by J.S. Roseman
Jane sits in the driver’s seat of her Mercedes-Benz with a kerchief tied under her chin in a knot with a bow, and a cigarette stuck into a slim cigarette holder between her index and middle fingers. She takes that boat of a car around narrow corners towards and then past Hope Street, out a few blocks, to where the good antiquing is. She brings life and love in little tchotchkes back home when she arrives, and sure the wallet is a little light, and sure she spent more than she had promised to, but look darling, just look at this old wind-up soldier, isn’t he precious, won’t our little Richard love it? She builds a home from other people’s memories and breathes into them new life, so that they become her own. Her family’s. Besides, she was never home too late to cook a brisket or kugel, so what does he have to complain about?
Jane sits on her wicker chair at the little round kitchen table and looks through the window at the viridescent songbirds sitting on feeders that hang from the branches of her carefully groomed trees. Four buxus hedges surround a fountain with a naked child sculpture and koi fish in its basin. The red bricks that pave the courtyard are overgrown with moss. A squirrel climbs a tree and hops onto a feeder, scattering the birds and getting it only with its front paws, so its back ones flail up, looking for solid ground. Jane taps on the glass until it goes away. Her Persian cat lying at her feet mews. Her grandchildren are in the next room, a great big connected dining room and sitting room with space between for tall potted banana palms and children to sit and play with wind-up toys like their parents once did. If they were older they might put them on a shelf to be seen, or else sell them to someone who would, but because they are children they know better. Jane plays card games with her daughter. Some times, most times, she wins.
Jane sits upright in an adjustable bed watching the television. They’ve moved her from the house into an apartment, and then from the apartment into this room, both times taking away her things and bringing back only what could fit. There are paintings on the walls and photographs of people she doesn’t recognize. She asks sometimes about a wind-up soldier, but the staff doesn’t know what to say. A songbird lands on the window ledge outside and Jane watches it. Someone has brought an orchid and set it on the windowsill. The bird looks at it through the window, and hops forward, its beak bouncing off the glass. It tries again, then flits around nervously and flies off. It cannot understand what separates it from what it can see so clearly.
J. S. Roseman is an American writer who currently resides in Dublin, Ireland. On Twitter @jsrwrites.
