Rapture Katie Cortese

From The Ampersand Review, Vol.

2

T h e A m p e r s a n d R e v i e w V o l . 2

Rapture

Katie Cortese

The first time my sister‟s gerbil

died my father found it. While he went to

Debbie‟s Petland with a polaroid of the

deceased, my mother and I took Sophie out

for ice cream. It was January in Eastern

Mass. Not your ideal time for Rocky Road.

The second time, we were on vacation and a

neighbor handled the burial and replacement

according to instructions on the emergency

list my mother left on the refrigerator (#8

In Case Spanky Dies). It wasn‟t until Spanky

IV that our luck quit.

“Ellen,” my father said. “Go light a

fire under your sister.” It was a school day

and Sophie had not come down to breakfast.

I found her kneeling in front of

Spanky‟s habitat, nose to the yellow

plastic, hands flat together in front of her

chest. She was dressed all in black, head to

toe. As for Spanky, he was nose down in the

sawdust, his tail looped through a spoke in

his wheel. We had kept up the charade for

seven years, proving the adage that it‟s not

a problem if your little sister‟s gerbil

dies, unless she finds out about it.

This was a Tuesday and there was a

plate of sausage in the center of the table.

“One link or two,” my mother said. My father

was busy chewing, which bought him time to

think.

“Just bread and water,” said

Sophie. When she bowed her head a silver

T h e A m p e r s a n d R e v i e w V o l . 2

cross scraped against her plate. We were all

Catholics, but Sophie was a believer.

“They‟re Jimmy Dean‟s, Soph,” I

said.

“Excuse me,” she said, hotly. “But

I‟m in mourning.”

“More for me,” I said. In truth, I

knew what she was feeling. In the first

grade, I‟d lost Goldie, my fish, and had

stopped eating solid food for a week. That,

coupled with my copious tears, had landed me

overnight in the hospital for dehydration.

When I came home, we‟d had a proper funeral

in the upstairs bathroom with a goldfish

cracker substituting for my dearly beloved

fish, who was by then long gone.

Sophie was just a little thing then, not

four years old, but she listened to the

scratched record of “The Saints Go Marching

In” and stood with the rest of us, solemn

and silent, as I did the honors and flushed

the idol of Goldie into the next world. I

hadn‟t wanted another fish after that. The

first Spanky‟s death came a month later and

I guess my parents didn‟t want to see

another kid in a transparent paper johnnie,

drooling on hospital sheets. After the first

replacement, it had seemed easier to keep

doing it than to tell her the truth.

“What say we hit the mall after

school, Sophia,” my father said. “There‟s a

sale on guinea pigs.”

My mother dropped her knife on the

floor. While she was down there she

whispered my father‟s name, Charles. Because

I was next to her I felt the heat of her

breath on my leg.

T h e A m p e r s a n d R e v i e w V o l . 2

Sophie brought her paper napkin to

her face. “I‟m not going to dignify that,”

she said. My sister read a lot for a nine-

year-old. She took pride in her vocabulary.

Sweating now, red-faced, my father took more

sausage and sat in silence, chewing.

“It‟s eighty degrees outside,” I

said. “You really want to wear a

turtleneck?”

“These are mourning vestments, an

outward sign to the world of my state.”

“Fine.” I had on my yellow dress,

the lightest one I owned. “If you feel like

dying from heatstroke.”

My mother set her mug too firmly

on the table, remembering what they said,

maybe, about hell and good intentions.

“Shush, Ellen,” she said. “Sophie is

perfectly capable of dressing herself.”

“Sorry.” I pushed a rumpled piece

of paper across the table. “I need you to

sign this. It‟s a permission slip.”

My father snatched it up, eager to

reclaim parental competency. “What for?”

“Sex Ed.,” I said. “We‟re having

afternoon assemblies tomorrow, the whole

sixth grade. If we can‟t go to the

assemblies, we‟re not supposed to go to

school.”

My father dropped the paper and

stood up in one motion. “I‟m off.” Kissing

my mother on the cheek, he grabbed his

briefcase from the counter. Exit stage left.

“Well, I‟m working tomorrow,” my

mother said. “Get me a pen.”

