tucked under his chin until they bring out the cake. The stupid girl screams. She knows it’s not a present, but the bloody gut of a child. The wolf devours the cake and the witch’s friends. She’s happy. She’s a witch. She never cared for children. She goes riding with the wolf. She hops on his back and they wander through the forest.
And now who has to read the story about the frogs? Who has to read the story about the owl? Who has to read the spaghetti story? Who has to tell him a new story, one I just make up on the spot? The one about the wolf family and the one about the witch. The one where the witch and the wolf meet at her hut in the forest. The witch and the wolf are friends. She has a party and invites the children from across the highway. They wear cone hats and eat cake. They sing songs and pin the tail on the donkey. There are hula-hoops at the party and the prettiest girl can shake her hips for hours. The wolf shows up with a present: the stomach of a boy. He keeps it tucked under his chin until they bring out the cake. The stupid girl screams. She knows it’s not a present, but the bloody gut of a child. The wolf devours the cake and the witch’s friends. She’s happy. She’s a witch. She never cared for children. She goes riding with the wolf. She hops on his back and they wander through the forest.
Wolfie, it is my birthday, the young witch says, sucking the juice from the boy’s gut. Soon I will be old and fat and you won’t be able to carry me.
But I’ll carry you as long as I can,” he says. “We’ll go where no one will bother us.”
But how will we eat?
We’ll eat berries and squirrels. When there are no more berries and squirrels, we’ll eat each other.
I sit in the bathtub with my feet resting on the faucet and listen to Alby, the neighbor’s kid, shooting baskets in the driveway. He’s out there on the ice, like he always is, too tall, bouncing the ball
like he’s mad at the pavement. He’s only ever been polite to me. He always greets me in front of my car when I come home with the groceries. Can I help you with that, Mrs. Warbler? It’s a terrible winter we’re having, isn’t it? Do you want me to shovel the snow? Can I take Noah off your hands for a few hours? How’s Dahlia doing? I watch him doing pull-ups on the swing-set in the morning, push-ups on the porch in the afternoon after school; at night he shoots hoops in the driveway, no matter the weather. Last summer, he suddenly turned into a man. Or almost a man. He has a man’s chest, but he still swings his arms like a boy, smiles like a girl. He wears his hair in a little ponytail, the kind mothers threaten to snip off in the middle of the night. His mother will be dead in six months. To believe anything else would be pretending. We’ve watched Amelia fade through the last couple of seasons. She’s forgotten we were once almost friends, the time we talked in her kitchen and she told me about her life, her zombie husband, her kids she couldn’t control. I was drunk. I told her how to raise a family. “Whatever happens, they need you.” What gave me the right? These days, she doesn’t remember my name. Maybe if she hadn’t gotten sick, I’d be telling her secrets right now; we’d be in the kitchen, smoking cigarettes, sharing a bottle of wine.
I sit in the bathtub with my feet resting on the faucet and listen to Alby, the neighbor’s kid, shooting baskets in the driveway. He’s out there on the ice, like he always is, too tall, bouncing the ball
like he’s mad at the pavement. He’s only ever been polite to me. He always greets me in front of my car when I come home with the groceries. Can I help you with that, Mrs. Warbler? It’s a terrible winter we’re having, isn’t it? Do you want me to shovel the snow? Can I take Noah off your hands for a few hours? How’s Dahlia doing? I watch him doing pull-ups on the swing-set in the morning, push-ups on the porch in the afternoon after school; at night he shoots hoops in the driveway, no matter the weather. Last summer, he suddenly turned into a man. Or almost a man. He has a man’s chest, but he still swings his arms like a boy, smiles like a girl. He wears his hair in a little ponytail, the kind mothers threaten to snip off in the middle of the night. His mother will be dead in six months. To believe anything else would be pretending. We’ve watched Amelia fade through the last couple of seasons. She’s forgotten we were once almost friends, the time we talked in her kitchen and she told me about her life, her zombie husband, her kids she couldn’t control. I was drunk. I told her how to raise a family. “Whatever happens, they need you.” What gave me the right? These days, she doesn’t remember my name. Maybe if she hadn’t gotten sick, I’d be telling her secrets right now; we’d be in the kitchen, smoking cigarettes, sharing a bottle of wine.
What’s going to happen to that kid in the spring?
What do you want? I say.
What do you want? I say.
The door was unlocked, Walter says. He turns on the faucet and starts to brush his teeth.
I meant to lock it.
I’m getting ready for bed. Is there are problem with that?
I’m having my bath, I say.
I see that. Is there a problem?
Nobody said anything about problems.
Are you going to Sam and Hellen’s tonight?
No.
Why not?
