Call It Horses by Jessie Eerden (the reading list .TXT) 📕

she was weightless, just bone and wing. She was a wisp, my mighty Ruth. But not her voice—her voice was still that bold full sound I’d first heard in a lecture hall, and she lectured me still. She said, ‘Bury me like the pharaohs with all my jewels and favorite foods and flowers for the next world, and you move on. You stay out of the tomb.’ I said okay and put on a Sarah Vaughan record. I had to be careful because the pain was in her back and neck mostly, but she was so light, I picked her up like you do a kid—well, maybe like you do a kid, I wouldn’t know—and danced with her all wrapped in these rough Bedouin blankets she loved, without her feet touching the floor.” Mave stood again. “A lot of days, Nannette, I can feel that scratchy blanket on my cheek still. I feel us in a slow spin. Barely moving.” She walked toward the car as Nan and I treaded water.

A red pickup turned into the gravel lot with a crunch, pulled up next to the Oldsmobile near Mave and the hound, who had trotted over and now sat back on his haunches. A man got out and scanned the sand where our sloughed clothes lay piled. He and Mave spoke but I couldn’t hear them.

“Shit,” said Nan, “wish he was cuter.” An attempt to ease the sadness that surrounded our naked selves as completely as lake water.

He was older than Mave and dumpy in his fishing hat. He pulled at its brim several times as though a wind were trying to take it. He remained about ten feet from her, shook his head, looked out at us. Nan waved and I couldn’t help but smile at the situation. He got back in the truck and took off and Mave turned toward us, clearly amused, her body so square yet gaunt at the neck.

Nan and I quickly got out, Nan making herself laugh, and we rummaged in the trunk for T-shirts to dry off with before someone else could show up.

“What did you say to him?” Nan asked Mave, who was drying her head as if it itched.

“I asked him if he had a gun. Said I’d trade him the dog, but he said no, then I said I’d trade you, Gypsy.”

“Oh, fuck off, Crazy,” still laughing and glad for the banter.

“He gave it good consideration.”

“No doubt he did.”

Dressed, my raw skin stung with clarity and freshness. I started the car and tried to figure out the heater for the first time until I saw the heater had gone the way of the radio. They got in but Ellis had wandered off lakeside again, vigorous in his rolling around, grainy with sand now and happy like a pup. “Come on, Flop,” I said out my window. He grudged up and left behind what was, in fact, a fish skeleton knotted with weeds.

“In you go, boy,” said Mave. “Let’s head to Memphis.” He steadied then accomplished his practiced jump into the backseat, immediately going for Nan’s lap.

“Oh god, he smells worse than before!” she said. “Get off! God.”

We kept the windows down, freezing, and Mave moved her head out into the air current and her short hair dried pressed back like that, so her face looked like it was just breaking the surface of the water.

TWO DAYS AFTER DARRELL’S BURIAL, CLARISSA AND I crossed the Ohio River in my pickup, her body nervous, as if it were her first transatlantic. She lifted her feet as we hit the bridge, canvas shoes, her best jumper ending just above her ankle socks. I should have dressed in better than jeans, but I’d scrubbed all Lottie’s floors, thorough and long, steadying. I still smelled of Murphy Oil. Tess had left the very day of the burial to prepare her first art show in Cleveland, and she’d asked me to bring Clarissa for the opening.

What we did not say in the truck cab: Dillon is back. Who will design the LaFaber plate for Darrell’s marker? Who are we, really, anymore? I remembered the bronze plate she’d brought me one day, with a lily of the valley etched on it, and the date, for my dead child’s nonexistent grave.

What Clarissa did say, once her feet settled onto the floor mat again: “Want some zucchini bread?” Unfolding the Saran Wrap. “I put black walnuts in it.” I took a chunk. “I never put black walnuts in his quick breads,” she said. “They overpower, like licorice, he never liked them.”

The building in Cleveland to which Tess had written us directions was squat and cylindrical and stylish in the evening light, simple on the outside, and, inside, air conditioned and elegant. The small gallery space sat just inside the door, to the left. Spotlights angled toward the center and shone on the walls. Tess sat in the middle of a crowd on a tall stool, hands in her lap like her mom, but Tess’s was a lap of military pants with a cowboy belt. A red handkerchief held up and out her ropy dreaded hair, and a black tank top exposed more than she ever exposed at home: a tattoo as pretty insect crawling above her heart.

She would have impressed you, Ruth. Me, on the other hand, in my Murphy Oil drench and jeans—I don’t know. I like to think you’d have glimpsed some kind of life inside the life, whatever you had seen in my letters at one time.

Clarissa hovered near the door. Someone asked Tess something and she answered and those folded hands flapped with a sureness as she spoke. Clarissa had a clutch of jumper in one hand, stood very still. Barrettes held back her pieced horse-mane hair on each side. People soon noticed us, and then so did Tess.

Clarissa looked elsewhere from her girl to the art hanging on the walls. There were charcoal drawings first, and it was clear to me they