Somewhere in my attic, there is a brick. You’d never know. I mean, it’s the shape of a brick, indeed. There are only so many ways to disguise a rectangle. At first glance, it resembles a loaf of bread. In fact, most things made from brown yarn do resemble loaves of bread, in my experience, not that I have an extensive history steeped in earth toned yarns. This is the brick of bricks. It is the most high brick, better than all the others. It is so special that some long-ago ancestor, one of my grandmother’s sisters or perhaps a second cousin removed, cross-stitched a case for this treasure from brown skeins of varying shades. Imagine cutting plastic pieces of perfectly symmetrical tiny squares into a brick pattern and weaving brown yarn into each opening until there was no plastic visible at all, then sewing the brick inside of the rectangle. I seem to recall one of the sides has crosses of tan yarn woven into one corner, or is it a tan border on the front side? I forget. The brick of honor was a fixture of my childhood. I think it came to live with us around the time I started grade school. It was usually a doorstop. Sometimes, it was a bookend. Occasionally an ashtray sat on top of it, because “seventies.” Inevitably, there would be an occasion where visitors would come. You know, the pre-cell phone, pre-internet, pre-social media phenomenon that entailed relatives showing up on a late Saturday morning or an early Sunday afternoon out of the blue. (Crunch/crackle/slam), “Oh, look who’s here! Oh, Dina, go get your daddy. Tell him it’s Spider and Norma Lee and all the kids.” Mom would smile the smile of a woman who was outwardly happy yet internally terrified. Was the house clean enough? Was there enough ambrosia salad in the fridge? Was the sun tea ready to drink? The visit would culminate with my Aunt Norma Lee saying something like, “Now, Marsha, you grew up here in Seagoville, right? Didn’t your mother and them live in that old farmhouse by Watson Street?” My mom would disappear and return with the yarn incased brick. “Yes, Norma. Why, yes, Jerry and Karen and I did grow up on Watson Street in that old farmhouse. You know, they tore it down.” Her voice would crack a little. It would always startle me. My mother never cried. But, she would gather her wits and hold out her hand. Aunt Norma would extend her hands and accept the passing of the treasure as Momma said, “I went and got a brick the day they tore it down.”
