LaRose(41)

No, said Peter, I’m not coming to get you. Me and Maggie were just rattling around at home, so we thought we’d visit you guys.

Hey! Landreaux’s big face went wider and his soft smile came out. He shook Peter’s hand, whirling with apprehension, but maybe pleasure. I just made coffee.

They sat down at the kitchen table, and Maggie went straight to Snow and Josette’s bedroom. She could smell the nail polish.

Maggie! C’mere. Snow was painting each of her nails with a white undercoat and painting black spirals alternating with black checkerboards. Josette was applying a set of stick-on nails with toxic glue. She sat waiting for them to dry, moving only her face, blinking and rolling her eyes to the music plugged into her head.

Can you do mine?

What you want, Maggie?

Purple? And white skulls on them.

Geez, I can’t make skulls. Snow laughed. Something easy. She took from her plastic case a tiny jar of purple polish and shook it, rattling the bead. Maggie loved the sound of that.

Maybe just dots?

I can do that.

They became absorbed in the intricacy of the undercoats, the first color, clear coat, second color, clear top coat. They held their breaths as Snow filed and then painted Maggie’s fingernails. While each coat dried Snow and Maggie talked.

How come you guys are visiting? You never visit.

I think my dad was lonesome. Mom’s at Mass.

It’s good, better that you guys came over. We used to play! Makes it less weird, huh?

Yeah, I mean, sometimes I think . . . Maggie frowned, then brightened. There could be a whole revenge plot going between our families. But now I don’t think there ever will.

Snow was startled.

’Cause why . . . ’cause we guys all love LaRose?

Huh-huh. Me and him, we stabbed ourselves to be brother and sister.

Holeee, what?

With pencils. To give a blue dot. Maggie pulled her sweater down.

Can I see? Oooo. Look, Josette. Right on her arm. LaRose and Maggie tattooed themselves to be a family.

LaRose got stabbed by a kid at school. I took care of the kid. Then I stabbed myself so we could be engaged, at first. But I didn’t know what engagement meant.

Yeah, gross. He’s your brother, so . . .

Keep your fingers still now, said Snow. Put them back on the newspaper.

I like this, said Maggie, almost shy with delight. She stretched her hand out for her purple polka-dotted fingernails to catch the light.

What do you mean you took care of it? said Josette. You beat that kid up?

He had to be revived, said Maggie in a modest way.

For real?

Did you get in trouble?

Not that time. If I do get in trouble, I can handle it.

Josette nodded at Snow. She can do the time, ayyyy. She’s looking out for our baby brother, no shit, she’s for real.

If we were all a family it would be much better, Maggie said. You guys could sleep over.

Noooo, Josette smiled. Just that we’re too old.

We could have the same tattoos then, Maggie said. I know how to give them.

Whoa, hold on! The girls collapsed, laughing.

I just sharpen up a pencil real fine, then pow. She made a quick stabbing motion with a pen.

Assassin! said Snow.

Coochy stuck his head in the door and made a girly face. Your dad says it’s time to go.

The girls held their arms out for hugs.

Kiss, kiss, one on each cheek, like we’re in the mafia.



WOLFRED ASKED THE girl to tell him her name. He asked in words, he asked in signs, but she wouldn’t speak. Each time they stopped, he asked. But though she smiled at him, and understood exactly what he wanted, she wouldn’t tell her name. She looked into the distance. Near morning, after they had soundly slept, she knelt near the fire to blow it back to life. All of a sudden, she went still and stared into the trees. She jutted her chin forward, then pulled back her hair and narrowed her eyes. Wolfred followed her gaze and saw it, too. Mackinnon’s head, rolling laboriously over the snow, its hair on fire, brightly twitching, flames cheerfully flickering. Sometimes it banged into a tree and whimpered. Sometimes it propelled itself along with its tongue, its slight stump of neck, or its comically paddling ears. Sometimes it whizzed along for a few feet, then quit, sobbing in frustration at its awkward, interminable progress.





The Pain Chart




MRS. PEACE POINTED to the sweating, crying grimace face on the illustrated list the nurse put in front of her. It was a pain chart.

Real bad, huh?

I have a lot of pain, Mrs. Peace said, a lot of pain. And I was doing so good with no attacks! Now I don’t even remember where I put my patches. I thought they were right here, in the bottom of my papers. In my tin.

Where does it hurt? asked the nurse on duty that afternoon.

Here, here, and here. And my head.

This will help you.

That’s a shot?

And your usual, your patch. Remember, you have to guard these things. We can keep them locked up in the safe, at the desk.

I’ll just keep one, for emergency.

Good, okay. But remember not to let anybody else take them, use them. They are a hundred times stronger than morphine, right? Morphine.

That’s what it takes.

Now you’ll sleep.

I’d rather stay here, in my recliner. She’ll come and visit me.