Will Joe de Pone get paid?

Joe’s expenses are the same as yours. I can find fifty cents a word.

It sounds like my work just doubled.

Suit yourself.

I said, I want it.

Jacques buried my Joe de Pone column at the back of the magazine between the ads. Once I was at a party and someone said that my colleague de Pone must be a strange man to write about such obscure, sad things.

I said, He’s a good guy. Not much different from you or me.

—

I bought a house on Sibelius Park with money my father left, his last gift. My house was made of brick and it was close to a school, with a front porch and a tree, a good place to raise a child.

The day I moved in, Mam came over with a cardboard box. She said, House-warming present. It’s a cast of my grandmother’s face. My grandfather made it.

Inside the box was a smooth white plaster cast. The face had high cheekbones and was delicate and heart shaped. The eyelids over the eyes seemed large under the small forehead. I imagined the teenaged girl lying still while her older fiancé made a cast of her face. Did she think it was romantic that he wanted to preserve her image in this way? Was she flattered that he wanted a copy of her face? How did she breathe while the older man hovered over her, waiting for the plaster to dry?

Mam said, My grandfather was a strange, violent man. I was afraid of him. We stayed out of his way. I don’t know what he did except church three times on the Sabbath and his taxidermy in the back porch. You couldn’t even iron a shirt on a Sunday.

Mam traced her finger over the small nose, the firm chin. She said, But everyone loved my grandmother. Her name was Minnie Mae.

I said, Let’s hang her in the living room.

Mam said, I’m selling the big house. I don’t need it anymore. I was thinking I could move to that low-rise across the park from you and help with the baby. But if you don’t want this, I’ll move out close to the airfield.

What about not wanting to take care of anyone?

You’re not anyone, she said.

She offered me small delicacies during my pregnancy, vanilla from orchids and rosehip teas and daisy oil, and a recording of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet because I love the double bass.

She said, These are tender days, Gota.

—

While I was having my baby and watching her grow, I did not know where Kosmos was. I was at home making a childhood for Biddy with birthdays and parks and slides and swings, flying with Mam and swimming in the lake, ice-skating and walking in the ravines. But other women were trying to take care of their children in wars. I saw them when I watched television.

The world watched. Did nothing. Edina was there. Edina was no longer a lawyer in a loving marriage, a woman who walked on a summer evening with her family. She was filthy and thirsty, hiding from soldiers in a mountain forest. She watched her father shot in front of her, saw her mother and her daughter dragged away by soldiers in heavy boots. She was locked up and raped day after day, beaten, starved and assaulted. No one was coming.