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Between her kitchen and the front room she leans against the doorframe
wearily, watching her son build a tower of blocks. He sits on the
varnished wood floor, legs bent at the knees like folded wings. Before
him, a small triumph — two blocks, alphabet letters long faded, stacked
one atop the other. He hovers a chipped E above the tiny stack, then
releases it too soon, scattering all three.
Hottest day of the
summer and she’s been cooking and canning since dawn. Her bib apron is
dusty with flour, stained berry, peach and plum. The faded blue, cotton
housedress beneath is blotched with sweat. And the once neat bun at the
nape of her neck is unraveling. Wisps of curls, some already gray, halo
her face. Lifting the apron, she wipes the sweat trickling down her
face, then rests her head against the frame, noting its peeling paint.
As
her son reaches for another block, the late afternoon sun coming
through the front windows frames him, dust motes flickering and
glittering around his soft yellow curls. Like fairy dust.
The thought surprises her. Fairies. She hasn’t thought of them in
years. She remembers curling up in her mother’s lap, listening to
stories from a favorite picture book, the one with pastel renderings of
a magical world where everything is possible.
She looks again at
her son, caressing him with her eyes. His golden curls please her,
which is why she puts off trimming them. That deep dimple in the middle
of his chin, those clear, watery blue eyes — Wouldn’t he have been a
charmer?
Andy, named after his father. With the other two boys
she had resisted that name, fearing it would be a curse, the name of a
man who so often failed. But this time, hoping he would be the last,
she gave in.
Fairy dust. She could use a little. She’d
sprinkle it around, make three wishes, use one of them to start fresh.
Next time Andy wouldn’t make her pregnant, there would be no hurry-up
wedding, no shame, no shunning.
She closes her eyes,
remembering. It wasn’t entirely his fault. She had let him do it. But
she didn’t know then, that you could lose so much, so fast. The farm,
the house, their little bit of savings — all gone in the Great
Depression. She didn’t know she would feel so spent, her dreams, ashes
at 34.
She’d been bright, bookish, had gone further than most,
finished the eighth grade. But what good had it done her? No money for
books, no time to read. Scarcely time enough to do the wash, make
meals, clean house, tend the husband, make babies, then feed them, fret
over them.
She opens her eyes and surveys the room before her.
The furniture, never new, is neatly arranged. The sofa’s seat cushions
she had recovered to hide the worn spots, topping each with a floral
rose and mint green leaf pattern. On the floor in front of the sofa, a
small rug. Opposite, a rocking chair and one overstuffed chair. Between
these, a small table for the radio, its wooden box shaped like a
cathedral arch and on its face, two dials that tune to other worlds.
She
sweeps and dusts this room daily. It has become an obsession, as if
order in this one room will keep her sane. And she knows she can’t let
herself go crazy. Not yet.
The boy moves, crab-like, toward the
scattered blocks. He’s not right. Four other children before this one,
so she’d known. Not right. When she found she was pregnant again, she’s
cried, for months. They could hardly afford the four they had.
Sometimes though, she fears it was her fault. Punishment because she
hadn’t wanted him or because she had sinned with the first one.
Andy
had said the boy just needed time, everything would be all right. He
always said that, and it was never all right. Never. So she saved up,
took the bus to see the doctor, heard him say the dreaded words, “He
won’t live long, maybe ten years, maybe a little more. Some do.”
He
turns nine this year. His arms and legs so thin, like polio or rickets.
He can’t walk, but his brothers fixed him a little board with wheels so
he can get around. He can’t talk, but he makes sounds, his way of
saying when he’s hurt, hungry, happy.
Most of the time she
calls him B, not Andy. They all do. His brother had tried to teach him
to spell his name. When he couldn’t say A, they tried B. That he could
do, make that little hard puff of air. B for brother. B for boy. B that
sounds like “me.” It stuck, a nickname. He hears fine she knows,
because he turns to her whenever she says B.
And
he laughs, breaking out in that wide grin that deepens his dimple. It
surprises her that he seems happier than her other children. And never
more so than when he’s near her, playing with fabric scraps while she
sews or, like now, stacking blocks while she cooks.
One day,
maybe soon, there will be a funeral. Some will pass by his coffin, in
this very room, peer down at his little boy face and say with
certainty, “It’s a blessing, isn’t it?” “He’ll be happier in heaven
with Jesus.”
She’ll want to scratch their eyes out, she’ll want to scream — You don’t know what the hell you are talking about.
She
stirs at the thought, lifts the apron up over her head and sets it
behind her on the kitchen table. He looks up as she comes toward him,
smiles, stretches out his arms. Bending over she gathers him up. His
long, gangly legs wrap around her body as his arms encircle her neck.
Fairy dust…Oh God, just a little…just enough for him.
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