Janna Tierney
Mother ’ s Story
Janna Tierney
T he glint of an under-cabinet task light caught her watch crystal as she chopped carrots for the pot roast . Her head turned upward in spite of her task-centered drive to finish dinner before 4:15 . In spite of herself , she watched the bright , oval spot of light flit around the kitchen ceiling , the miniscule motions of her wrist animating the imaginary pixie just like her mother used to do , to entertain and bewilder her and her brother when they were young and hadn ’ t a quarter for the cinema . Then , her mother — may she rest in peace — would make up fairy stories punctuated by the inexplicable magic of a fairy that would dance about the ceiling when the morning light hit the kitchen window and refracted off her mother ’ s wristwatch just so : stories so enticing that when the specter appeared , she could almost hear a little bell voice whispering behind her ear , come away , come away .
Abby had been lying on her stomach for twenty minutes , propped up with her chin in her left hand and a purple marker in her right . Her left arm was asleep and the elbow was firmly imprinted with the texture of her bedroom carpet . She ran her finger along a line of neat purple writing on her beautiful masterpiece : a book with twelve pages , made of six folded pages of borrowed printer paper and a cover of green construction paper , stapled together twice in the center . Mom would love her Christmas present so much that she would insist that she write more — and one day Abby would become a great author , read aloud after dinner and discarded in thrift stores . The true mark of success in authorship : three copies of your novel , the spine broken in twenty vertical creases and a Coming Soon cover for the Warner Bros . film , present in every thrift and used book store for 69 ¢ per paperback . She turned the completed page , pressed it down , and began writing the next sentence .
“ Mom , how do you spell carry ?” she called and waited for the half second while the sound waves flittered out her bedroom door , around
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