The Winged Monster

Most of the time Mark isn’t sure that he exists, which is why he grew up looking in mirrors. But right now, as Tricia leads him into her dining room and into the kitchen where she’s busy preparing a capon with stuffing for the oven, he feels pretty confident that he’s really here.

She says something to him in a gentle voice. She nods toward the wine glasses suspended on a rack above the big jug of cheap wine sitting on her kitchen island chopping block. Again, she speaks, in the same soft way.

Not much of a drinker, he dreads jug wine but not to offend her, he pours himself a half glass and slightly more for her. He feels loose tonight, maybe on the edge of something new. Too often, in his severe private judgment, he’s too complicated and mysterious; too hawkishly aware of his own persona.

This self-consciousness seems to rob him of simple fun, the aroma of pleasure, the texture of leisure. He also feels he’s too ambitious, too ready to move on to the next conquest, the next job, as if driven by an inner demon. He wants to move on sometimes even before he’s conquered himself or whatever it is he happens to be after in the present quest.

The boy shows up first. He’s wearing a bush haircut and he’s eight and thin with big sad brown eyes. Must look like his father. The boy and Mark shake hands as Tricia introduces them. He’s Paul. Paul is shy. Can’t look directly at Mark. Mark senses Paul wants out of the kitchen as quickly as possible.

He finally slinks out, looking like one of those cartoon characters that manages to get up and wobble away after being run over and flattened out by a giant rig.

Now comes the girl, Luzette, younger, closer than the boy to her mother’s light brown complexion and the brown of her eyes are specked with yellow, and possibly green. She’s pretty in an odd way and she’s less shy. Immediately she says a few innocent playful words to Mark, then blasts her mother with a request.

Tricia, in a moderate voice, blasts her back, showing who’s boss.

Unshaken, Zet is playfully swaying her hips from side to side. She turns back to Mark and starts chattering away about that event a couple of weeks before that excited her so much.

Tricia in a firm voice tells Zet to do a specific thing.

Without hesitation Luzette skips out of the room, almost falling on the edge of the rug in the hallway.

Tricia’s hands are so busy in the dressing crumbs that Mark isn’t sure if he sees a slight tremor in her fingers. Could she be nervous?

But, tremor or no tremor, he is surprised at how relaxed he himself feels suddenly and it is not the wine. He has only pretended to sip it.

Without losing the rhythm of her chopping of celery, Tricia shoots a glance at him. Her one simple sentence gets him up. He stands by her.

Tricia stops what she’s doing, wipes her hands, glides across the kitchen to a side-counter, yanks open a big drawer, pulls out a folded red plastic apron, shakes the big thing open, and, grinning, comes at him with it like it’s a cape and he’s a bull. She tells him what to do. He turns around. She ties the thing in a bow at the back. He can feel her knuckles pressing into his lower back.

She marches him up to the chopping block, where he places his wine glass, and she pushes the handle of a little silver knife into his hand. From a hanging basket she grabs two cloves and dumps them on the block in front of him. Laughing, she gives him a directive. In the same breath, with her head lifted in the direction of the hall, she shouts.

After dinner and after the kids go to bed, he and Tricia stretch out...