Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 18 Read online

  My mother rose slowly from her chair, to root through a lower drawer of a rarely used cabinet. She returned with a pot which held the same oily cream I used on Cantu. Mother motioned me to come to her and I did, allowing her to work the cream into my hands. Her touch was gentle this time, my fingers straightening as they warmed.

  "My mother used to stitch,” she said, “and I watched her vanish, bit by bit into the cloth and thread. I vowed I would never become what she did, vowed that my daughter would never.” Her thumb pressed against the tip of my middle finger hard enough to make me whimper. “I forbid you to return."

  "What would you have me do, Mother? Spend my days waiting for Father as you do?” I envisioned myself as my mother, by her side, growing as gray as the days around her. She awaited word, but truly wanted none, otherwise she would have opened the post upon its arrival.

  She dropped my hands and wiped her own clean before leaving me alone in the flickering firelight. I wiped my hands and sought the contents of the old drawer, discovering a wealth of needlework that must have been made by my grandmother's hand. She had made the usual samplers, but after, deeper into her years, her work took a turn toward shadowed images, of women walking into the woods, of a glimpse thrown over a shoulder half caught in stitches.

  I felt anxious in my very bones. Perhaps it was the same for the geese, the way they know it is time to leave a place. Something in the warming wind, the bluing sky, the shredding clouds.

  Leaving was not a simple thing. I wondered if the birds would long for this landscape once they left, or if it was something banished to distant memory. They would come again, in another season, but would I?

  I tried to say goodbye to my mother, but she turned her papery cheek away from my kiss, as though I had already gone. I snatched the stack of letters from her table, meaning to scatter them into the fire if she never meant to read them, but the sight of my father's handwriting upon one made me stop.

  I cast the others aside and dropped his into her lap, against Taff's gray head. It lay untouched as I left the room, my vision blurring.

  I tried to imprint the house upon my memory, the way it sat near the river, in the flowing shade of willows during the summer, in the rough yellow grasses during winter. Its square gray walls were solid, the windows narrow. The chimney likely needed cleaning.

  Still, I knew there were things I would forget. Cantu's hand gently gripped my own as the gypsy wagons rolled out of the valley. The geese soon followed.

  Over the coming months I came to add beads to my indigo silk, and though the needle continued to bite my fingers, I kept on. It was difficult to sit with a straight back, more comfortable to hunch over the work and hold it close to my eyes. My closing hands made the perfect shape to hold the fabric as I worked, my tongue perfectly familiar with the delicate vein of thread between my teeth.

  It was many winters before we chanced to travel through the land of my childhood again. Many seasons of stitching, of following birds in flight, of blushing and ceasing to blush at young men bathing in summer-warm lakes.

  I stepped from my own wagon, painted indigo by Samson to match my first silk, onto the hard, yellow plain and looked upon the manor house. It appeared smaller and grayer than I remembered, its edges now indistinct against the horizon. I stretched my legs, my back, and caught Sani's knowing eyes upon me. Perhaps it was not chance that brought us here to rest.

  That evening I folded my silken scarf, now fully adorned with the story of my first year's journey, and placed it within a muslin bag. This I took to the kitchen door, to Janette who cried to see me. She clasped me in her arms, smelling ever of flour and yeast, and I gave her the scarf.

  "Give this to my mother,” I said and fled before I gave in to the tears that wanted to come.

  I woke in the early morning hours to the sound of geese low overhead. I watched them alight upon the field, some stepping onto the frozen lake, each stride carefully taken. Geese, too, know that ice can give way.

  My mother came to me at evening as the amber sun broke through tattered gray clouds, much as I remembered her, quiet and small, but she now brought with her a sense of peace rather than melancholy. Her face remained smooth, her eyes bright. Around her neck, she wore my indigo scarf.

  In one hand, she held a letter which I would later learn spoke of my father's battlefield death; a good friend had brought his heart home and Mother had buried it beneath the rusting sundial in the garden.

  In her other hand, she held a scrap of fabric. From my grandmother's collection or not, I took it to be a sign of hope. It was faded and fraying, perhaps once blue now gray, but enough of it remained.

