Family Reminders by Julie Danneberg Page B

on the prickly sofa and watched Aunt Hattie bustle around, trying with her busyness to put things right. She plumped cushions and straightened Daddy’s piano music. She dusted the side tables and swept the floor and then rearranged the knickknacks above the fireplace, lining them up in a perfect row. Finally, she closed the heavy brocade curtains.
    “Time to start dinner,” she said with forced cheerfulness, making her way out of the parlor.
    “Mama always leaves the drapes open,” I said quietly to her retreating figure. Lying there in the dark, I remembered last Sunday afternoon when Mama came home from visiting a friend to find the drapes closed tight to the autumn sun.
    “I might as well be a miner,” Mama teased Daddy as she whisked the drapes open to the light
.
    “Now who in their right mind would want to be that?” Daddy asked with a smile, pulling her to him and swinging her off her feet
.
    ”My point exactly,” Mama sassed right back
.
    Mama’s laughter rang out sweet and clear, while Daddy’s was low and grumbly and sounded as if it bubbled up from the very tips of his toes
.
    Aunt Hattie’s call to help startled me back to the present. “Coming,” I called as I got myself up from the sofa and slowly crossed the room. Before I left the parlor, I pulled open the drapes to the last shreds of afternoon light. Standing in the warm puddle of sunshine, I felt a cold knowing grow inside me.

    That night I didn’t feel like eating, even when Aunt Hattie offered me the leftover pie. Aunt Hattie clucked disapprovingly, saying, “You haven’t eaten a thing, Mary.” I shrugged and pushed away my plate. No food would go down past the big lump in my throat.
    After the dishes were washed, dried, and put away, I kissed Aunt Hattie good night and went to my room. Plopping down onto my bed, I closed my eyes for a minute, but the thoughts racing through my head forced them back open. I didn’t want to think of Daddy lying in a hospital bed. I’d never been in the hospital, but from the outside it seemed scary. Its tall, brick walls made it look like a fortress, and behind those strong walls lay the weak and the sick.
    I turned on my side and reached over to pick up a small, carved wooden figurine from my night-stand. It stood about six inches tall and barely fit into my hand. It was one of many that Daddy had carved for our family. He called them his Reminders. This Reminder was one of my favorites. It was a carved likeness of Mama and Daddy on their wedding day. Daddy stood soldier straight in his best suit, his arm tight around Mama’s shoulder, pulling her snug in beside him.
    ”We’re a perfect fit,” Daddy said every single time he looked at the carving. “A perfect fit.”
    I studied the Wedding Reminder, turning it over in my hand. Mama and Daddy looked so happy and so strong. “Ready to face the world,” Mama always said.

    “Daddy, why do you spend so much time carving the Reminders?” I asked one day as I sat with him on the porch, watching him carefully shape each tiny detail
.
    “Because when I work on them they remind me of good times. It’s like having a memory you can touch … or tickle!” he said, putting down the wood and his carving knife before he chased me, growling and laughing, down the steps and around the house. Daddy was never serious for long
.
    For the first time since hearing about the accident, I began to cry.

Three

    I woke up the next morning to the smell of bacon sizzling and coffee brewing. For the briefest of moments it felt like any other day. All too soon, though, the memory of Daddy’s injury came rushing back, and its heavy weight settled into a twisted knot at the bottom of my stomach.
    “Is Mama home?” I asked Aunt Hattie as I walked into the kitchen, still in my pajamas and grateful that it was Saturday so I didn’t have to worry about school and the endless questions that surely awaited me.
    “No,” Aunt Hattie said, “but she sent a telegram first