Chapters (205)

Tonight in bed, I touch my lips. They betrayed me twice today. Once in Ed’s office and once in front of Roman. I don’t want to smile when my brother is in the hospital. I don’t want to feel happy, even for one minute, not until Frank is home.

I lie awake and wait for Olivia’s nightmare, but one o’clock comes and goes. I walk through the house, stopping by Frank’s room. The wall is immaculate. The mattress has been replaced.

My father is asleep on the floor and even though there’s a chill in the house, I don’t bother to cover him.

Puppet Show

Morning arrives and I realize that Olivia didn’t have a nightmare last night. I slide my hand between the sheets, but they’re dry.

At breakfast I ask Olivia what she and Ed talked about yesterday.

“We played puppets. Ed pretended the cat puppet was Mommy. And I got to be me, but I was a duck. I told Mommy I missed her.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. And Mommy said she loved me. She hugged me and she said she missed me, too.” Olivia drinks the rest of her chocolate milk, then wipes off her wet mustache with the back of her hand.

I don’t have the heart to remind her that puppets are make-believe. She’s not a duck and our mother was not a cat. A dumb game can’t undo all the harm my mother caused by leaving us.

A Gentle Reminder

“You need to carry baby formula,” Ana tells me at the store. “For emergencies.”

“Don’t they have it at the pier store?”

“Nope, just a bunch of stuff the tourists would want—T-shirts, junk food, and lots of film. Japanese people sure take a lot of pictures. They even snap pictures of Carmella and me.”

“They used to shop here. Maybe we should have carried more film.”

“Have you seen the painting Mom did of your mother?”

I shake my head, a bit embarrassed to admit that I haven’t. I wipe a rag over the counter. “My dad let me order more comics. Do you want to see them?”

“Nah, I don’t have time for that since I had Carmella.” Ana pays for the six-pack of Diet Cokes and heads to the door. She turns toward me and says, “You know, I used to think my mother did the stupidest things, like painting those boring fish and how she lets my brother say he’s John Wayne. But now I figured it out. I think she does those silly things because she loves us.”

Monday, Q & A with Ed

“Tell me about your mother.”

“I don’t remember her.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t remember what she looks like, smells like, sounds like.”

“When did this happen?”