Seeing in the Dark

I threw away half the house when my mother died. Baby shoes. Undeveloped film. Awards from third grade. All of it was important. None of it was important. Not in the face of death. I had no place to put all that shit, and I couldn’t be bothered. 

One childhood artifact bound for ejection was a set of nesting dolls. The rotund woman, her company of smaller but identically contoured women tucked neatly inside her, lived in the bottom of the china cabinet. I only ever saw her when we were preparing a formal dinner and I had to pull out an infrequently used platter or set of dishes sharing the same shelf. Each time, I would deconstruct the woman, enraptured by her magic. Each time, I would return her secrets to their places, and her to the shelf.

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