101 Words

Through the letterbox, down the hall, a steamed-up kitchen window, a bubbling stove, the scent of stewed apricots, and the voice of Lou Reed, fruity, cynical, and longing.

They brushed cheeks at the door. The same boyish prettiness. The same pale blue eyes, and over one shoulder a baby: downy, wet-fisted, its bottom cradled in his loving, giant hand.

He led her into the front room, turned the music down, and offered her the fleeting intimacy of tea. She stood at the mantlepiece admiring the candles, shells, and soft toys, wishing that the beautiful woman in the silver frame were dead.

The car had been ready as promised. As she pulls out into traffic, she notices her quickened heartbeat from the encounter with the customer service person. That mild Italian accent, the blue-black curl falling onto his forehead. She opens the glove box to retrieve her cigarettes and happens upon a note inside the dealer’s sleeve.

She flushes.

She dithers for three hours, stops at her favorite boutique to buy a short summer dress, perfume, sends a loving text to her husband. She arrives back at the garage just a few minutes late; in time to see her fantasy drive away.

I add more seed to the feeder, cursing the squirrels. I put out corn cobs for the little bastards, but they scale my feeders, driving away the song birds.

I’m about to call animal control again about the goddamn Rottweiler from next door when I realize that it’s a black bear tearing down my feeder. I pick up my broom and stomp out the back door.

“I’ve had it!” I shriek at a bear that’s probably never had an 86-year-old woman confront it. I whack it on the snout with the broom. We both back away…knowing we’ve gone too far.

John drove right by the office where the ledger of credits and debits awaited his diligent review.

What the hell does an oncologist know, anyway? This was not how things were meant to end.

As a child, John had dreamed of bold adventures over the horizon.  It seemed to him, now, that he had been sleepwalking through a life of spreadsheets, commuting, and mowing the lawn. He’d had courage enough only for the cinema, an occasional, self-indulgent ice cream, and to take an advanced class in nature photography.

But now his car is at the airport. How will he be remembered?

“Welcome back!” Mom throws her arms around me, practically cutting off my circulation. “I can’t believe you’re done with your first semester! How do you feel, college girl?”

“Exhausted.” I haul my suitcases into the house. “I’m just glad finals are over. Hey, you didn’t change anything while I was gone, did you?”

“Who? Me?” Her eyes glint with something I can’t quite read. “Well,” she says, “I may have rearranged the kitchen…and…you can figure out the other changes for yourself.”

It’s not until later that night that I realize someone else was supposed to welcome me. My dog.

When I was nine, I filled my room with things from the woods. Owl feathers, raccoon skulls, river rocks. I charged twenty-five cents to see them.

Dirt followed me through the house, and spider mites, too. Mom rolled her eyes and swept the tile. She combed the twigs from my rat’s-nest hair and pulled burrs from my clothes.

When I brought in a snakeskin, she backed against the far wall and said, “Don’t bring that in my house.”

But I was already up the stairs.

Every day, she tapped on my door, opened it, and slid a quarter into my palm.