She got both glaucoma and cataracts early on in life, but she always managed, continued to crochet runners with tiny patterns, weave tapestries of small birds in a tangle of branches, colorful tulips twisting out of the soil and around each other, to the delight of her seven children and her seven children’s spouses and her seven children’s nineteen children. But today it bothers her. Today she stands at the kitchen window and looks up at the mountains and wishes she could distinguish where the mountains finish and the sky begins. She had such a strange dream last night, it’s still vibrating somewhere inside, she’s trying to understand her dream; she dreamed that the sun moved, or rather, slid, slowly, along the ridge of the mountains, while she sat in the kitchen and watched the sun slide, ever so slowly, at such an odd pace, first over one mountain, then the other, and then finally the third before disappearing out of sight. It was as though the sun was skating along the mountains, as though it had contact with the substratum, as though it had stepped down from the sky, as though it was peeping in at her, sailing along the mountain ridge, all the way along, to look in at her through the kitchen window, that the sun wanted to see. That it slipped over the mountains to look at her. That she herself was standing at the kitchen window looking at the sun. And that they were somehow measuring each other up. Then the sun disappeared. She was still shaking, because she felt it was a prophetic dream, it was the kind of dream she had had twice before, once when she was a young girl and dreamed about a bird that was hypnotized by a snake. That the bird was frozen in midair and just stared the snake in the eye, the snake that had uncoiled up from the ground and stood steady as a rod and held the bird’s gaze. Soon after, she had met the boy she married. The second dream was much later, after she had given birth to seven children who had grown up and settled on farms round about, all seven of them, and produced nineteen children; she dreamed that she was sitting by the kitchen window and saw her husband descend from heaven in a long white robe with his hands folded on his chest. He floated slowly down as he looked her steadily in the eye, until he was standing on the ground in front of her. Soon after that, he died. And their seven children and nineteen grandchildren did all they could to keep her company, they popped by at regular intervals, sat at the kitchen table and did crosswords, chatted, and it was nice, but she sometimes got the feeling that they came more for their own sake than hers, that they were salving their conscience. That they were so busy, that they had such full lives and she just sat there, day in and day out, at the kitchen table and crocheted, wove. Looked out the window. But it didn’t matter. They came, after all. And she sat there.
* * *
She looks out the window, can’t differentiate the mountains from the sky. She’s ninety today, and sees the first guests coming over the fields. She has set the table for everyone, used all the tables in her little house, put them all together. Found all the chairs and stools. She tries to count the shadows that are approaching, but can’t, she recognizes her sons and their wives by their walks, and some of the grandchildren. One is carrying a baby. Or is it a cake tin? She pulls the finely crocheted lace curtains. Hears them tramping up the steps, grasping the door handle. Trying the door. Knocking. She doesn’t move. The doorbell rings. She sees more people approaching, they’re often on time, her flock, she’ll give them that. There’s a knock on the door. A rattling of the door handle. But she sits still. She doesn’t want to open it. She’s not ready, she thinks it’s the dream that’s taken hold of her, she’s not finished with it, she wants to be alone. She sees their shadows darken the window, they knock, call her name. All of her family. But she won’t open up.