B000FCJYE6 EBOK (23 page)

“Esau,” she whispered.

I got up and crawled across my bed. “What.”

“Are you up?”

“I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”

She giggled. “Can I come over?”

“Okay.” I heard her run out of her room and down the hall and to my door. She knocked again. “Come in,” I said.

She stood there swinging on the doorknob for a minute and then closed the door behind her. Her face looked like it was about to pop and she stood there pulling at her dress, grinning.

“Do you have something in your mouth?” I asked.

“No.” She swallowed something.

“Do you have to pee?”

She looked worried.

“Go pee.”

“Okay.” She ran off. I got up and made my bed superwell. My left hand got clenchy, so I pounded the mattress for a second but that messed up the comforter with spaceships so I had to remake it. I was too old for a spaceship comforter, I decided. I would tell my mom. Plus which, the plaids on my sheets were worn, so they just looked blue, not green and blue. I sat down carefully on the bed with my back to the wall and my feet sticking out, smoothing the comforter on either side of me. Kate knocked.

“Come in again!” I said. She bounded in and leaped onto the bed. “Wait wait wait wait,” I said. “Get off for a second.” She did. I tugged the comforter straight and lifted her onto it. “Are you comfortable?” I asked. She nodded. “Okay.” I sat down next to her. “Okay.” I looked at her and she grinned at me.

“You’re back,” she said.

“About
finally,
” I agreed.

“No
kidding.
”

We looked at our feet. She had her shoes on already. Red Keds with a white zig on the side. “Cool shoes,” I said.

“Thanks,” she said, sounding all casual. “They’re new.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She grinned at her feet. “I bet mom would get you new shoes too, if you wanted,” she offered.

“Huh,” I nodded. “My feet have gotten superbig.”

“I’LL
say,” she shouted, laughing and pointing.

My right foot started to shake and twist toward me. Dumb foot. I reached down and grabbed it. I pulled it into my lap without touching the covers. Kate looked impressed.

Outside it was sunny. A sunny day is okay, I thought. It doesn’t mean anything different. I have the choice to stay inside if I want. I felt better.

“Is Mom going to make breakfast?”

“I’m not telling.”

I looked at her. “Fine.” That made her mad. Crossing her arms, she said, “No, she’s
not
gonna. She’s not a housemaid. We make our own breakfast around here. Mister.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Fine. Do we have any cereal?”

“Yeah,” she said, reluctantly.

“Do you want some?”

After a minute, she said, “Okay.”

We sat there. She looked at me. “Do you know how to make cereal?” “Yes. Duh.” I was embarrassed.

“What’s the matter then?”

I sat staring at my feet.

“Do you want your shoes?” she offered.

I nodded, hugely relieved. She hopped off the bed, then remembered and straightened the covers elaborately, smoothing them, the bedposts, my knees. She got my shoes from where they pointed at the window and handed them to me. Looking at the window, she said, “How did you get from there to the bed? Last night?”

“Slept on the floor,” I said, holding one shoe under my chin so it wouldn’t touch the bed while I tied the other. She nodded.

My shoes were on. I looked at her. “Okay,” I said.

“Okay.”

We opened the door and charged into the day.

My mother was asleep on the couch with the brown-and-orange knit blanket over her head. Kate walked right past her as if that was perfectly normal. Sometimes I am not the best judge of situations so I followed her into the kitchen.

“We have shredded wheat and Cheerios,” she said. “What are we having?”

“Cheerios. Shredded wheat tastes like hay.” I looked in the fridge. “You want half an orange?”

“Yes please.”

“Quarters or peeled?”

“Quarters.”

I got an orange and put it on the cutting board. Now I was stuck.

“Um,” I said. She looked at me.

“Where’s the knives?”

“In the drawer, stupid. Where they always are.” She yanked open a drawer for me. I stared into it.

“What’s the matter?” she asked. She’d poured two bowls so full of Cheerios there’d be no room for milk.

“They’re moving,” I said.

She came over and peered into the drawer. “No they’re not,” she said.

“Yeah, they are.”

She stood there looking at me as if she were putting together a jigsaw puzzle. “Try again,” she said. “Maybe they’ll stop.”

I looked. They didn’t. I shaded my eyes with one hand. They were coming at my eyes.

