father, who was scraping ice off the car. Right away they started arguing. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I could tell he was trying to get her to put on a coat.
When my mother came back inside, the hem of her bathrobe was covered with frost. She went into the kitchen and started cooking. “Yams!” I heard her say. “Dinner rolls! Pie!”
I went into the dining room to play with the toothpick replica of the
Mayflower
I had made. Inside was asmall army of toy soldiers painted black-and-white to look like pilgrims. Even painted, it was hard to tell what they were because of their parachutes and guns. Look out, Indians, my mother said when I showed it to her.
She called Edgar and invited him over for dinner. His parents had gone to Europe for the holidays, but he had stayed home to study a particularly luminous form of mold. For weeks now, he had been trying to light a lamp with it.
I went upstairs and listened on the extension. My mother was talking about candied yams. “But my hands are glowing,” Edgar said. “I haven’t slept in forty-eight hours.”
“We’ll expect you at five,” my mother told him. She hung up the phone, but Edgar stayed on the line. “I know you’re there, Grace,” he said; then he clicked off too.
In the kitchen, my mother was peeling potatoes. She had gotten dressed and twisted her hair into a knot. “Where’s the turkey?” I asked her.
“In the oven,” she said.
I opened the door to make sure. The year before, my mother had given away our turkey to a woman begging outside the supermarket. No one knew she had done this until Thanksgiving dinner when she served a bucket of chicken instead.
The doorbell rang. “Now, who could that be?” my mother asked.
I looked through the peephole and there was Edgar, carrying a bulky package wrapped in brown paperand masking tape. He was wearing a suit and tie, but still had his rope sandals on.
I let him in. “What did you bring?” I asked. Edgar ignored me and took off his coat. He set the package down on the dining-room table. “Mrs. Davitt?” he called.
My mother came in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her skirt. “You’re much too early,” she told Edgar. “Nothing’s ready yet.” She reached out to straighten his tie, which had come undone.
Edgar waved her hand away. “I have something to show you.” He moved around the table, setting the package upright. “I’ve done it,” he announced. “It took eight weeks, but I figured it out.”
“Done what?” my mother said.
Edgar didn’t answer. Instead, he carefully began unwinding the tape.
I stood on a chair to get a better view. The package was shaped like a giant mushroom and I felt certain that this was what it contained.
It took a long time for Edgar to get the tape off. “We don’t have all day,” my mother said, tapping her fingers on the table. She took off her shoe and shook something out of it.
Edgar now tore at the tape feverishly.
“Voilà!”
he said, ripping open the package. Inside was an ordinary table lamp.
“Well?” my mother said.
Edgar held a finger to his lips. He went to the window and pulled the curtain shut. In the dark room, the lamp began to glow with an odd blue light.
“What is it?” I asked him.
Edgar took the shade off the lamp. “It’s a rare form of luminous mold,” he explained. “Generally found in Arctic regions where there is little or no sun.”
My mother leaned forward to study the flickering light. The blue glow made her look as if she was underwater. “How marvelous,” she said. “What do you plan to do with it?”
Edgar closed his eyes. He had a dream, he told her, that one day entire cities might be illuminated by mold.
Later Edgar fell asleep at the dining-room table. This was one of Edgar’s talents. He could fall asleep anywhere. “Leave him be,” my mother said when I tried to wake him. She wrapped up the mold lamp and put it away. While Edgar slept, I surrounded his feet