Magnetism

  The elevator doesn’t come. One of the nurses comes to round people up and get them back to their rooms. She says it’s all okay and that it’s over but her face doesn’t look very convincing. ‘There will be aftershocks,’ Mommy says.

  ‘I don’t know about that.’

  ‘Don’t any of you here know anything?’

  ‘I know you can’t leave this girl here.’

  ‘Aren’t you evacuating?’

  ‘We’re not evacuating, ma’am.’

  Mommy doesn’t want to give in even when the grumpy nurse comes and joins in the argument. She says that the elevators can’t work in this kind of situation, that this is the fifteenth floor and that if she’s that worried she should leave me there and go down by the stairs. Mommy says, ‘What kind of a mother do you think I am, that I would abandon my child?’

  ‘You tell her,’ the old lady says, still on the ground. I lean over to look at her and wonder why no one is helping her back to her room, or at least on to a chair where she’d be more comfortable.

  Finally, Mommy sits down on the bed by my feet. She is beautiful in her bright brave dress and I love her more than anything. She’s like Wonder Woman but I think all her energy is gone. After a long while two nurses wheel the bed back to the room and Mommy walks beside me.

  There are no aftershocks that we can feel. On the television they say it’s the New Madrid Fault and there are reports of people all over the city hurt by falling bricks and stuff. When he comes at six o’clock, Daddy tells us that in the place where he works there’s lots of broken glass to clear up.

  Mommy is very pleased to see him and they stand together side by side and look down at me. He knows what happened to us. He says to me, ‘You could feel the pre-quake tremors. That’s what it was.’

  Mommy says, ‘She’s a very sensitive girl.’ I see her reach to hold his hand and he doesn’t let go.

  The nice night nurse walks in. She’s just come on duty and listens when I tell her all about what happened. She suggests my folks leave so I can sleep properly tonight. Mommy says she’ll come back, but will get something to eat with Daddy downstairs. When they’ve gone, the nurse comes back to gives me my shot.

  ‘I told you the bed was shaking last night,’ I say.

  ‘Just because you’re right once, don’t go thinking you know everything.’

  I have the feeling that she’s the kind of person who doesn’t need me to pretend. ‘I was frightened,’ I say. ‘You should have seen my mommy, though. Nothing would stop her.’

  ‘I heard. It’s good to have a mom like that.’

  I can feel the drug in my body, slipping into my brain and now I shut my eyes and I am flying outside the building and seeing all the people all over the city fixing to go to bed to rest through the night, and I am just one of them. There is nothing to be scared of.

  1964

  The Stone

  ‘Big day for you,’ Daddy says, grinning at me. ‘How are you feeling?’

  Mommy says, ‘Don’t make a big deal of it, Richard.’

  But I say that I feel good and I do. I want to meet my new friends. Daddy says that I’m ahead of the game with my reading and there is no reason to be worried about the first day in kindergarten. He pours himself a bowl of cornflakes and a bowl of Sugar Frosted Flakes for me. ‘These are g-great,’ I say.

  ‘How are you doing?’ he asks Mommy, who is smoking, but not eating.

  ‘Don’t want to be late, that’s all. I need the car,’ she adds, like he might have forgotten this, even though she’s already said it a couple of times this morning, and at dinner last night she told him too.

  ‘No problem. I told you it was okay. What are you doing later?’

  ‘Shopping. I’m meeting Charleen downtown. Susie is starting high school today and we’re going to a lecture about the Peace Corps this afternoon.’

  ‘TV dinners are getting tedious.’

  She gives him a look. ‘I can’t cook all day.’

  ‘It’d be nice if you cooked sometime,’ he says. ‘Maybe you want to take a class?’

  ‘I can cook fine, but I don’t want to cook and I don’t want to take a class.’

  Instead of in the back, I sit next to Mommy on the drive to school. The seat is slick and I slide across it when she pulls out of the driveway. She turns the radio on. They’re talking about an interview with some woman in the St Louis Review and that makes her angry. She’s looking at the radio and talking to it. ‘If she believes all the other stuff she says about keeping women tied to the home, why is she getting involved in politics? Talk about a hypocrite.’