In the driveway, my father woke

the Volvo. “Will Spanky‟s service be right

T h e A m p e r s a n d R e v i e w V o l . 2

after school?” Sophie asked. She had big,

dark eyes and they were open wide now,

turned up to my mother.

“I‟m sure Daddy will want to

attend,” she said, squeezing Sophie‟s wrist

with the blue Bic between her first two

fingers. “Let‟s make it an evening affair.”

“Lord‟s will be done,” Sophie

said, making the sign of the cross.

“Okay then, that‟s settled. Now

the Lord helps those who help themselves.”

My mother dug a spoon into a large bowl of

scrambled eggs. She was a believer in

breakfast.

“I couldn‟t,” Sophie said. Her

feet were bare under the hem of her long,

black Sunday skirt. I wondered if she was

planning on leaving them that way.

I skewered another sausage and

waggled it at her. “Maple flavored,” I said.

Sophie lifted the crucifix on its

chain and kissed it. “Fine,” she said,

sighing. “Suffer the sausages unto me.”

Instead of removing layers on the way to

school, Sophie added them, twirling a black

fleece scarf around her neck, draping a

shawl over her head so only her white face

showed and – after my mother called her back

across the lawn – lacing on black sneakers.

We walked together, she next to me like the

world‟s saddest penguin.

It was better this way, I thought.

She had to learn about death sometime.

“I know how you feel, Soph,” I

said.

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“No,” she said. “I don‟t think you

do. Goldie was just a fish.”

“Ouch,” I said. “You‟re allowed

to be sad, but maybe Dad‟s right. Maybe you

should get a guinea pig. Or even another

gerbil. Spanky would want you to be happy.”

“Another gerbil?” She laughed, an

empty sound. “Spanky was irreplaceable. A

miracle.”

I brought a hand to my throat,

which felt as if it were closing. “What do

you mean?”

“Ellen, gerbils usually live three

years. Maybe five at the most. I looked it

up. Do you know how long Spanky lived?” The

edge of her shawl interrupted her peripheral

vision so she couldn‟t see me blush.

“Longer than that?”

“Seven years, Ellen. Seven.”

She was attracting attention from

the kids passing on bikes. One asked whose

funeral she was going to and Sophie paused

so I heard rosary beads rattle in her cupped

hand. At my friend Bob‟s house he fell into

step with us. We‟d been friends forever, but

lately I kept catching him looking at me

sideways, and then something like static

electricity would prickle into my

fingertips, a pesky needling.

“Is the fourth grade having a

dress up day?” he asked. “Who‟s she, Mother

Theresa?”

“Something like that,” I said.

“I‟m getting more cheat codes

today,” he said. “Can you come over?”

“Sorry, we‟re putting Spanky to

rest.”

T h e A m p e r s a n d R e v i e w V o l . 2

Bob‟s eyes widened. He‟d been in

the know. We were joined on the sidewalk by

groups of kids in threes and fours, and in

the distance swelled the great roar of the

schoolyard. Sophie walked in front of us but

she spoke to Bob now, over her shoulder.

“You‟re welcome to attend. There will be a

short reception following the ceremony.”

“I‟m bad at funerals,” Bob said.

“But I‟m very sorry for your loss.”

We watched her cross over to the

fourth grade side where the teachers were

corralling the kids into lines. “This

doesn‟t look good,” he said.

“She‟ll snap out of it.”

“If you say so.”

“So, have you made any progress?”

Bob see-sawed his hand in the air.

“I‟m at the end of level four, but I‟ve been

stuck there since Saturday. The problem lies

with Bowser Jr. I‟ve been psyching myself

up, but every time, pow.” Bob pounded a fist

into the soft flesh of his palm. “Every

time.”

“Good luck getting those cheats,”

I said. For his birthday early in May, Bob

had gotten The New Super Mario Brothers and

had quickly become addicted. Over the last

month, we‟d logged countless hours in front

of the big screen in his basement. He wanted

to beat the game before vacation or else, he

said, faced with the endless days of

nothingness, no homework, no soccer

practice, no reason to leave the house, he

wouldn‟t see sun until September. That was

no way to spend a summer. “What‟d you bring

him?”

