“Did it rain today?” Susan asks. They talk about their mother in code.
“Stop trying to change the subject.”
“I’m just asking.”
Sadie wrinkles her nose. “A light drizzle.”
“She upstairs?”
Sadie nods.
“Did she eat?”
Sadie shrugs. It would be useful if Susan’s sister paid more attention. Their mother is always worse in the morning if she doesn’t eat. A cat that Susan doesn’t recognize pushes through the flap in the door. Sadie tears off a piece of bread to feed it.
“You shouldn’t do that,” Susan says.
“They’re living creatures.”
“I don’t think they are supposed to have bread.”
“It’s a treat.” She lays out two more slices of cheese on two more slices of bread, pops them in the oven. “So who is he? From around here?”
“No.” To this, Sadie gives a knowing hum, as though Susan has said all she needs to know.
“How was dance?” Susan asks.
Sadie scowls. “I didn’t get it.” She shreds off a steaming corner of her sandwich, catching the drip of plastic cheese in her free hand.
“Oh no.” Sadie has been talking about the fall recital for weeks now. A few years ago, a scout for the Boston Ballet had come and the soloist had been chosen as a background dancer inThe Nutcracker.
“What happened?”
Sadie scuffs her foot on the floor like it doesn’t matter.Kick-ball-change.“They gave it to that Winchester girl. Snobs. It’s a fucking joke.”
“Sorry, Sayd,” she says. They probably are snobs, but the fact is, Sadie makes excuses for herself.She needs to work harder, Susan thinks. There’s a woman on the Supreme Court. There’s a woman in space. You can do just about anything in this country if you try. When Susan hugs her little sister, she stands on top of Sadie’s toes, like she did when she was little. Sadie used to try to point them, tumble her off. Now she just stands passive.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “I’m going to quit anyway.”
Anger like a tide, like free fall, pushing her away. “You can’t quit.”
“Why not?”
“I just bought you new shoes!”
Sadie crouches and stares into the oven and Susan wants to scream.
“It’s not going anywhere,” Sadie says. “Once you turn seventeen, that’s it. If no one’s noticed you by then, there’s no point.”
“Seventeen is too young to quit anything. And besides, you’re not seventeen for two more months.”
“I’m being realistic,” she says. But the charge in her voice implies something bigger, as though her failure to hope is somehow Susan’s failure to pave a route to happiness.
Sadie pulls the sandwich out of the oven, saws it in half, plops a triangle on a plate for Susan. They both bite into the orange, empty goo.Sadie can feed herself, Susan thinks.She can take care of their mother.On her half-empty plate, Sadie draws a ketchup frowny-face.
If I leave her, Susan wonders,will we both fall apart?In the reflection of the kitchen window, she catches her own face: another Susan, still out in the darkness.
1997
