The Sleeping Wall

The Sleeping Wall
When in motion, Mother loves me. Back and forth over the old Persian. Her words drop onto
the rug for me to collect in my apron skirt. Clock chimes. Candlelight. I know no other world. I
look into the mirror, squint until I am a string of yellow light.
At dusk a nighthawk rushes over Huett, slash of white at her throat. The Old Town canoe
rubs against the dock. The boys run from the moonlight.
The hidden meadow. I run past the crumbling wall, through sunflowers, warm grass. I run.
Until I know only the sweet smell, the whir of insects. Until I cannot breathe.
She woke, paralyzed by a dream of a figure between her sons’ beds. She’d seen the shadow
that covered its face. Like a hound beneath the moon, it thrust back its head. “Philip.
Michael.” Their names caught in her throat. Bulbs buried in earth. All the waiting flowers.
“Tintinnabulation. Tintinnáre.” Mother says. “The notes of a triad are like bells.” She strikes the
final note. I lean into the couch. Sound beats against my insides like a bell clapper. The furnace
creaks and heat holds us.
Medina winds the clock. Springs, wheels, weights engineered so that every hour a hammer
strikes a chime. Tintinnáre. James’s shirt on a chair. She stares at the blank window. In
the cupboard, wine, chocolate powder, sedatives.
Father’s study. A cave of shadows and smoky scents. Book spines embossed with gilt lettering.
His face lit by a single desk lamp. Milk chocolates for me in the bottom drawer beside his scotch.
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“Here,” Mother says, taking my hand. We walk through the meadow. She points and says colt’s
foot, shooting star, and I repeat the names. A swallow on a branch twitches its head.
The night before Medina left for Huett, she grabbed James’s arms and wrapped them
around her. Pressed her face into his neck, pulled his hand to her lips before he pushed
her away.
Wind tossed leaves against the boathouse. Late summer evenings on the porch swing between
my parents. The stars are alive. The sounds of the lake and my parents’ breathing.
The lake’s moods are a part of her. She can name fish that slip between twists of reeds,
knows the loon mates for life, that its mysterious song brings rain.
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