  Down the road we get stuck at traffic lights and a bus pulls up next to the car. A fat old negro man wearing a blue baseball cap stares down at me from one of the windows. Then he waves at me. It makes me feel funny as I wonder if he can tell that my mother is still yelling at the radio. I wonder if any negro kids will be at my school this year. Daddy told me that negro people can, for sure, go to white schools now everywhere which is a good thing, but Mommy said there are no negro families that live in our neighbourhood.

  Then the bus turns and it, and he, is gone forever. The main thing is you have to practise what you preach, Mommy tells me next as she clicks the radio dial off.

  When we get there it’s not noisy, like Daddy told me it would be. We’re way too early, but Mommy decides we might as well go in and get the jump on everyone else.

  The hallway is wide and the walls bare. There’s a smell of Elmer’s Glue and that doughy-paint smell that I recognise. Mommy takes me to my new classroom and this is different; it’s bright and there are lots of pictures everywhere. There are three easels in the corner with big blocks of paper ready for painting. Alphabet posters march round the top of the walls. There are two-people desks for the children. I am to share with a boy named Jimmy, Mrs Daniels says.

  In the summer I came to meet my new kindergarten teacher, when there were other children here – the children she took care of last year. They’ve graduated to first grade now. Mrs Daniels’ hair has been cut since then and it makes her look even more grown-up and grumpy. Maybe she’s missing the kids from last year. She doesn’t know what’s going to happen with us. Mrs Daniels is not as pretty as Mommy but Mommy is not a teacher even though she said she could have been if she wanted to.

  My own hair cannot be cut. I will grow it forever. Today it’s in a thick braid down my back with a ribbon at the bottom and bobby pins in to keep it all in place. ‘Don’t you look cute as a button,’ Mrs Daniels says. She has noticed that the ribbon matches my blue dress.

  In reply I tell Mrs Daniels that she might want to know that I can write my name in cursive already. My mommy has taught me at home.

  Then Mommy kisses me goodbye on the top of my head, and tugs the braid. This morning Daddy said not to let anyone do that but here is Mommy just doing it. She says, ‘Good luck,’ to Mrs Daniels before she leaves and I sit down at my desk and watch her go out of the doorway. Mrs Daniels starts to straighten out the books on her desk.

  After a few minutes, other children come in and the desks start to fill up, and it gets noisier. There is still no Jimmy for a long time. The other half of my desk is empty for ages and everyone but me has someone sitting with them when, finally, Jimmy arrives. He has a small face, with freckles. He fidgets in his seat all the time. He says hi to me and I say hi back. He says he lives in the next block. His mom lets him walk to school. ‘I came in the car,’ is all I can think to say, and then we sit in silence while Mrs Daniels takes roll call.

  ‘Me,’ Jimmy says, instead of ‘here’, when his name is called. Mrs Daniels looks up at him like he’s someone she’ll have to watch.

  At the end of the day Mrs Daniels lets us choose our own books to take home. She puts two books on the desk that Jimmy and I share. I can’t decide between them. The first has lots of photographs in it. It’s called Nature in all its Glory and I like it because of the pictures of interesting animals. Jimmy also likes this book, he s
ays, because he’s counted five pictures of tornados. The other one is a small book and there are only drawn pictures inside it. I can read most of the words. I decide to take this one home because that means that Jimmy can take home the one he really wants.

  My book is called The Stone.

  The pages are yellowing and the print is a bit fuzzy. Daddy reads it to me by the light of my bedside lamp – the one with Snow White and the dwarfs at its base. He slides his finger under each word in the book as he says the words aloud. It’s a story about a prince who doesn’t know he is a prince because he is stolen from his family and brought up by someone else.

