Harvey was playing in his mom’s closet one day when she got in her bed and started crying so loud he held his ears. He wasn’t supposed to be in her closet, because it was where she kept good things like sparkly shoes and stuff she had when she was little, like a naked Barbie doll and an old smelly quilt. There’s an old bowling ball in there too. Jason showed it to him and told him it was like the Magic 8 Ball, only bigger, and Jason could read messages in the black and red swirlies: It is certain. Yes. In the closet, Harvey held on to the ball while he sat real quiet and watched his mom’s dirty white socks kicking back and forth.

Michelangelo would have popped out and scared her. Michelangelo would have told a joke, like he might’ve said, Hey, dude, does your nose run? Do your feet smell? Or why does your crack go thisaway and not thataway? And then he would have made that funny sound with his lips that a butt would do on a sliding board if it was cracked the other way, like Jason taught him, and his mom would have thought that was funny. She would have laughed instead of crying and he wouldn’t have needed to hold his breath, like he was waiting for something or like he was way deep underwater with that old turtle with the nice eyes. He isn’t supposed to touch the bowling ball but sometimes he does, because he misses Jason telling him what it says—Let’s eat or Burp loud—and throwing him high in the air. Be good.

Lil

Christmas 2014
Newton

You two always shook your heads and got impatient when I said I had to have a huge tree and spent way too long (your father said) there on the lot studying them all. I wanted big trees, beautiful trees. The whole process of it was a joy, from buying and getting it home to dealing with the hateful old stands, greeting each curse and slam of your father’s hammer, or whatever he was using to make it stand upright, with the expression of how beautiful it was all going to be, how it was worth every minute of trouble.