Capsule

 

One was a hole. One was a stick. One let you pass. One bit. One was a bird. One was annoyed. One wore a lucky glove. One wore a hat pulled over thin hair. They rearranged the furniture. It was a lost civilization with broken bits scattered around. I lived alone in a small room. Outside it was so cold you would freeze to death in five minutes. I recorded my thoughts in a book. I was not writing to make friends. I was writing an ending. I lived this way for six months and didn’t miss anyone. When I opened the hatch, nothing was left but happy memories.

House

After my sister got married, my mother was sad and I pushed her out the door. She was wearing a thin robe, and it was cold. She banged and yelled, her hair flying. I laughed. What would she have done inside? Fingered the piano? Opened drawers as if they could speak? In time she grew quiet, as if she was released. Behind her was a hedge so tall it blocked the neighbor’s house. She could have walked away. Instead she stood on the puzzled patio, and we looked at each other through the glass door. I didn’t know where else to go, and I missed her.

Killer

 

Recently, my sister tells a story I have never heard. She is six and I am a baby, and we are at our grandparents’ apartment in Brooklyn. Ellen makes me cry, maybe accidentally, maybe on purpose, and my grandfather reprimands her and becomes so agitated he has a heart attack and dies. He drops dead on the living room floor. My mother starts moving from room to room, unable to calm herself or take action. She unzips her dress. She is so confused, she removes her clothes. My mother and grandmother are crying and speaking Yiddish in hysterical blasts while my grandfather lies dead on the floor. Ellen and I are in Starbucks. She leans in and says, It is something I have always felt guilty about. She looks sad. I am excited. I am not someone people trust their secrets to. She remembers discussing the incident with our mother when Ellen was 50 and Toby 75. Toby said, What are you talking about? Ellen said, It happened. Don’t you remember? Toby’s eyes got that drifty, shy-or-crazy look. She said, I never wanted to think about it, so I put it out of my mind. I like the drama swirling around. It makes me feel inside. My mother loved her father. He was the one she loved, and Ellen killed him, so to speak. Or I did: small, invisible provocateur.