  I let my eyes close. I hear Daddy shut the book quietly after he’s finished the story. He leans over and kisses me on my forehead. ‘Good choice,’ he says, then he tells me that he loves me. He is going downstairs to check on Mommy, he says. ‘What a big girl you are, going to school now. You have a wonderful future ahead of you. I’m going to turn the light out now. Sleep well, sweet dreams, honey.’

  I don’t need to answer. I like school and I like this feeling of excitement about tomorrow coming in the morning and I feel happy. I snuggle down and turn over and curl into sleep.

  1961

  In and Out

  Mommy lifts me on to her lap. We slide together; I squirm until the fit is just right. My head rests against her shoulder, and the soft thump of her is as close as can be.

  Her breath is on my face for a whisper and her perfume pricks at my nose. Her long yellow hair brushes mine. We’re tight like this. I feel like I am good enough to eat – melted butter on toast, with cinnamon and sugar, cut into squares. Sweet. Delicious.

  Daddy is watching us and smiling. She says I am just so the apple of his eye and then she fixes to start our spider story. She puts her lips right up against my ear.

  I feel the fizz in my middle as she begins. ‘Incy Wincy spider,’ she says, and I feel the tiniest trail that the story spider threads on my arm, as he inches his legs this way and curls back that way. Her breath warms my skin as she whispers, ‘Climbed up the spout.’

  Her pink nails continue their curly climb right up to my shoulder. I have to be still and quiet now until, finally, she says in a louder voice, ‘Down came the rain, and washed the spider out,’ and her fingers whoosh down, right down to my own hand, where she rests hers – palm on palm.

  Her big hand is on top, hiding my hand. It is warm. This is our story and we tell it together. ‘Now what happens? Is it a happy ending?’ she asks.

  I turn and take in her smile. It lights my face and swallows me up. ‘Yes.’

  She says, ‘Out came the sun, and dried up all the rain, and Incy Wincy spider climbed the spout again. Isn’t that great, honey?’ she asks, even though she knows. ‘Don’t we do it great together?’

  ‘Again,’ I say, all ready for more.

  I know I’m greedy because she tells me that this is how I am, and she doesn’t mind because we are the same. There is nothing between us. We belong together.

  1959

  The Lamb

  In her mind she thinks of herself as just lightly pregnant and today she is wearing a watermelon-blush dress that suits this contention. It falls below her knees and the small bulge in her waistline is completely concealed. She is twentyseven – older than she ever thought she would be on her wedding day – but it doesn’t matter. She can feel the gentle chiffon against her legs. Life, she thinks, is often like this – just brushing her softly; she doesn’t have to pay too much attention if she doesn’t want to.

  ‘Watermelon-blush’, of course, is not from her vocabulary but a gift from the enthusiastic saleswoman in the department store who, without knowing her or her circumstances, said she knew just the right thing for a ‘special occasion’. It was the first dress she tried on. Thus, she allowed her dress to be chosen for her, but bought the veil she’s wearing from a proper bridal shop.

  She’d expected trouble, but when she warned him that she wouldn’t be wearing white Father Thomas said nothing. He seemed to understand how life might get complicated. But a wedding needs something so, after speaking to him, on impulse she went and got the veil that now softens her view. It adds to her sense of separateness today, but when it’s done the veil will come off and she’ll have to live with all this.

  From the back of the church she looks for, and then spots, her older half-sisters in the second pew on the left: one with bobbed light brown hair, Sheila, and the other with dark brown hair, Hannah. There aren’t many people here other than the die-hard regulars that attend this church in a town containing only a handful of Catholics. Those that have come have turned out for a show, and all of them present, except for Sheila and Hannah, turn to watch her arrival. The two women she is related to refuse her important day. Their heads are directed stubbornly forward to the altar. Close in age and in disapproving temperament, the two of them can stay here forever. She wants something different for her life. She treasures the fact that she has a different father and is getting married to a man with education and a future ahead, as a promise towards this possibility.