  I guided my mother to the steps of my wagon. She tucked the letter in her pocket and touched my lined face. She chuckled at the round spectacles which perched on my nose.

  "My Joan,” she said. “How it has changed you—and how it has not.” She pressed her fabric into my gnarled hands; it was warm as though it had been worn next to her skin.

  "Can you teach me this?” she asked.

  Above us geese circled as if on strings, blown by the cooling wind. Full winter would soon be upon us. I carefully held my mother's hands within my own, fabric nested between.

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  A Half-Lizard Boy, A Reptile Man, and An Unjaded, Shiny Something

  Matthew Lee Bain

  Summer sweat runs like a fever: sweet and sick; saline licks of forehead drips; eyes and bees sting; rain is less than a memory, and a memory is more than a flood. When my skin starts to crisp and crack—turn to scales and shed—I remember a half-lizard boy named Me, Luke, a dad named Him, a full-grown reptile man—cold-blooded and all—and a momma named Her, a jewel, as pretty as sunshine and not a lizard at all. Momma was an unjaded, shiny something with too many layers. She could say things like, “Pick me the stars, reptile man, they wanna wear me.” She would say things like, “Can't you do something, reptile man? something beautiful and shining? for me? a something that would twinkle?"

  And Dad would say things like, “You have enough stuff that sparkles, don't you?"

  "Something...” she'd mumble, “please,” and start to cry a little.

  "Don't start this with me now, don't cry ... I, I'll buy you something, just stop crying! Stop that!” But the reptile man never understood that what she wanted he couldn't buy, and what she longed for, he couldn't give. Other times she'd be quiet, like library people, and wash dishes or clean; she made things shine. When the great king reptile scuttled to work, Momma and I would tell stories and play games. She'd tell stories about the amber moon and of how it would be stolen by thieves during the day and about a place past the moon, where there were:

  "Insects made of emerald, that never would bite, people made of crystal, that never would lie, nights made of onyx, that never would frighten, and skies made of sapphires, that never would fall..."

  And I asked and I wished that there could be dinosaurs!

  "Yes! Yes! Yes!” she said. “Big ones—like our reptile man—made of topaz, that never would yell.” After that, we'd play lizard games: I would scurry on all fours, or elbows and knees, while Momma would try to catch me. But even then, I'd squirm free; but even then ... Dad would come home and chill us with his cold blood. He couldn't help it, he was born a reptile.

  "Stop it, Jewel! The floors are dirty ... why do you have him crawling around? Why!? Can't I trust you to take care of my boy? Can't I? Huh? Trust you at all?"

  "He's a lizard because of you! I'm only teaching him to shed his skin!” And if Dad would get real mad, she'd start screaming. The same word over and over:

  "Cold! Cold! Cold! Cold! Cold! Cold!” until Dad and I wanted to crawl away because she was too bright, and jewels aren't supposed to scream.

  Then one day, right after the fourth of July, I decided that I would get Momma some twinkles. But even then, I didn't understand what she really wanted and needed ... even then. Every day on the roadside and every night on the roadside, I'd see t
he shines and twinkles in the gravel. There were pretty things like Momma liked, right at the roadside, right there. I thought they'd wear her. They could be seen every day and every night; why didn't my body get them? The moon liked them, the sun liked them, I liked them, and Momma would like them. Going outside that day, I told Momma that I wouldn't go far and lied a little because lizards and boys shouldn't play by the road. But I had to.

  The sun wore me and made my old, once-white, now fever-yellow undershirt stick to my back. Barefoot on the cooking strip of jet road, I scurried off into the gravel while cars zoomed by. Gravel was cooler but meaner. I tiptoed to there! And there! Where I found an emerald! A ruby! A sapphire! A diamond! I caught them as quickly as I could, and they made my hands itch like chigger bites. Before long, I had a bunch and Momma would like them all. Cars were zooming, my feet were angry, my hands were itchy and wet, and sweat was coming out of my head. That's enough, I thought, and began to stand up, when there—running from the house—was Momma, running to me!

