Orbit and Peril With Ghost

to Bryan, who took it and the greasy, fast-food paper and threw them onto my lap.

“Corinne,” Pat said, “please—” I pulled open the plastic grocery bag he’d brought for trash and tossed both inside.

Mom was soft. Not weak, no one would ever call her weak, but she was gentle and smiling and warm—soft in the way an old, loved blanket is soft. You know it can keep you safe from monsters, too. She was tiny, barely hitting five feet, and so slender I’ve been able to wrap my arms all the way around her for as long as I can remember. The rest of us are tall, the boys sturdy and broad-shouldered with thick curves like dad and me. None of us took after her, not really. We weren’t worthy of her, we all secretly thought, not bright enough to be like the sun around which our whole family revolved. Sometimes I used to help her hang laundry up to dry in our backyard. Sometimes the power went out and sometimes dad just didn’t pay it, but mom never complained. We’d play peekaboo between the rows of clothes, around the billowing sheets—white for the parents and characters for all the kids. Lewis still had his old teddy bear then, clutching it to his chest with his dirty thumb in his mouth pressing against his teeth. He’d follow us around, scowling and never speaking, his eyes trained on mom like he was a little blond hawk. “Feel that wind, Corinne?” she’d asked, pulling down the long, wavy mass of hair she kept tied up. She shook her head and her whole body followed, one long sinuous wave. She raised up on her toes, and I followed, the grass tickling our bare feet. Her eyes closed and she tipped her head back. “I feel it,” I said, switching back and forth between squeezing my eyes shut and looking at her so I could copy what she was doing. The breeze picked up and I could smell the floral detergent smell coming off the laundry, could smell the sweet summer grass crushed beneath our feet. “Yeah, mom, I feel it!” She smiled and spread her arms out like wings. “Ma you’re a bird,” Lewis cried, the words still a mash in his baby mouth. “Fly, momma, you can fly.” “I can fly,” she said. She took in a deep breath and took off, running toward the trees on the property line. “Corinne,” she called, looking back at me over her shoulder, “come fly with me!” I puffed out my cheeks and flapped my arms hard like wings, running in a clumsy

48 CAROLINA QUARTERLY