Interior Design by Philip Graham

Author:Philip Graham
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Interior Design
ISBN: 0684803720
Publisher: Dzanc Books
Published: 1996-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

The Pose

In Isabel’s dream a baby floats inside her, in cushiony water that amplifies her heartbeat and stomach gurglings, even the faraway murmur of her already familiar voice. Her baby is a curled inner ear, but against such enveloping noise it folds slowly into its own silence, into a tiny, tightening knot. When Isabel feels a sharp cramp she knows what is shrinking within her. Desperate to draw her baby back from its vanishing, she coos, then cries, then screams out words of endearment until she awakes, still childless.

Morning light slants through the blinds. Isabel hurries from the bed and her still-sleeping husband, as if she could escape this recurring dream that mimics her miscarriages, escape what it releases inside her. One morning just last week she wanted so badly to slam the windows of the house up and down and shatter each pane. Now Isabel stands near the top of the stairs and regards the throw rug at her feet, with its diagonal pattern of white Vs over a blue weave that seems like a flight of birds. Nudging a slipper under the rug’s tangled fringe, she’s tempted to kick it in the air and watch it try to fly before it tumbles down.

She resists the impulse and steps lightly over the rug, but a faint tick on the third stair down sounds like an infant’s hiccup and her feet are suddenly fluid, not her own. She bounds down the stairs to the kitchen, where she stops and stares at the white refrigerator door. How easy it would be to reach in, turn off the thermostat, and wait for everything to warm and spoil. If only she were working her register at Discount Palace, she could suppress these terrible impulses by ringing up lipstick, comic books, pliers, anything—but her next shift is two days away, and she needs to be distracted now. Isabel opens the white door carefully—an elaborate breakfast might be a good way to start the day, something Richard might actually notice when he finally wakes up.

After she slips in the muffin tray and sets the dial, Isabel stares out at the street through the blinds. Soon the young women with their toddlers will stroll by: Doris and her weepy boy, Tammy’s girls, Marilyn and the twins—she could name and name them, and all just on this block—and none of them will even glance at her window as they pass.

Upstairs, Richard’s morning noises begin—the slide of the closet door, the wooden tug of drawers—and she hurries to lay out the breakfast spread.

*

Richard enters the kitchen slowly, plucking at his shirt with his good hand—a bit of thread hangs from a loose button.

“Good morning,” she whispers.

“Morning, honey,” he says to the plate as he sits down, then scratches at the stubble on his chin. Why does he have to stop shaving whenever there’s a layoff?

Isabel lifts the pitcher of orange juice. “It’s fresh,” she says, and Richard raises his glass, eyes tracing idly over the table. She slits open a corn muffin and holds out half.

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