Please enjoy the prologue and Chapter 1 of IGNORING ALVA….

---

She touches it with the toe of her orthopedic sneaker. Finger bones protrude from the sleeve of a larvae-chewed wool sweater. “I used to have a sweater like that,” Alva says. “I bought it at JCPenney during that cold snap we had right before Irvin died.”

            “Is that all you have to say right now?” The other woman stares down into one of the eye sockets. The other eyehole is filled with dirt. There are little lines on the dull yellow skull like a spider’s web.

            “Mine had a blue stripe, but this one’s more of a coral color.”

            “Alva, holy shit! I don’t like to be out here.” She jerks around, looking for ghosts or maybe her ex-mother-in-law.

            “I’ve seen my share of dead people,” Alva says, nonplussed. “You get to where most of your friends and family are dead. You know what I’m talking about.”

            “I don’t know.”

            Alva sighs. “Dead is dead. Those morticians have some talent putting eye caps on eyeballs and the makeup, of course, but we all know it’s just dress-up, and the bones are waiting underneath.” She taps her toe. “Look, her little arm is reaching out for something. I hope when they bury me next to Irvin, I’ll reach out and try to hold his hand, maybe do a little dance in the dirt. I’ve thought about it a lot.”

            “What are you talking about? Who is she? Who put her here?”

            “I don’t know,” Alva says, “but I know who she’s not.”

---

Alva

They said it was just a small stroke. A month or so went by, and after that, I was pretty much back to normal on the outside. But inside my head, there are changes. I have these visions, not dreams; I’m not even asleep, although my body gets still. Truthfully, the images come like a slideshow. You know those clicker things that the kids used to have, where you peek inside and the small square frames in the circles become panoramas of the Grand Canyon or Florida? It’s like that. Flash! I see myself manning a boat beneath the spray of a waterfall. My face up, I feel the torrents of water pounding over my yellow plastic coat. Flash! I am atop a steeple, brandishing a sword and slicing at the sky. Flash! Not just pictures; my senses are all involved. It’s like I am right there, the captain of my destiny. I told my sister Millie about my visions—or whatever they are—and she seems intent on researching symptoms of dementia. Yet, these are not delusions, more like glimpses of a more exciting me. Maybe they are better versions of my past, or maybe I’m conjuring up my future. There’s a bigger story there.

Millie is 81, older than I am by a year and a half, but she’s agreed to take a little trip with me, go out and see more of the world. Before we leave, I look fondly out my back window and see a pear clinging to a sagging branch. It is August, and that’s a little early for a pear to turn from green to yellow, but this one has turned gold. It is Minnesota, after all, and most people don’t think of fruit trees when they think of snow. Even though my husband Irvin’s been dead now for nine years, that tree of his is high on living.

Flash! I am in a lovely orchard with branches heavy with pears ready for harvest. I have my apron on and am going to collect those pears and make a pie. Crows are circling the skies above. I flail my arms, a distraction, and try to shield the fruit from an onslaught. The birds are menacing, after more than just the fruit. I need to protect the crop and myself, stand tall. I beg Prometheus for fire or a little smoke. Then one of the birds cocks her head and says very clearly, “Alva, there’s more to you than that apron.”

I’m standing in Millie’s kitchen. A weird feeling envelops me, like a promise.

“Alva,” she says and pats my shoulder, “get that bruised pear off my counter.”

We should go, I say to myself. Then to Millie, quietly, “We should go.” There are pictures swirling around my head. I am a walking View-Master.

---