Basin, Pool and Ocean

ANNE MATLACK EVANS

I. Basin

 The birdbath was a presence in the garden, like the twin palm trees on either side of the path, or the stone pillars at the edge of the lawn. 
“Stay in the yard,” Grandma said. “And don’t get dirty. You look so pretty.” 
I am four, and Kathy is two. Grandma has dressed us in our best dresses—mine lavender, Kathy’s blue—smocked across the front, with rounded, white collars. Aunt Helen and Cousin Leslie are coming to visit! “Stand still while I bursh your hair,” she says in her Pennsylvania Dutch accent. The bursh is an object she threatens to spank us with but never does. Poosh is push. My older brother John likes to make her say, “I’m going to poosh you in the boosh.” He is six years old, in school today. 
Kathy, Grandma, and I are upstairs in the room with the funny angles in the ceiling, next to the windows that lead to the balcony. I try to stand still while she untangles my hair—wispy, to my shoulders, so blond it’s almost white. Kathy’s is short and straight, the color of a new copper penny, with bangs across her forehead.
Grandma lets me arrange Oreos in a circle on a Blue Willow plate. She stirs lemonade in the glass pitcher decorated with blue and red painted flowers, then with small, gnarled fingers pulls maraschino cherries from a jar and drops them in. She puts a sweet cherry in each of our mouths. “Careful, now. Don’t stain your dresses.”

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