by Christine Stoddard

Created on: May 11, 2009

The cathedral overlooks a hobo park, where art students paint and fly kites on humdrum Sunday afternoons. Sometimes lovers set out old-fashioned picnics there, with a wicker basket and red tablecloth. But tonight it is empty, devoid of all the usual associations. I stare at the moon as my sister pushes an archaic microwave into the trailer our parents towed down from home. The moon cackles at the grunting girl with Tweety bird eyes. It always takes my side.

Need help? I mumble. I don't really mean it. I'm standing in front of Sacred Heart, wondering how I can stuff the silver night clouds into the trailer. I, the greedy, nostalgic girl that I am, want to take everything.

My sister growls, not even bothering to face me, and hauls a beige television set from the moving cart she wheeled from her dorm to the street. The TV reminds me of one of the Jurassic computers on which I first practiced typing Ariel Heart Love back in kindergarten. I would print out ten sheets at a time and scribble pink crayon hearts all over.

My sister drops the giant box on the trailer floor and then fishes out a navy and white plaid bedspread from the moving cart.

I immediately stand up straight and ask, Hey, where'd you get that?

Huh? She flashes me her trademark 'I'm studying Film at the best public art school in America and therefore holier than thou' look.

I asked again, Where'd you get that?

This bedspread? She picks it up again from where she's dropped it. The trash. I was just going to wash it and use it. It looks almost new.

Almost. I bend over and finger the majestic blue paint stain shaped like a castle. That's where we were supposed to live one day. I trace over the tiny torrents I had overblown in my mind.

Oh, I didn't notice that stain, my sister murmurs. Whatever. She scrunches up the bedspread and pushes it into the trailer. Then she reaches into the moving cart again, this time for a box brimming with glittery, ceramic fairies. They carry Celtic crosses and crystal balls, the sacrilegious sprites. I try to ignore the fact that they smell like wet rubber cement because of what rubber cement triggers in my head.

Are you sure you still want it?

The bedspread? My sister stares at me, those fairies still in her cut-up hands. Yeah, I meanlook at it. She points at it with her pixie chin. It's fine. What difference does one little stain make?

It makes a royal difference. No, you're right. No difference at all. I pause. You're not going to sleep with it, are you?

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