Nearer Than the Sky by T. Greenwood

prepared dinner. I jumped back from the toaster where I was making toast. I bumped into the stove, and the frying pan filled with scrambled eggs fell to the floor. The hot copper pot rested on my bare leg for a moment before I registered the pain.
    “Oh God,” I said and kicked my leg. Immediately a long thin line of blisters appeared on my calf.
    “Oh shit, are you okay?” Rich asked, pulling the lever on the fridge. There was a cascade of ice and then he was holding an ice cube to the burn.
    The ice melted against the heat of my skin, and then made it nicely numb.
    Ma sat still at the table, dipping her tea bag in and out of the empty mug. The teakettle was whistling, insistent.
    “It sounds like the train,” she said.
    A lump grew thick in my throat. I remembered the sound of the train near our house in Mountainview.
    We were only able to salvage some of the eggs, and the bread ripped when I spread the cold butter on the toast, but it reminded me of the times when Daddy made breakfast for dinner for Benny and me. The times when Ma and Lily were away and it was just Benny, Daddy, and me. It reminded me.
    Ma said she was tired and went to bed while we were loading the dishwasher. “Let me know when you hear from Lily,” she said.
    Rich and I drank several more cocktails.
    The phone rang as I was rinsing out the sink. Rich looked at me and a fear so real it made my heart buzz flashed across his face. He wiped his hands on a soft pink dish towel and picked up the phone.
    “Oh, Peter, hi. Yeah, hold on one second,” he said and handed the phone to me. There were a few stray soap suds on the receiver.
    “Hi,” I said.
    “Hi.” His voice was deceptively close. It made me homesick to hear him talking about the ordinary things. A new employee. The produce delivery girl’s broken arm and a forgotten box of Roma tomatoes in the walk-in cooler. It made me lonesome to hear about the small breaks in his daily ritual. Of hard cider with Joe and Chuck at Finnegan’s instead of going home. Of the new record he bought to fill the house with music, to drown out the sound of my absence.
    “Things are a mess here,” I said finally.
    “Your mom?”
    “No, she’s fine. Violet’s sick though. She’s at the hospital. We’re waiting for Lily to call.”
    “I should let you go then,” Peter said.
    “No,” I said. “Just a couple more minutes. Tell me about the trees.”
    And while Rich finished up the dishes, I curled the phone cord into the other room and imagined red and gold and orange, fading now into early winter, to the sound of Peter’s voice.
    “Sleep tight,” he said softly.
    “You too.”
    The phone rang again as soon as I hung up the receiver. Rich’s hand shot out and grabbed the phone from the wall. He stood motionless and quiet, listening to Lily on the other end of the line.
    “Oh thank God. Good. Good.” He nodded and turned to me, his face relaxing, his shoulders descending in relief. “Overnight? Okay. Do you need me to bring anything? You sure? Okay. Kiss her for me,” he said and then quietly, “Love you.” He hung up the phone.
    “Is she okay?” I asked and wrung out the sponge.
    “They’re doing some tests. EKG, MRI. I don’t know. It may not have been her asthma. It may have been a small seizure or something. One of the doctors suggested it might be epilepsy, but Lily seems okay. Calm at least.”
    “How are you? ” I asked.
    “Good,” he smiled. “Relieved. Hungover, though, I think. That’ll teach me to start drinking at noon.”
    I hugged him quickly, noting how soft he was compared to Ma and Lily.
    “I’ll go let Ma know,” I said.
    I walked up the stairs to the unused nursery where Ma was sleeping on a small daybed next to the window. The wooden crib that Peter and I had given Lily for her shower was in the corner. There were stuffed animals propped up inside, fresh out of their packages. Plastic eyes staring resolutely at the wooden bars of this cage. A mobile hovered