ONE
Michele: A Wing and a Prayer

I am seven and a half. I am bathed in a quiet punctuated only by the rhythmic upsweeping whistle of the northern cardinal’s song. It’s almost never like this, but right now the only sound emerging from our three-bedroom Colonial is the refrigerator’s hum. No one is screaming or yelling, no one is punching, no one is being hit, no piece of furniture has toppled to the floor. Today there are no new bruises and no new scars. It is Saturday afternoon and it is absolutely tranquil: My brother, sister, and father are out. My mother is down the hall in her room.

I gather up three of my favorite My Little Pony figurines, holding one in each hand and tucking one under my left arm, leave my bedroom, and walk downstairs. All I can hear is the whisper my socks make with each step on the hardwood floor.

After moving to Washington, DC, when I was four years old, my family proceeded to change homes three times within a four-mile distance; homes two and three were less than a mile apart. Each move was precipitated by my parents’ desire to live in increasingly attractive homes in increasingly exclusive neighborhoods. It was a game whose prize was not comfort but prestige, so they bought and sold homes until they ultimately lost. This is home number two, on Sixteenth Street in Northwest Washington, close to the border with Silver Spring, Maryland.

I walk down the staircase that ends in the foyer, then through the foyer to the living room, and finally to the Fish Room, so named by my little sister and me for the large aquarium that is its centerpiece.

The people on my mother’s side of the family were very superstitious. You don’t walk under ladders. At all costs you avoid breaking a mirror. You always look at the new moon over your right shoulder. And you never ever split a pole. The fish tank fit neatly into this paradigm. As my parents explained, it was meant to activate positive chi and block the negative energy in an environment. The tank was home to a small array of tropical fish. Siamese fighting fish, whose fins were a rainbow of fiery plums giving way to reds, were always included in the aquarium selection. What seemed like every several weeks the fish would die, and then my parents would buy new ones, which would suffer the same fate. It struck me as strange that they simply replaced the fish without first conducting a thorough analysis on what had caused the aquatic massacre.

Today, as I enter the Fish Room, I note that the aquarium (a thirty-gallon rectangular glass prism atop a simple, tall, black metal stand) has recently been replenished. Sun pours through the windowpanes, casting shadows on the butterscotch wood. I settle cross-legged on the floor and masterfully jockey my team of horses over each groove and shifting beam of light. They are skilled and graceful jumpers, but what else could be expected of ponies from a peaceful paradise estate?