American Chordata: Magazine of New Writing Issue One, Spring 2015 | Page 78

60 • FI CTION

swear words and turned towards the back hall, took the chain off
the back door and climbed the back stairs. He used to say houses
don’t need two sets of stairs, and Mother would say you do if you
have servants, to which he said he had no intention of hiring servants who needed back stairs. Well, he’s been making good use of
those back stairs lately.
We have two kinds of days in our family now: a normal day
when he goes to work and stays home at night and he’s all ours, or
a day with the Hildebrandt’s at the end of it and no telling at
breakfast or at dinner which day it’s going to turn out to be and no
rules for what to do about it. The old fireplace is covered up now,
and the Renoir is off-center. His favorite magazine used to be LIFE.
Now it’s Field and Stream.
When he goes for a spin Mother plays solitaire and listens to
trumpet music, but she doesn’t throw pots and pans or yell. She has
gone quiet. Even when I knocked her best sherry glass off the shelf
in the pantry, she only let out a little gasp. Some special person had
given it to her so I said I was very sorry, but all she said was, “You’ve
forgotten the rule.”
“What rule?”
“Cherish people, not things.”
I’m quite sure we never had that rule, but it doesn’t matter. I
never cherished things and I can’t cherish people in the way she
means. Animals are all that’s left. Besides, I’m making my own rules
now.