Red Clocks(26)

The Salem cousins yammer in the hall. Upon seeing the daughter, Aunt Bernadette goes, “What is it about these teenagers dressing so unemployably?” and Dad laughs. Mom, not laughing, tells Aunt Bernadette: “Mattie can wear whatever she wants. Last time I checked, this was America.”

Mom and daughter escape to the kitchen.

“Would you wash the potatoes?”

The daughter dumps them into a colander, starts scrubbing under the faucet.

“By the way …” There’s a forced-cheerful note in her voice. “I got a call from Susan Korsmo.”

“Yeah?” says the daughter, scrubbing harder.

“It was an odd conversation, frankly.”

“Oh really?”

“She expressed some concerns.”

“About what?” Thank God for you, potato dirt. So much scrubbing you require.

“Well, I told her it was ridiculous, but she sounded—I don’t know, adamant. Although she tends to sound adamant most of the time.”

There is no way Mrs. K. could know. No way.

“Matilda, look at me.”

She turns off the faucet, wipes her hands on her jeans. “So what was she adamant about?”

Mom’s face is papery, punched in. “She says you were vomiting at her house. When you babysat last week. She heard you in the bathroom.”

No.

“And she thinks you have an eating disorder.”

Yes!

“This is funny to you?” says Mom.

“It’s—no—because she’s so wrong.”

“Is she?”

The daughter reaches her arms around Mom’s neck, presses a cheek into her shoulder. “I ate a bad burrito at school and threw up. Mrs. K. has too much time on her hands, so she—”

“Creates a crisis where there is none,” whispers Mom. Then she draws back, cups the daughter’s chin in her fingers. “You’re sure, pigeon? You’d tell me if something was up?”

“I swear to you, I do not have an eating disorder.”

“Thank Christ.” Tears in her eyes.

The daughter is lucky to have this mother, even if she’s already sixty, even if she makes jokes about pulling a mussel at a seafood disco. A young mom like Ephraim’s might have said “Bulimia? I’ve taught you well!”

For reasons she can’t figure out, the daughter almost never dreams of her bio father.

She takes an extra-big spoonful of mashed potatoes. Looks at Mom, points to the plate, winks, hates how hard Mom is smiling. She breathes through her mouth when passed the bowl of brussels sprouts, the vegetable whose odor, when cooked, most closely resembles human wind.

The Salem cousins blather and blither. “Well, what do the illegals expect, a red carpet?” Blahblahblahblah. “And then they refuse to learn English—” Blahblahblahblah. “So then why should I have to take three years of Spanish?” Blahblahblahblahblah. The invaders all look like xeroxes of each other, their beefiness repeating itself, reheating itself. Whereas the daughter is tall, and Dad is short. The daughter is pale, and Mom is sallow.

This clump of cells would have turned out tall, though maybe not pale. Ephraim tans brown in the summer.

Gravy has dried on the daughter’s sleeve. She hates this shirt anyway. Maybe she’ll give it to Aunt Bernadette, who hates it even more.

Mom and Dad can never know.

What if your bio mother had chosen to terminate?

“Matilda, your turn.”

“Pass,” says the daughter.

Think of all the happy adopted families that wouldn’t exist!

Never, ever know.

“Oh, you!”

“Don’t be a poop at the party.”

“I can’t think of any jokes,” she says.

“Very funny!”

“What is it with these kids pretending to be so miserable?”

Yasmine said she’d die before telling her parents.





jumps down the sky (lightning)

sheep groaning (what narwhals sound like)

a smell grew

sea struck, ice bound

causing regret where it did not exist before





THE WIFE


Didier hums “You Are My Sunshine” and trims fat off raw breasts. He worked in kitchens for years, scorns recipes, is good with a knife. A decent restaurant job would pay better than teaching at Central Coast Regional, but he swore off food and bev because he’d miss the kids’ childhoods. The wife sees a calendar of vacant blue evenings, Didier away cooking, children in bed, herself alone and accountable to no one.

“—the tinfoil?”

“What?”

“Foil, woman!” Didier trots over to snatch it. His mood is merry; he’s happiest when cooking, a dish towel slung over his shoulder. Happiest, yet he rarely cooks.

“What else?” she says.

“I’m good here. Go relax.”

“Really? Okay.” She rubs at a smear of old yogurt on the stovetop. “Should I do a salad?”

“You should sit down.”

She watches him chop, one hand herding the olives and the other bringing down the knife, fast, accurate. Eyes don’t waver from the olives. Shoulders don’t slump. Happy and confident, yet most of the meals fall to her, the one who “has time.”