the toaster was always a part of our family. as long as i can remember, it lived on the shelf above the bread box . at thanksgiving, mother would pretend to get drunk on tonic and bitters and thrash the toaster over the sink. the crumbs! they live on the bottom! in these memories, mother always wears a red dress, though I imagine she wore dresses in many colors and invariably shook the toaster in all of them.

my father gifted the toaster to me on my third birthday after dreaming of the jeffersons' handsome new elevator model. he'd no great need for burnt toast in the mornings, but once the image of the machine rooted itself in his brain, burnt toast became a ritual in our house. once i touched the settings and father dragged his fingers across the wallpaper, tearing claw marks through the living room. i never did it again.

most nights mother sat upright at the kitchen table, staring at the toaster into the early hours of the morning, some weeping figurehead at the bow of some lost ship of the line, tossing, turning, awash in a vast sea, cold as her untouched cup of coffee. she'd stare at the toaster’s shine, its sheen, the way it glistened like a new buick. she spoke to my sister and me in hushed tones while in its presence. she spoke of how her mother used to toast bread on gas stoves and how dangerous such a thing could be, especially back in the old days when the whole house might go up in beautiful, uncontrollable, unwieldy blue flame.

the toaster was the north star of our kitchen. the food processor would come and go and my mother’s mixer would find itself both above and below the sink at times. the kitchen table was once on the west side of the room after the great remodeling of ‘71. and when they finally tore down the wall to make a breakfast nook, all the other major appliances were relocated to the other side of the kitchen. still, the toaster never faltered from its spot on the shelf right above the breadbox. it anchored their dietary lives and singed the hours of their passing days.

it required one fix after a filament went out. my father took it to a specialty shop, carrying it like a wounded bird, which he demanded they cure. would it not be cheaper simply to buy a new one? i remember my sister asking. my father would not hear of it. we obviously did not understand the value and the importance of such things.