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properly, filling them up sometimes, with patterns he did not like, patterns he so hated; she was so alive, when she walked down the stairs, after mending the socks, her shoulders held up and back, straight, as if they had never known burden and weight of any kind at all, no, not at all.
    You have said such horrible things to me, said Mr. Sweet to Mrs. Sweet as she walked in the door of their house, the very one in which Shirley Jackson had lived, and these words were new to Mrs. Sweet’s ears for she was just then returning from the synagogue with a Sweet’s kind of wisdom to share with him. The rabbi had told Mrs. Sweet of a biblical interpretation. The rabbi had said that in a vision it was revealed that all the bricks made by the slaves who had built ancient Egyptian civilization held a baby within them. Inside each brick was a full baby, and the baby cried out. Inside each brick, a perfect baby was curled up, lying there and not dead, not alive, Mrs. Sweet pondered, as she mended the socks, upstairs, on another floor from the studio, and as she mended the socks, she did not think of what was imprisoned in each stitch, each stitch being a small thing in itself that would make up a whole. I shall be a deathbed Catholic, Mr. Sweet said to her, and with such hatred, thought Mrs. Sweet then, but whether directed toward the baby who lay inside that ancient brick or a priest, she could not tell. I shall be a deathbed Catholic, and as the world turned, continuing in its mysterious way, mysterious to any human being trying to understand her place in it (that would be Mrs. Sweet), his place in it (that would be Mr. Sweet), not yet Heracles (he was still a boy), not yet Persephone (she was still a girl), and Mrs. Sweet turned those words over and over again in her mind.
    Mr. Sweet did not hate the rabbi and did not hate Catholics, so thought Mrs. Sweet to herself. Mr. Sweet does not hate the rabbi and does not hate Catholics but he does hate me, is not what Mrs. Sweet thought to herself. Her chin sagged down to the place just beneath her breasts and then came back up to its natural setting, which at her age was at the same level as her collar bones. How wearying was Mr. Sweet and his outbursts and making things of them, thought Mrs. Sweet, but then again, no one did that anymore, no one, Meg and Rob—just for instance—considered the outbursts, the ever-changing moods, the volatile emotions, of their companions wearying. Heracles asked his mother, this would be Mrs. Sweet, to make him a meal, breakfast, dinner, or something in between, and she took offense and they quarreled over this, the result was a great calm, silence even, and the calm and silence were filled up with many words.
    Hear then the young Heracles, still innocent of the notions of honor and glory: Dad, he said, do you want to go bowling? But Mr. Sweet could see the bowling alley, it had in it people who had eaten more than they should and this very thing was a badge of honor, and they spoke loudly and would die of diseases that were curable, they would never die of natural causes, but what would that be, for to die is natural. But in time will come a collection of events saturated with feelings and smells and the way someone remembered them and the way something, anything, felt like, and the sounds and someone experiencing the relation between sound and time and even space—oh, oh! Oh, oh, said Mr. Sweet, do we have to, do we have to, and he could see all the people in the bowling alley, throwing bowling balls with accuracy and finding satisfaction in that, and throwing bowling balls in a carefree manner and finding equal satisfaction in that, and he hated those people, for none of them knew of adagios and B flats and symphonies and boogie-woogie and all that, they only knew of the joy of the wooden ball knocking down wooden pins in the lanes. Dad, do you want to go bowling, said Heracles to Mr. Sweet and Mr. Sweet said, yes, bowl you out of existence, but