Unearned Pleasures and Other Stories by Ursula Hegi

Author:Ursula Hegi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: TOUCHSTONE

Night Voices

AND HE ALWAYS falls asleep before I do. Can I get you anything? he asks before he turns on his right side, before his breathing becomes slower. Can I get you anything? What do I need? A clean sheet cool against my legs, I lie on my back in Carla’s bed. She’ll always be fifteen, never changing, her face smiling as the morning she left for school, the morning of the accident. Emily gets older, forty-two last May; even her children are older than Carla was, will be. Yet, I feel closer to my dead daughter, to my

Night after night in the narrow beds of our daughters. Sleep in the front room, she tells me. Go ahead. Sleep in the big bed by yourself if that’s what you want. How can I leave her alone in the back room at night? I feel her body across the room, silent, reproachful. Before I turn to the wall, I ask if I can get her anything.

first child. Through the screen the birches stand white against the pines, their crowns swallowed by dark. Crickets I hear, but no sounds of traffic. He’d rather sleep in the front room with the street noise, sleep in the big bed. That was fine when the girls were small, when I was tired at the end of the day. Then the sounds of cars never bothered me: there were less; still, I never minded them. Now I

Shelves for the basement. Paint the porch and the garage. Buy boards to build a birdfeeder. I’ll mount it in the kitchen window. She can watch the birds if the mailman is late. Bluejays we get. Sometimes a cardinal.

never get tired; there’s not enough to do to get tired; not even making breakfast. He gets up first and I can hear him in the kitchen: the refrigerator when he gets the eggs, butter hissing in the pan, the toaster. Let me, he says, you’ve done for so many years. Did I ever complain? One slice

Catalog the slides. I keep busy. Letters from Emily and the grand-children. That’s all she cares about. Letters and Sunday phone calls. Emily hasn’t written for two months; short letters, one sentence for each grandchild: Kevin likes his job. Audrey is saving for a car. We call them Sunday afternoons. In case they sleep late.

of toast I used to eat, sometimes a small piece of sharp white cheese; no more than that. Now I must eat warm yellow eggs to please him, to give him something to get up for in the morning. So much time to fill restlessly. I keep busy, he tells Emily; and: How’s everything? he asks, watching me move the warm yellow eggs from the fork into my mouth, watching. How’s everything? This used to be

Paint the porch and the garage. Shelves for the basement. Buy boards.

Carla’s bed; he sleeps in Emily’s, closer to the door. Sometimes he mumbles in his sleep, mumbles words that thicken before I can understand. Only the

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