Dispatches from our book: A Suitable Vessel For Magic

Cracks

Now that you are gone, I lie awake at night trying to fall asleep, my eyes trace the sensible cracks in the ceiling’s layers of paint. Cracks following seams of drywall pieces from 1926. I count how many times this house has changed hands in your family. Great grandfather Grimshaw to Gram, then to Grammy Klem. Then to your father, your mother, to you, and now to me.

These age lines are on every ceiling except the attic whose A-frame walls are clad in fresh smelling, wide cedar planks, running from window to window at each end. In February or March I could see my breath as I made my way to join you at the far end, wrapped in the heated sheets of our giant bed. I tried not to wake you when I reached across mounds of blankets and placed my hand on your back to make sure you were still breathing. Did you ever catch me ascending the steep attic stairs at night by the pale blue light of my iPhone?

At four-hour intervals through the night the ground shuddered and the old wood window panes vibrated, sounding like squirrels running full tilt across the shingled attic roof above our heads. Then the long horn of the train, played differently by each conductor, and the small chimes, and the hydraulic hissing of opening doors. “There is nothing that makes you feel more real than a train ,” you said once. It was so close that I could see the glow of its lights through the heavy fabric curtains at our head. There we were, still breathing, and together in the house your great grandfather built. At the first sign of light, long before I stirred, you would disappear into your morning, your coffee, your plan. This is how it would always be, you told me. You were setting the world in order. 

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