Chapter 6: Pancakes for Three

Archie invited her himself.

He did it on Wednesday, with a crayon note he stuffed into her coat pocket at the shop.

It said: "Pancakes. Sunday. You bring the sirup."

I read it over her shoulder and told him that syrup had a y.

"Not on this note," Archie said.

I had spent three days watching the street for a black sedan.

Broderick had waved at me from across it, and I wanted that wave to mean something I could hit.

Timothy hung a bedsheet over the shop window and told me not to say anything to Archie.

I called Margot and told her about the photograph instead.

"Then he knows where Archie goes after school," she said.

"Yes."

"Let me come Sunday," she said. "Let me see for myself that he's all right."

I said yes because I wanted her where I could watch her face when she lied.

So on Sunday at five, Margot climbed the stairs to the flat with a bag of groceries.

A bottle of real maple syrup stuck out of the top.

Archie had cleared the kitchen table of everything except two forks, a plate of blueberries, and his stuffed rabbit.

"Mimi, you sit there. That's your chair."

"It's the only chair that isn't broken," I said.

"It's still hers," Archie said.

She sat.

I stood at the stove with a spatula and a bowl of batter.

The first pancake stuck to the pan. The second one folded over on itself.

"Dad," Archie said patiently, "you flip it when it gets bubbles."

"It has bubbles."

"Those are baby bubbles."

Margot put her good hand over her mouth.

I looked at her, and she laughed.

It was not the laugh she used for cameras.

It was low and surprised, and it went on longer than she meant it to.

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