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Bob opened his backpack and showed

me the Double Stuffed Oreos in their pink

and blue package. “That fifth grader‟s got a

sweet tooth,” Bob said. “Don‟t worry, he‟ll

talk.”

By the time I saw Sophie at lunch

she had acquired a veil that was pinned to

her head with bobby pins. It obscured,

entirely, her eyes and nose.

“Where‟d that come from?”

“We had art this morning,” Sophie

said. “Mrs. Haskell helped me make it with

watercolors and some gauze from the first-

aid kit.”

“Nice,” I said.

“I made one for you too.” Sophie

took from her sleeve the rolled up twin of

the veil she wore. She waited until I held

it up against my hairline, eyeballing the

fit.

At Bob‟s house after school on Wednesday,

the day after Spanky‟s funeral, Bob‟s

grandfather opened the front door. He was a

tall man who dressed in red plaid shirts and

brown pants almost exclusively. “Good

afternoon, Ellie,” he said. His hand

jittered against the screen.

“Hello, Mr. Kaufman.” He‟d moved

in with Bob‟s family after his wife died

last year. He reminded me of our principal,

Mr. Fedge. Both men were tall and had sun-

dark skin, both talked with their hands,

only the principal of Peebles Elementary

wasn‟t nearly so old. Mr. Fedge had blushed

a serious shade of cherry non-stop today,

announcing the Sex Ed. presenters and making

T h e A m p e r s a n d R e v i e w V o l . 2

sure girls and boys got to their respective

classrooms. But the presentations hadn‟t

been anything new, not if your parents had

shown you a book when you were little,

especially not if you were like some girls

in my class, girls like Spacey Miller whose

red and black and pink bra straps made her a

frequent snapping victim.

The upstairs of Bob‟s house

smelled of pipe smoke and meatball subs, but

the basement smelled of old beer and dust

and rot. Bob was moaning when I got down

there. “This is not good,” he said. “I‟m

stuck.”

“What about the cheats?”

“Garbage. A whole row of Double

Stuffs, wasted.”

A map of Mario World was displayed

on the screen. Mario, in small, bounced in

place on an orange stepping stone. Bob had

graduated from the tropical island level

into the jungle over the weekend, but still

ahead were the mountain levels, the ice, the

sky. He‟d already died multiple times today.

I could tell it was wearing on him. “Want me

to take over for awhile? So you can clear

your head?”

His hand closed reflexively down

on his controller, but then he pried his

fingers off, one at a time. “That‟d be good,

I guess.”

The great thing about Super Mario

Brothers was that you never really died. In

every world there was always a free life

mushroom, if you knew where to find it,

which guaranteed that if Bowser won the

fight at the end, you could still live to

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fight another day. Bob grabbed two cans of

Sprite from the battered mini fridge next to

his father‟s card table. “Has your sister

gone completely off the deep end yet?”

I was easing Mario through the

paces, working his high jump. “I don‟t know.

At the funeral she was really happy. And

afterwards she ate two squares of lasagna

and watched Wheel of Fortune with my dad

even though she hates that show.”

“Why?”

“She says it‟s demeaning to women.”

“No,” Bob said. “Why was she happy?” He

swigged at his Sprite, then used his sleeve

to wipe his mouth. “Watch out, there‟s a

couple of Koopa Troopas in the next frame.”

“Thanks. She said there was no

point being sad since Spanky would be back

tomorrow.”

Bob iced his thumbs on his soda

can. I wasn‟t doing better or worse than he

had done, but in a minute he‟d ask if I was

tired. “Did anyone explain the term dead to

her?”

“My parents are going to tell her

everything. All the way back to Spanky I.”

Bob whistled, long and low. Then,

“Hey, how‟re you holding up?”

“I‟m okay,” I said. Bob tented his

fingers then stretched them out. “But why

don‟t you take another crack at it.”

Bob sat cross-legged next to me so our knees

touched. I couldn‟t tell if he noticed,

but he didn‟t move away and neither did I.

