Bite

She sleeps this muggy summer night on a lawn chair under the tree beside our gravel driveway. In the house Jim’s moans and groans and kak-kak-kak echo through the tall hallway upstairs and seep into the floorboards. Years after he is gone the sounds will release at unexpected moments and join in our still air the sudden aroma of his pipe tobacco, Mixture #79.

Now from the branches spiders trickle down on silky filaments. One alights on my mother’s forehead, delicate as lint. In her skin the Meissner’s corpuscles react, compress. Ion channels open. She twitches …

What is that?

She looks up at me from her coffee.

What is what?

With my spoon I gesture to the dome risen between and above her eyes. Ping-pong ball. Her fingers explore. She runs to the mirror.

Jim, in his pajamas, squints at her. Spider, he says, and tamps the bowl of his Liverpool with a finger. Hunts for a match.

Ninety-three she would have been today.