  Today both her sisters are wearing colours that clash with her dress: Sheila is in mauve and Hannah in lilac. Even this morning they still thought she’d change her mind and wear their mother’s white-white wedding dress that they hauled down from the attic and hung like a ghost in her bedroom. No amount of pleading will work, though. She’s been told since she was three that she has her father’s irreligious temperament and now this has come home to roost. Serves them right.

  As she comes down the aisle on her own – she has no uncle or brother to give her away and both her parents are gone – she sees Father Thomas’s kind face guiding her to the front and the two men standing there. One will soon be her husband. Richard is a good companion and a loyal friend who doesn’t care about her family, and won’t hold it against her. He won’t remind her of her origins in their life together. She wants to live somewhere clean and fresh. She wants rid of the poverty that clings to her – to her family name, to her home, to this derelict town.

  There are ten more steps. As she walks she reminds herself that Richard can’t help the type of man he is and she understands the limitations. She will give him a wife and child and he will give her his name. She might not be, but he is the sort of person who wants to do the right thing. He will take care of her.

  She has now arrived at the front and the music stops. Father Thomas steps forward and momentarily she turns and smiles to Richard. He is nervous, but eager. She pats his hand and thinks how peculiar that she, the bride, needs to reassure the groom.

  He has chosen Pete, his little brother by five years, to be the best man. Pete stands on the other side of Richard and looks scared. She wants to reassure him, too, because she knows he doesn’t like anything serious and has made her promise that she won’t tell Richard about how the two of them were briefly involved. He doesn’t know she’s pregnant, nor, of course, that it’s his child. Richard does know about the baby but he has asked that she not tell the father of the child – ‘whomever he might be’, he said rather pompously. He doesn’t want another man potentially ‘staking a claim’ later.

  The brothers both have new haircuts. Richard’s looks smart and grown-up. Pete looks like a shorn lamb.

  She wants to tell both of them that it’ll be okay. She smiles again at them, and at Father Thomas and then, unbidden and against protocol, she turns to face the congregation and grins through her veil because she’s got all the gumption she might need to pull this thing off and show them. They’ll need luck, but she’s always been lucky, and the child will look like Richard.

  Father Thomas begins and I give her a sharp, hard kick. For the first time, I’m sure she feels it. We’re in this together. Forever.

  2013

  An Angel

  When I turn the lights on in the kitchen the dark outside is even darker, as if this is a stage set. This has been the first night I’ve spent in my mother’s house for years and I haven
’t really slept. ‘My mother has died,’ I say aloud, to remind myself that this is how it’s going to be from now on.

  Outside, a coyote howls woefully in reply. The sound makes me jump first, and then it makes me cry and I can’t come up for air. I get into the shower with tears still pouring down my face. And then I go out for a walk around the neighbourhood before the sun comes up. All the while I walk I hold her keys in my hand and, with my thumb, I stroke the fragile bones beneath the fur on the rabbit’s foot.

  When I get back, I set to. I collect the dishes scattered throughout the house, and get the dishwasher going. I pull out the vacuum cleaner and begin to get the living room straight. At eight-thirty I call and arrange to see the funeral director at ten o’clock, which is the earliest he can see me.

  I take a cab there, because I’ve not yet rented a car, and when I walk up from the sidewalk into the funeral home I suddenly panic. I must be in the wrong place, because this is not my life. None of it seems real, at all. I’m still waiting for my mother to arrive and tell me what to do next, and to berate me for being so worried.

  The mortuary is a big old house set within pristine lawns. Except for the fact that the sprinklers are going, I’d have thought the grass was great quality Astroturf. The office is immediately on the right inside the double doors. I ask the sombre girl if I will be able to see my mother this morning, but she says it might not be possible, and I’ll have to discuss that with ‘Andy’ when he comes through. ‘There’s stuff to prepare, before she’ll be up for visiting,’ she says. I register that this is just another of the absurd things people say and that if I had the energy and inclination I could tell her that this wasn’t the best way to discuss viewing a dead relation. But I am no longer the kind of person who rises to an opportunity to correct. Instead, I nod and keep my mouth shut.