For awhile there were only the delicate

clicks of buttons sinking and rising under

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his thumbs. I had shorts on and the corduroy

on Bob‟s pants impressed a striated pattern

into my knee. In that spot a warmth began

spreading under the skin, rushing sudden and

alive, like hives. I wondered if the same

thing was happening to Bob, in his knee, and

if it was something to worry about. Hives

had not been covered in Sex Ed.

Bob manipulated Mario down a green

pipe and the screen filled with a hundred

rotating coins. “Your parents are going to

give her a complex,” Bob said. “Nine is a

little old to believe, what, that Spanky

will rise again on the third day?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess so.” But

I‟d been nine three whole years ago, a long

time, and it was hard to remember what I had

or hadn‟t believed.

A miscalculated jump launched Mario into a

bottomless abyss. “Your turn,” Bob said. He

leaned back on his elbows and stretched out

his legs. The skin on my knee felt new-made

in his absence, and all at once it was

easier to breathe. I saved Bob‟s game and

started a new one, as the Princess, who I

liked because she could hover at the top of

her jumps. “So yesterday, Sophie pulled a

disappearing act after school. My mother was

ready to call the police when she walked the

door.” On the screen Princess Peach leaped

over a Venus fly trap and got nipped,

shrinking from full-grown to mini. “My mom

yelled, but Sophie just said she‟d been

walking around.”

“Weird.”

“Right. So today, after school, I

followed her. She went to church,” I said.

T h e A m p e r s a n d R e v i e w V o l . 2

After school Sophie told me she

had permission from Mom to walk to the 7-

Eleven on Poplar for an ice cream sandwich.

I‟d waited until she was a block ahead of me

and kept something big, a van, a large tree,

a mailbox, between us in case I needed to

hide. She skipped past the 7-Eleven without

a glance and I waited at the corner,

watching while she went up the stone steps

into St. Anthony‟s. There were some elderly

people using canes to propel themselves up

to the door and she held it open for them. I

got an ice cream sandwich and waited until

Mass let out. They didn‟t hire an organist

for weekdays, so the whole thing only took

thirty minutes. She‟d come out holding hands

with an altar boy. A fifth-grader whose name

I thought was Greg.

“Sophie has a boyfriend?” Bob

said. On the screen, Princess Peach got

crushed by a sliding wall panel and died. I

handed over the controller. “Grampa thinks

you‟re my girlfriend.”

The muscles of my face felt frozen

and that strange throbbing began in my knee

again, like the aftershock to a great

natural disaster. “What did you tell him?”

“That I only have one mistress.”

Bob nodded to the screen.

“Well, there‟s no sense competing

with that,” I said. In the girls‟

presentation today the gym teacher handed

out two pamphlets printed on shiny paper,

one about menstruation and other female

maladies called “You‟re a Woman Now;” the

other about A.I.D.S. We also got two Playtex

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tampons. We thought the boys would get

condoms, but they came back empty-handed.

Now, in the basement, Bob went to

the end of the level and paused before

meeting the Big Boss. “This is it,” he said,

flexing his fingers. “This time I‟m going

all the way.”

On Thursday, Sophie ate oatmeal at

the table without calling attention to

herself. I was completely stumped. One

morning inconsolable, one elated, today

perfectly neutral as if Spanky had never

died, or had never existed.

“What do you think?” she asked on

the way to school, handing me a yellow piece

of paper. In red crayon she had drawn a

three-dimensional rectangle with a cylinder

coming out of the top like a chimney. Above

the box she‟d neatly written:

For Sale!

One Perfectly Good Jerbil Cage

Wheel and Extra Saw Dust Included

Contact Miss Sophia Cavia, 4th Grade, Room

222

Price Negoshable

“There are a couple of mistakes,”

I said.

“I did them on purpose,” she said.

“So I wouldn‟t intimidate anyone. We haven‟t

gotten to „tion‟ words yet.”

“Well, in any case, it‟s perfectly

understandable.”

“Good,” she said. “I‟m going to

post it in the cafeteria.”

