Of all the cards it was this card I’d hoped might merit a response. For here was something for which the Kerrigan family might be proud. But my parents did not write nor did my mother call her sister (my aunt) to inquire.

It’s so, my sisters did send me cards a few times. The plainest, least expensive thank-you cards signed with just their names—Miriam, Katie. As if they were afraid to write anything more. Afraid to sign Love.

All these years I’ve made sure that my parents have my current address. Telephone number. Thinking that one day Daddy will decide it’s enough, his little girl has been punished enough, impulsively he will call the number he currently has for me, and if I fail to answer, he will never call again (for that was Daddy’s way, he took offense when you least expected it) but if he calls, and I answer, Daddy will say in his loud happy voice—Hey-yyy—that you, Violet Rue ? Been missing you like hell.

Sleepwalker

IN THE SCHOOL LIBRARY IN STUDY PERIOD FEELING MY HEAD grow impossibly heavy, eyelids drooping so that the print of the page blurs and swims. Laying my head on my arms, on the table. And the librarian Ms. Schaeffer wakes me gently, pityingly.

Kerrigan, Kerrigan. As killers can.

But this one is a RAT.

But no, Ms. Schaeffer’s mouth moves differently. She is saying something else, words I can’t comprehend.

“Violet! You can’t sleep here.”

Immediately my head has lifted from the table. My eyes have snapped open. I am sorry, I try to explain to whichever adult this is looming over me and finding me an annoyance. In my voice is the weak appeal Forgive me!

Suddenly, I have to go to the restroom. Badly.

Panicked, my need to urinate comes so quickly. A seizure between my legs. Stammering to the startled librarian another apology, and limping away crouched over as if my back is broken.

Is that her?—Kerrigan.

Rat!

It is true that I am slow-witted in this new school. It is true that I am often lost. Sleepwalking with eyes open. Wandering corridors in the wrong part of the school. Ninth grade? Eighth grade? After weeks still confused where the gym is, and where the cafeteria is. Sleepy-headed. Also, hearing-impaired.

“Violet? Violet! The bell has rung, you should go to your next class now . . .”

(Not asking Is something wrong?—they all know that something is wrong.)

Though usually I arrive at a classroom just as the final bell rings and so I am rarely marked tardy.