Fabulae

Handwork

Handwork for K. G. It is an evening in late spring. Her husband died some years ago. She leaves the task of dinner dishes—pleasant smell of mud and grass from the kitchen window, hands in warm water—to get the tent for a weekend trip. It is underneath the basement steps, still folded from the last time he packed it away: many flat, neat rectangles, tight as a map. She takes the tent into her hands, surprised at its solid weight. Then she stands up and shakes it out. The tent seems to float for a moment before settling to the floor. She is crying. It was the last she had of his body in the house, and she has undone it. 21 ...