T h e A m p e r s a n d R e v i e w V o l . 2

In less than a month, school would

be out for the summer. Sophie and I were

going to Cathedral Camp for two weeks like

we always did. Last year Sophie had snuck

Spanky IV in her backpack for the last day

and passed him around during campfire. I‟d

been amazed she‟d gotten him safely back

home. There had been a Spanky around for all

her important moments.

“I thought Spanky was coming back

today,” I said.

Sophie folded her ad and slipped

it into her backpack. “I was wrong about

that.”

“I don‟t understand. You were so

sure yesterday.”

Bob‟s house came into view and I

could see him dimly through his kitchen

window. His bangs were long enough to fall

in front of his eyes.

“I thought maybe God would bring

him back, you know? I knew he couldn‟t live

forever, but I got so used to him that I

started taking him for granted. That was my

sin, so it‟s me that‟s being punished, not

Spanky.”

“Who told you that?”

When we got to Bob‟s house Sophie

would walk a couple feet in front of us. She

could talk a blue streak around me or her

friends in Mrs. Hatch‟s class, but around

older kids she was tongue-tied. And Bob was

already halfway down the flagstone path.

“It doesn‟t matter,” Sophie said.

“Animals don‟t have souls anyway.” She

quickened her gate to move in front of us. I

T h e A m p e r s a n d R e v i e w V o l . 2

watched her red jumper sway around her knees

with each step.

At recess, Bob‟s Mario source pointed out

Greg the Altar Boy on the tire swing right

away. I planted my feet in the sand and

waited for it to come full circle so no one

could say I snuck up on him from behind.

“You don‟t know who I am,” I said

to Greg when he was facing me. “But you‟re

about to find out.” There were two other

kids on the swings, a skinny redhead who

fell over backwards in his haste to

disappear and a girl with two messy, blond

braids. “I‟ll give you back your swing in a

minute,” I said to her. “This won‟t take

long.”

Greg‟s cheeks were peppered with

freckles. He clung to the swing chains with

both hands and only when I came forward did

he try to scramble his legs out of the

middle.

“Not so fast,” I said. “We‟re

going to talk.”

He froze, white-faced, like Sophie

had been Tuesday morning when she woke up to

find Spanky dead. “What-” he said. “What?”

I started the swing going in a

small circle. “In a second I‟m going to get

on,” I said. “You are not going scream for a

teacher. You are not going to kick me.”

“Okay,” Greg said. I could see his

throat work when he swallowed.

I waited to climb on until we had

enough momentum to swing like a pendulum

between the supporting posts, glad that I

was wearing jeans today. My ponytail whipped

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the back of my neck with each sideways arc.

“You know my sister,” I said.

“I don‟t think so,” he said.

“What‟s her name?”

“She‟s the little girl whose

spirit you crushed yesterday. Her name is

Sophie.”

Greg leaned forward, fighting the

inertia that wanted to suck him back. It

would take one quick movement to push him

off. I could lift one foot and place my

flip-flop over his heart; hardly expend any

effort at all. “I don‟t know any Sophies,”

he said.

“You‟re an altar boy at St.

Anthony‟s,” I said. “You served yesterday

afternoon.”

“Oh,” he said. “Her.” We were

slowing in our orbit now. There was less of

a wind between us, less of a need to shout.

“I didn‟t lie to her. She said her gerbil

died. Dead is dead for animals. Even the

Bible says they don‟t have souls.”

“Actually, Greg, it doesn‟t say that.”

I was bluffing now. I had no idea what

Sophie‟s Illustrated Children‟s Bible had to

say on the subject. But what he said felt

wrong. “And the part about her sin, her

punishment?”

Greg blushed. I could see it

creeping up his neck out of the collar of

his polo shirt. I gripped the metal swing

chains hard. “I‟m going to be a priest,”

he said. “I was practicing.”

The swing had slowed to a point of

hardly moving. “If you‟re going to be a

T h e A m p e r s a n d R e v i e w V o l . 2

priest then you better stop holding little

girls‟ hands, and breaking their hearts.”

I stood up on the swing, balancing

us, and then leapt off in one powerful jump.

