descended the stairs.
Being careful not to glance at my mother's face, I stood at her feet, briefly bent down to close her legs, and then played the
/ 5 2 ]
The Almost Moon
game that first Emily, and then Sarah, had begged me for when I tucked them in at night. A game my father had made up for me.
We called it "waft." I would stand at the end of their beds, with their top sheet balled up in my hands, and then shoot it out over their bodies, allowing it to slowly waft down over them. It was a game that, if given the choice, Sarah in particular never wanted to call an end to. "I love the feel of air escaping all around me,"
she had told me once.
For my mother, it was a one-time waft, and I did it so the queen-size sheet covered her face. It stuck to her damp body in an almost ghostly way. Hurriedly I repackaged her in the Mexican wedding blanket and the Hudson Bay as if she were a gift I was returning to the store.
I stood and walked into the small back hallway and opened the basement door. Then, holding her under her armpits, I dragged her headfirst to the top of the stairs.
I walked a few steps down in almost pitch-black darkness and flailed my hand along the wall until I found the light switch. The bare bulb at the bottom of the stairs came on. I walked down the rest of the way. These stairs, when I was little, were a dare for neighborhood children and me. Past the first three stairs, both walls fell away, and never, no matter how much one was needed over the years, was a guardrail installed. Hamish had even volunteered to fabricate one out of old pipes after laying down the carpet upstairs. "These stairs are the real death trap," he'd whispered to me when I'd brought him to the basement so he could choose among my grandfather's old guns as payment.
But what had always made the dare of descending into the dark basement worth it was the supersize brown refrigerator at the bottom of the stairs. This was where my mother kept tins of brandy balls and stores of Hershey's bars. Mason jars of pecans and almonds, Christmas boxes of peanut brittle left uneaten, and hideous sherry-soaked fruitcakes given to us each holiday season.
[5 3 ]
Alice S e bo Id
The Levertons gave everyone a box of After Eight mints. Mrs.
Donnellson, before she died, would bring my mother a ham.
The ham, like all meats, went in a separate place—the long, low meat freezer that hummed to the right of the stairs, on top of which my mother sorted laundry or stacked magazines she wanted to keep. During my father's life, there was always a shifting parade of objects on top of the meat freezer. He had hoped she'd take up arts and crafts, so there were baskets filled with green foam blocks and giant discarded jug-wine bottles that, if she found the time, might make beautiful terrariums. Acorns, horse chestnuts, boxes of goggle eyes, and distinctly shaped twigs. River rocks polished in my father's workshop. Odd bits of driftwood he'd collected. And a pristine economy-size Elmer's that ruled over it all.
The gun had been my mother's idea.
"What does he want with a gun?" I whispered to her while Hamish was washing up. "Why not cash?"
"He's a grown man," my mother said. "Emily just gave birth to a child."
But by the time I could trace my mother's thought process and figure out that this was my mother's way of pointing out that both Hamish and Emily were adults, the insanity train had left the station and I was in the basement, showing Hamish the rack of guns.
We stood in front of the meat freezer as he took up each rifle and held it in his hands, testing the weight of it.
"I know nothing about guns, except that they're cool," he said.
I was no help. I watched him lean each rifle out of the wooden rack and hold it inexpertly by its stock as if it were a particularly
[5 4]
The Almost Moon
thick-stemmed weed he had pulled from the ground. Hamish, like Natalie, provided the perfect light contrast to my darkness.
Until she began to sprout enough
Being careful not to glance at my mother's face, I stood at her feet, briefly bent down to close her legs, and then played the
/ 5 2 ]
The Almost Moon
game that first Emily, and then Sarah, had begged me for when I tucked them in at night. A game my father had made up for me.
We called it "waft." I would stand at the end of their beds, with their top sheet balled up in my hands, and then shoot it out over their bodies, allowing it to slowly waft down over them. It was a game that, if given the choice, Sarah in particular never wanted to call an end to. "I love the feel of air escaping all around me,"
she had told me once.
For my mother, it was a one-time waft, and I did it so the queen-size sheet covered her face. It stuck to her damp body in an almost ghostly way. Hurriedly I repackaged her in the Mexican wedding blanket and the Hudson Bay as if she were a gift I was returning to the store.
I stood and walked into the small back hallway and opened the basement door. Then, holding her under her armpits, I dragged her headfirst to the top of the stairs.
I walked a few steps down in almost pitch-black darkness and flailed my hand along the wall until I found the light switch. The bare bulb at the bottom of the stairs came on. I walked down the rest of the way. These stairs, when I was little, were a dare for neighborhood children and me. Past the first three stairs, both walls fell away, and never, no matter how much one was needed over the years, was a guardrail installed. Hamish had even volunteered to fabricate one out of old pipes after laying down the carpet upstairs. "These stairs are the real death trap," he'd whispered to me when I'd brought him to the basement so he could choose among my grandfather's old guns as payment.
But what had always made the dare of descending into the dark basement worth it was the supersize brown refrigerator at the bottom of the stairs. This was where my mother kept tins of brandy balls and stores of Hershey's bars. Mason jars of pecans and almonds, Christmas boxes of peanut brittle left uneaten, and hideous sherry-soaked fruitcakes given to us each holiday season.
[5 3 ]
Alice S e bo Id
The Levertons gave everyone a box of After Eight mints. Mrs.
Donnellson, before she died, would bring my mother a ham.
The ham, like all meats, went in a separate place—the long, low meat freezer that hummed to the right of the stairs, on top of which my mother sorted laundry or stacked magazines she wanted to keep. During my father's life, there was always a shifting parade of objects on top of the meat freezer. He had hoped she'd take up arts and crafts, so there were baskets filled with green foam blocks and giant discarded jug-wine bottles that, if she found the time, might make beautiful terrariums. Acorns, horse chestnuts, boxes of goggle eyes, and distinctly shaped twigs. River rocks polished in my father's workshop. Odd bits of driftwood he'd collected. And a pristine economy-size Elmer's that ruled over it all.
The gun had been my mother's idea.
"What does he want with a gun?" I whispered to her while Hamish was washing up. "Why not cash?"
"He's a grown man," my mother said. "Emily just gave birth to a child."
But by the time I could trace my mother's thought process and figure out that this was my mother's way of pointing out that both Hamish and Emily were adults, the insanity train had left the station and I was in the basement, showing Hamish the rack of guns.
We stood in front of the meat freezer as he took up each rifle and held it in his hands, testing the weight of it.
"I know nothing about guns, except that they're cool," he said.
I was no help. I watched him lean each rifle out of the wooden rack and hold it inexpertly by its stock as if it were a particularly
[5 4]
The Almost Moon
thick-stemmed weed he had pulled from the ground. Hamish, like Natalie, provided the perfect light contrast to my darkness.
Until she began to sprout enough
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