These Are the Binds that Tie

O n T h e M o r n in g o f Nanette N etherton’s eighty-ninth birthday she woke with a hollow, nervous feeling that something bad had happened the day before. She woke exhausted and sad, as if she’d cried all night. The m ore she tried to rem em ber yesterday, the angrier she got with herself for having such a slow brain and finally resolved it was better to let the incident surface than become upset. Nanette did no t wait for her daughter-in-law, Rose, to come dress her tiny, thinned body or push her petite hands through sleeves, o r tie her shoes. W hen a young woman, Nanette had been so delicately fashionable in neat suits, long gloves, rakish hats with plumes! There were sepia photographs to testify. H er fingers now had shrunk and her knuckles swelled; the ring on her third finger dangled large but would never fall off its w orn groove. H er blue-veined skin was parchm ent paper, speckled brown in places as hand-made maps are burned with a match to look ancient. Against the light, she was nearly transparent. The droopy-cornered eyes, the blue-filmed brow n eyes closed often. Still she sat straight, stood straight, held up her white-haired head under an invisible book. She looked like a proper, willful, but terribly wizened child. W ith slow precision Nanette put on a blouse that buttoned down the front, her dark blue skirt with the two large front pockets, a red cardigan sweater. She slid her puffed feet and ankles into stockings and slippers. Today was her birthday, let her have what she would. W hat she wanted: a walk outside if the weather was nice, and a coconut cake. To look a litde dressy for the occasion she put on a pair o f clip earrings. A pair. A pair. But that was it! A shiny, golden pear, balanced on a pyramid o f others in a basket on the dining room table, surfaced in her mind. Yesterday Nanette had nibbled that pear and been shocked—it tasted like poison! Nanette N etherton rem em bered clearly she had nearly been poi­ soned to death. Hand tracing the bannister, she descended indignant. To the dining room. To the pear, still in its spot, teethm arks carefully turned downward. Yester­ day, hadn’t Rose left it here intentionally! H adn’t she not fed Nanette lunch knowing she would eat the pear! Nanette felt in her skirt pocket for the sticky piece she’d bitten off but wisely not swallowed. Luckily not swallowed.