Greg flipped backwards without any weight to

counterbalance him. His hands went to his

head and I could hear his breath rasping in

and out. In my arms unlovely veins stood out

beneath the skin. I wanted to bury him in

the sand he lay in, to kick him while he was

down. Other kids were staring at us now. We

had an audience. I moved the swing aside so

he could see me clearly. “Stay away from my

sister,” I said.

After school I walked Sophie home, no

excuses today, and when I called Bob his

grandfather answered. “Robert,” he called.

“You are being hailed.”

“Halfway through,” Bob said. He

sounded physically exhausted as if he and

Mario had switched places, Mario working the

controller and Bob running endlessly through

someone else‟s dreamscape.

“Do you think your grandfather

could take us to the mall?”

“He doesn‟t drive anymore,” Bob

said. “We‟d have to ride the B bus.”

“Would he do it?”

“I heard what you did to Greg

Pultz at recess.”

“Yeah,” I said. “He deserved it.”

At Bob‟s house a television was on

to something with a laugh track. “Okay,” he

said. “But he‟s going to rag me about this

later, like it was a date.”

T h e A m p e r s a n d R e v i e w V o l . 2

I didn‟t know how much a gerbil

cost but I had twenty dollars saved up from

Christmas. The bus driver greeted Bob‟s

grandfather by name. I‟d never ridden the B

bus before. It had a ramp the driver could

lower for wheelchairs and on the way to the

mall he had to use it four times. There were

mostly old people on the bus, women with

blue-tinted hair like my Gramma had. Bob‟s

grandfather sat next to a smiling lady in a

red dress.

“I‟ve seen her before,” Bob said. She wasn‟t

one of the blueheads. Her hair was dark gray

shot through with white. “She‟s been to our

house for dinner.”

“Then maybe your grandfather won‟t

be living with you much longer,” I said.

Bob dug an elbow into my side.

“That‟s nasty,” he said. “They‟re old.”

His hand was almost on my leg,

having fallen there after the elbow. There

wasn‟t time to think about anything. My

heart a frantic piston in my chest, I laced

my fingers through his then immediately

turned my face to the window, watching the

houses go by in the twilight. In the sweaty

cage of our hands, Bob‟s fingers tightened

on mine.

“Is this okay?” I said. I risked

turning towards him, whipping him in the

neck with my ponytail. My skin felt dusted

over with glitter, shining and fragile.

“Well, if it wasn‟t I wouldn‟t

tell you,” he said, mouth twitching. “You‟d

beat me up.”

At the mall we left the chaperones

having coffee in the food court. Two golden

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retriever puppies occupied the front window

at Debbie‟s Petland. One slept, half-buried

in newspaper, the other languidly licked the

glass. The small rodents were in cages along

one wall.

“Spanky was black,” I said.

“Which Spanky?”

“All of them,” I said. “That made

it easy.”

We scanned the cages. There were

no black gerbils. A Debbie‟s Pet Helper was

feeding an aquarium full of neons at the

rear of the store. When I spoke to her she

looked down her nose at me from the height

of her stepstool. “Whatever product we have

is out on the floor,” she said.

“But there are always black ones,”

I said. “There have always been black ones.”

The Pet Helper, whose name tag

read Ginny, closed the lid on her aquarium

and removed one latex glove. “Let‟s take a

look,” she said, snapping each finger.

The wall of rodents was almost as

tall as it was wide so Ginny brought her

stepstool with her. She stood on tiptoe on

the tallest step. “There‟s one that‟s sort

of calico.”

“Let‟s see it,” Bob said.

Ginny reached her non-gloved hand

into a cage and emerged with a wriggling

handful of fur. “Here,” she said. “Careful.”

Its paws found purchase in the cave my

fingers made and it stuck its quivering nose

as far out from its body as it would go.

“Looks more like a Spot than a Spanky,” Bob

said. The gerbil had dots of white behind

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one ear and a kidney shaped patch on its

stomach.

“A gerbil that‟s been to the

afterlife and back has got to have something

to show for it,” I said. Ginny, on her

footstool, sighed audibly. “Thank you,” I

said. “We‟ll take him.”

“Her,” said Ginny, climbing down.

Bob held out his finger for the

gerbil, who opened her mouth and chomped

experimentally on his nail with her two

plank-like front teeth. “Spankerella,” he

said.

