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Instead of explaining, I just nodded.
“Show me your sister’s room,” Zia said.
Donald led us down the hall to Madeline’s bedroom. He walked through the closed door, but I stopped to open it before Zia and I followed him inside.
“It’s very girly,” Zia said as she took in the all the lace and dolls and the bright frothy colours. Then she pointed to the pennants and trophies. “But sporty, too.”
“Not to mention clean,” Donald said. “You should see my room. Mother closed the door the day I died and it hasn’t been opened since.”
“I’ve been in there,” I said.
“But Maddy’s room,” he went on as though I hadn’t spoken. “Mother makes sure the cleaning lady sees to it every week—before she tackles any other room in the apartment.”
“Why do you think that is?” Zia asked.
“Because so far as my mother was concerned, the sun and moon rose and set on my sister Maddy.”
“But why did she think that?”
“I don’t know.”
“You told me something the last time I was here,” I said. “Something about how maybe you reminded her too much of your father…”
“Who abandoned us,” he finished. “That’s just something Maddy thought.”
Zia nodded. “Well, let’s find out. Did your sister call you Donald?”
“What?”
“Your sister. What did she call you?”
“Donnie.”
“Okay, good. That’s all I needed.”
“Hey, wait!” Donald said as she pulled back the covers and got into the bed.
Zia pretended he hadn’t spoken.
“You two should hide,” she said.
“But—”
“We don’t want your mother to see anybody but me.”
“Like she could see me.”
That was true. But the mother could see me.
I didn’t know what Zia was up to, but I went over to the closet and opened the door, pulling it almost closed again so that I was standing in the dark in a press of dresses and skirts and tops with just a crack to peer through. Donald let out a long theatrical sigh, but after a moment he joined me.
“Mama, mama!” Zia cried from the bed, her voice the high and frightened sound of a young girl waking from a bad dream.
Faster than she’d come into the kitchen earlier, the mother appeared in the doorway and crossed the room to the bed. She hesitated beside it, staring down at where Zia was sitting up with her arms held out for comfort. I could see the confusion in the old woman’s half-blind gaze, but all it took was for Zia to call “Mama” one more time and a mother’s instinct took over. She sat on the edge of the bed, taking Zia in her arms.
“I…I was so scared, Mama,” Zia said. “I dreamed I was dead.”
The old woman stiffened. I saw a shiver run from her shoulders, all the way down her arms and back. Then she pressed her face into Zia’s hair.
