Family

On a sunny Saturday we hosted a birthday party for a loved one. Soundtrack: Heijera — the entire LP front and back twice. I can never get enough Jaco. We enjoyed lasagna, green salad, and sage and parsley garlic bread elbow to elbow around the Saarinen. In a departure from my usual French drama, we drank Famiglie Montepulciano d’Abruzzo 2020, with a nose of sweet leather half-buried in the garden, mouthfeel like butter, and a grape jelly finish. After dinner we walked to the retaining pond, collecting Exceptional Sticks from the woods along the way. ...

One short vanilla breve and one short hot cocoa to go before hitting the grocery store. No boys. Big smiles.

A visit to Grandpa’s house means dog spit, hair and barking, Coors Light, cheese crackers, giant weeds, root beer, chips and salsa, theological debate, playing in the sandbox, grilled sausage and peppers, a walk to the playground, indecent desserts and a sleepy ride home.

Six years ago today I sat next to my mother’s hospital bed and held her hand, listening for her final breath. I watched the spiky glowing line of her heart monitor flatten into a solid neon smoothness. After she was gone, I loosened the neck of her hospital gown and gently stroked her still-warm belly, criss-crossed by the stretch marks I had made from within her. When I was twelve years old, she wrote this letter to me, just before heading into the surgery that would define the rest of her life. She was not sure she would survive the operating table, and wanted to make certain that I knew just how much she loved me. I keep this note in my underwear drawer. I take it out and read it on days when I need her.

10:00 AM DST. Sunny, 30°F. Morning soundtrack is www.magnatune.com. Mom is knitting her first gauge swatch in preparation for the Big Knitting Project, and drinking a single cup of coffee with cream and sugar. Little girl is fingerknitting a scarf for her brother, but takes frequent breaks to Heely through the house. Little boy is eating tortilla chips and vitamins, waiting for math to begin.

Laura Lucia Roberto Anderson born March 20, 1918 died March 15, 2010 * *Her nickname was Ruby. She and my grandfather posed for this picture after Mass one sunny Palm Sunday on Long Island. Maybe they stopped by the bakery on their way home that day. I imagine my mother and her two brothers riding in the back seat of the car, holding their buttered rolls and watching the buildings blur through the windows.

While the preacher spoke of a world beyond the veil, one half of a mated pair caught his neck in a loop of nylon cord that he or his mate had worked into their nest. He parted the louvers covering the exhaust vent and launched himself through to the outside. I closed the car door, then stood on the sidewalk, staring up at the side of the house. His bloodied head looked as though it was glued to the metal slats, and was twisted at an odd angle to his body dangling below. His mate clung to his bottom half, flapping her wings as if trying to fly for two, swinging them both back and forth. She flitted to an overhanging branch and watched as we freed his body from the vent and the plastic. I buried him in the garden bed along the back fence. ...