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" We announced our short story contest last summer, and more than 5,000 entries poured in from every state in the Union. In addition to our grand-prize winner, &amp;quot;Layers of Love,&amp;quot; we have two runners-up:  &amp;quot;Telling the Bees&amp;quot; by Tracy Miller Geary &amp;quot;Housewifery&amp;quot; by Karen Brown Watch for them in upcoming issues. In the meantime, read our grand-prize winner, &amp;quot;Layers of Love,&amp;quot; by Lori Rader Day, below!   The day we move in, a deflated orange basketball \u2014 punched into a bowl and cupping several handfuls of rice \u2014 sits on the parkway of the bungalow next door. &amp;quot;Parkway,&amp;quot; a word I had learned from going to a thousand open houses all over Chicago: the little patch of grass by the street that you must care for but that never belongs to you. Sam and I have learned a new vocabulary: earnest money, contingency, escrow. I don&amp;#039;t mind parkway. I don&amp;#039;t mind that I have to care for it. Mow it, weed it. The parkway looks like it belongs to me and so it does. Sam&amp;#039;s brother, Jeremy, steps out of the moving van and onto the lip of the basketball bowl. It flips and dumps wet, cooked rice onto his tennis shoe. &amp;quot;Did you guys vet the neighbors before you signed?&amp;quot; he says, not as quietly as he should. &amp;quot;I mean, what are we dealing with?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s probably for the birds,&amp;quot; I say. I&amp;#039;ve already pictured the birdbath I will set up in our new backyard. Finches, cardinals, mean little sparrows. The backyard is perfect. We have a huge maple tree that you can see in the aerial maps online. I&amp;#039;ve been studying the neighborhood from above, like a god, since our offer was accepted. No one else on the block has a tree quite as big as our tree. It rises over the top of our roof, the leaves turning candy yellow. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s for the birds, all right,&amp;quot; Jeremy says, shaking the rice off his foot. Jeremy is older than Sam. He&amp;#039;s divorced, not dating anyone, though he&amp;#039;s tall and good-looking in a way that makes waitresses blush. He lives in an apartment in a building owned by their parents. I think he does his own laundry, but I wonder. Until yesterday, we also lived in the building. &amp;quot;Our independence day,&amp;quot; Sam said after we had signed our names to forms and 30-year promises until our hands ached.  Sam assures me his family is happy for us, no matter how often his mother reminds us that home is still out in Clarendon Hills, out where she is, and that we should remember to come visit. It&amp;#039;s less than 30 miles from our house to the suburbs, but we might as well be moving to the lunar surface, to listen to Sam&amp;#039;s family. My mother-in-law has her half-acre, her garage opener, her properties, her two boys raised, but she seems to begrudge us the chance to start our own lives. My family lives safely and quietly in California. We have an open invitation to visit, but all of us are content to let the invitation stay open. I talk to my mother once a month; she always puts my father on for a few minutes. &amp;quot;How&amp;#039;s my girl?&amp;quot; he asks, something he would never ask in person. We have found the right distance.  The right distance for Sam&amp;#039;s family is none at all. Jeremy can&amp;#039;t understand why we&amp;#039;re leaving. &amp;quot;The rent is cheap,&amp;quot; he keeps saying. &amp;quot;Who is going to watch your back in the city?&amp;quot; He means: Who is going to let themselves in when you&amp;#039;re not home to make sure you&amp;#039;re living right? Who is going to use their key to borrow stuff and forget to return it?  &amp;quot;Jolie, don&amp;#039;t you have a paper towel or something?&amp;quot; Jeremy says now. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s just some rice,&amp;quot; Sam says, coming around from the driver&amp;#039;s side. He unlatches the back of the van and stretches to raise the door quietly, already thinking of the neighbors. He would have hired a service to move us, but his father gave him hell about the waste of money. &amp;quot;Jeremy can help you,&amp;quot; he said. And, changing his mind, &amp;quot;He needs the money.