Paper Life by Leah Browning (Appeared in the January 2010 Issue) Maija sat at the kitchen table, cutting long rows of paper dolls, all connected at the tips of their outstretched fingers and the flowing points of their skirts. Snips of white paper fell onto the surface of the table as she worked. She had found a pair of sharp silver scissors in the junk drawer, buried in a nest of string and tape and coils of postage stamps. There was also a Polaroid of my mother without her wig, after the chemotherapy. Maija had not commented on the photograph. In the fading light from the kitchen window, she folded fine pleats in the paper and cut. The only other sound in the room was the cold clicking of the clock’s second hand completing its revolutions. I hadn’t spoken in days. Maija didn’t look at me, only went on cutting and cutting. There were white vines, a flock of birds, wisps of paper falling to the table. Everything around us—the avocado appliances, the navy blue wallpaper with its pattern of pale pink flowers and green pears—began to disappear under the snowfall from the scissors. She cut out a dress, a simple white sheath, and slipped it on over her school uniform. I had a sharp desire to see her bare skin, then go back in time a few weeks, but we remained in the house in the kitchen, with my father’s leather shoes lined up at the door. Maija turned the paper this way and that, fashioning clothes for me, I saw. She set down the scissors and dressed me tenderly, easing my wrists through the sleeves and pressing each paper button through the proper paper buttonhole. The house was the last thing she made, a paper replica of my house, with white paper versions of the stove and refrigerator and the ticking, ticking clock. Maija took my hand and pulled me inside the paper cuttings. Our white paper knapsacks lay on the paper floor, and paper scissors lay on the paper table, and I knew that if I opened the paper cabinets I would find paper dishes. Almost everything was still in its place. “Stay here with me,” Maija said, and pressed her cheek to mine. Her skin carried the faint scent of fresh snow and peach soap. I closed my eyes for the first time in three days and let her wrap her arms around me. She held on, she held me close, and I was almost able to forget, for a moment, my mother’s absence at the breakfast table, my father’s weary silence. All I felt was Maija’s cheek on my cheek, the warmth of her skin, and then I lifted my arms. I put my arms around her, too; I clung to her, and I didn’t open my eyes, even as I felt the house fall softly around us like so many paper flowers.
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