Free The Assembler of Parts: A Novel by Raoul Wientzen Page A

I was holding objects up to my line of vision and on the verge of turning over from belly to back. “Let’s try this,” he said. He put his hand under my head and neck and brought me to a sitting position. He waited a second for me to stabilize, then he removed his support. I swayed for a moment, first left, then right, then steadied long enough to drip a sticky streak of saliva onto my belly and shriek at its wet tickle. “Very good, Jess,” Burke complimented as his hand went to my back again. “She’s way ahead in her development. Doing things at two months we usually see at four to five. Dr. Garraway’s prediction seems right on.” He eased me carefully down and began his exam. For ten minutes he looked and he listened, pushed and pulled, and pronounced, “Heart’s doing fine. No change in anything there. Kidney’s not palpable. Very advanced in milestones. She’s fit as a fiddle. We’re all expecting big things from her.”
    Mother smiled. Ned smiled. Nana smiled. Those cartoon beasts on the taupe walls smiled. The nurse came in with her tray.
    Ned drove, so proud of Burke’s endorsement that his elbows jutted wide as swan wings. Nana hugged the passenger-side door and hummed. Mother sat next to me with her eyes half closed. I cried all the way home. It didn’t bother anyone.
    Nana carried me into the house and gave me a diaper change. Her gray face was soft as silk and there was a sheeny creaminess in her eyes. She whacked the bottom of the talcum can a second time. “An extra dose of dust for a day well done,” she said. She taped the diaper at the corners. She slipped her hand under my tee shirt and felt my chest over my heart and nodded.
    It was the only time I went to a cemetery with Cassidy while I was alive, the Saturday I went with him and my family. I’d return yearly with Nana to visit the grave of her friend, Carina, but Cassidy never again went with us. The Saturday we all went was two days before Nana and Ned flew back to Florida. We were all dressed for Sunday, everybody in black except Cassidy and me. But even Cassidy wore a suit jacket. The next day, Easter, he would come to our home for dinner in a ketchup-wounded sweater and a day’s growth of beard. But that Saturday his face was smooth, and he wore a brown shirt under a bright green jacket. He looked like the sod on the graves in that jacket.
    He met us in his car at the entrance to the place. The graves were close enough to walk to. Robins hopped the grass in spurts, came to proper attention, and watched us with single dead-still eyes as we passed. It was nearly ten o’clock, too late for their singing. The low sun stretched their shadows to arrows on the grass. When, startled, they flew away to the budding trees, it looked as if they were being hunted.
    Mother pushed my stroller. Father and Cassidy carried flowers. Nana held a prayer book. Ned, empty-handed, was the only one who spoke as we walked. “You’re getting a little bit of a squeak in your brakes, Ford. Let’s check ’em when we get back.” Father nodded his agreement. Cassidy sniffed his roses and looked at me grimly.
    We found the plots easily. The headstones were on a slight hill just off the paved drive, under a maple tree that dripped red pollen onto their granite shoulders. From left to right, there were Carina Daley Cassidy, Rose Mary Ferraro Cassidy, and Joseph Delaney Cassidy Jr. There were dates on the stones. Numbers occupied almost all of the space on Joseph’s small stone: 10-23-1984 and 12-22-1984. There was room only for a single additional word, chiseled in tiny letters: Joey. Rose Mary’s bore the same date of death as her son.
    Ned lifted me out of my stroller. At first we stood in a line facing the graves. Nana walked up and laid her lilies on Carina’s grave, just beneath the headstone. Cassidy put his flowers on Rose Mary’s. They stepped back to our line. Nana said to the deceased, “I miss you, Carina Dee. I remember all those years. Your