Dept. Of Speculation

6

His mother was visiting when we went to look at the apartment. She pointed out the church across the street. It pleased her that you could see Jesus on the cross if you leaned a little out the window. This was a good sign, she thought, and was not canceled out by the fact that her son no longer believed in him.

When we first saw the apartment, we were excited that it had a yard but disappointed that the yard was filled by a large jungle gym that we didn’t need. Later, when we signed the lease, we were happy about the jungle gym because I’d learned that I was pregnant and we could imagine its uses. But by the time we moved in, we had found out that the baby’s heart had stopped and now it just made us sad to look out the window at it.

I remember that day, how you took a $50 cab from work, how you held me in the doorway until I stopped shaking. We had told people. We had to untell them. You did it so I wouldn’t have to speak. Later, you made me a dinner of all the things I hadn’t been allowed to eat. Cured meat, unpasteurized cheese. Two bottles of wine, then finally, sleep.

I fed the birds outside my window. Sparrows, I believed them to be.

Q. Is the sparrow a native of this country?

A. It is now, but not long ago there were no sparrows in America.

Q. Why were the sparrows brought to this country?

A. Because the insects were killing so many trees that the sparrows were needed to destroy the insects.

Q. Did the sparrows save the trees?

A. Yes, the trees were saved.

Q. In wintertime when there are no insects and snow is on the ground, does not the sparrow have a hard time?

A. Yes, he has a very hard time, and many die of hunger.

The woman with the white hair and the mustache always held up the line at Rite Aid. Sometimes I waited fifteen minutes just to buy my antacids. Ever since I’d gotten pregnant again, I’d gobbled up a pack a day. But my big belly never swayed her. She would not be hurried. One afternoon I watched as she presented her items one by one to the handsome young clerk.

“You’re lucky,” she said to him. “You still have it all ahead of you. My sister and I both have genius IQs. I went to Cornell. Do you know what that is?”

The clerk smiled but shook his head no.

“It’s an Ivy League school. But it doesn’t matter. It all comes to nothing in the end.”

Carefully, he bagged her groceries. Toothpaste, itching cream, off-brand candy. “Take care of yourself,” he told her when she left, but she lingered in the doorway. “When are you working again?” she asked him. “Do you have your schedule yet?”