thrift shop housedresses held together by safety pins. Mom wore WalMart sneakers; Grandma wore Dollar Saver plastic slippers. Mom skipped makeup; Grandma skipped moisturizing and shaving. Above nylons rolled around her ankles, her bare hairy legs rose sturdily, their skin the texture of potato chips. Contemplating her family, Aimee suppressed a shudder. If she maintained enough steady pressure, she could probably render Mom and Grandma presentable for the wedding, but no way could she ever bring her fiancé into this house.
Grandma barked like an angry robin, “What? Have I seen what ?”
“Aimee’s soul! She’s lost her soul. Have you seen it anywhere around here?”
“No…no, I haven’t.” Grandma’s voice softened to a sparrow peep. “But I ain’t rightly looked yet.”
“Mom found mine,” Aimee’s mother explained to her, “years ago.”
“Laying right in plain sight on the carpet, it was.” Grandma shuffled over and sat down at the kitchen table. “Like it had dropped out of her while she was heading for the door. It looked kind of like a damselfly or a lacewing. Real pretty. I picked it up gentle in the palm of my hand and tried to think how I could keep it safe for her. I knew it was no use to give it back to her then. She’d just lose it again.”
“I was just starting to date,” Mom explained.
“Sweet sixteen, never been kissed, and not a thought in her pretty head except how to get herself a two-piece swimsuit and permission to paint her face.”
Aimee sat silent, trying very hard to follow.
“It just so happened I was canning preserves that day,” Grandma chirped on, “so I put it in a jelly jar with juneberry syrup, and I put a nice thick layer of paraffin on top, and wrote your mother’s name on a tape on the lid, and stuck it up in the cellar rafters. And there it stayed.”
“I found it,” Mom explained, “when I was helping her clean out the house after Grandpa died.”
“It was like childbirth,” Grandma said. “I did it and then I forgot about it as quick as I could.”
Mom nodded. “Some of the most routine things in life are like that,” she agreed, serene. “Like funerals. You just got to forget about them afterward so you can go on.”
Aimee listened with increasing annoyance.
“Like your daughter out there running around without a soul,” Grandma grumbled. “They didn’t do that in my day.”
“Some don’t still,” Mom said. “You can tell. Missy Hartzel’s daughter, I don’t believe she lost her soul until she went into law enforcement.”
By this time Aimee felt an urge to curse, which she suppressed. She demanded, “Mom, did you find mine and stick it somewhere and forget about it?”
“Now, how would I know, sweetie, unless I happen to remember? We’d better have a look around.”
*
By noon of the next day, the hunt had turned up nothing. The button box had been emptied and its contents gone through; ditto the sewing basket and the junk drawers of the old claw-footed dining room buffet. The jars on the spice rack had been examined, and the preserves in the pantry. Even the springhouse and root cellar had been investigated. And the attic…Aimee could not face the attic. She needed to get away somewhere by herself before she took a blunt object and whacked both Mother and Grandmother. But there was nowhere to go. No foreign films, no club, no mall.
Fleeing the house, Aimee found herself wandering down to the little stream winding at the bottom of the yard, to the pool by the big rock under the willow tree, where she had spent countless hours of spare time as a child. Wasted time, she was thinking—
“Aimee! Welcome back!”
Standing on the flat stone amid willow fronds, Aimee gasped, and not just because a sunfish had stuck its head out of the water and spoken to her. Rapt, she gazed at the commonplace little fishes wafting like spirits through the sunlit and shadowy depths. As if forgetting a dream, she had forgotten all about
Grandma barked like an angry robin, “What? Have I seen what ?”
“Aimee’s soul! She’s lost her soul. Have you seen it anywhere around here?”
“No…no, I haven’t.” Grandma’s voice softened to a sparrow peep. “But I ain’t rightly looked yet.”
“Mom found mine,” Aimee’s mother explained to her, “years ago.”
“Laying right in plain sight on the carpet, it was.” Grandma shuffled over and sat down at the kitchen table. “Like it had dropped out of her while she was heading for the door. It looked kind of like a damselfly or a lacewing. Real pretty. I picked it up gentle in the palm of my hand and tried to think how I could keep it safe for her. I knew it was no use to give it back to her then. She’d just lose it again.”
“I was just starting to date,” Mom explained.
“Sweet sixteen, never been kissed, and not a thought in her pretty head except how to get herself a two-piece swimsuit and permission to paint her face.”
Aimee sat silent, trying very hard to follow.
“It just so happened I was canning preserves that day,” Grandma chirped on, “so I put it in a jelly jar with juneberry syrup, and I put a nice thick layer of paraffin on top, and wrote your mother’s name on a tape on the lid, and stuck it up in the cellar rafters. And there it stayed.”
“I found it,” Mom explained, “when I was helping her clean out the house after Grandpa died.”
“It was like childbirth,” Grandma said. “I did it and then I forgot about it as quick as I could.”
Mom nodded. “Some of the most routine things in life are like that,” she agreed, serene. “Like funerals. You just got to forget about them afterward so you can go on.”
Aimee listened with increasing annoyance.
“Like your daughter out there running around without a soul,” Grandma grumbled. “They didn’t do that in my day.”
“Some don’t still,” Mom said. “You can tell. Missy Hartzel’s daughter, I don’t believe she lost her soul until she went into law enforcement.”
By this time Aimee felt an urge to curse, which she suppressed. She demanded, “Mom, did you find mine and stick it somewhere and forget about it?”
“Now, how would I know, sweetie, unless I happen to remember? We’d better have a look around.”
*
By noon of the next day, the hunt had turned up nothing. The button box had been emptied and its contents gone through; ditto the sewing basket and the junk drawers of the old claw-footed dining room buffet. The jars on the spice rack had been examined, and the preserves in the pantry. Even the springhouse and root cellar had been investigated. And the attic…Aimee could not face the attic. She needed to get away somewhere by herself before she took a blunt object and whacked both Mother and Grandmother. But there was nowhere to go. No foreign films, no club, no mall.
Fleeing the house, Aimee found herself wandering down to the little stream winding at the bottom of the yard, to the pool by the big rock under the willow tree, where she had spent countless hours of spare time as a child. Wasted time, she was thinking—
“Aimee! Welcome back!”
Standing on the flat stone amid willow fronds, Aimee gasped, and not just because a sunfish had stuck its head out of the water and spoken to her. Rapt, she gazed at the commonplace little fishes wafting like spirits through the sunlit and shadowy depths. As if forgetting a dream, she had forgotten all about
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