Hard arrival early crying running into the car and running away try to get food for her get food into her but she runs away again and my children are crying now crying as I hold her from running away.  Back to her house tv on she sits and sits then cries again runs upstairs holds on holds on to the banister screaming screaming about her four dead babies and my children follow up Abby is crying about the babies and my mother won't move can't move screaming holding on on the top stair and I hold her keep her safe tell my children it's okay it's okay and I ease her up off the stairs into the room at the top onto the chair and my children come to her they hold her hand she can breathe now breath again and the babies she talks about the babies and my children tell her it's okay.  I bring them back downstairs run back up to her standing in the room talking gibberish to the mirror until she says in plain English "We're nuts." 

This week she laughed and she cried and she pulled my hair.  When it was raining she rubbed her legs.  When she found strands of fake pearls she wanted me to turn them into money.  When I fed her she ate happily.

She hums now.  All day, humming.  Yesterday I could hear the song.  Down in the valley.  After she hummed for an hour I sang the words for her.  After I sang for an hour she sang some of the words.  Angels in heaven.  Know I love you.

I am trying to decide why I am so heartbroken.

The house is quiet, save for the dripping of the kitchen sink and the heat going on every so often. I am hungry and I may eat a cheese sandwich. I spent hours in the tub reading a book from my oldest friend. When it was done I washed my face and my arms and my chest.

Now I am here. The house is cold the way sitting feels cold. The way being still freezes over. There is something in this being cold and quiet and hungry in a still house. I am sitting here. I am trying to decide why I am so heartbroken.

Quiet day, first of the new year, kids and James out for a walk. Snow-melt dripping outside. Thankful for a chance at starting anew.

Today everything feels like a punishment.

Sitting at my kitchen table, big tears rolling down her cheeks, big tears rolling onto my arms and dripping onto the floor. I get the softest napkin we have to dry her face. Hold her head to my bosom and dry her tears.

He wants her to have a baby, she thinks. In the shed she has an antique hospital bed, an antique crib for babies. He wants her to have a baby and she can't do it. She counts her babies. One, two, three, four. She counts ten babies. It is too much. She flicks her hands. Sh-sh-sh-- her babies are all gone.

She is done with them.

Feeling human today. Cool air coming in the windows. Potato leek soup on the stove. Tomatoes cook and peeled and in the freezer, more in a salad with basil and garlic. Watermelon cut.

The week in a blur: mother fall emergency room call sit wait shoulder pain out blood sit. Drive Kingston kids home hospital home sleep hospital drive kids home hospital work. Out home sleep hospital wait hospital wait hold mother cry hold mother. Repeat. Wait. Listen. Cry again. Out into the sun for a moment. Sleep. Hospital. Bring her home. Try to make her happy again.

Late-summer harvest: holding my mother as she tries to take the clothes off my back so she can get out into the sun.

Found my mouse. Quiet noon, practicing fiddle, heard the commotion of not being alone. Went to the basement stairs, moving the things around the noise. I have never been a good woman but I shrieked like a girl when I saw him.

Too hot yesterday, too hot to move and my mother shows up in white capris and black socks pulled up to her knees. Lunch together. The old men at the next table talk about my grandfather and my little boy. Spilled water, Walnut Street, little boys all look alike. Drive home through the heat sit down sit still. Popsicles in the bath tub. Kids to the park. Bug bites skinned knee dirty feet. Didn't get a thing done til the cool air came and I fell asleep.

Tuesday morning and the poppies are out. The air is hot and the world is noisier with the windows open. Yesterday's geraniums in the ground, last week's lilies still unplanted. Bird-song all around.

My hands are tired, man, tired. Everything I do I do with my hands. I do everything with my hands. Knit. Cook. Clean. Fiddle. I even read with my fucking hands. The rest of by body useless. That guy last night with his two broken hands and the scars up each. I want to build a house outside for the kids, with a counter and a roof and a bench to sit on. But there's no room. No fucking space. I can't cut a long line straight but I can measure. Stones on the floor, the expensive ones that don't hurt bare feet. A window. A trellis of sweet peas by the door.

Time for bed and the kids are tired of the songs I am singing. Think hard reach back my funny valentine goin' down the road quiet nights may there always be sunshine. There's a lot to do, not getting it done. Stomach hurts Virgina Woolf in the tub then off to bed.

Cleaning the fridge for soup. Losing time here and there and here again. Cucumbers in jar with dill from Gerrit. Piles of things to do. Sam in his pajamas. We are moving along.

Spring is turning to somewhere and everywhere I turn there is new growth. The peas are coming out from behind the blossoms. The radishes need to be thinned.

I am going to make this work.

Walking behind him on the way to the train. A list of Ians in my head. The one who lost himself out west. The one who The one who had sword fights in Glasgow and heroin here.

Thinking about the way men smell when they work. This one smells like wood. That one smells like stale cigarette sweat. The way men smell when they move things.

I am trying to notice things again.

Laundry to be folded int he new year, laundry and dishes and more of the same. My glasses are broken and they need to be fixed.

I have thirty dollars in the pocket of a pair of dirty jeans and I swear I am going to find it.

Monday night home from the bar and I'm awake and I'm tired. Dance music tonight but the floor was too full too crowded and I didn't want to fight my way up didn't want to dance in back. Girls with plucked eyebrows and tattooed backs and I can't shake the feeling I'm not being the person I mean to be.

Do you remember that time you came out to my bar? I just remembered it, just now.

Tonight a cab ride home never done that before and I'm not even drunk, not even tired. I wasn't dancing for anyone tonight even when the kids came. I could eat something now if there was something to eat, or call someone if I liked the phone. I am home and I don't even know if the Phillies won the Word Series.

Today she has lost her glasses. Athena from down the street is there with a flashlight looking for them. Athena who doesn't get it. Athena who keeps asking her to retrace her steps. We leave without her glasses. Athena stays to make herself a cup of coffee.

Quiet morning naked in bed tired-eyed knitting and listening and still. Cat on the covers lists of things to do lists and lists and things to do. Up into yesterday's jeans. Out into the old truck. Coffee in the sunshine morning. Yardsaling. Finding friends. Old glass buoys and clock cabinets.

I have wasted the day. Wonderful wasted day.

We are starting over.

Every day we wake up to a new light, a new chance, a new hope.

Every day is dashed to the ground like the days before it.

It is spring. There are plants in the garden. I am cooking dinner. The kids are upstairs playing. The air is cool.

I am trying to start a new story. But the story stays the same.