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For blankety-five years Dad and his heirlooms have transitioned from chic to shabby, and now a trickle of bargain hunters clutching Penny-Savers are picking through a houseful of incongruous clothing and furniture “priced to move” on little red stickers like drops of blood with penciled numbers, the fours shaped like sailboats, the sevens slashed through as the nuns taught him. It’s Dad’s first and only downsize, a milestone as heavy as the English oak sideboard, $95 OBO you haul it. He wouldn’t hire a service or let me organize the sale, so I worry. I woke this morning from a dream of Dad pirouetting down a catwalk with his walker, doffing his toupee and catching his heels in the cuffs of his old dress pants. His price on every item is ludicrous but appropriate to the year he bought it. Of all the tongue-cluckers, one couple seems motivated, or the wife does. She’s looking for faults in the bedroom furniture while her husband stands, neck broken, scanning the titles in the bookcase. She doesn’t know what to say to Dad, so she lets him spin his yarn. He’s describing the “bedroom suit” and how he and Mom shattered the boxspring with newlywed acrobatics here in the only house they ever owned. A sly grin follows, then a chuckle, then a sob, then silence. She says “I know, I know” and touches his arm, then produces cash from a very tight purse and starts peeling off bill after bill. I don’t think she’s counting. She calls to her husband to bring the truck, then wipes her cheek and sighs and starts removing the wardrobe drawers. I watch Dad’s face to see if he’s all right. He catches my eye and winks, and fans his face with a handful of hundreds.
Original Copyright © March 01, 2007
Revised Copyright © March 06, 2026
My favorite Thursday couple, smug but theoretically generous, sufficient to one another and seemingly self-contained, aspired to something more. To hear her talk of the baby was to be present at his creation. Of words she formed his little head with its wispy hair redolent of soap and spilled milk. She pressed the word Lips to the word Forehead and graced the baby’s path with choice and welcoming wide horizons. Yes, she was rhetorical. Yes, she had time on her hands. She wouldn’t be a casual mother, but too much planning had its perils, too, and she was nothing if not alive to the perils. The baby, the baby so long desired, the baby reluctant or eager, ready or not, was never consulted. At night in bed, her long warm body nestled along his long warm body insistently stirring, his arm around her waist and breath hot on her neck, she wanted to shake herself free of the future and fuck, but the baby, the unborn baby whose room was ready but whose parents were not, the baby was sleeping in ignorance too near, too lightly, and might wake if she did, might wake into fear in a dark room unfamiliar alone. She took his hand in hers and pressed it to her breast and hoped he’d fall asleep. The husband had no idea what she thought. He figured it was something to do with the nursery and painted it seven times over, once as an aquarium, once as a baseball diamond with fans in the stands, never guessing it was him she wanted to remodel. He had his visions of the future, too, and I grew tired of telling them their visions didn’t reconcile. They think next year may be the year. I hope for the baby’s sake.
Copyright © April 24, 2007
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Very Short Novels 