Not the End of the World by Rebecca Stowe

torso to toss in a garbage dump. My husband, Rocco, wouldn’t pay the ransom, of course—he’d just toss out my body parts as they arrived, giving them to one of his henchmen to stick in the incinerator. Once he got to know me, he’d hate me, just like everybody else, and he’d be glad to get rid of me, even if it was only piece by piece.
    Eventually, Mother would put down her knitting and carry Ruthie upstairs, never even bothering to knock on my door to see if I was still alive. What if I’d fallen out of bed and cracked my head against the spindly foot and was lying there bleeding to death?
    She’d go back downstairs and try to talk, but Daddy would be lost in his own world. “I’m watching my program, Marion,” he’d say, or, “I’m in the middle of an article.” He’d get up and go into his den and hang up the NO TRESPASSING sign and Mother would sit there, all alone, knitting in the dark.
    Clickety, clickety, click, the sharp needles would go, glinting in the light from the lamp, clickety, click, and it drove me crazy. I couldn’t stand the sound of them; I couldn’t even bear to be in the same room with Mother when she was knitting. “Put those things AWAY!” I’d shout and she’d wonder what on earth was the matter with me, but I couldn’t help it, I had some kind of phobia and I couldn’t stand those needles. I’d get all nervous and get that teeth-chattery feeling and I’d say, “I can’t STAND it!” and Mother would point a needle at me and say, “You stop that nonsense right this instant!” shaking that blue metal needle at me, and I’d want to pull off my skin and start screaming and I’d cover my eyes and run from the room.
    “I just don’t know what gets into her,” she’d say to Daddy. “She’s some sort of maniac.” But no I wasn’t. I just couldn’t stand those needles.
    She wanted to teach me how to knit, but I wouldn’t learn. I wouldn’t go near those needles; I hated them, I hated everything about them, I hated everything sharp and pointy and it was a good thing I wasn’t Chinese, because how would I eat?
    I didn’t know why she had to knit anyway; she never made anything. She just sat there, knitting and purling and clicking and at the end of the night, she’d rip out all the stitches and start all over. “Your grandmother is the knitter in the family,” Mother would say. But not any more; she gave it up when I was little and I didn’t see why Mother had to follow in her footsteps, as if it were some great destiny to be fulfilled, especially since Mother wasn’t any good at it.
    “Why do you have to knit all the time?” I asked her and she shrugged, as if she didn’t know either. It was just something she did, mechanically, like a robot, clickety, clickety, click, endlessly knitting the same green banner. “It gives me something to do with my hands,” she’d say and I’d get so mad Margaret would come roaring out, furious as a bull, and shout, “Don’t SAY that! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”
    Mother would start crying and I’d run upstairs and hide under the eaves and Margaret would disappear and I’d feel terrible for making Mother cry. I’d watch her through the crack as she sat there, alone and sad, and I’d wish she’d get up and do something. “Go to the piano,” I’d urge her telepathically. “Get up and play ‘Stormy Weather,’ ” but she wouldn’t. She’d just sit there, with the needles clicking like beetles on the window screen and it made me so upset I wanted to die.

M OTHER had a box full of mementoes tucked in the corner of the eaves, next to the Christmas ornaments, and sometimes I’d empty it out and look through our history while I was snooping on them. She had all our old report cards and all the Mother’s Day cards we’d made over the years and hundreds of photographs of us all, looking so happy I couldn’t believe it was us.
    I loved to look at the old photographs, especially the ones with me in them. I