The kitchen chairs–red vinyl seats and back, chrome metal base, like an S without a top–had become a hazard. The angled metal below our knees would sometimes give out, bend and the person in that particular chair would without warning begin to deflate, maybe be held in the air for that one split second before descent, like a volunteer in a dunk tank. My mother blamed my brother, leaning back in the chairs, all casual in his teen-ness, for bending the chairs, when shifting his weight and altering the physics of the thing. The same could be said for his presence in our household. All arms and legs and attitude shifting the air even when he wasn’t moving. The table was still sturdy, the chrome legs doubled pipes, and the laminate top resistant to stains and knife cuts. Some nights when I didn’t want to eat one of my vegetables and was made to sit at the table until I did, I would run my fingernail along the grooves of the chrome that ringed the table, chipping away at the dried food that had accumulated there over the years, that my mother’s well-intentioned cleaning never quite prevented. It was the same with the cabinets, pale wood, plain fronts, delicate metal handles that caught grime that hardened over time. There was a circle of worn-away varnish around each of the handles where she had used a rough sponge or a cleaning detergent too harsh and her error became visual to everyone so available for judgment. To me, there were items all over the kitchen that incited my fear. A coffee can of gathered leftovers scraped from plates stowed under the kitchen sink and saved for the outside animals. Another rusted can of rusted batteries in the bottom junk drawer below the overstuffed drawer of kitchen towels. Another can at the top of the closet with bullets for the shotgun that hung below it.

Cheers rise from the soccer field just over the hill. A bird wings its way across the sky. My breath is ragged, loud as the sun is hot on my bare shoulders. A light breeze fingertip-touches my right cheek, hurries a bead of tickling sweat into my ear. I bounce the ball two times. Catch the ball. Tell myself: no, you bounce the ball three times before serving, not two. Stick to your routine. Don’t rush. Deep breath. Bounce it again. Three times. Left hand sure. Bounce, bounce, bounce. Racquet in my right hand, grip slick with sweat. Listen. Don’t listen. Think. Don’t think. I wait. I go. My squat mom-body moves in practiced mimicry of the lithe athletes on TV who butterfly around courts around the world. During long hours of lying corpse-still next to Noah while waiting for his seizure-stormed mind to quiet so he might fall asleep, I visualized my serve, metronomed the movements. I lean forward. Take my weight onto my left foot. Ball held pressed against the Y-shape of my racquet right above the handle, just below the face. I lean back, take my weight on my right leg, bend my right knee just a bit, turn my shoulders. Look. Twist. Toss. But my hand is slow to release the ball, to shoot it into the sky, into view, to where that bird flew, to where now there is a cloud skittering. The ball arcs over my head instead, and I wing my left arm out to catch it. “Nope,” I say, talking to myself more than my opponent. “Sorry,” I say to her because politeness is a requirement of the game, even if, when I approach the net on a short ball hit by her, it is also completely within the rules of comportment to hit that ball right at her chest, force her to move quickly, to defend herself, to launch the ball I’ve launched at her right back at me. I tell myself: I’ve been through worse. I tell myself, stop thinking. Nose breath in; whisper breath out. I reset. I bounce the ball. One, two, three. A bird flies overhead. The ball flies into the air.

Exercise 96 Kiteley
One Moment
Iowa Summer Writing Festival