Читать книгу Blue Nights - Joan Didion - Страница 10

What about the “Craftsman” dinner knife of my mother’s?

The “Craftsman” dinner knife on Aunt Kate’s table, the one I recognize in the photographs? Was it the same “Craftsman” dinner knife that dropped through the redwood slats of the deck into the iceplant on the slope? The same “Craftsman” dinner knife that stayed lost in the iceplant until the blade was pitted and the handle scratched? The knife we found only when we were correcting the drainage on the slope in order to pass the geological inspection required to sell the house and move to Brentwood Park? The knife I saved to pass on to her, a memento of the beach, of her grandmother, of her childhood?

I still have the knife.

Still pitted, still scratched.

I also still have the baby tooth her cousin Tony pulled, saved in a satin-lined jeweler’s box, along with the baby teeth she herself eventually pulled and three loose pearls.

The baby teeth were to have been hers as well.