Fifteen Days

Puck was up early that morning. When I asked him about it later he explained to me that his brain didn’t decide when to wake up. His body did. But his brain made the dreams. I’m glad he finds life to be so simply explained all the time.

About an hour later, he spent less than sixty seconds on the patio with Crackers, leashed, that morning. “It is freezing, Mom. It’s about a hundred degrees out there.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“I’m serious. It’s like fifty thousand degrees out there.”

The man knows his numbers.

With the windchill probably about negative fifty thousand degrees, Puck and I hit the library on the way out to the Big House where Mom was just leaving for Miss Aimee B’s with some old friends from Immanuel Baptist. Church in the 80’s. Francis, six days out from his second full semester in college, built a fire in the wood burning stove after scrubbing the glass door with rags and chemicals, Puck assisting. They rewarded themselves with buttered bakery-style bread and computer games in the basement.

That afternoon, Mom returned from another “great time”, as always. When has Mom ever not had a great time doing anything? Francis was already gone by that point, working out with his buddy. And with his own buddy now out for the day, Puck enjoyed the Wind Opera on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood and tied his shoelaces together. I didn’t see much of Irish. She came out to open her Wreck This Box book set fresh off the UPS truck and then disappeared into her room to paint or something.

It was starting to get dark. Puck and I were going back to Old Church to resume Medieval Church History and whatever it was Puck did with all the kids, yelling his guts out during music and games. But first, Puck ate dinner and watched Carrie spoon pumpkin filling into phyllo wrappers. When they came out as mini pumpkin pies later, edges browned, Carrie took a test bite.

“Sun! You’re eating paper?”