A new issue of Tupelo Quarterly features work by several Warren Wilson MFA alumni, including a story by Peg Alford Pursell (fiction, ’96).
An Uncle
An uncle is a babysitter in a pinch, which happens rarely, only when Mother has to run out to comfort her friend Suzanne, an emergency that isn’t that rare, in Dad’s opinion, but an uncle is someone who doesn’t take sides in the matter. He comes to the rescue, and sits on the sofa watching a wrestling match on TV, and says Stop it now! after you and your sister have slapped each other’s arms burning red with your Barbie dolls. He gives you a look that makes your stomach heavy and you feel pretty sure he knows you’re to blame – you’re the oldest. You sing all the Beatles songs you can think of, to impress him with how you know the words to so many songs. He’s like your dad in the way that’s he’s not that interested and stares straight ahead at the action on the screen. You brush all your hair from the back of your head forward, smooth it down over your forehead, past your eyebrows and into your eyes to look like Ringo, who isn’t the cutest Beatle but has something special. “Look, Uncle Lew!” He glances over and gives a snort, and you feel a little better.
An uncle is someone your mother likes a lot, and when he drops by unexpectedly, she turns off the iron and sits down with him at the kitchen table, where they drink Pepsis or RC Cola if it’s on sale at the Shop n’ Save, and eat snacks, probably chocolate macaroons, and his voice flows low from out there, and she giggles and giggles again. There is something high and twinkly about that laugh, like the sound of the glass wind chimes suspended outside the neighbor’s door that you wish you could talk her into buying to hang on your porch – but one day. When you grow up and you live in your own house, then. Then.
