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Show space, and at night I enjoy falling asleep to his ragged baby breaths. Gathered at the round table my father made for me, we sit with my mother, who was, only moments ago, painting her toenails, drawing the pink polish from the bottle as if balancing a pearl on the end of a wand. Now she has gone. Maybe she is in the kitchen taking the bread out of the oven or answering the front door. Perhaps she has to stir the soup that bubbles on the stove or the pasta sauce. Maybe she is painting her nails because my parents are going out that night and she has left the room to call the babysitter, arrange the time, figure out transportation. Bryan and I remain at the table, me swinging my legs against the chair, him standing up by holding onto the edge, neither of us noticing when the furnace comes on or when the cat walks in or if the sun has sunk below the windows. I am counting pennies from an old Yuban coffee can that my mother has painted brilliant green with pale white and yellow flowers twisting around the sides. Spare change. The counting is something I often do, stacking the worn copper pennies in piles of tens, organizing the unknowable into exact amounts. They have become my pipes. When I am finished I will return the money to the can so that I can sort again later. For now I create rows of copper pennies, dimes and nickels thrown to the ground so as not to confuse the order. Ten, twenty, thirty, and, at a hundred, a dollar. Out of the corner of my eye, always the corner for me, always not quite full on, I see Bryan drinking the finger nail polish remover. He has removed the pink top from the Cutex bottle, the sharp odor burning my nostrils and filling the room, and brings it, wobbling, to his mouth. I can't be bothered with anything that might interrupt my work. So much depends on these rows. I know he is drinking it, yet I sort and count, sort and 63 |