![]() ![]() And there was Eleanor, once more unto the Mickey breach. There were his cheeks pitted in acne scars, the reason for growing the beard five decades ago. The radiation had also nuked his landmass of beard, so he was smooth-faced and awkwardly revealed. When Mickey wasn’t watching television, he was either asleep or exhausted and moody as hell. During the doldrums of his treatment, he had watched a ton of television, with its endless stream of commercials for chicken sandwiches, and pepperoni pizzas, and loaded nachos, which all looked so tasty he could weep. He had been having intense fantasies about a cheeseburger with fries, a steak with onion rings, shrimp scampi and shrimp cocktail-for some reason he was obsessed with everything shrimp. Mickey was a longtime vegetarian, but nowadays all bets were off. Podcast: The Writer’s Voice Listen to David Gilbert read “Come Softly to Me.” #Google sketchup plugins pipe along path fullLike those Ritz crackers squared with Cheddar, Mickey flipping the cheese to the other side so his tongue could get the full blast of salt. For the most part Mickey stayed close to his son and daughter, Ash and Star, and their respective partners, Addy and Martha, while his five grandchildren ran around with the younger grandchildren, the group playing some game involving pinecones and sticks and a pillowcase slipped over the head of whoever was “it.” Mickey still had his PEG tube in, but he was making a happy return to solid foods. He glanced around, searching for someone who might be equally pleased. It had been thirteen years since he’d heard this otherworldly song. ![]() Eleanor’s ex-husband, Mickey, couldn’t help smiling. Up high in the tree Luke had once nailed a sachet filled with K.K.’s hair and fingernail clippings and a piece of gum, recently chewed, the sisters ordering him to go higher, and Luke, as always, obliging.ĭavid Gilbert on finding stories in dreams.ĭown in the yard the old RCA Victor started up, connected to the outlet by an extension cord plugged into an extension cord plugged into an extension cord. The sisters’ names were carved on the trunk, as were Benjamin’s and Luke’s, Benjamin’s older brother, who’d drowned in the Maldives when Jimmy Carter was President. But the weeping beech still maintained its central spot-through the peephole of Google, it resembled butter lettuce. Then she’d put a match to them and Lily would shriek. the amateur naturalist, curious and unafraid. #Google sketchup plugins pipe along path skinA six-hole golf course took up the meadow where Mom had painted her watercolors and Dad had trotted his collection of horse-drawn carriages, where K.K., the oldest sister, the dead sister, liked to roll in the high grass and collect ticks, tracking their transformation into blood-engorged skin tags. On Google Earth the new house resembled three Monopoly hotels jammed together. The ceilings were probably too low, something Lily had always noticed, how dark and claustrophobic it could get inside, with all the panelling and beams. The rich couple bulldozed the house anyway. Eleanor had even thought about burning the house down. So they sold it to a rich couple who were semi-famous for their wealth-Eleanor would sometimes Google them and scroll through pictures of the man and woman at various parties and galas, e-mailing the choicest of these photos to Lily and Louise, as if she were putting pins into voodoo dolls. But after Mom and Dad died the sisters couldn’t agree on what to do with the old place, what with the hassles of upkeep, and the estate taxes, the property taxes, too. It was from there that they used to emerge in their dresses, led by Benjamin beating on the same small drum he had beaten on since he was eight. The interior of its hoopskirt canopy had acted as the sisters’ sanctum sanctorum. The biggest thing missing was the massive weeping beech. Jasper would pick up his mandolin, and Philip, Lily’s son, would grab Jasper’s guitar, and Louise would sing, and then Lily would sing, and Eleanor would never sing but she might yowl and grab her crotch, and maybe this place would start to feel like the old place. Then they’d shoot Roman candles and bottle rockets, brought by whoever had travelled from, or through, a firework state. The bonfire nowadays was confined to the copper fire pit at Louise’s house, but they’d manage to get the flames up high. He’d been cremated with his healing crystals still clenched in his hands. And Lewis, the son of Benjamin, the sisters’ cousin, would light the bonfire, once his father’s job. Come night, Jasper, Lily’s grandson, would play guitar. There’d be enough to drink, that was for sure, and maybe something to smoke thanks to the dispensaries in nearby Great Barrington. Louise’s son Charlie would man the grill. Eleanor, pasta salad and lentils with sweet potatoes. Upstairs, the sisters prepared by putting on their dresses, while down in the yard everyone drank Mott’s apple juice and snacked on Ritz crackers squared with Cheddar. ![]()
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