  "Momma!” I called. “You ruined it. My surprise.” She stopped three feet in front of me and put her hands to her faceted face; she had lapis lazuli eyes and sapphire swirls smeared around them that dripped down her face and onto garnet lips. I held my hands up to show her the precious things, and I was holding on tight because I didn't want to lose any and because they were small. And my hands were soaking wet, and ruby-red drops and sticky strings were running between my fingers and onto my toes, so I thought maybe I was dropping rubies at first. Momma's garnet lips opened, and words as sharp as diamonds came out:

  "No! No! No! Nooo! Nooo! Nooo! Nooo! Noooo! No! No! No! No!” A car stopped, and someone got out. Momma kept screaming the same thing, “Nooo! Nooo! No! No!” I put my wet, full hands around her and tried to cool her down with my half-lizard skin. She hit the big person, who swore and said he'd “call the authorities, you crazy bitch!” Momma had turned to stone, and I had, too, because I was touching her. Then the police came and couldn't understand. And the king reptile came home and found us, as we were at the roadstead, with policemen who wanted Momma to be worn by their bracelets, but she didn't like silver.

  "Maybe if they were crystal,” she said. Dad made everything freeze; Momma and I turned to sapphire glaciers. Dad made the policemen go away with negative temperatures, which summer had never seen. Dad got Momma and I to shift back to a silent jewel and a half-lizard boy. We went home.

  After I washed my hands and the gems that I'd found, and put the gems away, some doctors gave me stings and strings. The doctors wanted to take my jewels. I screamed and cried ‘til Dad put the roadside jewelry into a baggy and took us home.

  Momma left for a while because the reptile man took her somewhere. Sometimes he took me there to see her, and she wasn't very shiny and was always tired. She cried about missing the stars and the moon and the onyx night, the shiny things. At home I had a keeper who fed me while Dad was away. But she wasn't beautiful like Momma, and the sun didn't like her she didn't like the moon, and she wasn't good at dealing with half-lizard boys.

  When Momma came home, her lids were lower, she kept busy and slept a lot, and she didn't know very many stories anymore. She didn't want me crawling or scurrying, as was my nature, and she was not as vibrant. Dad said she was better now—safer now—but she was dull and opaque, instead of shiny and twinkly. Why? On another day, she told me that Dad had taken her to a place where they wore away her shiny coating, and she hoped that I'd never have to go there. She was so different. I'd wonder why and cry, and sometimes I'd quietly wake her in the middle of the night—so Dad wouldn't hear—and take her to a window, so that she could remember the stars, and moon, and night, and other shiny things. Momma would smile, but her lips weren't garnet; her eyes weren't lapis lazuli. I kept asking her about the place with emerald insects that didn't bite, and crystal people that didn't lie, and onyx nights that didn't frighten, and sapphire skies that didn't fall ... and topaz dinosaurs—big ones—that didn't yell. She asked me over and over if I would care if she went there. I said I'd be happy and shiny if she was happy and shiny. She told me that she loved me more than brilliant shining anythings, and I said I loved her that way too.

  Some time later I found her sleeping on the bathroom floor with a little brown empty in her hand and her favorite water glass all spilled and broken. Her eyes were wide and lapis lazuli, her lips were open and garnet, and her skin was pearly. And even before Dad got home and screamed unlike a reptile and called lots of people over, I knew. I knew she'd gotten to that other place that she loved. And I loved her then and now and was and am happy and shiny because she is happy and shiny—there.

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  Two Poems

  Sunshine Ison

  The Posthumous Voyages

  of Christopher Columbus

  The mark of a mediocre captain, or a blessed one, is that his journey ends with death. His body fixed in earth, now unshaken by waves. Not so, Columbus.

  First, dug up in Valladolid and carted to Seville.

  A long haul in the hold to Santo Domingo. Then packed up with the other treasures and sent to Cuba in 1795.

  Last, in 1898, turning tail from the Americans and going home to a dwindled Spain, a half-rotted Odysseus arriving to no grand welcome, bones clinking loose from all this wear.

