Just now I was at the train station, but my party did not show. Someone else did. though: Charles Brother, your uncle. Of course, only in the way a ghost can in fact show up but I felt him with me, and took his spirit home with me, to drink courage with me, for this telling.

She knew it was wrong but did it anyway.

Ducking with ease under another flying suitcase, she simultaneously stepped over a small mound of canvas bags and walked to the mail car. Railway postal clerks were switching off duty. She walked out even further, now stepping into the yard with the row of catchers. Looked up at the mounted crane, at this, for this hook the men use to catch the sack of mail.

Charles didn’t care about the stupid glittery stuff but took offense over lost money. So, the chase was on. When Charles reached for the purse, J. P. hurled it near the edge of the pond and took off. Charles was going to get wet for this girl. He collected what he could and paused when, as the sun hit the play glass and water, the boogers sparkled, with one of them giving out a sort of rainbow with its cut.

Charles told me that growing up as the youngest child provided a view of a kind of theater. He had a terrific view and never had to buy a ticket. Sometimes, he said, they didn’t even know he was there. From where he sat, he learned which tone worked on their faces and which jab caused a switch to be thrown.

It was Mrs. Metcalf that sat Charles down. She told him what it was all about, why Val collapsed on his bed in such an outpouring of tears like a girl, and why Henry walked out and refused to talk to anyone.

Your uncle Charles told me that Val was to go along, and Henry. Of course, his sisters wouldn't dare talk of it or think about going, for they were still at that time not even allowed to read certain sections of the newspapers. Because of his age, only four, Charles was only slightly aware of the anxiety, the knotted feelings, the stuttering during grace, and an urgency for the males to march out without emotion.

I imagined Charles being happy to toss then, as he was happy to toss a roll later, without fail, when he visited us. In doing this, he gave me hot morsels, and I took off with them not as if they were table scraps of bread, but sparks. His touch and love for me turned everything about him into fireworks in my head. And as he talked about his youth, I sat at the table for hours laying on the butter.

As he was hunched over the dining room table with Val, admiring the flag, she patted him on the back and swung him around. With urgency, she cupped her hands around his forehead, neck, and chin, tugging on his lower eye lids, and announced that the show-and-tell was over. She led him to the sick room.

But this time it was his wife, Mary Ann, who determined that the older children needed something extra special this Christmas, because the pathetic presents were going to be on the low-down this year, such as a story while looking up at the sky and finding that star of wonder, star of beauty bright. Intuition was now the new law of the land for this growing family, and your mother picked up on how to be the most charming, most bright, when the family needed it most.

And how was I to know that the daughter I named after Mother was to have the same figure, style, and attachment, and also, the same type of servile fear, if mostly contained, of how the jug was more of a vase than a common pitcher, depending on the company. And who might determine if or how the table settings were accurately measured. The placement of the containers, trays, and silverware in the cabinets, or the elaborate woodwork of the trim on the cupboards…and how exhausting it was for those who said it didn't matter.

After the sign of the cross, the prisoner calmed down. He unlaced his shoes and handed them to the priest, who put them in his satchel. Then the priest gave the man a swig from a flask.

Ellen taught him how to read and write in quick punches, how to say enough to not waste people’s time, as if preparing for battle.

The trick, they thought, was to keep the victim's spirits up. For example, to name a new baby after the sick one. Or, to deliver plenty of sunlight. To open windows on both walls. To make the room drafty. To remind the patient of the outdoors and the benefits of nature. To avoid dark until it was indeed time to rest or treat the migraine.

Privately, in the hallway, helping Finch with his coat and his books, Mary Ann suggested that maybe Finch had gone too far. Hank might have nightmares. He was starting to carve sailing vessels into the woodwork, drawing under the tables and chairs. He was stealing her stationery. The craft assignments alone, she reported, were draining her ink wells.

Pulling back the curtains, lifting her rear end, Mary Ann watched as Mr. Fowler greeted Mrs. Metcalf and she returned to her breast, “What turn of events now?”

A few words were spoken by their Episcopalian minister to never lose sight that God’s plan is not for you to see, and to want less.

Although he wanted to tap on the boy's shoulder, whispering that they were all better off without her, he bit his lip. He picked up the baby, who promptly soiled him, and one by one added the rest of that household to his wagon, rehearsing what he was going to say for the women at the parsonage.

He was so attached to accounting and cleaning the equipment, in fact, that it concerned his mother, who asked her husband Henry to straighten the boy out to enjoy life, to stop with the grist inspections, or at least pretend to be more animated during the performances when he was around her friends.

He waved his hand as if now she was the bug going through the house. She knew the look. She lowered her chin. She picked at the dried flowers on the bedside table.