Chapter 17: The List

On Tuesday night I came home with a pad of sticky notes, a roll of tape and a plan.

Ed was at the kitchen table with a cold beer and a catalog for window casings.

Walter lay across his feet.

"Don't look," I said. "Not until I'm done."

"Is it a gift?"

"It's a list."

I took the back of a blank hail-damage form and wrote on it in block capitals while he pretended to read about trim.

He watched me over the catalog.

I knew exactly where his eyes went.

They went to my hand, then to my mouth, which I was biting, and then to the base of my throat.

"Stop it," I said.

"I didn't do anything."

"You're thinking about it."

"I'm thinking about the casings."

"You hate casings."

"I'm a deeply complicated man."

I taped the form to the refrigerator door at his eye level, between the dentist reminder and the photo strip of my mother.

Then I stepped back.

RULES FOR SATURDAY.

He got up and came over, and read it standing, with his arms folded.

1. NOBODY TOUCHES ANYBODY UNTIL I SAY, AND THAT INCLUDES THE SMALL OF MY BACK.

2. WHEN BRAD TALKS, LET HIM TALK, BECAUSE HE HANGS HIMSELF EVERY TIME.

3. DAD'S TOAST IS FIRST AND YOURS IS SECOND, AND DO NOT START WITH "HERE'S TO LENNY AND I'M IN HIS DAUGHTER'S TRUCK BED."

4. IF DAD CRIES, HAND HIM A NAPKIN, NOT A SPEECH.

5. STAND NEXT TO ME, NOT BEHIND ME AND NOT IN FRONT.

6. DAWN HAS THE CAKE KNIFE AND HAS BEEN TOLD NOT TO USE IT.