The Table

The Table Alyce Miller My mother owns a smaU end table that's never officiaUy been used. It was crafted by a furniture-maker friend ofher father's and presented to her on the day of her wedding in Washington, D.C, exactly fifty years ago. It's a lightweight plain table, without adornment, made of ordinary hardwood, and stained reddish to resemble mahogany. As a kid, I would lie underneath it for long stretches of time, staring up at the smaU white envelope taped to its underside. The envelope had been placed there by the table maker with instructions that it not be opened for one hundred years, the length oftime Sleeping Beauty slumbered as ifdead. A troubling oxymoron, a gift that could not be enjoyed in my mother's lifetime. Lying there, staring up, I was made crazy by the possibflities. I did my very best to penetrate the contents ofthe envelope with focused concentration. The table maker's instructions rang in my head Uke the interdiction from a fairy tale. Don't go into the woods. Please, please, I used to beg in my frenzy ofinsatiable curiosity. Aren't you dying to know what's in there? I imagined the two ofus, conspirators, sneaking into the room where the table sat, and together peeling the envelope away and discovering the secret inside. It was something we would share, something that would bind us together. Curiosity killed the cat. My mother shook her head and bUthely said she "wasn't, and I knew better than to press. We were opposites—she the stoic, who found my obsession self-indulgent; I who so couldn't bear anything hidden that I spent half my chüdhood eavesdropping at partiaUy cracked doors, and spying, shaking, and feeUng packages at hoUdays, rifling cupboards and dresser drawers, my own youthful, unarticulated version of the existential journey in fuU swing. What if the envelopejust accidentallyfell off? What ifwejust steamed it openfor a second and put it back? 187 188Fourth Genre Sometimes when I was alone in the house I would go into the room and stare at the table. If I looked long enough, the secret would be revealed without my having to violate the table maker's charge. Driven to a frenzy ofimagination, I considered this possibility: ifI opened the envelope, which might contain riches, they would paradoxically vanish as my punishment. So that my knowledge would be a burden of regret. We had very Utde money when I was growing up, and I was convinced for some time that the solution to financial happiness lay in that envelope. How ironic, like something out of one of those excruciating tales by Guy de Maupassant or O. Henry if years later, when it was too late, it was discovered that the envelope contained a surprise inheritance from a rich relation , with college tuition for aU five ofus! Wouldn't I be doing the famüy a favor to open the envelope now? IfI were caught. ... I ran my fingers over the edges of the envelope, testing the tape in hopes that it had cracked and would now flake off easily in brittle pieces, releasing the envelope. I could accept this as a form ofpermission to at least glance, nothing lingering, just a quick and ferret-like look—certainly the table maker couldn't object to an innocent peek! Then anger would set in. Why honor the wishes of a man my mother claimed to have barely known? Why wouldn't he have wanted her to know what he'd placed inside? How could he have borne his own secret? Over the years the securely attached envelope remained just that— attached—its only metamorphosis was that it grew faintly discolored, from bright white to faded white, tinged light gray-yeUow, aging gracefiflly Speculation at age five: the envelope contained exactly five hundred dollars , an enormous sum of money in my child's imagination and certainly a fortune for the candy store. Five hundred doUars was as good as a mfllion. It was the largest amount my imagination could summon, my relationship to money having been shaped by hours at the Monopoly board with one of...