The Eunice Williams Prize

Going to the bathroom was the worst part.

It had been unpleasant since the beginning. Even when the nerve running from my lower spine to my toes was only vibrating in a quick, angry hum through my left buttock — first like a door buzzer, later like a blue mosquito light — even then, the edge of the hard toilet seat carved sharpness into the pain, causing it to crescendo, a white noise briefly approaching grim color.

Ghosted by three generations of writers and artists, I excavate my way through the old house—a museum of antiques and books and family heirlooms. In the hallway, the watercolors you painted: lupine and lady slippers. Old manuscripts buried in attic chests. Cobwebbed memories clinging to the barnboard bookshelves dad built when we first moved in fifty years ago.

I was waiting for him, again.  He said he would meet me at Bangkok, a karaoke lounge and the first place I ever took him— ironically, he was late that day too. We were supposed to meet at the Recovery Room, but I kept waiting and waiting until I pulled what was for me an epic feminist move: I left. It would have been more epic if I hadn’t told him where I was going, but I did turn off my phone after texting him, so I’ll give myself half credit.

here is a neighborhood in Baltimore City that is as quaint as it is gritty, a mesh of cobblestone streets and tilted buildings with historic landmark signs affixed to the brick fronts, a blend of dark Irish pubs and nautical-themed bars, all with live music most nights of the week. The Fell’s Point musicians are all locals, and on Sundays they gather in the alley behind the local American Legion for a hootenanny, box drums booming under hand taps and guitars swaying against bodies.

The third day of injections, just after seven in the morning, I’m perched on the edge of an uncomfortable chair, tapping my boot against the tile, when suddenly the sterile artificiality of the waiting room becomes stifling. I notice the stiff, plastic orchids on the coffee table, white petals stained with pink bowing demurely as if bending under frost. Indistinct pop music emanates from speakers disguised as tree stumps.

As it turns out, a lot of things stopped working that March. Our oven. Our septic tank. My body.

Meal prep for a family of six shifted to an enormous Crock Pot. A loyal workhorse. But there is no countertop substitute for a backed-up septic tank that supports three and a half baths and a lot of drains in a house occupied by six people who use a lot of water. Five of them toilet trained. A story for another time. And to be fair, only part of my body stopped working. An important part. But they are all important parts.