I don’t want to go.
I thought they were the only people you liked.
I’ve got to clean up this house.
Benji won’t even show up at all, he says, his mouth foaming with toothpaste.
He’s probably turning around right now, wherever he is. He’s in bed, debating on whether to get up to take a leak. Or he’s groping some girl. In some hotel room.
He’s going to show up, Walter.
Why should this time be different?
He missed his ride last time.
Time before that he missed the bus. Time before that, it was the rain.Time before that he got arrested and then the time he got lost. There are only seven streets in this whole town. Then there was the time when he lost his wallet. What did he need with a wallet?
You think he’s crazy for not wanting to come? You think he wants to hang around us?
What’s wrong with us?
We used to go places. Parties and dances and plays and films and… What was the name of that band?
You never liked to go anywhere. Every time we went out, you just wanted to go home.
What was their name? This is going to bother me all night.
You were always too cold, or too hot, or too pregnant, he says. You hated those parties. Nobody got by without a snarky comment from you.
I’m not going to throw my keys in a basket and snort coke off a nightstand. I’m an old woman.
Then I must be dead.
I miss my sister.
He looks at me for a second, and I feel shy. I slip under the bubbles and draw the curtain. I don’t want to show him my body. It’s not just the weight I’ve gained. It’s that I don’t want to see him, so why should he get to see me?
You never visited her, he says.
I thought about it.
You just feel guilty.
I think about her all the time.
It’s the Catholic in you. Everything’s got to be your fault.
I was barely raised Catholic.
People make choices.
I just think about her voice. I hear it sometimes.
She was a country bumpkin and she didn’t have a thought of her own in her head. I’m not saying she wasn’t good, I’m just saying you’re romanticizing.
I’m thinking about her.
That’s because you have nothing to do.
I’ve been cleaning all day.
You never sink your teeth into anything. Do you know what happens to me when I go on stage?
No, I say. I have no idea.
I disappear a little. I don’t have to be myself for three hours.
I’m worried about Dahlia, I say. She missed school on Thursday.
She probably didn’t miss anything.
Walter…
What are they learning that we can’t teach them?
She’s learning how to lie to her parents, how to hang her head.
Have you noticed her posture?
She’s supposed to be blue. It’s the way she drifts off that bothers me.
Where does she go?
She goes out to the woods, sometimes she goes to the park, talks to the older boys. I don’t like it, I say.
Which boys?
I don’t know, Walter, the boys around town.
Not that Singleton kid.
Sometimes that Singleton kid.
There’s something wrong with him.
There’s nothing wrong with him.
He’s a freak.
He’s sixteen.
He always forgets about Amelia. He lights a cigarette and the smoke fills the bathroom. Walter has taken up the habit of putting his palm on his forehead and inhaling when he wants me to take him seriously, when he knows he’s supposed to feel something. I don’t know when he started doing this, if it’s something he’s learned from acting, or if he’s always done it and I only just now started noticing.
Have you seen her lately? he asks.
Not at all.
I feel for the kid, I really do. Still, there’s something off with him besides all that.
Will you do me a favor?
What?
Will you leave me alone?
Honey, he says. Baby. Light of my life. You’re beautiful when I least expect it. Look at me.
He draws the curtain back and I put the washcloth over my face. He leans into the tub to kiss me, and I let him, at first. He holds me close and his shirt gets wet and sudsy.
I’m in a lot of pain right now, I say, pushing him away.
I can help you with that.
<He tries to kiss me more, but I turn my head. He stands up and takes off his wet shirt and leaves it on the floor with the last pile of clothes.
He throws his cigarette out in the toilet, flushes, and leaves, reciting his lines as he heads down the hall.
The kitchen looks like Walter tried to clean it: hurricane ravaged, nothing spared in its wake. There are still broken plates on the floor, the counters are sticky, Noah’s milk remains spilled under the kitchen table, someone left a half sucked orange on the shelf where the cups are suppose to be—but are not— because they’re all over the house in various corners instead: cups resting on the hi-fi, cups at the foot of the toilet in the downstairs bathroom, cups in the soil of the potted plants. There’s something rotting in the refrigerator: a bag of liquefied collard greens. There’s also a container of pink yogurt, some crayons (a habit of Noah’s: he likes it when they’re cold) a handful of loose grapes rolling around, a bowl of spaghetti with red sauce that has splattered all over the refrigerator walls, Worcestershire sauce leaking from the bottle and coagulating in the fruit drawer, a Tab spiked with whiskey, an empty orange juice container, five squished raisins, a Jello-mold pummeled and destroyed by small hands.
