I
Assume the Duties of the Eldest Child
Yes,
she said. Take the portraits and pass them down—
to
the girls. My mother and I were
talking about the illness
that
would be her last, but we ended up with laughter
as
in former days when both of us were gayer. Laughed
till
we were weak and teary, though I can’t say what
was
funny, just that all at once it was. That way of ours.
Half
a century earlier she’d gone to save those portraits
when
an uncle, short of funds, tried to hock them in Boston,
though
they weren’t her kin and my father had no interest.
But
she was wrong about her sons—so wild and heedless
in
our youth that many things of beauty had long since
been
destroyed—belatedly they cared.
Gathering
after the funeral to apportion what was left,
we
made every item equal—teaspoon and trunk—breathed
a
collective sigh as we slumped into battered chairs.
Sevres
vases went to Steve, who declined the breakfront
so
my daughter could fill it with her chipped plates.
We
gave most of the rest to his twin, who feared the divvying
would
turn nightmare, surrendered everything he wanted.
(It
ended up in storage, as we knew it would.)
To
my surprise, I needed little but the portraits, faces
of
our history. I wandered empty rooms, found a bracelet
for
a niece and sterling silver candlesticks for the house
she
hoped to buy. My third brother, upset he’d forgotten
to
consider her, began to weep. Then we were done, all
but
the laughter, that way still ours. For an hour longer close
to what I imagine she’d wanted us to be.
to what I imagine she’d wanted us to be.