At home, I draped my jacket over Spanky V in

her plastic ball. I could feel the gerbil‟s

weight in there, shifting as she ran in

small circles. It didn‟t seem like panic

though. Probably she felt at home in the

close dark, gerbils being nocturnal. Both my

parents were in the kitchen, which I should

have taken as a sign.

“We told her,” my mother said. She

had her hands starred flat on the wooden

table.

“Why?” I said. “What for?”

My father ran a thumb and finger

over his moustache. “She called us liars,”

he said. “She said we were just trying to

make her feel better.”

“Do you know anything about a

penance?” my mother said.

I took the newest Spanky from her

ball and held her inside my sweatshirt pouch

where she nibbled on a hangnail next to my

pinky, then systematically stuck her nose

into the cracks between my fingers. My plan

T h e A m p e r s a n d R e v i e w V o l . 2

was to hide the new Spanky by the last one‟s

grave and then get Sophie to come pay her

respects. We‟d marked the spot in the

backyard not with a cross or a headstone,

but with the upside down globe of Spanky

IV‟s yellow-tinted exercise ball. Back

outside, walking across the lawn to the

grave though, I found Sophie already there.

It was damp outside and a wind was shivering

through the border of pink rhododendrons.

“Hey,” I said.

She looked up at me and it was too

dark to tell if she‟d been crying or not.

“Mom and Dad told me,” she said. She pointed

at me, lifting her arm slowly so it seemed

to hover free of the rest of her body. “And

you helped, Ellen,” she said. When she

turned to me the light filtering out from

the back of the house caught the silver

chain around her neck and made the whites of

her eyes flash. She was a girl who had lost

her mystery.

“I don‟t know what they‟re talking

about,” I said.

“But they said. They said the

first time was when we got ice cream in the

middle of winter. I remember after that

Spanky never liked his treats as much. He

never finished them.”

“I think you‟re imagining things,

Soph. I really do. I think they‟re lying.”

Sophie‟s little fists clenched. I

could see that even in the dark.

“That‟s what I told them,” Sophie

said. “They denied it.”

There had been nothing mysterious

about the Sex Ed. presentations, the

T h e A m p e r s a n d R e v i e w V o l . 2

mechanics of it all, and yet the way I felt

around Bob had no easy explanation. All I

knew for sure was that our hearts beat, that

my heart could beat faster just from sitting

near him. I didn‟t know how a gerbil worked,

how it saw the world or heard it or what it

felt when it got hungry, but here it was

anyway, a tiny creature breathing of the

stale air in my pocket, its heart beating

steadily against my fingers. It had been

wrong to lie to Sophie, but to take away her

faith would be worse.

“I think you should see if they can

prove it. Make them give you dates and

receipts. Even saints had to show evidence,

document their miracles.”

Under our feet lay one marked grave and

three unmarked ones.

“Well, I don‟t think our parents

are saints,” Sophie said. She turned on her

heel and ran barefoot across the lawn. The

screen door slammed behind her.

After Sophie was out of sight I

pried up the yellow ball we had sunk into

the earth as a monument to the monumental

life of Spanky. When Jesus rose again the

boulder blocking the cave had been rolled

aside. It was part of the miracle. After I

got Spanky V situated she went to work

exploring the grass floor. I put my foot on

the top of the ball and pushed just a

little, just so the mouth of it sunk into

the soft earth, leaving her plenty of air

and a small circle of ground to scamper

around on. I watched her nose at the grass,

press her paws against the sides.

T h e A m p e r s a n d R e v i e w V o l . 2

This was as close to freedom as she would

get. In a minute she would be home.

Katie Cortese is a Cape Cod native,

currently a Ph.D. student in Fiction at

Florida State University. She received her

MFA from Arizona State in 2006. Previous

employment includes grant-writing for a

children's theatre company, writing articles

about hot tubs, and feeding gastropods at

SeaWorld San Diego. Her fiction and poetry

has been published in NANOfiction, St. Ann's

Review, Zone 3, The Comstock Review and

Zahir: A Journal of Speculative Fiction.