Lila inhales from her cigarette and blows the smoke over her shoulder. Then she slides onto the bench where I’m sitting. Her robe feels cool and silky against my skin. “Who’d you get in a fight with?”
“No one.”
“Go home.”
I sit there for a minute, staring at my reflection in the mirror inches away from us, wishing there were a way to disappear into the glass like in the story by Lewis Carroll. “Why do people hurt other people?” I murmur.
Lila laughs. “Because they can, sweetheart.”
I look at the face in the mirror, at that sad face. “That can’t be the reason.”
Lila leans in. Her face is next to mine. Our temples touch and our eyes meet in the mirror. “Sometimes they just can’t help it,” she says. “They don’t mean to hurt anyone. It just happens. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Nothing?”
“Not unless you’ve got a magic wand, love.”
We sit there a minute longer as the smoke from her cigarette twirls about our heads like a halo.
“I’ll get you a cab,” she says.
Fifteen minutes later I am standing at the front stoop of my house. It’s only a little after midnight, but the house is dark and still. No one sees or hears me come in brazenly through the front door.
I cross the foyer to the staircase and stop to look down the little hallway toward Papa’s room. The seam under his door is a ribbon of mellow light. He is still awake. He didn’t hear me come in. Didn’t hear the front door open and close.
I stand there for a second or two longer, looking at his door and thinking of all the things I would change if I had a magic wand.