&amp;quot; There&amp;#039;s not much to move anyway. We have purged all the pressed-cardboard furniture of our youth, all the ragged paperbacks we said we&amp;#039;d read someday. No clothes that do not fit, no dishrags with stains. This is a clean start. Not because we have something sordid in our past \u2014 we don&amp;#039;t. It&amp;#039;s just that our other start was so messy. All those things stacked around us, all those relatives living nearby.  In the move, Sam put up a fight over a box of old baseball cards and some old G.I. Joe action figures still in the packages, which cracked a narrow opening for a few things I wanted. Like: no extra sets of keys to this place. Sam agreed. No more layers of relatives dropping by unannounced. We want to rely on each other. We want to do this alone. The next summer, the basketball is full of rice topped with browning pineapple rings. Fat, languid bees twirl around the plate, drunk on their luck. When I open the door, Jeremy and his girlfriend are there. He says, &amp;quot;So, the rice \u2014 is it for the birds or for the bees?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;The birds and the bees,&amp;quot; Shana says. I haven&amp;#039;t decided whether or not I like Shana. She&amp;#039;s unabashed that she&amp;#039;s sleeping with Jeremy, as though sex is something she invented. She seems to think that she&amp;#039;s somehow closer to the core of the family because she&amp;#039;s dating the older brother. Or maybe it&amp;#039;s because she lives out in the hills with them, went to the same high school a few years behind Sam. Fitting into the family on the basis of her r\u00E9sum\u00E9, rather than having to wed in, like me. I guess I&amp;#039;ve decided: I don&amp;#039;t like her. &amp;quot;Everybody&amp;#039;s in back,&amp;quot; I say, and lead them through the house. The light is coming through all the windows on the north side, lighting up the new cherry electronics cabinet in the living room, the stainless steel in the kitchen. I am house-proud. That&amp;#039;s what I heard my mother-in-law say on Christmas Eve, as though &amp;quot;house-proud&amp;quot; was a terrible thing to discover in a woman. She thought I was upstairs wrapping presents, but I had finished and had come to the kitchen to claim the last of the wine we&amp;#039;d brought. I hadn&amp;#039;t dared walk in. Had to skip the wine. Clear-eyed, I spent the rest of the evening alert to slights. I received an old-fashioned Laura Ingalls nightgown that year, and a Sinatra CD because my father-in-law couldn&amp;#039;t believe anyone disliked Frank. Though we&amp;#039;d planned on staying the night in Sam&amp;#039;s old room, I talked him into driving home to spend the holiday together, just the two of us. &amp;quot;New traditions,&amp;quot; I said to him, avoiding the argument that was itching under my skin. This thing with his mother \u2014 I believed I could win it.  &amp;quot;No, seriously,&amp;quot; Shana says as we pass through the sliding doors to the patio after Jeremy leaves her to go greet some of the guys he knows out by the grill. The teasing tone goes out of her voice as soon as there are no men to hear it. &amp;quot;Who is the basketball thing feeding? Flies?&amp;quot;  I decide not to mention the people down the street who use dried-blood fertilizer on their roses. &amp;quot;Gods, I think.&amp;quot; Shana snorts. &amp;quot;You should go meet some of the guys,&amp;quot; I say, nodding to where Jeremy and Sam are holding court, and turn toward the house.  I&amp;#039;m neighborhood-proud, too, though I barely know anyone. All around us are families with working moms and dads who push strollers and young children who have been raised with manners. People close their blinds at the appropriate times and mow their grass on a regimented schedule. We have nodding-and-smiling relationships with everyone on the block. Everything is as suburban as Sam&amp;#039;s mother could imagine, except for the basketball on the lawn. But it&amp;#039;s my prerogative to hate the basketball bowl, not Shana&amp;#039;s. The rice people are an elderly Asian couple. Chinese. Maybe. We have opportunities to nod, to wave over the fence that separates our yards. Their son has come to stay. His large black truck has been parked in front of our house, unmoved, since his arrival. It&amp;#039;s my prerogative to have a problem with the truck. In the kitchen, I rinse a beer bottle for recycling and glance out the window. There he is, sitting half in the shade of the flowering tree in their backyard, bare-chested and pale. His black hair is shaggy, a style too young for how old he probably is.  