Issue 3 - Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art

URSULE MOLINARO
The Chemistry of Miracles
It couldn't be later than 5:30 1/4 to 6 at most by
the purplish blade of evening sunshine that was severing
her father's impasto neck from the impasto shoulders,
on the portrait above the sofa.
The exquisite antique sofa with the dark mahogany
dolphins which she had brought down south with her,
although Martin would have liked her to leave it behind.
—Warning her about termites, to persuade her to
leave it behind.— She couldn't have lived with the
thought of his lady analyst sitting on it. Making a dent
in the green-golden upholstery, with her degreed opportunist's
ass.
She sat across from the portrait staring at the
portrait on the edge of one of the four Queen Anne
chairs she had also brought down south with her. & had
had reupholstered, to match the green-golden velvet of
the sofa.
To entice her mother to move in with her. Getting
her historical little house ready to receive her mother
careful to match colors & styles, not to insult her mother's
well-remembered critical taste before she went to
see her mother, at the boarding house. These people
didn't know how hard she'd tried. She had no reason to
feel guilty. No reason whatsoever.
Was that still her heart, hammering in her ears? It
sounded so real.
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Save me, Daddy: she said to the portrait: Perform a
miracle. Wipe this last year from my life.
Miracles, my dear Mildred—: the recent recentpsychiatrist
voice of her ex-husband echo-chambered in
her head:—require a specific body chemistry, often
stimulated by extreme stress, or shock. Which modern
psychiatry tries to stimulate artificially. The miracle of
modern psychiatry—
Stop hammering! she said out loud.
She had no reason to feel guilty, even though she
would never have moved down here to this godforsaken
southern town to be closer to her old invalid
mother. Even though it would never have occurred to
her to want to be closer to her old invalid mother, if
Martin hadn't asked her for the divorce.
Out of the blue. Right after he passed his finals.
That horrible Friday evening, during dinner. When
she'd thrown up into her dinner plate.
—It was hard to believe that that horrible evening
was less than a year ago. Not quite eleven months
ago.—
When he had asked her to: stop acting like her
daddy's spoiled little girl. In a new, professionally
soothing now-now voice. Which made her want to
throw up more.
—They were both adults, for God's sake, both into
their forties. Old enough certainly to be sensible. To sit
down like two good friends & talk this out. Now why
didn't she take the opportunity—
The opportunity! Need he be cynical to boot!
—& go to Egypt for a while. Until she felt better.
For years she'd talked about wanting to go to Egypt—
But not by herself! They had wanted to go to Egypt
together, after he passed his exams, to celebrate his doctorate.
For which she had worked all these years reading
proof at printers' offices all over town, ruining her
eyesight in horrible fluorescent light. Supporting
them him so that he could get his MD & become a
psychiatrist & now!
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