Thea

Something ticks against the window screen.

I roll over beneath the quilt and look up. The window is dusted with pale morning light. A moth dangles there. It isn’t outside the screen, it’s inside, caught in an old, matted wad of spiderweb, and it’s thrashing as hard as it can, its wings a blur, its little brown body swinging back and forth against the screen like a tiny wrecking ball. It tires, slows, stops. It dangles there, shifted only by the wind. Then it jerks again, fighting, fighting, fighting against the trap of a predator that was probably dead a long time ago.

I wait until the moth is still again. Then I detach the web from the window frame, so the moth hangs from my fingertip instead. Its wings are like old paper. Fibrous. Velvety.

I set the moth down on the windowsill, which is full of black bits, dead leaves, old beetle husks. I manage to peel the thread off its wings. Still, the moth just sits there. Too damaged or exhausted to move again.

I slide up the screen, just an inch. Enough so the moth can slip out and flap away if it wants to.

Then I climb out of bed.

I change into clean clothes—spare pair of jeans, long-sleeved green sweater—before stepping out the door and down the creaking stairs.

There’s a tiny bit of coffee in the freezer. Enough for two cups, if they’re small. And there are two nubs of bread in the plastic sack in the fridge. Stale, but good enough for toast.

I start the coffeemaker and stare out the kitchen window as the water in the machine starts to hiss. The day is golden. Dew is still thick on the ground. I can see it on the ferns, on the spiderwebs strung across the grass. People used to call those fairies’ handkerchiefs. Here, under the thick branches, it will stay damp all day.

The toaster pings.

There’s a jar of jam in the door of the fridge. I spread jam on both nubs of bread and set them on a plate painted with sprigs of forsythia. I take the robin’s-egg-blue cup and the olive-green mug from the cupboard. There is no milk. We’ll drink our coffee black. I set everything on a scarred wooden tray and carry it into the living room.

Aunt Mae is lying on the couch. She’s awake, I can tell. But she doesn’t open her eyes all the way until I set the tray down on the coffee table beside her.

“Sweet girl,” she says. “Bless you.”

I pass her a glass of water first.

She takes it. I can see her hand shake. She sips a little.

“We’re out of bread and coffee,” I tell her. “I’ll go get some more.”

Aunt Mae nods. “There’s some money left in the can.” She turns, sitting up slightly on the couch, bunching her cocoon of blankets. I can smell the alcohol. It breathes from her pores. Sharp as pine pitch. “Your father should be sending another check soon.”