My mother smelt of cedar and soap.

In her bedroom is a large closet without doors,

closed instead with heavy damask drapes hanging from

brass rods on brass hinges. Inside it a large cedar chest

nearly fills the entire space. Inside it are yellowed paper,

cracked leather volumes, golden earrings, a rougepot

which still smells faintly of roses, a velvet box.

And inside is a long braid of hair wrapped in layers of

tissue. I learn all these things are precious to her and

thus, I think, to me.

My mother often empties the chest, holding

each item close to her body and away from me so I

cannot touch anything. I don’t know the contents of

the leather books, the weight of the gold, the shade of

rouge, the feel of the velvet. I am somehow the bank

official at her depository. I am permitted only to stand

at a distance and observe. Each item has a little story.

The braid as yet has none. I know it is hers by the way

she unwraps it. When she looks at it, her forehead

shows deep lines like birds in a child’s drawing. They

disappear, fly away, when she folds the tissue back in

the box and returns it to the chest. Everything goes in

exactly as it was before. I remember best what is not in

the chest because I always ask.

"My wedding dress was very simple," she says.

"heavy satin—not what you find today—embroidered

with silk thread it was. Here," she says grasping her

left wrist then her right.

"And here," she says, placing her hands above

the swell of her breasts, fingers spreading upward to

touch her shoulders.

"The veil. The veil was special. Orange blossoms

framed my face and there were yards and yards

and yards of illusion," she says. Her eyes close. Her

fingers describe in air, construct the thing, carry it. Her

arms rise to suggest the flow of fabric, of wings. I

think she will fly away.

She and my father lived together for many

years in real time as happily as ever after. The gown

and veil were packed away in the cedar chest. Then

one day a beautiful and well-loved child in their town

died of influenza. A lovely child from a poor but well-respected

family my mother says. My mother cut apart

her dress and fashioned a burial gown in a devastating

fit of generosity. Then, my mother wound her veil like

a halo around the little girl inside her coffin. Townspeople

placed the wooden box in the ground, placed

her in the ground. This child carried a bouquet of my

mother's silk orange blossoms to heaven. I learn my

mother buried her illusion in charity. Sometimes at

night I close my eyes and picture the unfortunate girl in

my mother's wedding clothes.

My mother tucks me into my bed every night.

Her hair falls across my face as she arranges my sheets.

It tickles when she bends to kiss me, and I rub my face

against the sheets. Her smell embraces: soap and

starch and cedar. Shh. I hear the rustle of her clothes as

she puts everything away and lays out the next day for

me.

I do not remember her leaving.

Ann García is an alumna of Saginaw Valley State University

where she learned to think in a straight line. She works in the

Evening Services office where she observes many strange and

wondrous things and others not so.