“Nine, then.”
“I meant I can choose whether to attend.”
Mom looked at the shirt.
“You’re wearing another woman’s clothes in your childhood bedroom.”
“Eight is fine.”
She opened the door.
“At some point, you’ll need to decide whether Annie is dangerous to your peace or simply inconvenient to your control.”
“That sounded rehearsed.”
“I had the duration of your flight.”
She left.
I slept badly.
No nightmares.
No dramatic awakening.
I spent several hours learning that my childhood mattress had developed a hill in the middle and that Annie’s T-shirt smelled less like her than it had two days earlier.
At eight-fifteen, I found Mom making pancakes and Dad lying on the floor with his head inside the cabinet beneath the sink.
“What are you doing?”
“The drawer sticks.”
“It has stuck since 2004.”
“I have time.”
Mom placed a dark pancake on a separate plate.
I stopped.
She noticed.
“Molly always said the first one belonged to the pan.”
“The pan never appreciated it.”
“She ate it anyway.”
Dad’s voice came from beneath the counter.
“She said wasting pancakes offended the gods.”
For once, remembering Molly did not arrive like a door slamming.
It sat down with us.
Mom served the next pancake.
