“Peter broke knives all the time. He broke a lot of things.”
“Your family’s heart,” she said softly. “Are you still making sculptures out of Peter’s collection of bones?”
“No,” I said. “Why’s your last name Kennedy?”
Hiromi took her drink from the table. “They were trying to leave their families behind. They wanted to blend in, but a famous Irish name only raised more questions. Do I smell fennel in this?”
“I was going for licorice,” I said. “Like your weird Swedish candies. Isn’t it strange? Having a last name whose history has nothing to do with you?”
“Is it strange having a last name tied to centuries of imperialism?”
“Not really,” I said, though she only meant my family’s Englishness, not our triumphantly blood-drenched past (present, future).
“Keep working with those bones, Jessica. I know a lot of stuff comes easy for you, but art is never easy.”
“Grief has many flavors,” I said. “Gertie’s still wearing black.”
“The other angry cousin—the artist?”
“She just draws what already exists.”
Hiromi carefully placed the knife blade into the robot’s claw. “No such thing. Art always creates another world.”
“Gertie lives in hers.” I recalled her rendering of Sebastian’s Terrace House, the figure peeking from the window. Her picture of Dewitt Hall: the parking lot, the memorial. “Mostly she draws Helshire.”
“Where Peter fell,” Hiromi said. She went back to the block of wood and ran her hand across the latest mark left by Ziggy. She loosened the clamp to rotate the wood a few degrees.
“Shouldn’t you do thatbeforeyou reload?” I asked.
“I have to put myself in the wood’s position.”
“Fucking artists,” I said, glancing at the fat red button. “What if I fainted and fell on the controls?”
“When didyouget safety conscious, knife-thrower?”
“When my Aunt Veronica first put a bow in my hand. Age five.”
“Fucking Mortons.” She returned to me, weaving back and forth across the knife’s flight path. “What aboutAn Outcome of Uncontrolled Processes?”
“What’s the point of confusing titles?”
“To increase the scope for interpretation.” She reached into her pocket for a small, rattling box and poured out a few pastilles. “Open your mouth.”
The tiny candies disintegrated instantly, like perfume lingering in an elevator.
“Absinthe,” I said. “And fancy soap.”
“What happened to your leg, Jess?”
“Gertie’s cat. She takes in strays.”
“You Mortons are such animal lovers. I’ve never seen rabbits at a funeral before.”
“You should see the rabbit funerals. Can I press the red button this time?”
“You may not.”
The next throw skimmed the target, sending out a spray of splinters. Ziggy bounced back from the mattresses and wound up twirling on the floor. We watched it come to a halt. The tip pointed at the large canvas Hiromi kept covered in the corner, a secret work I’d never seen.