  Focal-hand dystonia—a disorder common to factory workers and musicians, whose fingers map a series of motions again and again, until the index, say, loses its ego and can no longer act separately from the thumb. The hand will play its scales, will twist its screws, no matter what. Amidst rat-nibbled biscuits,

  Columbus dreams about the seamstress who holds him fast, who even in her sleep stitches the hemispheres together, and he is her needle.

  * * * *

  And If They Are Not Dead,

  They May Be Living Still

  In the forest near Chernobyl, men no longer go to hunt.

  Left alone, the animals are lethargic, wander indolently like an idle boy in an old aunt's parlor.

  They forget their own names.

  The doves and swallows did not come back.

  Marya Akimova tells her children the same stories her grandmother told her, stories that did not make much sense when she was young.

  But her daughters listen without questions, nodding sagely as if these were things they already knew.

  She tells them of Baba Yaga, the witch who lived in a house with chicken legs, about boys who were also wolves, and rabbits with brazen eyes like giant copper coins, about magic fish that didn't look like fish, and babies born and abandoned.

  At night she climbs into bed and lets down her hair, says aloud to the place beside her where her husband used to lie,

  "I don't know, I thought those were tales of olden times, things that were gone and would not return. I said to my grandmother, we are beyond all that. But I don't know.

  Maybe we are walking in circles on a long road.

  Do you know,” she says,

  "men do not even hunt in the forest anymore."

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  A Static of Names

  Peter Bebergal

  "Love is not insects and flora. There is no taxonomy for it.” This was one of the last things Charlotte said to me before she died.

  The room was difficult to be in. Charlotte could tolerate very little light, and a humidifier, with its own sickly sort of wheezing, kept the room tropically moist. Normally she did not speak much, but when she did, it was to list my faults, as if in her final moments she wanted to make sure nothing was left unsaid. But on this night, she laid bare the faulty quality of my love. She was not cruel. I did not feel picked on in any way. It was simply Charlotte's way of telling me what she thought I might want to correct should I decide to marry again.

  Species. Genus. Family. Order. Each thing assigned a name according to its properties. There is no more elegant way of classifying the world. And Charlotte was right. I saw the duties toward love as l
ayers, each a greater part of the whole. And the greatest of these was this: sitting with your beloved as she wasted away into the nothingness, the phylum making its way back to the kingdom of the void.

  I know that Charlotte believed that I saw her as just another precious thing in my specimen cabinets, something to simply understand, to give a name to all its categories. Charlotte, of the species wife, of the genus woman, etc. But she was wrong. At least she was wrong in degree. You can only love something by understanding it, and to understand it, you must know its name. And so I believe, finally, that Charlotte didn't comprehend my love for her.

  For almost as long as I can remember, Charlotte was unwell. My most vivid memory of her in those last months is seeing her from a distance, lying in her downy bed, surrounded by great swaths of blankets and mountains of pillows. She would smile at me as I stood just outside her room, the air thick with steam. On the bedside table there was an old radio she kept on with the volume very low. It was mostly static, but there was the faint sound of music struggling to maintain its form. I would bring books to her and sometimes, if she allowed it, I would lie with her. Charlotte's hair was long tendrils of brown curls she let flow around her head. I would tangle my fingers in it as I laid with her, taking clumps of it to my nose and inhaling deeply the strange yet comforting smell; a mix of perfume, camphor, and sickness.

  My specimen cataloguing was still keeping me very preoccupied, but I did the best I could to attend to Charlotte. I never knew which day might be her last, and it was as if I was trying to organize my own work as quickly as I could so when the dreadful day came, I would be free to mourn. But this was impossible. Each fern, each seed pod, each beetle, required a careful system of classification: Arthropoda; Hexapoda; Insecta; Pterygota. There was always an infinity of names, each cross-referenced, indexed, and finally sorted into cabinet trays that lined the walls of my study. As much as I hoped this latest project would end before Charlotte did, it didn't come to pass. And so on that tempestuous July evening, I confess that I was thinking more about the nameless dragonfly on my desk than of what was about to come.