Free Fragile by Chris Katsaropoulos Page B

arrived at the house in the country: She loved exploring the barn, watching the cats that came with the place sneak around hunting mice. And another thing that fills her aching head: her first father, her real father, arriving home from work at the plant, tired, his hair matted with sweat, head down, but still happy to see her, his oldest daughter—maybe five or six—who had waited at the top of the stairs of their city apartment for him to come home. All tangled up together. Why didn’t the old lady tell her anything, not going to now either, not going to call her on the phone. How could I now—do you know what that man did to your daughter? And if you knew about him before why didn’t you tell me about him? I have shut off my life to others in the years since you left, Tris. I have narrowed my self down to a winnowing old maid, sifting out any others who could harm me. I keep them all at arm’s length, and even this woman I tried to help I have hurt. I don’t know enough about the world and its ways to not end up hurt by another or hurting another. I am a barren seed going about my business, blown by the wind, but never doing any good any more.
    The sidewalk marches on my feet beneath me, and here are the steps to the old library. We used to be afraid of the statues of boys with hats on crouched above the doors as you enter, as if they hold up the roof of the building with books in their hands, smiling down like gargoyles. We had to get past them upthe stairs. This is one place that has not changed all that much since you were here, the garden and my house and the library are just as you would remember, the same warm oaky feeling, smell of warm sun on the pale wooden floor and books slightly musty. The only difference is they took out a lot of books to make way for the computers, but all of the machines are being used by young black boys not reading or looking for books, they’re all playing games with very quiet muffled sounds, shooting space creatures or racing cars. They shouldn’t let them use the computers for that. One of them says, “This game is stupid, I’m finding me another one.”
    The boy pushes back from the screen, and quickly I go over and claim his chair. He looks at me as if he didn’t want to give it up after all—or give it up to an old white woman like me, but pay him no mind. Once I plant myself in the chair still warm from his young body, the machine is mine for as long as I need. For as long as I needed you, and still you never came, you never came back. Was it really so bad what Louise said about us, what Father said about us. Was it really so bad that you had to fall from the uppermost edge of the hammock, fall from the edge of the bed in the front room, fall from the top of the tower. We both jumped up and grabbed on as high as we could.
    The keys are shadowed with dirt, the beige plastic rimmed by the built-up remnants of many peoples’ fingertips typing their messages, sending them into the air. I unfold the paper with the address to type. I can still type seventy words a minute, arthritis or not, the fingers never forget the positions of the keys, the relationships between them. The pictures on thescreen change in an instant and the new page comes up, the one I need.
Horace Mann High School Class of 1957 Reunion, Saturday August 12 2007. We were the lucky ones. We saw the old, yet are living long enough to see the new. Please join us at the Lyceum Theater for dinner, dancing, and a night of memories of dear Horace Mann.
    The screen flickers a bit, difficult to read without glasses, but I’m not bringing them today. You will see me with my hair looking good in its new cut and no glasses, looking as good as a lonely old woman like me possibly can. I have to see if you are coming. One more time I want to see you, at least I think I do.
    In
Guest List,
all the names of the people we knew, the ones we admired and the ones we despised,