Heft - By Liz Moore Page 0,113

done the first day she came to me, & found no dust there. I lifted the cover off the keys and played a C-chord. It has not been tuned in more than a decade but it still sounds almost right. It was a gift from my father. When I was a boy I played seriously & I practiced all the time.

Then I put on the radio. Then I walked into my bedroom & tried to remember it as it was when I was a very small boy, when my parents lived there. I have a memory of climbing in bed with them in the morning, one of the few times they were happy together, O I must have been very small.

Then I walked to the wardrobe & opened it & remembered all of my mother’s dresses, how they hung in there from small (on the left) to large (on the right), & how she would lovingly finger the small ones & in misery tell me which events she had worn them to. Anna Ordinary.

Then I walked into the kitchen automatically, my brain was telling me to, the other-Arthur that lives in there. But when I opened my refrigerator I could not muster the energy, I simply could not, & so I closed it & leaned against it & wondered what would become of me. I felt anchorless. But also in some ways I felt weightless.

The fruit salad that Yolanda had made was sitting on the counter. She’d made it out of fruit that she ordered online. It was huge & beautiful. She had put two salad spoons in it. & a smaller bowl next to it so that I might serve myself.

So I did: I filled the bowl with beautiful fruit. Apples & pears & bananas & mangoes & grapes, red and green. Kiwis like stars on the top. Blueberries & strawberries & oranges & grapefruit. I went to the couch and almost turned on the television but I stopped myself. I sat with it instead. I put one blueberry in my mouth & closed my eyes. Inside of my mouth it burst & popped. Its blue flavor. Its juice. I swallowed it neatly & chose an apple piece next.

Outside the street was quiet.

When I was a boy there would have been shouting of one kind or another. A boy to another boy. A mother to her child. I miss these sounds.

A banana. I had forgotten bananas. Their warmth & charitable nature.

When I had finished I went to bed and realized that I could feel a rib if I poked hard enough into my stomach. I could feel one rib someplace deep inside my flesh.

In the morning I woke up later than I had in years. It was ten o’clock. Normally I get up at sunrise & I cannot go back to sleep. I lay in bed for a while listening for Yolanda, to see if she had returned—I had no basis to believe she would, but I listened nonetheless—but the house was silent as it had been the night before, & the windows rattled. There was a gusting wind outside. It was colder than it had been all month.

I read for a very long time & then I made lunch & then read some more. I put on the television & turned off the television.

• • •

I stay at the Harpers’ all afternoon. We play Wii with Lindsay’s little sisters in the basement. Over and over again they beat me at tennis. They kill me. Mrs. Harper comes downstairs and says Kel, would you like to stay over tonight?

They know about my practice this morning. Lindsay told them. They probably feel bad for me.

OK, I say. If you don’t mind.

I could go back to Rhonda’s but it’s warm here.

Their house is like the Cohens’. They give me a room of my own. Lindsay says, It was Andy’s.

This was his name: Andrew Harper. It’s the first time I’ve heard Lindsay say it. His room is light blue and dark blue.

I change before dinner and then I start down the stairs and then I hear Margo and Mrs. Harper talking in the kitchen.

How long is Kel staying here? Margo asked.

Just for tonight, says Mrs. Harper.

Why is he staying here?

Mrs. Harper pauses. He lost his mama, she says finally.

His mama? says Margo.

Yes, says Mrs. Harper. The way we lost Andy. He lost his mama.

Oh no, says Margo.

Oh no. I stand still in the hallway for a while after that. Lindsay finds me