Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 16 Read Online Free PDF Page B

each other, and they pull, fighting, straining. It will take a long while for those molecules to own their paths, but when they do, the dreams will come, the call growing stronger as the distance and time lengthens, distorts. I promise you, my son, these molecules can break, will break. I cannot promise it will be bloodless or monsterless.
    * * * *
    The Visitors
    Sometimes people come and the house is alive and pulsates, and then they go away. I cannot keep track of their visits, when they arrive, when they go. That is part of my husband taking me here; that is how I know this world is not real.
    I fall asleep in the middle of the day and wake with deep creases on my cheek, the fire long cold ash. It feels as if I have slept a minute, my bones still ache, but my son seems taller, my husband grayer. Other times I drift away from the loud crowd at supper, the gifts they pull from sleeves and pockets, and go sit alone on a cushion in front of the fire. Just as the fire sparks, a coal jumps to the grate, my husband pushes back a chair to thank our guests—I fall into deepest slumber: bottomless, wavy dreams that do not disturb. My son shakes me, “Mama, Papa says to come for dessert,” and I raise up from the bottom of an ocean, breaking open into the same piece of coal glowing red hot, just out of the grate's safety; my husband's commanding voice, the rustle of guests. I stretch, my voice deep and raspy. The crowd still at the table, but are they the same? There is an art to disappearing; these people do it well.
    Other times I wander the portrait gallery, portraits of people waiting to happen. Their eyes beg me to look away, to take my cold stare and return to my room. They ask my husband why he picked me, why he brought me here, when they knew I would only send you away. There is a picture of me, old, stooped, in a loose cotton shift, standing in front of a car that looks more like a horse-cart. There is a picture of me as a baby, in the gown of a noblewoman, surrounded by attendants. Your father nods and smiles when he finds me here, telling him this. He thinks I will piece it all together, and become whole. He is careful to keep his eyes from my left hand at all times. I can never be whole.
    The party the night he got me. Took me, won me, found me, wooed me. I cannot remember that. I think if I could remember that, all of this would disappear: this house, my son, these long hours in front of the fireplace. Maybe.
    If I get tired, if the grayness is too much, I could open the book and page back. And then I would find myself in a new town, a new place. The place where there are carnivals and swirling teacups. I would see my son, holding the hand of a strange mother, but our eyes would meet. I would be older, a tired woman in a solitary apartment, with grown children who would tell me funny stories and show me photographs about Sunday picnics at an aunt's house. I would see my son, but he would be a homeless man in a wheelchair under the People Mover, and I would pass you by without a coin in your cup, without a glance in your eye.
    There will be a time when I am ready to go back, unless I am too tired. Then I will go back to my husband's bed, and fall asleep, and never wake up.
    This is the place where all lost things go. Socks, my sunglasses, a book of poetry in another language. Things that I put in one place that disappeared. One day I put myself in one place and disappeared. My other life sits empty and waiting. Where you go, I cannot follow. Where he went, I should not have gone. When I found you, my son.
    I sit in front of the fire and it is tomorrow. It is still this morning. Your father brings in endless cups of tea and smiles. He promised that all I had to do is ask, and the ring is mine. That I can go wherever, whenever I please. He knows I am sad here and does not understand why I do not leave. That it would kill me and kill him.
    He treats me like a little child, slowly, the first tricks. A rabbit in a hat. Doves