The Artful Trade

  There have always been things in the air that make living and breathing hard. We can’t see them: wind and heartache, ragweed and grief. But they are there just the same. I was seven when I first began to understand that. I woke gasping one morning, and my worried mother hurried me to the doctor. “Very severe,” the doctor said. “Ragweed.” His face fell, certain it was the kind of trouble he couldn’t fix. “Nothing to be done for it,” he whispered. “It’ll be hard on him. Poor little guy.” “What’s ragweed?” I wheezed. He touched my hand. “There are things in the air, son. Things we can’t see.” My mother thanked him, took my hand, and we stepped back out into the world and the air, filled with things that made living and breathing hard.   That year I learned there were other things in the air, too. There were songs that poured from the radio. Every night as they filled the air my sisters danced and dreamed about boys that might love them forever. And later they would listen for the sound