“Like she just was?” I said. “Waving a gun around?”
Sicily chewed on her bottom lip. “Umma is Korean,” she said, finally. “For mom.”
I reached for the laptop to close the tab on the family bank accounts. Way in the back, I suddenly noticed, the screen’s wallpaper wasa happy family photo: Marisa, Sicily, Second Mom. I clicked the bank window closed without disturbing any of Marisa’s holiday shopping and snapped the laptop cover down.
Footfalls in the hallway heralded Pistol Annie’s return to the party. I tensed up, but when she appeared in the doorway this time, she looked painfully embarrassed.
“Not a great way to introduce myself,” she said. “I’m Bonnie. I amsosorry. We’re a little high-strung right now—I assume Sis told you about her mom?”
Sicily’s eyes shifted toward me.
“She did,” I said. “She’s been gone since…” At the last second I realized I probably shouldn’t know all that much about it. “Since?”
“Wednesday night,” Bonnie said. “She went into the city on some errand. I assumed Christmas shopping. She always makes the season nice for everyone, you know, all the gifts and sparkle and everything. And getting us all into the true spirit, too, volunteering at the women’s shelters, serving at the soup kitchen…”
Her voice broke a bit. Sicily moved quickly to her side and sank against her. Sicily, taller, rested her head on Bonnie’s shoulder and looked pleadingly at me. Asking for what?
I thought it might be a different kind of help this time, the kind where I protected this family from its own darkness. From who I was. From who Marisa might turn out to be.
Women’s shelters? Soup kitchens?
“Well, Sicily,” I said through gritted teeth. “Your mom certainly sounds like a heck of a lady.”
24
“Perfectly innocent question,” I said when Bonnie had got herself pulled back together with more apologies to me. “Why do you have a gun in the house, Mrs. Young?”
“DoctorYoung,” Sicily said.
“No, please, call me Bonnie,” the woman said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your—”
“Dolly,” I said quickly. Sicily narrowed her eyes at me.
“Like Dolly Parton,” Bonnie said.
“Exactlylike.”
“Dolly,” she said, tucking the sides of her black bob behind her ears. “To tell you the truth…”
I’d always found that people about totell me the truthwere either going to insult me or lie.
“I didn’t want that thing in the house,” she said. “Even with all the…” She fluttered her hands. “Recent events, I guess you can say. May you live in interesting times, right? But Marisa, she suddenly felt differently.”
“Momwanted a gun?” Sicily stood back from Bonnie. “Why?”
“She thought we needed some protection in the house,” Bonnie said. “Just in case.”
Just in case ofwhat? What had Marisa gotten her white, suburban butt into? “Suddenly? How long ago was this?”
“A few weeks,” Bonnie said, but she didn’t sound sure.
“And she didn’t say anything else about why she—you—might need protection?”
Bonnie pushed her glasses up on her nose. “Only that she would feel safer if we were prepared for the worst.”
“You’re a doctor, right? What kind?”
“My specialty is pediatrics,” Bonnie said. “Children,” she added, as though I wouldn’t know the word.