He&amp;#039;s at least partly responsible for the state of the basketball. It&amp;#039;s been robust all spring, since the day he arrived. I&amp;#039;ve come to understand the ball&amp;#039;s palm to be a barometer of luck, but I can&amp;#039;t read its message. Is the heap of rice and fruit cocktail on the grass a request for favors, or a thank-you for blessings? It&amp;#039;s like trying to read headlines in a foreign newspaper; things are happening, but I don&amp;#039;t know what they are. When the food is off the grill, I bring out the potato salad, the baked beans. There&amp;#039;s a deep bowl of fruit salad for dessert. As soon as I place it on the checkered cloth of the patio table, a bee begins to figure-eight above it. Sam tries to swat it away from the table. &amp;quot;Come on, buddy,&amp;quot; he murmurs. Jeremy grabs a magazine from the deck, rolls it up, and slams the bee against a deck railing. &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;ve got a real bee problem here,&amp;quot; he says. When Jeremy and Shana break up that summer, Sam&amp;#039;s parents decide to have a party in their backyard.  &amp;quot;I guess they didn&amp;#039;t like her, either,&amp;quot; I say to Sam on the drive out.  &amp;quot;Hush,&amp;quot; he says, putting his hand on my knee. &amp;quot;Jeremy liked her. Mom&amp;#039;s just trying to cheer him up.&amp;quot;  And celebrate that he&amp;#039;s back in his old room, where model airplanes still hang by fishing line from the ceiling. The house where nothing changes. But I&amp;#039;m wrong there. The backyard is lit with shining copper lanterns that I&amp;#039;ve never seen. I count backward in my head to Memorial Day; we haven&amp;#039;t been out to their house in three months. The lanterns will be the way she reminds me.  &amp;quot;When am I going to find a girl like you?&amp;quot; Jeremy asks, poking burgers on the grill as if he meant to hurt them. He might have used a different tone, joking, once, but now he is serious. I don&amp;#039;t know what to say. I don&amp;#039;t think he wants an answer. I don&amp;#039;t think he wants a girl like me.  Sam stays to console him. Inside, the women are at work: casseroles, pitchers of mixed drinks, vegetable platters. &amp;quot;Jolie, there you are,&amp;quot; Sam&amp;#039;s mother cries. She always likes me better when her friends are watching. I recognize a few of them from our wedding, silver- and golden-haired women who wear outfits, little plaid pants and sweater sets. They flutter over my arrival like pigeons over bread crumbs. Sam&amp;#039;s mother says, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve saved a special assignment for you. You brought the whipping cream? It&amp;#039;s for the trifle.&amp;quot; Trifle. It&amp;#039;s a good name \u2014 &amp;quot;trifle,&amp;quot; just a little bit. The Midwestern potluck dessert so rich that you don&amp;#039;t want more than a trifle. The sort of over-the-top recipe I wouldn&amp;#039;t normally trifle with. Her friends are all listening, up to their knuckles in cold ground beef and seven-layer salad.  &amp;quot;Sure,&amp;quot; I say. Someone else will have baked the cake and let it cool, perhaps even soaked it in sherry or pineapple juice. I can open cans of fruit in heavy syrup and jars of cocktail cherries. I can dump custard and jelly and every sweet thing I can find on top of the cake and be back outside with Sam in 10 minutes. Whip the cream, ladle it on. Fifteen.  Sam&amp;#039;s mother places the glass pedestal dish in front of me. The cake is cool, soaked, and already covered in a layer of pineapple rings.  &amp;quot;You remember where everything is? It&amp;#039;s been a while.&amp;quot; Ah, there it is, I think, heading for the pantry. I&amp;#039;ve stolen her son away, and now I keep him prisoner in his own home. In the pantry, I shake my head clear, find the cherries and cans of fruit cocktail. I find a jar of lemon curd \u2014 a contribution we&amp;#039;d brought to brunch one Sunday that has never been touched. I resolve to make a trifle not soon to be forgotten. I will pour sugar into this trifle until no one can think my name again without thinking &amp;quot;sweet.&amp;quot; Back in the kitchen, Sam&amp;#039;s mother and her friends are done with their chores, sipping wine spritzers and watching Sam&amp;#039;s Aunt Meg patting hamburgers. &amp;quot;I just buy those pre-patty ones,&amp;quot; one of them says, as though she has solved a real problem. &amp;quot;I wish you&amp;#039;d come out the other night, Jolie,&amp;quot; Sam&amp;#039;s mother says. &amp;quot;Jeremy was in a bad spot.