Chapter 27: The Back Room

The doctor signed Lydia out at four, against what she called her better judgment.

My father carried her from the van to the front room himself, wrapped in a quilt, with the whole street pretending not to watch.

He laid her on the couch, and she looked at the ceiling of his house.

"It's yellow," she said.

"It was white in 1998. The kitchen stove did that."

"I like it."

"You're easy to please."

"I'm not," she said. "That's the problem."

My mother's voice came down the hall.

"Is that her?"

Lydia's whole body went still.

"Go on," I said.

"I can't walk."

"Then we'll carry you."

Miles took the head of the quilt.

I took the foot.

We carried my sister down the hall of my father's house to the back room, with her arms around Miles's neck and her bare feet sticking out.

The bed was by the window.

My mother lay propped on three pillows, small and white, with her hair brushed.

My father had brushed it.

I knew by the parting.

We set Lydia down on the other side of the bed, and my mother turned her face on the pillow.

"There you are."

"Hi, Mom."

"You look tired."

"I'm seven months pregnant."

"I did that twice." My mother's mouth moved. "Both times I was cross for most of it."

Lydia laughed, and then she was crying, and she put her face into my mother's shoulder.

My mother's hand moved over her hair, slowly, again and again.

I went and stood at the foot of the bed, because I did not know what else to do with myself.

Miles slipped out of the room and shut the door.

I heard him in the hall, talking to my father, in low voices.

"Clara," my mother said, after a while. "Come here. Sit."

I sat on the edge of the bed, on my side.

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