Hap and Hazard and the End of the World by Diane DeSanders

Author:Diane DeSanders
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781942658375
Publisher: Bellevue Literary Press
Published: 2017-11-08T00:00:00+00:00

The Fish Pond

High on a slope of thick grass above wide, curving Armstrong Parkway, two-story fat white columns, double doors, two car–width driveway up the side to a three-car garage full of Cadillacs—more Cadillacs and Chevys parked all down the block. It’s Easter Sunday at Nana and GranDad’s house.

Brick walkways, boxwood, English ivy, a bed of purple pansies, the smell of frying chicken coming from the back door and wafting out over the covered porch, and there’s the sizzling, the laughing, the talking, ice clinking in glasses, children chasing one another in grass-stained organdy pinafores, screen doors slamming, and there’s Elise sweating over and forking sizzling chicken from two popping iron skillets onto greasy paper bags.

Elise whispers she’s saving a wishbone just for me. Daddy grabs a drumstick, stands over the sink bolting it, burning his mouth, Elise saying, “Just get out of my chicken, Mr. Dick!”

You walk through the kitchen, a butler’s pantry, and a breakfast room before you get to the garden room at the back, where a crowd of grown-ups stand around with drinks. At first, we all mill around in church dresses and white cotton gloves and patent-leather shoes, aunts, uncles in suits, cousins, Granny and Papaw, friends of Nana’s, everybody with big smiles, eyeing one another.

I see Oliver across the garden room, and I see him see me. He turns and walks away into the living room. I go around the other way.

While the grown-ups are talking and the little ones are picking out Easter baskets, I go into the foyer to look at Nana’s snuff box and pillbox collection, which is in a glass case under the stairs. I pick out in my mind the ones I would like to take. From there, I drift around into the living room, but Oliver’s already gone.

Nana’s house is more perfect than Granny’s house or our house or any house I’ve ever seen. It’s filled with antiques, paintings, books, toys, music, flowers, cut-crystal dishes of candy. There’s a wide curving staircase in the front hall with a polished brass banister you’re not supposed to touch. Everything is beautiful. We used to come to Nana’s house after Sunday school every week, but after all the babies born at the end of the war grew big enough to constantly chase each other and fight, Nana would always be standing on the staircase, saying she had a headache. Then GranDad started taking us to feed the ducks on Lakeside Drive instead, and then to Beck’s Fried Chicken after that. Now we come here for Thursday-night dinners, or for Christmas, or for the big Easter egg hunt every year, like today.

I wander through the house, looking at every single thing. I don’t dare steal anything at Nana’s house; I’m just checking out the many things to look at, everything so interesting and so grand. There are cherubs and porcelain ladies in fancy dresses—the Dresden and Meissen that Nana talks about collecting. All the women talk about the things to have in your beautiful house.

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