Two Pieces

Once More

“Make me a promise,” she said to him when they were lying in bed, although it was not night, and he said, “What promise?” and she said, “You shouldn’t have to ask.”

She half lay back on the pillows, peeling an orange, one of those small ones that have their own name. She dropped the peels on the floor, which was meant to annoy him, but he hardly cared about things like that anymore. Once, the brightness of the day was nothing beside a look from her, and it still was, most of the time.

“I'll make you a promise if you make me one,” he said.

The orange peels were like little boats, curved and clever.

“Okay,” she said. “I promise whatever you ask for, even if it means my own death.”

“So dramatic,” he said.

“Always,” she said. “Now you.”

He looked out the window. The sun was halfway down the sky, moving toward night. “I promise, if you like,” he said, “a blank check.  So what have I promised?” But he was thinking that, after all, there was nothing that would hold him to it.

“Oh, no,” she said. “We’ll write them down and take them out at the right time.”

“Which is when?”

“We’ll know,” she said, “or one of us will.” Her hair was hanging down her back, snarled and lank. She never combed it anymore but it was still beautiful. “Give me a drink,” she said, “and some paper as well.” He gave her the half-drunk glass of almond-flavored water. When he gave her the paper, she tore it in half and wrote on both pieces. “There,” she said. “There’s yours and mine.”

“You don’t know what I asked for,” he said, and she said, “Oh, but I do.”

“Don’t look now,” she said, and lay back on the pillows, drawing the sheet up over her. When she was sleeping, he went out into the hall and looked at the two papers, each ragged down one edge. She had written “I Promise to Die” on the one meant for her. His was blank except for the sketch of a bird flying out the window.

The House Is Burning

Tom and Evie’s father came back for a while when Tom was five and Evie was three, but she didn’t really remember, except she thought a bear had come to visit because he was big and was wearing a brown robe. He said he was wearing a robe because he was living in an alternative community, which they pretended to understand. He stayed one day and when he left, their mother went into her room and didn’t come out for a long time.

Tom found Evie’s pajamas and arranged her animals around her and told her a story about a squirrel who couldn’t find a nut until a kitten helped him. He had read the story at school. He changed the ending because in the book it was a crow who helped with the nut, and he thought Evie would like a kitten better.

When she was settled, he went to his own room and thought about their father. He hadn’t liked the robe, which was rough and dusty. The hem was ragged, which his father explained was because the rules where he was living said that you couldn’t try to look nice, which was also why he had a beard and didn’t cut his hair. He told them this while their mother was making dinner. Tom sat on the floor under the dining room table, and his father sat on one of the chairs. He tried to put Evie on his lap but she ran away, which was probably because she thought he was a bear. Tom’s father said that Tom would understand when he was older, but he didn’t say what it was he’d understand.

He didn’t come again until Tom was fifteen and Evie was just starting high school. He was wearing a suit this time and a tie he took off and folded up into his pocket. His beard was gone. “You’ve got another brother and sister now,” he said. He told them he wanted them all to get together so they could be one big family, but that didn’t happen until many years later when he was dead.

This piece was featured in Volume 3, Number 3. Click here to explore other pieces from this issue.