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     Her left leg dangled over the side of the hammock. Her toes reached the yard grass and she was able to push lightly so the hammock swayed a bit. She had a glass in her hand, the bottom balanced on her belly. Warm air surrounded her and her eyes stayed half shut. She was stuck on her name, Elsbeth, thinking about it the way she sometimes did. Half formed, that was the thing, as if her parents had been bored with the game of naming a child and had stopped just short of Elizabeth, had given up before finding some other, more reasonable benediction. Dull thoughts, she decided, and tried to stop her mind from working over it. Leaning forward, she lifted her glass and drank from it. The hammock annoyed her; every time she moved it rocked too much and disturbed her. She might sit somewhere else, but she wasn’t in the mood to expend the energy so she stayed where she was.

     What time could it be, she wondered. Her three daughters, age seven, eight, and ten, were milling around somewhere in the yard. They’d need their dinner. Her husband too would be along soon, his necktie loosened, his suit jacket off, not necessarily so glad to be done of his work day and home. Free to come and go as he pleased, thought Elsbeth. She lifted her glass, had another drink. Summer. Lime, with tonic and gin, was the thing. But she always used lemon. When she was a child she used to eat lemon wedges, one after another, frowning all through the sourness of it but not giving up. It had made her feel unique, but of course she had since learned it was a trick many children practiced. Wasn’t it what they ordered in that Billy Joel song? Davey in the navy. Nine o’clock on a Saturday. Tonic and gin. Bill I believe this is killing me… Peter Frampton had become a big hit then too. That one album. That silly voice box— dow, dowt dowt dowt dowt dow. Live album. Somehow he became a bit of a joke afterward. Humble Pie. He’d started with them. As a teenager. Or maybe not, who knows.

     A wizened little smile cracked Elsbeth’s face. A low, slow voice came into her head, a practiced, controlled voice, almost slurred. That’s the world, it said, one big practical joke. No matter what happened to her in her life, she knew she’d never lose that voice, it was stuck in her cranium like caramel to an apple. It was how her father, dead now some twelve years, sounded when he’d had just the right number of vodka martinis, an hour or less before the line was crossed and the action turned ugly. Dow. Dowt dowt dowt dowt dow.

     What time could it be. She looked across the lawn at the back of her house. Cooking and cleaning and children, oh my. Now that was a good movie all right, munchkins, and the witch and the lion. The lion had been her favorite, the way he cried when Judy Garland punched him in the nose. Back when she was a kid the movie had come on television only once a year, you had to know and be there and catch it or it wouldn’t be around until the next year. She always caught it, everyone did. Poor old Judy Garland. She always married gay men. That’s what they say anyway. The sun was now closer to the roof lines. Her drink needed to be refreshed again. She had to get up, they’d need their dinner. Dinner dinner dinner. So many days of the week. What in hell would she make. How could you not run out of options. She swiveled her head to the right until she was looking behind her. Her eldest daughter, Anne (now that was a name that was done!) had stopped on the grass about ten yards from Elsbeth. The girl was watching her mother. Something small and frightened creased the child’s lips, part of a smile maybe, a half hearted greeting, a tentative thing hoping to gain some small response for its effort. We have the same eyes, thought Elsbeth, same blonde, straight hair. In the black mirror of the young girl’s eyes, the mother saw it, yes she did, clear and clean and alive, the image of herself there, her own father reflected in it. Oh my, oh boy. Catching the sun in her sight, Elsbeth shaded her eyes with her hand. She had to get up, that’s all. She had to, she had to.