The girls built a ladder out of the chairs and pillows in the living room. Then they climbed it, each struggling to get to the top first, clearly uninterested in the danger. Stephanie tugged at Sehra’s hair, which was short and brown like her father's, while Sam pinched Terra’s thigh, a little too close to the crotch, Jan thought. The structure wobbled under their struggles, the pillows swallowing their feet and slipping around on each other. None of the furniture was loved. It was unsentimental; unattached. There were no memories in them, except that they were in the "good" room, which the kids weren’t supposed to enter.            

The top of the pile sat just below the chandelier, a brass number with six light bulbs, each perched on a tarnished ‘S’ and flickering like a candle in a light breeze. The girls grabbed one apiece, twisting in little turns, having to pull their hands away when their fingers got too hot. Terra, who always wore long sleeve shirts, won their race, and was the first to hold up her bulb and drop it to the hardwood floor. The other girls paused to watch the glass shatter and blink as it tumbled around the room. Then they each became braver, more determined, and grabbed their bulbs harder and with more fingers, alternating hands as quickly as possible until the floor was a diamond field, only two of the bulbs remaining in the fixture.            

“Why are they doing that?” Jan’s mother asked through the speakerphone. “It sounds horrible.”            

In the newly dimmed room, Jan watched each of her daughters jump in the air, twisting and kicking to outperform the others, landing flatfooted on the tiny, delicate shards.            

“To punish me,” Jan said.            

The girls walked around the room slowly, as if they suddenly found themselves waist deep in ice water. But when two or more of them came within reach of each other, they began shoving.            

"Ouch," Terra squealed as she stepped back. "I landed on the metal screwy part."            

Stephanie, who looked like Jan when she frowned, walked to Sam and stepped on her toes, cutting them with the glass stuck to her soles.            

"Can't you make them stop?" Jan's mother asked. "They might hurt themselves."

Sehra tried to run, but the blood seeping from the balls of her feet made her lose traction. Soon, all of the girls were sliding around as though they were climbing up a hill they had just sled down. Stephanie and Terra grabbed each others' forearms and swung themselves around until they pitched over onto the sky-blue couch, gray paisleys suddenly swiped with red.            

Jan backed her wheelchair away from the kitchen phone using a mouthpiece and her head. She turned the wrong way, still uneasy with the mechanics. She blew into it and the chair moved forward, taking her to her children.            

"Please stop," she called into the room. Her faint voice barely penetrated the pinched laughter.            

"Why?" Sehra called from the chairladder.            

"This is not how you should behave," Jan answered.            

"That is not for you to decide anymore," Stephanie said.            

"We are adults now," Terra said.            

"Two weeks ago, I could not cross the street," Sehra said, having landed from a graceful leap. "But now, I can buy groceries."            

“My bosom,” Sam said. “It aches.”            

The girls gathered their voices together, and it was noisy. Jan wheeled herself back to the speaker on the wall, nicking the baseboard when she turned too sharply.            

"It's no use," Jan said to her mother.            

"It's not fair," her mother said. "Oh well. Would you like me to write it down in your journal for you?"            

The noise in the good room quieted down, but it took a moment for Jan to realize it. The girls were no longer jumping or giggling, and instead there was silence. Again, Jan left the phone and moved her chair. There were little red footprints leading out of the room and down the hall, and Jan moved to follow, hoping that they hadn't gone upstairs. The blood had started to dry to a salty brown, and the glass was visible only as bumps in the clot. By the chair stack, down feathers had blown out of a pillow and landed in the puddle, looking as though someone had gone duck hunting with a cannon. The trail of footprints led under the door of the guest bathroom. Jan urged her chair forward until it bumped the door, then back again, then waited to see if the girls understood that to be a knock. Sam opened the door a crack and leaned her head out.            

"Is everything alright in there?" Jan asked. "Anything I can do?"            

"We're fine. We'll be out in a minute."            

Sam poked her head back in without closing the door and Jan stayed there in the hall, peeking through the crack. Stephanie was picking glass out of Terra's left foot, while Sehra wiped the right foot with alcohol. Sam picked up a roll of gauze and ripped a long section off. Jan tried to reach out towards them. She looked down at her arm and mouthed her wish towards it, that it would lift up and grab the girls, pull them out of the bathroom and hold them down in front of the TV. That it would dial up their friends on the phone and then hold that phone to their ears until two in the morning. She urged her legs to remember the time, just a month ago, when they had been worth something to so many people. The girls were no longer giggling. They no longer played at violence, or competed. They worked diligently, tenderly washing and bandaging, while Terra leaned back against the toilet and cringed.  LS

As far as Eric Krieg could see heading south on Interstate 280, traffic was virtually stopped. He and his wife, Lindsay, sat in the contoured black leather seats of his red Porsche 911. Both were trim, tanned, about 50, and dressed in clothes from Wilkes-Bashford. Eric was getting angry.

“Take a deep breath,” Lindsay said. “You can’t do anything about it.”

“Don’t lecture me,” he said. “I don’t need one of your lectures now.”

“Then relax. We’re going to be here for a while. I’ve phoned Jean. She knows we’ll be late. Just calm down.”

“I can’t stand the South Bay,” he said.

“It’s not so bad.”

“Yes it is.”

“Why is that?”

“For one thing the freeways are always clogged up like somebody’s constipated asshole.”

“Well, we don’t come down here that often.”

“I don’t see why we have to come down here for this.”

“You mean Jean?”

“We should have found someone in Menlo Park or Palo Alto.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know, but we should have.”

“If you would have helped choose someone, then, yes, maybe we could have.”

