Above the Houses by Susan Engberg

Author:Susan Engberg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Delphinium Books
Published: 2010-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

Brother and sister ate with their plates on their knees sitting side by side on Mrs. Willet’s beige couch, the teapot and mugs and salt and pepper on a tray balanced on the cushion between them. There were mushrooms and garlic and scallions and broccoli bits and goat cheese inside the folds of egg, cilantro on top, a dollop of chutney. She had made toast and spread it with sesame butter.

“This is really weird food—but not half bad,” he said. “When did you learn how to cook?”

“I cooked at home a lot—you must remember. Mom would be lying down with another headache and I’d be cooking.”

“Maybe I forgot.”

“But I didn’t make stuff like this. We ate wrong—are you aware of that?”

“If I were picky, I’d have starved long ago.” He pointed across the room with his fork. “Where’d you get that sewing machine?”

He’d noticed: how touching. “Bought it,” she said, “with the money from the wedding stuff.”

“You should have gotten a computer instead.”

“I don’t need a computer.”

“That’s stupid—everyone needs a computer. So what are you trying to sew?”

“A jacket.”

“You should be doing other things.”

“Roger. Sewing is something I know how to do—I’m good at it.”

“Why do you waste your time worrying about clothes?”

“I don’t worry about clothes, I enjoy them.” She thought about how pleasure in clothes was one of the few things she had shared with their mother, who had taken her shopping, who had taught her—impatiently, nervously, her hands sometimes trembling, yet still had taught her—to plan, to cut, to sew.

“Clothes are part of what’s wrong with the world.”

“Come on, if people wear clothes, they might as well be nice ones.”

“What’s it for, Mona? Tell me.”

“Why are we talking about this?”

“Clothes got Mom absolutely nowhere—you, either.”

“You can be so awful to me.”

“Reality is good.”

“This isn’t the only reality—it’s just the way you think.” She noticed that in spite of his strong opinions, he had managed to clean his plate. “You think I’m frivolous.” She took his plate and stacked it on her own. “Well, that’s not the way I look at things.” Then, close to lapsing into foul words, she carried the tray into the kitchen. If all boys were this fragile, this bossy, why on earth were they allowed to run the world? Which, if you were looking for what was wrong with the whole setup, was more to the point than people’s costumes. She rinsed the plates and scrubbed the omelet pan and the cutting board like mad, and when she returned to the living room Roger’s head was tipped back, his mouth open, eyes closed. Look at him. No matter how much he tormented her, she could never see herself as anything other than in relation to him—a brother, how mysterious.

Mona stole to her sewing table and switched on the floor lamp and the hooded bulb over the needle of the machine. It was quiet, nothing even from Mrs. Willet’s television; maybe the widow with her appalling lack of funds was at this very moment standing on a ladder with her ear to the ceiling.

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