Chapter 19: The Phone Bowl

Celia knelt at the intercom, so that her face was level with the little grille.

"Yes," she said. "He is. I should have told you a long time ago."

There was a pause on the other side of the glass.

"Okay," Sammy said. "Does he still get to be Grandpa Cliff?"

"That's up to you."

"I'll think about it."

He blew the whistle once and picked up his pencil.

Our son came home on the sixth of November, forty days after he was born.

He weighed four pounds, eleven ounces, and he wore a hat the nurses had knitted, and he had opinions.

Roderick had practiced the car seat for a week.

He'd strapped a bag of flour into it in the driveway, again and again.

My sister had finally lost patience and walked over with her arms folded.

"That's flour," she said. "Your son is not flour."

"I've read the manual three times," Roderick said.

"Then a fourth won't kill you. Buckle him."

He buckled our son in, and the nurse checked it twice.

The car pulled out of the hospital lot very slowly.

Junie rode beside the seat with one finger inside her brother's fist.

"He's holding on," she said.

"He's very strong," I said, from the front.

"He's going to be my best friend."

"He's going to be your annoying little brother."

"That's the same thing," Junie said.

We turned into our own driveway.

I hadn't been inside the house since the night of the party.

Roderick had asked, on the phone, whether I wanted him to move any of it, and I'd said no.

The foyer smelled of lemons and floor wax.

On the dining-room table sat a ceramic bowl I'd never seen before.

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