Free A Place at the Table by Susan Rebecca White Page A

in the jar, transforming it into a handmade night-light, a temporary wonder.
    I head toward the house with purpose.
    •  •  •
    There’s a chance the net and jar have been lost or given away, but if they are still around they are in one of two places, the basement or the garage. I check the garage first, since I can get to it without anyone else even knowing I’m home. Daddy keeps the garage, which is his domain, shipshape. Our bikes hang in descending order of size on hooks from the ceiling. The space where Daddy parks his car is empty and spotless, swept clean. Mama’s wood-paneled wagon is parked in a precisely determined spot, the front fender aligned with a Ping-Pong ball suspended on fishing wire from a hook in the ceiling. Daddy constructed the Ping-Pong ball plumb line for her so she would know exactly where to stop. If she pulls up any farther, it’s hard to get around the car, any farther back and she can’t shut the garage door. Stored against the side of the garage is a lawn mower, with a cover on it. Hanging from nails on the wall are several different sizes of saws. Near those are shelving units, the highest two shelves storing cans of WD-40, a couple of toolboxes, a handsaw, and a drill. The only thing on the next shelf down is a box of mousetraps, left over from an infestation that occurred in the kitchen last spring.
    The remaining shelves are empty, no firefly jar or net stored on them. Maybe they’re in the basement. Entering the house through the back door, I am relieved to see that no one is in the kitchen. I hear the sound of a hair dryer coming from Mama and Daddy’s room. Hunter isn’t in the den watching television, and the door to our room is closed, meaning he must be in there. Probably flexing in front of the mirror above his dresser. That or jacking off, which I have heard him do in the middle of the night, when he thinks I am asleep.
    I open the door leading to the basement, flicking on the light as I go down the stairs. It’s not a scary basement, not a dungeon. Daddy painted the concrete floor barn red and finished it with a glaze that keeps the paint from chipping. It’s chilly down here andas well organized as the garage, only there’s a lot more stuff. Lots of boxes. There is my Little People Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant and my Little People castle. I used to love making the Little People fall through its trapdoor. There are a bunch of cardboard boxes with my name marked on them in black marker. I open one. It contains all of the G.I. Joe figures Daddy and Troy gave me, plus a stuffed dog—Ruff Ruff—that was a Christmas gift from Meemaw. I don’t want to say how old I was when I finally stopped sleeping with Ruff Ruff. Even now, at fourteen, I feel guilty leaving Ruff Ruff in the box with the G.I. Joe men. It’s stupid, I know, but I worry his feelings are hurt that he’s stored with toys I care nothing about. Still, I close the box with him in it and open another. Inside are books, dozens of Golden Books, an illustrated Children’s Bible, Where the Wild Things Are, Goodnight Moon, The Runaway Bunny. I put the lid back on. In another box is an old baby blanket of mine, yellow with alphabet blocks stitched onto it. Aunt Betsy gave it to Mama when Mama was pregnant with me, before anyone knew whether I’d be a boy or a girl, because yellow could go either way.
    Seeing that blanket takes me back. I remember how the other side was made of satin and how cool it felt to the touch. It’s dumb, I know, but I want to feel it against my cheek again. I lift it from the box, and there, underneath, is the firefly jar, along with a Fisher-Price doctor’s kit and an old, old bottle of blowing bubbles.
    Here it is, not even dusty.
    I continue looking for the net, but I can’t find it anywhere. I decide this is okay. It might actually be easier to catch the bees in my hands. Except for the worry of getting stung. I already cupped one without getting hurt, but that was just