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I waved to him to come over. He ducked back. I waved again, and he came slowly, watching all the time, as if he thought at any second I could reach out over the lawn and grab him.
“What were you doing?” I demanded, when he was at the bottom of the steps.
“Na, na, nuthin’,” he said. He stuttered sometimes when he was nervous.
“Yes, you were. You were doing something.”
He searched my face, and I could see the fear in his eyes. People are always saying he’s lucky to go through life being a child, but I could see then how hard it was for him, never trusting what he heard, always having to rely on signals he picked up from people’s expressions, from the sounds of their
voices, from the way they stood. Think of all the times he must have been betrayed.
“I saw you,” I said, as gently as possible.
His eyes dropped. “Lookin’,” he said.
“For what?”
“If-fa-fa-fa.”
“Say it.”
“You was there.” He scrunched his eyes, and his mouth went through a contortion, with his lips pressed out, like the front of a bugle. It almost seemed he was trying to kiss me, from four feet away.
“Well, I’m still here, so you go home now, Dwayne. You understand?”
“Yeah,” he said, backing and then turning to scamper away. He picked up his bike and climbed on it. “Bye-bye,” he called out, pedaling furiously down the sidewalk.
I looked up and down Oak Street. No one was coming. There was still time to go back to the Vernons’ bedroom and see what had crashed. Whatever it was, maybe I could do something—fix it, hide it, think of an excuse. I hurried up the stairs and opened the door softly. That smell again—now it seemed thicker. Had I broken a bottle of something? I walked toward the bed. The drinking glass still stood safely on the night table, the nativity statue was intact, the pictures were all hanging securely. Then I saw it: The framed photograph of Sissy had fallen flat down on the second bureau. I picked it up. The frame was heavy. The glass was thick and, in the bottom left corner, a spidery crack angled from one edge to the other. Had the fall caused that crack? Maybe no one would notice. I stood the photograph upright again. Sissy must have been in about fifth grade when it was taken. She was wearing silly bangs that were a curtain across her forehead. A self-conscious smile tilted her face. Poor Sissy, maybe she knew.
I went quietly to the door, then closed it slowly, keeping an eye on the photograph to make sure it didn’t fall again. Sissy and I stared at each other across her parents’ bedroom, then I pulled the door shut.
THIRTEEN
“Did you notice that it was particularly hot in the house last night?” Mrs. Vernon asked the next morning at breakfast. She was taking an intense interest in preparing for the session coming up with Mrs. O’Brien and had spread out the elements to make sandwiches.
“Not particularly,” I said. “Not any hotter than normal.”
“Well, that’s odd. A piece of glass cracked in our bedroom, and the heat’s the only thing I can think might have done it.”
“How strange.”
“Isn’t it,” she said, her voice lifting, leaving a wispy trace of suspicion in the air. Or perhaps it was only my imagination.
Bunny arrived first that morning. I met her at the door, and she stood glumly on the stoop for a few seconds, reminding me that she still didn’t like the idea of stepping into the Vernons’ house. She’d been dreading this meeting, and, if anything, her mood had turned even sourer than it had been over the previous few days.
“Well, here we are,” she said.
“How come you’re wearing your uniform?” I asked. I’d put on my court outfit—the white blouse with a bow and my pleated summer skirt—and I’d been hoping that Bunny would dress up a little, wear something to demonstrate her seriousness. “You’ll have time to go home and change before going out to the country club,” I added.
“I don’t want that social worker to forget she’s dealing with a working woman,” Bunny said. “I’m not the kind who sits around all day.”
“Mrs. O’Brien knows that,” I whispered. We were on our way into the living room, and I didn’t want Mrs. Vernon, in the kitchen, to hear.
“It’s good to remind her every now and then,” said Bunny loudly.
Mrs. O’Brien came a few minutes later. Sitting on a sofa opposite ours, she rummaged in her pocketbook, a large, battered, patent-leather bag with a shoulder strap, and pulled out a stubby pencil and her notebook. The book was well used since the time I’d seen it last. The first half had a rumpled, thick look, as if it had been thumbed and worn. With me, just a few days ago, she’d started on practically the first page.
She explained that she wanted to use this session to explore my relationship with Bunny—how we felt about each other, what our mutual interests were, how we got on at home. I could have talked for hours on the subject, but Bunny was immediately hostile. She answered questions in monosyllables or in short, sullen sentences, empty of information. I didn’t want to anger her by cooperating too much, so I wasn’t very forthcoming either. As a result, we didn’t get anywhere. The conversation was stiff, and I felt stupid. But Mrs. O’Brien kept pushing forward, asking questions and jotting things down, even though nothing we said was worth remembering. Worse, she seemed to be concerned about all the wrong things. She was fascinated by the fact that I called my mother Bunny instead of Mom or Mother, and she returned to the point over and over, as if it were the key to solving some lurking family mystery.