The kitchen looks like Walter tried to clean it: hurricane ravaged, nothing spared in its wake. There are still broken plates on the floor, the counters are sticky, Noah’s milk remains spilled under the kitchen table, someone left a half sucked orange on the shelf where the cups are suppose to be—but are not— because they’re all over the house in various corners instead: cups resting on the hi-fi, cups at the foot of the toilet in the downstairs bathroom, cups in the soil of the potted plants. There’s something rotting in the refrigerator: a bag of liquefied collard greens. There’s also a container of pink yogurt, some crayons (a habit of Noah’s: he likes it when they’re cold) a handful of loose grapes rolling around, a bowl of spaghetti with red sauce that has splattered all over the refrigerator walls, Worcestershire sauce leaking from the bottle and coagulating in the fruit drawer, a Tab spiked with whiskey, an empty orange juice container, five squished raisins, a Jello-mold pummeled and destroyed by small hands.
I thought you were going to do the dishes!
I’m studying! She cries back from her bedroom.
How about you study how to carry a dish to the sink?
I’ll do it later, she yells.
I clean half a greasy pan with a scouring pad, but the sponge just moves the mess around, so I give up on it and ll it with hot water to let it soak for the night. I’ll let everything soak tonight. I look out the window. It’s snowing sideways now. You can’t even see the road or the oak tree with the tire swing. You can’t even see the mailbox at the edge of the driveway. The cars lined up on the side of the road are mountains of white. Nobody’s going anywhere tonight. All the guests at the party will stay over. They’ll slip away into the guest rooms, the husbands will betray their wives, the wives will betray their husbands, and everyone will go to work in the morning.
What if he’s lost out there in the blizzard? What if he did forget the name of our street? What if there’s been an accident? I imagine a bloody scene, broken glass, car parts, sirens, Ben trying to hold his own guts together. What if this is how it will end: my love on the side of the road and me in sweatpants with greasy hands? It’s almost nine o’clock. My head begins to throb again. I pour a finger of whiskey in a teacup and it burns my throat and chest as I sip.
I should have tried to make a pie for him. That’s all young men really want. I look for some ingredients: pie crust in a box, milk, pudding mix. I start to make the pie, but then I realize we don’t have any eggs. You can’t make this kind of pie without eggs, so I give up, have another cigarette and put on some more coffee.
While I’m trying to clean out the fridge, I knock over the can of coffee grounds. I try to vacuum the mess, but I always forget about the faulty outlet, and when I plug in the cord, the circuit breaks and the lights in the whole house go out. I stand for a moment in the darkness until they scream in unison, as though this has never happened before.
It’s alright! I yell back. I’ve got it.
Jesus Christ in a hailstorm.
I’ve got it, I’ve got it.
Where’s my flashlight?
I’ve got it, I say.
In the dark, I trip over the vacuum cord and land on my hands and knees. I curse, but nobody comes to my rescue. I make my way to the basement. The circuit breaker’s behind a pile of old dusty plastic Easter baskets, and I stumble a little before I find the switch.
I hear clapping from upstairs.
I hear clapping from upstairs.
If I closed my eyes long enough, would they disappear?
I’ll stay down here for a while. This room is full of old things: exercise equipment nobody uses, old records nobody plays, books nobody reads anymore, but I’ve carved out a space in the junk for my paintings: they’re nothing—portraits I’ve been working on over the years, snapshots of this town, people I know and don’t know, strange things I’ve seen in my dreams. I never show them to anyone anymore. I’m not any good, really. I thought I was once, so many people told me so, so many people I trusted, but I know I’m not. I don’t care anymore what anybody thinks. I don’t do it for anyone but me.
I’m working on a painting of Benjamin I started last week. I’m trying to render the old photograph Walter keeps on his mantle. He’s young in it, probably not even twelve. He’s sitting on the dock, turned toward the sea, with his knee tucked under his arm. His eyes are closed. You can tell even in the black and white photo, his freckled shoulders are burned. I can’t get my painting to look anything like him; I can’t get the dock and I can’t get the sky. I’ve started over so many times. What was he thinking then? Did he even know who he was? Was he even a person yet? How old do you have to be before you know who you are?
Mom, Dahlia says to me from the basement stairs, leaning on the banister. Walter is right. The slouching has gotten worse. Did you want to see me?
I can’t now, baby.
What’s the matter? Are you crying?
No, I’m just working is all.
What are you working on?
Just my paintings.
She looks at the one of Ben.
What’s wrong with his arm?
What do you mean?
It’s crooked.
Is it?
I stand back from it, and look again. She’s right, it is. It almost looks broken. It’s an awful painting. I’ll have to throw it out and start again.
Are you giving that to him?
No.
Why not?