day 2 part one 426

It was fall when we first moved into the house on the cul de sac on the edge of the world. Far out passed the junkyard and railroad crossing, past the tiendita where we would walk to buy penny candies and cartons of milk to drink with dinner. Past the center of town where the sewing shop was. Past the preschool where they fed us beets and lima beans and the rugs smelled like pee. Once we hit the sparseness and the fields started to open their cornrow melodies against the beating dirt lined roads as we drove past and the flocks of blackbirds swooped in and around the dusty tires as we road on, I had forgotten about the gritty alleys and the iron bars on our front door and windows. Mother opened up the window and I smelled hay for the first time and sneezed. The rumbling truck came to halt at the end of the circle we turned into with houses of every size and shape, with browning but manicured and well cut lawns. There were bikes in drive ways, some with scattered toys and tire swings. Kids lived here. I began to bounce in my seat as we stopped in our new driveway. Pristine white siding and off white bricks. Crepe myrtles with their last blooms of pink, an oak burnishing its orange and gold turning red leaves in the dull autumn gray. A small strange tree with short trunk and wild limbs turning like arms up to the sky with tiny green leaves that I would come to find out would ever die or turn color, because it was an evergreen. Three steps to the white wood door. A tiny concrete porch and a two car garage. Suburbia at its finest. They had told me that I was a big girl now so I deserved my own room. The walls had been painted a peptol bismol pink for my arrival and in the corner was the most magnificent bed I had ever seen, Pink canopy with frills and soft pillows. Mine? Mine? I began to examine every inch of the house, and my finest discovery was that the previous tenant had left some things in the garage. A cigar box with about twenty assorted miniature ceramic animals. A green flat turtle with magnificent flippers, a white kitten with cartoon face features, a doe with exaggerated eyelashes and come hither smile, a dopey brown dog with large ears hanging past his chin and many more. Why would someone leave their babies alone?