My Name Is Venus Black(59)

“I’m sorry, sweetie. It’s not a place for kids.”

Her dad gets up abruptly. “Call me when the pizza gets here, okay? After we eat, I need to go out for a while. That okay?”

Something keeps her from asking him where. It’s like she can tell he doesn’t want to be bothered. “Sure, Dad,” she says, feeling a little miffed. She’d been hoping they could all play a game tonight. Leo has learned to love playing the game Trouble. She watches her dad get up and leave the room, notices his ponytail is getting some gray hairs.



She stays awhile after her father’s gone, feeling left out and somehow abandoned. She can’t remember now what toppings she wanted on the pizza and she no longer cares. She uses the phone on her dad’s desk to order Canadian bacon and pineapple.



* * *



—

LEO CAREFULLY REMOVES the pineapple and Canadian bacon from his piece of pizza so he can eat them separately. He is sitting at the kitchen table with Tessa and Tony. Tony is talking to Leo. He is saying that he is going to be out of town. “Do you understand, Leo? Leo, please look at me.”

Leo forces himself to see Tony’s eyes. “Do you understand?”

“No,” says Leo.

“I’m not going to be here for a few days. Maureen will come spend the nights while I’m gone. Tessa will still be here.”

“Where are you going?”

“Seattle, Washington.”

“The Space Needle?”

“Well, I’m not going there, but, yes, that’s where it’s located. Good for you, Leo, knowing about the Space Needle.”

“I’m not dumb,” he says, something he’s just started saying this past year. “I went up to the top there,” he says. “Before.”

He can feel Tony and Tessa stiffen. This is why he doesn’t talk about before. Before makes Tessa unhappy.

“So Tessa will watch you while I’m gone and Maureen will spend the night. Do you understand, Leo?”

“Tessa will stay here,” he says.

“Yes,” says Tony. “Tessa will be here.”

Leo takes a bite of pizza. It is good. He has liked pizza for a while now.

Leo drinks his milk, too. He hears Tessa talking about Maureen. Maureen is the one who always wears black. And she smells like his mother smelled before.

Leo hears the phone ring. He hates the phone, because it doesn’t ring the same number of times before Tessa or Tony answers. He used to yell if they let it ring more than three, but now he doesn’t. He hears Tony say Marco’s name and then, “I’ll take it in the den.”



Tessa gets up to hold the phone. Leo does not like it when they stand up and leave during dinner. “No leaving!” he shouts. All three of them are supposed to stay at the table until Leo is done eating.

“Just a minute, Leo,” Tessa says.

“No minutes! You have to stay.” She hangs up the kitchen phone and sits back down by him. “I’m staying. Eat your pizza.”

He won’t eat his pizza until Tony is at the table. He starts to rock, but just rocking one. Tessa says he can’t rock number two unless he asks. And rocking three is only for an emergency. But Leo still doesn’t understand emergency.

Tessa is not eating her pizza, either. She is not talking. She is sitting very still, which to Leo seems the same as rocking.



* * *



—

TONY FOLLOWS LEO to his room and waits while Leo gets in his jammies, brushes his teeth, and climbs in bed. “Good night, Leo,” Tony says.

“Good night, Tony,” Leo says.

After Tony shuts the door, he hears Leo begin his counting.

He and Tessa have talked lately about trying to change Leo’s bedtime pattern so it doesn’t require Tony’s supervising. But after several traumatic evenings, they finally caved in. Tony doesn’t even remember how the routine came about. Those early months with Leo were so difficult. When to give in to Leo and when to force an issue? Now, almost six years later, there’s little that hasn’t been reduced to a routine.

He passes Tessa’s door and hears her radio playing. He pokes his head in. “Headed to bed, sweetie?”

“Yeah, in a minute.” She is lying on top of her bed with her lamp on, reading a book. How can she read and listen to music at the same time?

She looks like her mother. The older she gets, the more Tony thinks she resembles Maria. The thick dark hair, the penetrating, serious eyes that don’t seem to blink as often as they should. And her nose, the perfection of its angles.



Is she a beauty or is Tony just prejudiced? He goes to her. Kisses her forehead. “I’ll be leaving before you get up.”

“You will?” She looks alarmed.

“It’s a long drive,” Tony says. He strokes her hair. “You will be okay?”

“I will be okay,” says Tessa. “And so will Leo.” She smiles reassuringly. Always, she is reassuring him when he knows he should be reassuring her.

Now he can’t believe what a cruel thing God is asking him to do to his children. He tries to remember which saint he should pray to. He’s pretty sure Saint Anthony is the saint for finding lost things. But what if you don’t want to find what you’re looking for?