“So this is my fault?”

“No, this is a traffic jam. I chose Jean because Marilyn said she was helpful with her and Don.”

“So how did she help them?”

“Marilyn says things are better now. She and Don are happier, communicating more, not arguing as much.”

“I still don’t get why you’re so bent on this—why it’s either this or ‘Hit the road, Jack.’”

“We need help, Eric. That’s why I’m so bent on this.”

“I don’t see what the problem is. I make lots of money. You don’t have to work. You get your manicures and pedicures every week. I’m not an alcoholic. I don’t cheat on you. I don’t beat you.”

“You’ve been a good provider, Eric.”

“But—?”

“Let’s save it for Jean.”

“Come on, Lindsay.”

“I think we need a referee. I just don’t want to get into it now.”

“It isn’t sex, is it? You don’t seem to have much of an interest in it anymore, so I just don’t push it.”

“Eric, let’s just wait until we get there.”

“So what is it?”

“Eric, please.”

“If I’m not always ‘attentive,’ then cut me some slack, will you? I work twelve hours a day so you and the kids can have a good life, so they can go to their fancy private school, so you can get your fingers and toes painted every week.”

“Quit being an asshole, will you?”

They sat silently for a very long time.

“You didn’t used to be this way,” she said finally.

“Do you know how incredibly hard it is to do the work I do?” he said. “To work the hours I work? To wonder who is going to try to cut my balls off tomorrow or the next day or the next?”

“If it’s the work that’s making you this way, then do something else. You’re a smart guy.”

“Where would the money come from?”

“You might not make as much, but that would be okay.”

“Yea, right,” he said with a laugh.

“Eric, I could live without my weekly manicures and pedicures. You might even manage to live without your Porsche. We could find a way to live with less money.”

“Yea, dream on.”

“Come on, Eric,” she said in a weary voice. “This is why it’s so hard to talk to you. This is why I think we need someone like Jean.” She was silent for a moment. “Do you remember when we had fun together—actually had fun? That seems like a million years ago, doesn’t it?”

They sat in silence again.

“Yea, it does,” he said quietly. He paused. “Where do you think all this is headed?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

A few minutes later the traffic began to open up and Eric and Lindsay were moving again. Soon they saw three Highway Patrol cars, two fire trucks, two ambulances, two tow trucks, and two cars that had both been smashed and gutted by flames all lined up by the side of the road.

“My God,” Lindsay said as a tear rolled down from one eye.

Eric said nothing and drove on. LS

November 10th, 1964

Dear Dr. Weissman:

I am writing to thank you most kindly for taking the time to visit with my husband Frank and me in August. I am most pleased to inform you that although we did not resume our counseling appointments in the fall that we are doing so very much better! You will also find enclosed cash in the amount of thirty-five dollars for the appointment that Frank canceled in September. I would have sent the check to you, but I don’t want Frank to find out and get cross.

Frank feels that these sorts of situations, between man and wife, simply don’t need to be aired publicly. Now, I myself realize that you assured us that our appointments, that the things we discuss, were completely confidential. Frank also felt that the drive to your offices in Des Moines would take too much time from the fishing and hunting that he enjoys. When I told him that he could hunt pheasant any other time he did become quite angry. Frank gets his temper from his father’s side. I have learned when to acquiesce and keep peace. Some of your suggestions have most certainly aided me, Doctor. Frank also expressed his concerns that people in our small community might begin to suspect. I think it embarrasses him – you understand. Frank grew up on a farm near Fontanelle not far away and we have lived in Greenfield for more than thirty years. I must say that my work as a second grade teacher made the long, extra car trips burdensome. In addition to that I was honored recently for twenty-five years of active membership in the Eastern Star, which coincided with one of the Saturday appointments, I believe. Frank just doesn’t enjoy long trips by car – or at least not with the two of us in the same car, as he likes to say. I remember telling you that I don’t mind his smoking, but he refuses to roll down the window just because I ask him. Frank resented having to stop in Winterset on the way home to visit with my mother to have pie. They have never gotten along well, but then she can be difficult and lately she does take a great deal of time to chew each bite.

I enjoyed our visit together, hoping that some of the difficulties could be solved with your helpful suggestions. Frank prefers to just follow the Bible. I know that you asked about his reactions when you were so thoughtful to telephone. Frank would just not let me talk long. I am sure that as a member of the Jewish religion – Frank told me that’s what you must be, that you can appreciate his feelings in all of this. I also am enclosing two more dollars to replace the Dr. Kinsey book you loaned us. Frank threw quite a terrible fit over that, I’m afraid. He certainly never let me read it. He told me he burned it.

The real relief for me has been the time I’ve gotten to rest in recent weeks. The doctors and nurses here have been so kind. Why, they remind me of how very nice you were. They tell me that there will be some lingering discomfort after I am discharged, but I manage to get up and walk with a cane for a few minutes every day. Our minister reminds me that we must accept God’s plan in our lives, and do you know, it was a miracle the bullet did not strike the main artery. Instead, it bounced right off my hip bone! The doctors and staff were all amazed. Of course Frank has apologized and I forgive him. If I had not dropped that pot roast on the kitchen floor while he was cleaning his hand gun it would not have gone off. I simply startled him. At first it was amazing how I felt no pain. Well, these things happen and we have to get over them. Frank has gone duck hunting and says he will put the meat in the freezer for me to cook when I get home again. I don’t imagine that he would approve of my writing to you today, so perhaps it is best that you do not contact us again. Thank you, Doctor, for all your help. We will be just fine, Lord willing.                                                                              

Sincerely,        

Mrs. Frank Tharpe  LS