&amp;quot; The other women turn to look at me.  &amp;quot;Sam had to work early the next morning. You know how tiring that drive is.&amp;quot; I&amp;#039;ve got her; she&amp;#039;s always complaining about the drive. I&amp;#039;m only agreeing with her. In fact we hadn&amp;#039;t gone to the hills to see Jeremy after the breakup because it had been a long, strange day where we were. That morning Sam had left for work in the middle of an argument \u2014 over what, I couldn&amp;#039;t even remember \u2014 and then, around three, I&amp;#039;d developed serious cramps. We&amp;#039;d been trying to get pregnant for a few months, but the cramps told me all I needed to know. One more month with no luck \u2014 but Sam&amp;#039;s mother didn&amp;#039;t know any of this. And then, as we picked at our dinners, a siren wailed into the neighborhood and up the street until there were lights rolling across our wall. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s next door,&amp;quot; Sam said, coming back to the table. &amp;quot;The old guy, I bet.&amp;quot; I went to the door and peered out the window until the gurney was eased down the sidewalk to the open door of the ambulance. The man lay with his eyes closed, his still-black hair stark against his ashen face. A week. He hadn&amp;#039;t come back yet, and we hadn&amp;#039;t seen the wife or the son. The rice in the basketball is there, hopeful, but the son&amp;#039;s big truck is missing. Our wide-open view of the street seems vast, unnatural. My trifle is an architectural wonder. I layer the fruit, the lemon curd, the custard, layer, layer, layer. Sam&amp;#039;s mother comes over to check my progress and can&amp;#039;t seem to find a flaw. &amp;quot;Well,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;It would have been nice if you&amp;#039;d made it out to see him.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Yes,&amp;quot; I say, because the other women are pretending not to listen. &amp;quot;It would have been.&amp;quot; I lick the custard spoon. Jeremy and Shana elope just before Thanksgiving. To cheer his mother, Sam tells her we are trying for a baby. He doesn&amp;#039;t tell her how long we&amp;#039;ve been trying. She is so pleased that we can have anything we want, so we ask his parents to come to Christmas Eve at our house. They arrive on our doorstep, their faces ruddy pink and their arms loaded with presents and a large, round dish of trifle.  &amp;quot;It won&amp;#039;t be as good as yours,&amp;quot; Sam&amp;#039;s mother says, giving my cheek a kiss. Her lips are cool, almost minty. I know she could have brought the trifle to show me how I ruined the one at her house this summer. I did. But I am warm and benevolent. I am pregnant. Just barely \u2014 I haven&amp;#039;t even told Sam. Every time I think about the baby, a nervous trill runs through my stomach and I think, This is it, and wait for the cramps again. A part of me wants to keep the news from Sam. Until it&amp;#039;s safe. I&amp;#039;m superstitious about it. If I keep the baby safe until noon...if I make this green light...if I can be nice to his mother for the next four hours...  We have a lush dinner, Sam&amp;#039;s mother complimentary of my mashed potatoes to the point of ridiculousness. We eat dainty portions of the trifle by candlelight. It&amp;#039;s a Christmas trifle: cake soaked in a sweet, milky liqueur and, instead of fruit, chocolate. Hot fudge, cinnamon Santa cookies, and a drizzle of caramel across the top. It is much better than anything I&amp;#039;ve ever created. Yet.  We move to the front room to stare at the fireplace and the tree and to open presents. I&amp;#039;ve braced myself for another granny nightgown \u2014 it turns out a friend of the family makes them \u2014 but Sam&amp;#039;s mother hands me a small box. Inside is a framed black-and-white photo, a candid of Sam as a baby, cradled in his mother&amp;#039;s lap. I study his chubby baby fingers, look for the dimple in his left cheek. She&amp;#039;s wearing a sleeveless dress, really charming, and the arm around Sam is fierce. I stare at them both as though they are not mere inches from me. I miss this baby. I never knew him, but I miss him. I feel the physical desire for this baby in my arms and reach out to show Sam the photo. &amp;quot;Aw,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;I was cute.