“You want me to cut the orange?” she asked.

I thought about it. “You’re not supposed to use the knives, are you?”

“No,” she said sadly.

“Could you get one out for me? And then you could shut the drawer and we could see if just the one is moving?”

“A big one or a small one?”

“Small.”

She set a paring knife on the cutting board and shut the drawer with a bang. “There,” she said.

In this context, the knife looked like a knife. Sharp, but manageable. “Okay,” I said.

“I think I put too much cereal in,” she said, going back to her station in front of the bowls.

“Put some back in the box.” I picked up the knife, testing its weight in my palm. It felt so feathery for such an important thing. So much could happen with such a tiny thing. I wondered how deep in your chest your heart was, then stopped. Knives are for oranges, Esau.

I stabbed the orange. The knife didn’t even go halfway through. I sawed it in half, turning it in circles. It looked sort of ragged, but we wound up with two quarters each and a bowl of cereal. We went into the dining room and looked over at the couch.

“Should we wake her up?” Kate whispered.

“I don’t know,” I whispered back. “You’re the one who’s been here all the time. Since when doesn’t she sleep on her bed?”

“Since when Dad died,” she said. “Duh.”

I sat down at the table and looked at Dad’s place, piled with mail. I pulled out a
Motley-Staples Gazette
from February and paged through it. I had decided I wanted a boat.

“She never sleeps in there?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” Kate scooted in across from me, getting comfortable. “Maybe she does.”

“Look at this,” I said, pointing. “There’s a pontoon for two twenty-five. With winter storage.”

“Is that a lot of money?”

“Tons.”

Kate put an orange quarter in her mouth and sucked out its juice. “How much money do we have?”

“I don’t know.” I turned the page.

“How much money is a house?”

“Why? Are you buying a house?”

“Maybe.”

“Kate, you can’t buy a house.”

“Who says?”

“I say. We have a house.”

“What if we lose the house?”

“You don’t
lose
a house. How can you lose a house?”

“The people up the street lost their house. I heard Mom say to Donna.”

“Who took it?”

“I don’t know. I’m just saying.”

“Oh.”

“But I’m saving my money.”

“How much do you have?”

“A lot. I’m not telling.”

“Fine.”

“Plus, Dad left us money.”

I looked up at her. She looked back, gauging my reaction. “How do you know?” I said.

“I know lots of things,” she retorted.

“Yeah,” I snorted, chasing the last five Cheerios in my bowl one at a time, staring into my milk. Esau, if someone is disturbing your serenity, you have the choice not to engage.

“How do you know that?” I demanded.

“I listen,” she said, with her weird little calm. “I read things.”

“No you don’t. You don’t know how to read.”

She grabbed the paper away from me. “‘The Water Festival in Detroit Lakes was its usual success. The Water Olympics was chilly again this year, but that didn’t keep festival-goers away. There were turtle races—’”

I grabbed it back. “Since when can you read?”

She sneezed, and milk came out her nose. She looked at it, fascinated, and wiped it up with her sleeve. “Just because you went to Away doesn’t mean I
died.
” Suddenly her eyes filled up and she put her fists in them. I watched her chin crinkle up and felt helpless.

“You know,” she added, indignant, still looking into her fists.

“I know,” I said.

“Good.”

“Does Mom know you can read?”

“‘Does Mom know you can read?’” she mimicked. “No.” She waved a fist at the couch. “Does she look like she knows anything anymore?”

Kate peeked at me and slowly smiled.

“I have so many secrets,” she whispered, with huge satisfaction, “you wouldn’t even
believe
how many secrets I have.”

I pulled my feet onto my chair and wrapped my arms around my legs. She studied me, curious. “Does that make it better?” she asked.

I nodded. “Are you glad I’m home?” I asked.

“I guess.” She took a huge bite of cereal. “It’s about time,” she said through her Cheerios.

“No kidding.”

She watched the couch. I watched her temples move as she chewed.

“You’re all skinny,” I said.

“Shut up,” she replied. “I’m growing. Oma said.”

“That’s cool.”

“Can you see the clock?”

I glanced up. “It’s seven-thirty.”

“Claire!” she shouted.

“What?” Mom sounded completely awake.

