Chapter 24: Where I Live

"It's for you," Rosetta said through the kitchen door. "It's orange."

"Slide it under," I said.

"It doesn't fit."

"Then wait one more minute, baby."

Behind me Sullivan was hunting for his shirt on the floor with the quiet fury of a man defusing something.

I got my jeans on, and a sweater inside out, and I opened the door with my face arranged.

Rosetta looked at my sweater.

She looked at the counter, where Sullivan stood in the lamplight, fully dressed except for one sock.

"Why is your shirt on backward, Daddy?"

"It's a new style," Sullivan said.

"It has a tag."

"Fashion is complicated."

She narrowed her eyes at both of us.

Then she shrugged, which meant she had decided we were being weird for grown-up reasons, and handed me the paper.

It was a flyer for the spring poetry assembly.

Tuesday, nine o'clock, the school gym.

Under the date, in a teacher's careful hand, someone had written: Rosetta is reading last. Please bring everyone she loves.

I read the line three times.

"Can everyone come?" Rosetta asked.

"Who's everyone?"

"Grandma and Grandpa. Daddy. Daddy's mom, if she can. You." She counted on her fingers. "And Uncle Nico, because he's sad."

The kitchen was very quiet.

"Is he still in time-out?" she asked.

"Sort of."

"How long is the time-out?"

"Until Mama says," Sullivan said gently.

They both looked at me.

I thought of my brother crouched on my lawn, saying, yes, I lied.

I thought of Sullivan's letter and the Kroger on Granby Street, and his car in the lot on the first Sunday of every month.

I got my phone off the counter.

I hadn't typed my brother's name in four months.

I wrote: Tuesday, 9:00, the school gym. Stand at the back. Don't talk to me.

I sent it before I could take it back.

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