Words and Their Meanings by Kate Bassett Read Free Book Online

head against Mom’s shoulder, just for a moment. There’s a huge vase of white roses and two cheap-looking bouquets sitting next to the TV. The room smells sickly sweet.
    â€œWhere’d those come from?”
    Mom sighs.
    â€œThe Sarahs,” Bea pipes up. “Sarah H. delivered the roses today. She said she was hoping to see you. And the other two Sarahs came together with those flowers. They’re like the ones they sell at 7-Eleven.”
    The “Sarahs” are a trio of pathetic puppies who despised Sameera and loved Joe. They showed up at the house, together, when he died, making a shrine at the end of the driveway: pictures, candles, horrible—I mean horrible—poems.
    â€œThe Sarahs,” Mom repeats with a sad laugh. “And of course one had to pick Madame Legras de St. Germain roses. The whole house smells like bad floral perfume. But let’s not talk about that. How was work?”
    â€œI didn’t get fired,” I shrug. She tips her head back a little but doesn’t push the issue. Instead, she holds out her hand. I take it.
    We sit together, the three of us, watching some show about stupid pet tricks. The volume stays off, but for some reason, the silence isn’t so loud tonight.

Daily Verse:
    You can’t let emotions consume you.

9
    M ore than anyone else, Joe tried to keep my love of words light, fun, unburdened. He bought me a word-a-day calendar every year for Christmas. The last one is still sitting in my desk drawer. It’s stuck on June 15. And the word is “callipygian” (definition: having shapely buttocks).
    Striker for the soccer team, class vice president, beautiful and smart girlfriend since puberty—I mean, Joe was basically a textbook case of popularity. But he wasn’t like what you read about in bad teen novels or poorly scripted shows. He was nice to everybody. He liked to read. He spent two days during his junior year home on the couch, leaning against my mom because some friend made a comment about Joe’s “orphan card.”
    Mom held him tight and said orphans don’t have family, and that his friend needed to invest in a dictionary.
    â€œOr an Anna,” he’d said.
    I’m convinced it was lines he read aloud, lines like “For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you” that made me a believer. Made me think words could mean one thing, but also, something much bigger than any dictionary could hold.
    I sent him every piece I wrote when he was at school, before anyone else saw it. He was my best editor. Words tied us together. When he died, the thread was cut. No matter how much I wanted to, how hard I tried, I couldn’t reconnect us. Earth to sky. Here to gone. I failed him.
    Even if I tried writing again, my ideas for good first lines have vanished. And a first line makes or breaks a work. More than last lines. More than the stuff in between. Because I once thought I was a superstar in this arena, I can say with absolute certainty you’ve got about two punctuation marks to bind someone’s eyes, mind, soul to a story.
    For my life, I claimed one first line: “The universe is made of possibility.”
    I wrote no less than 361 poems and stories using it. I won a lot of awards. You can do amazing things with such a simple, wide-open sentence. Until you stop believing in what those words mean.
    In my mind, no more first lines means no more good writing. Gramps, on the other hand, says he doesn’t buy it. He tells me at least once a week I need to be doing something productive with my time.
    â€œForty-five solid minutes of word purging would be much better for you than lying around playing dead,” he says, peering up from whatever stereo or laptop he’s fixing for a friend. Gramps owned an electronics repair shop for like, four decades. It was down in old town, where I’m only allowed to hang out during daylight hours. He closed his business a few years