In that brittle winter, we’d sit, covered in the blue blanket your aunt gave us. You remarked on the blanket every time we sat down and pulled it up first over our knees then chin high. Christ, this is one ugly blanket, you’d say. I don’t know why this was ever funny but it’s still funny now. Maybe that way you said it. As if you’d never seen it before. Your aunt loved hearing about how we shared that blanket. How we looked forward to using it. It was the warmest blanket in the house, maybe in the county, we’d tell her.
At first, when you were too weak to read, you’d say: Read anything aloud. Read what you’re reading. Poetry? Sure, that’ll be great. I could see you growing listless. Maybe a novel. Good idea, you’d say. Sure, hon, a novel. You pick, you’d say. Whatever you’re reading will be great. Your eyes would glaze over. I knew this wasn’t the medication.
One day it dawned on me that instruction manuals would be perfect. I hauled the yellow box in which you kept the manuals onto the coach. You laughed — hooted really. You, you said, you are going to read an instruction manual! You? I don’t believe in instructions as a rule. I find them maddening. Let’s be real. I never had to read the manuals because you did. Besides, until that winter you could’ve fixed anything, anywhere, anytime.
You started sleeping a lot during the day. You’d wake, ask me how long you had been sleeping. Not long, I always said. I just made a cup of tea, so minutes really. You didn’t challenge my lie, or your fatigue. I printed the instructions for a greenhouse. The one thing you’d planned to build but hadn’t. Yet.
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