“It’s time to get up!”

“No need to shout.” She sat upright and looked over at us and smiled. “I’m up,” she said.

Kate smiled at her. “You have to go to work,” she said.

“Right-o.” My mother stood up, stretched, and folded the afghan, laying it over the arm of the couch. She came over and put her hand behind Kate’s head, kissing her, and then came over to me. She put her nose in my hair. I squirmed in my chair, rubbing my hands together under the table. “How’d you sleep?” she asked. “Okay to be home in your own bed?”

“I need new sheets!” I said, excited, “Mom, and my spaceships are too little for me. On my comforter. And Kate helped me get my shoes. And we had breakfast. I had to use the knife.”

“What knife?”

“In the kitchen to cut the orange,” Kate said. “It was just a little one. I helped.”

My mother looked back and forth from one to the other of us. She shook her head. “Oh, Jesus Christ,” she sighed, and turned to go down the hall. “I’m getting ready,” she called. “Touch the knife and I’ll shoot you both.” The bathroom door shut.

Kate looked at me. “She won’t really.”

“I hate when I get scrambled.”

“Why do you?”

“I’m just trying to say what I’m trying to say.”

“Oh.”

I banged my thigh and rubbed my left temple eleven times. “I have to take my medicine.”

“Okay. Where is it?”

“Fuck fuck! In the bathroom. In a brown bag. With a label. With my name. Esau Elton Schiller. On it.”

“I’ll go get it.” She hopped off her chair.

“Hide the knife. Please hide the knife!”

“Okay, hang on!” She ran off.

The doorbell rang. I crawled under the table.

Her feet squeaked at a gallop down the front hall. I heard her yell, “Stay here! Hang on!” I heard her bang on the bathroom door. “Mom!” The water ran.

I closed my eyes and counted by elevenses up to a hundred and back again eleven times. When I opened them there was a small pair of cowboy boots in front of me.

“Hi, Davey,” I said.

“Hi. Kate says I’m supposed to tell you she’s almost back.”

“Thanks.”

“Do you want anything?”

“No thanks.”

“I could get you a juice. For with your medicine when Kate gets back.”

“Okay.”

“Or do you want milk?”

“Juice, please. And could you get me that blanket off the couch?”

“Sure thing.”

I watched his boots clop off across the room. He bent down and passed the afghan to me, staring at me with his big eyes.

“You want me to come under there with you?”

“That’s okay. Just the blanket. Please.”

“Ten-four.”

I spread the afghan out under the table and lay down on one edge. I took hold of it and rolled myself up. Eighty-nine, seventy-eight (my favorite), sixty-seven, fifty-six.

“Here I am!” Kate shouted, scrambling under the table and dumping a bag of pill bottles out on the floor next to my head.

“I’ve got the juice!” Davey yelled, clopping and spilling all the way. He crouched on the floor in his little Levi’s.

“Two blue, one pink, one white. I think. Wait.” My hands felt like pounding and my back arched. “Two pink. One blue. Shit!”

“Wait! Calm down,” Kate said, reading a bottle. “Pet his head,” she ordered Davey.

He put out his hand and sort of scratched my ears like a dog. I closed my eyes.

“You were right! Two blue, one pink, one white,” Kate said. She and Davey wrestled the bottles open and counted the pills out, spilling them all over the place. I rolled back and forth a little to loosen the blanket and stuck my arm out. Kate handed me the pills and Davey passed me the juice.

They watched me as I swallowed. I set down the glass of juice and pulled my other arm out. I set my chin in my hands. It was okay down here. We could stay here all day. My head stopped jerking and I heaved a sigh.

“Cool boots,” I said to Davey.

He looked. He nodded slowly at them. “Yeah,” he said. “Pretty cool.”

“Cool as cats.”

He nodded his thoughtful assent. “Are we going to school today?” he asked Kate.

“No. We better stay here and have a sick day. Don’t you think?”

“Okay with me.”

From the other room came the sound of high heels. They stopped. We all looked out.

“What are you doing under there?” Mom asked, bending over to peer at us.

“Esau needed his medicine,” Kate replied.

“He needed it under the dining-room table?”

“I guess so,” Kate said shrugging. We stared at her blankly.