Table

A hybrid fragrance drifts across the house. The marriage between Sicilian blood orange and gariguette strawberry. The TV guide is open on page thirty-eight. A Bette Davis film and a quiz show were scheduled for three p.m. and seven p.m. Thursday. I wade through the house for the second last time. The tattered tan-leather arm chair where my father smoked his pipe and tugged the sides of an oversize newspaper unseeing me. The ballet shoes’ once pink ribbons tied to a nail in the hallway. En pointe, soiled soles, a reminder of what I did not become. The lacquered red-globe-grape armoire, with golden filagree surrounding the keyholes. Sheets perfectly folded in squares, colour-coded above the ironed underwear. I have always wondered how the armoire’s tiny legs could support such a colossal wooden structure. But then, how has my heart, so small, returned to its regular rhythm amid high expectations and downright disappointment. A car parks in the driveway. Then another. Then another. A packed house. “I want you.” The table stares back. Feet scuttle up the stairs. I accept brief condolences. I let go of the table to hug. “Take whatever you want except …” I tighten my grip over the table’s edge, but the others have already rushed upstairs. Muscled helpers help the potential owners of my mother’s belongings. They have come with accessories. Trucks, trailers, velvet pouches, tarpaulins, two-wheeled hand trolleys. “Over my dead body,” I mutter when a bestie I have never met eyes my table. A vintage piece. Painted yellow, pink-freckled calceolarias over laminate. Four matching chairs—my vinyl sentinels. It is on this table I coloured. Puzzled over a 1000-piece jigsaw. I prepared double-decker hamburgers when no one was looking. It is on this table I unfolded a gigantic map and marked a spot to go and call home. It is on this table, I planned plan Bs. Two fight over the record player. I carelessly move my attention away from the table like a parent who loses her child at the fun fair or supermarket. I flip a coin and decide the next owner of the record player. One gleefully skips away with Caruso and Lanza under their arms. The first inners, invest in opal studs, pearl drops, and a ruby ring. I wipe the sweat off my forehead, sit on my table. “Yeah, good-bye, bye.” I lock the gate. The kettle whistles. The chair squeaks. I lift up the receiver, turn the dial, and hire a truck for my special table and chairs. I imagine a soon to be reality. The table and its chairs in my home—the home I marked a long time ago on a map, amid pink-freckled calceolarias.