Birthday

47 Birthday Jesse Ball fiction My name is emilia. I am ten years old. I would have been ten years old yesterday, but that’s when they found Grandma, so I will be ten years old tomorrow or the next day, I expect. That’s what my dad told me. Today we went to the house where the old woman lived. Why did we go? Dad said we had to look things over. So we got there in the car and went inside. Then there was the house and a bunch of things no one wanted and a dog, Loopa, and my mom and my dad and me. We spread out immediately. I went upstairs. I did that because when she was still around you weren’t allowed to go upstairs. She didn’t say so, but if you got near the bottom of the stairs she would come over and be near you until you stopped. She was a very smelly woman and drank a lot from a bottle she kept in the cupboard. My father would sometimes drink from it too. I became afraid as soon as I got to the top of the stairs, but it was stupid because there’s nothing up there. A dirty bedroom with a mattress and some sheets with sailboats on them. A bureau with broken jewelry. Some piles of dresses and a hat or two. It smelled like mothballs. 48 | Jesse Ball By one of the piles of clothes there was a grate. I went by it and listened. I could hear my parents talking in the kitchen. —Was it just her arm? —No, some of her face too. —Uggh. Get that dog away from me. —Go on you, shoo, SHOO, go on. I could hear the dog grumble and then I heard it on the stairs. It came into the room. It was a big German Shepherd. When it got by me, it lay down. What are they talking about, I said. What did you do? The dog rolled over a bit and rolled back, then sat up again. It yawned and looked plaintively at me. What did you do? The dog sniffed at the air and blinked. It looked away towards the window. I buried my head in its fur. A voice came—one I hadn’t heard before. I held absolutely still and listened. It sounded like it was coming from far away, but then it was right there in my ear. —You’re going around in the house and you see the woman who feeds you and she’s asleep on the floor and you try to wake her up and that’s the first night and she won’t wake up which sometimes happens and then the next day you try to wake her up and then the next day you try to wake her up. You’re licking and licking at her face and her hands and curling against her. She won’t wake up. And so it happens that… —Emilia! My father came into the room. —Didn’t you hear us yelling for you? —No. I was just sitting here. This place is a dump. —Yeah, I guess I was a bad son. Don’t be up here alone with the dog. He looked at Loopa. She wagged her tail. —Why? —No reason, just come down. Your mother wants you to. Birthday | 49 —Okay. I examined Loopa and she looked like a dog, nothing remarkable . So I went downstairs. My mother had put on a yellow rain poncho. I don’t know why. She had tried in the car to get me to put one on too. —Let’s have some lunch before we go, my mother said. There are all these lunchmeats here in the refrigerator. So many kinds. It must be every kind of lunchmeat in here. I can’t believe it. There’s even the one with raisins in it. Do they still make that? Bologna with raisins? —I’ll have that, said my father. —I don’t want any. —Well you have to have something, dear, just to honor your grandmother. Loopa came downstairs, crossed the room, and sat under...