you, Anne.”
“We’ll manage just fine,” she called over her shoulder.
When we got back in the car, the windows were so coated in red dust it felt dark and cramped inside. Anne promised the ride to her house would be short, so I sat ready to get out, not even touching my back to the seat as we passed cactus, sage brush, more of the mountain I knew, and the colorful houses of her neighborhood. The driveway led to a yellow cottage, and when she got out of the car, she once again slammed the door with surprising force, locking the seatbelt on the outside of it. We walked into what looked like a hotel room—carpet striped by the vacuum cleaner, artwork that matched both the sofa fabric and the wallpaper. Then there were the violins, barely noticeable at first, like music in a waiting room, but soon it was what you noticed above all else.
I walked over to the couch. “Just a minute,” she said abruptly.
A moment later she returned with a towel and laid it down, indicating where I was now allowed to sit. I decided to stand.
“I’m sorry,” she said, finally, as if only just noticing what a weird idea it was. “It’s expensive fabric. My house isn’t very wellequipped for children.” She walked to the kitchen, her floral dress blending with the wallpaper as she reached to a shelf of fruit-themed teacups and saucers. “I want you to be happy here, Tillie. Juice?”
Though I hadn’t answered, she poured something brown into a teacup painted with tiny strawberries and set it at the kitchen table. I stayed where I was.
“Would you like to play backgammon?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“I’m afraid there aren’t any girls your age nearby,” she said.
“Doesn’t matter.”
I opened the sliding glass doors to the backyard.
“Maybe get dressed first?” she suggested, but I was already outside.
There was nothing in the backyard but a wilted garden and some chairs stacked in a corner of the patio. Most of the yard was grass—dry as straw—that poked my ankles. There was no reason to stay outside except for it was not inside , where Anne sprayed Windex on the glass to wipe away my fingerprints.
My brother would have thought up a good way to spend the time. Before he got so serious, before everyone became so fond of calling him the young soldier, he was a kid with a lucky rabbit’s foot attached to his belt and was the best at inventing games just when you thought there was nothing to play. We made our own ink by pounding flowers with rocks, adding water, and stirring with our fingers. We danced to the cardboard records we cut off the backs of cereal boxes. And sometimes we pretended to steal Dad’s briefcase full of top secret work. We’d blow things up, then run back to invent bigger weapons as we needed them.
Without my brother, I only thought of things like how hot Iwas and how much I didn’t like to be tickled, even by grass. I stood on that blazing patio for as long as I could stand it until, defeated, I went back through the sliding glass doors and sat on the towel.
I stared forward at the TV set, though it was not on. We didn’t have a TV at home—not one that worked anyway. Dad once bought a kit, and successfully built the heavy wooden frame, but the electronics proved more difficult. The picture was snowy, and stripes moved up the screen, then started again from the bottom. After several attempts at taking the tubes and coils out and putting them back in again, he declared the kit “defective” and the frame became just another place to set things on in the living room. Some of the fathers in our neighborhood liked to tease him for this, saying, “How are you supposed to shoot a missile into space if you can’t put a television kit together?”
Anne, for the longest time, tidied the already-clean room, humming along to the violins and arranging a collection of painted thimbles into a circle. When the last thimble was in place, she said, “I’m trying to do your father a favor.
“We’ll manage just fine,” she called over her shoulder.
When we got back in the car, the windows were so coated in red dust it felt dark and cramped inside. Anne promised the ride to her house would be short, so I sat ready to get out, not even touching my back to the seat as we passed cactus, sage brush, more of the mountain I knew, and the colorful houses of her neighborhood. The driveway led to a yellow cottage, and when she got out of the car, she once again slammed the door with surprising force, locking the seatbelt on the outside of it. We walked into what looked like a hotel room—carpet striped by the vacuum cleaner, artwork that matched both the sofa fabric and the wallpaper. Then there were the violins, barely noticeable at first, like music in a waiting room, but soon it was what you noticed above all else.
I walked over to the couch. “Just a minute,” she said abruptly.
A moment later she returned with a towel and laid it down, indicating where I was now allowed to sit. I decided to stand.
“I’m sorry,” she said, finally, as if only just noticing what a weird idea it was. “It’s expensive fabric. My house isn’t very wellequipped for children.” She walked to the kitchen, her floral dress blending with the wallpaper as she reached to a shelf of fruit-themed teacups and saucers. “I want you to be happy here, Tillie. Juice?”
Though I hadn’t answered, she poured something brown into a teacup painted with tiny strawberries and set it at the kitchen table. I stayed where I was.
“Would you like to play backgammon?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“I’m afraid there aren’t any girls your age nearby,” she said.
“Doesn’t matter.”
I opened the sliding glass doors to the backyard.
“Maybe get dressed first?” she suggested, but I was already outside.
There was nothing in the backyard but a wilted garden and some chairs stacked in a corner of the patio. Most of the yard was grass—dry as straw—that poked my ankles. There was no reason to stay outside except for it was not inside , where Anne sprayed Windex on the glass to wipe away my fingerprints.
My brother would have thought up a good way to spend the time. Before he got so serious, before everyone became so fond of calling him the young soldier, he was a kid with a lucky rabbit’s foot attached to his belt and was the best at inventing games just when you thought there was nothing to play. We made our own ink by pounding flowers with rocks, adding water, and stirring with our fingers. We danced to the cardboard records we cut off the backs of cereal boxes. And sometimes we pretended to steal Dad’s briefcase full of top secret work. We’d blow things up, then run back to invent bigger weapons as we needed them.
Without my brother, I only thought of things like how hot Iwas and how much I didn’t like to be tickled, even by grass. I stood on that blazing patio for as long as I could stand it until, defeated, I went back through the sliding glass doors and sat on the towel.
I stared forward at the TV set, though it was not on. We didn’t have a TV at home—not one that worked anyway. Dad once bought a kit, and successfully built the heavy wooden frame, but the electronics proved more difficult. The picture was snowy, and stripes moved up the screen, then started again from the bottom. After several attempts at taking the tubes and coils out and putting them back in again, he declared the kit “defective” and the frame became just another place to set things on in the living room. Some of the fathers in our neighborhood liked to tease him for this, saying, “How are you supposed to shoot a missile into space if you can’t put a television kit together?”
Anne, for the longest time, tidied the already-clean room, humming along to the violins and arranging a collection of painted thimbles into a circle. When the last thimble was in place, she said, “I’m trying to do your father a favor.
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