14 Degrees Below Zero

Even in her sleep she could taste her mother's grilled-cheese sandwiches: crackling on the outside but rescued from dryness by a fatty residue of butter coating her tongue, the cheddar inside melted perfectly and peeking innocently around the bread crust. It smelled of calmness, security, and warmth.

"Something to drink, Jay?" her mother asked.

"Milk," Jay mumbled through the first mouthful of the sandwich.

"Excuse me?" Jay's mother said; she was beautiful but looked tired, with her long hair tied back and a suggestion of shadow around her eyes.

"Milk," Jay said more clearly.

"Is that how we ask for something?"

"Can I have some milk, please?" Jay blurted out.

Her mother nodded with satisfaction and went to the kitchen. Jay heard the sound of the refrigerator opening and the milk being poured. She had another bite of her sandwich.

The light streaming in through the dining-room windows cast pools of reflection on the wooden tabletop. Jay made sure not to leave crumbs. Her father wasn't home--he was at work--but she had trained herself to avoid the looks of irritation her carelessness provoked. He made Jay tense and worried. She loved him so much that she grabbed hold of him whenever he was near, pressing herself to his leg or arm, her thumb making for her mouth, all her fears dissolving for a second or two.

The milk was in front of her. Jay couldn't remember her mother bringing it. Somehow she knew none of this was real, but it felt so good she didn't want it to stop.

She lived in a place called Minnesota. It was a very cold place where people knew how to behave themselves. It was actually only cold for part of the year, but that cold was so profound, so shocking and even terrifying at times, that it cast a shadow over even the hottest and sunniest days of summer.

Jay's mother was gone. She had left. That's right, she had left.

The house was quiet. It was three stories including the spacious attic, full of comfortable furniture and a kitchen always stocked with food. Though she was in a little girl's body, Jay could remember growing to adulthood there. She'd snuck cigarettes by the big elm in the backyard, and lost her virginity in her room one afternoon when she was supposed to be at school. She loved the house, for all its residue of pain and disappointment.

Another bite of the sandwich. The crispy pan-fried bread gave way to the hot, liquid core. The place was entirely quiet, the way it had often been when she was a teenager, with her father off somewhere and her mother silently painting in the sunporch--no music, no talk radio, nothing but Anna's endless meditation on the back garden. It had grown increasingly quiet during dinnertime as well, the laughter and storytelling between Jay's parents having shifted to a more muted song of things unsaid that Jay could never entirely penetrate.

She got up from the table. Strange, she was so short. The top of the table was at about shoulder level. How old was she? Five? Six? She reached up and felt the soft outlines of her cheeks, the feathery wisps of her shoulder-length hair.

The living room was as she remembered (when was it?), with stacks of magazines and books everywhere, her own and her parents', with Anna's gardenscapes on all four walls.

Anna. Jay's mother's name was Anna. And now she was gone. She had died.

Jay sat on the worn-out sofa under the room's largest window,...