&amp;quot; Even in the heat of Sam&amp;#039;s nearness, I am cold with fear. Mourning his loss even as his hip slides against mine. Mourning the baby that I still carry more in my heart than in my body. He is already gone. He does not belong to me. Someday he will grow up and leave me, and I know that I might die from it. &amp;quot;I love it,&amp;quot; I say, and cannot think of another word. I understand the gift \u2014 all the gifts \u2014 this woman has given me. &amp;quot;I love it.&amp;quot; Sam and his dad sit down with coffee, but I refuse a cup. His mother watches me with bright eyes. She won&amp;#039;t hear of me doing dishes.  &amp;quot;But,&amp;quot; I say, &amp;quot;I will have a trifle more dessert.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;You will?&amp;quot; She brings me a tureen of it, full, fresh whipped cream on top. I spoon some into my mouth. One bite for me, one for baby. Out the front window, I see that it has started to snow again. I stand and eat my dessert by the tree.  &amp;quot;Didn&amp;#039;t see your neighbor&amp;#039;s big truck out front,&amp;quot; Sam&amp;#039;s dad says.  &amp;quot;He works nights now,&amp;quot; Sam says. It is enough for his dad, who doesn&amp;#039;t think to ask, &amp;quot;Even on Christmas Eve?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;His father is very sick,&amp;quot; I say. &amp;quot;In the hospital.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Oh?&amp;quot; This is all I know. We&amp;#039;ve seen the neighbors&amp;#039; son get into his truck and leave every evening for months. His newfound resolve must be keeping his mother in her home and his father in the ICU. We still don&amp;#039;t know their names or if they are Chinese. I&amp;#039;m shamed by how little I know, how incurious I&amp;#039;ve been, and not just about them. We still don&amp;#039;t know anything about them but what they put in their yard. I press my face to the window and shade my eyes from the glare of the tree lights. There it is. The deflated basketball is still by the curb. For a moment I don&amp;#039;t notice, and then: Empty. The bowl of the ball is filling with snow. No rice. No sticky, rotting mandarin oranges or pineapple rings. I don&amp;#039;t know what this means. I don&amp;#039;t like it. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ll be right back,&amp;quot; I say, slipping into my boots.  Sam looks over at me, frowning. &amp;quot;Are you crazy?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Just a minute.&amp;quot; Snow swirls in when I swing open the door. I pull it closed again and walk back toward the couch. &amp;quot;I told you,&amp;quot; he says, smiling. &amp;quot;Merry Christmas,&amp;quot; I say, smiling back. I grab my trifle and spoon.  Outside the wind rushes up from the cold ground. Snow pellets land harsh across my face. I leave man-size footprints across my lawn and into the neighbors&amp;#039;, and turn back to enjoy them and my house, the windows filled with tree lights. The neighbors&amp;#039; house is dark except for a quiet orange circle of light in a window upstairs.  I crouch down, grab the basketball, and shake loose the snow. I have to form it back into a bowl. For a moment I&amp;#039;m uncertain. This is a religious rite, but not my own. Surely it is selfish to bribe someone else&amp;#039;s gods.  But, I think, turning back to the orange circle of light in the neighbors&amp;#039; window, not everything I wanted is for me. Shaking snow from the ball again, I begin to think of spring, when my neighbors&amp;#039; flowering tree will bloom, and of how every morning when the woman&amp;#039;s son comes home from work, she meets him at the door and draws him in with her reedy arm. I think about holding our children tightly, and start to spoon trifle into the basketball&amp;#039;s wide mouth.  Meet the Winner Lori Rader Day grew up in Indiana and now lives in Chicago with her husband. She has an MFA in creative writing and is currently working on a mystery novel. Her winning entry drew raves from best-selling author/judge Jodi Picoult: &amp;quot;The subtlety of an unreliable narrator&amp;#039;s character development was what blew me away in this story. Jolie&amp;#039;s complaints only serve to help the reader \u2014 and eventually Jolie herself \u2014 see her own fears and flaws more clearly.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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