Gypsy Davey by Chris Lynch

Davey on the couch.Davey had the TV on now, and loud, but he wasn’t looking at it. He was looking at his tattoos.
    â€œThanks for a sweet time, Davey,” Pete said. “You guys really make it for me, y’know.” Davey looked up into Pete’s face, and Pete stooped to kiss him on his great expanse of forehead. “Whenever you need me, you call, okay?”
    â€œOkay, Dad,” Davey said, then looked away from Pete, at the tattoos again, then at the TV.
    Pete passed again by Lois, who remained like a pointing mannequin. When he reached Joanne, she hugged him around the waist and rubbed her face back and forth over his chest.
    â€œYou sure?” he said.
    â€œNo, I’m not,” she answered. “But I can’t.”
    â€œOkay, sweetheart,” Pete said. “I’ll see you soon.”
    â€œOh no you won’t,” Lois snapped.
    â€œOh yes he will ,” Joanne spat.
    Sneaky Pete smiled at Lois as he backed out the door. “Lo, I gotta tell ya, you’re one sucky muthuh.”
    He just managed to pull the door closed as Lois ricocheted a shoe off it, screaming without words.
    â€œTake better care of ’em, Lois,” Pete called on his way down the stairs, “or I’ll know . . .”
    Standing there with one shoe on, Lois stared at the door, fought back tears before speaking to Joanne. “What did he mean, Joanne, ‘Are you sure’?”
    â€œNone of your business.” Joanne fully expected a smack when she said it, but she didn’t care.
    Lois didn’t move. She asked again, more quietly, “What was he talking about?”
    â€œWhat are you, jealous ? Because he likes me and he doesn’t like you?” Like a shark Joanne could taste this kind of thing when it was happening, and she bit. She felt herself getting stronger, more pugnacious, while Lois faded. “Because you’re just an old rag and I’m not ? Huh, Ma?” With the words, Joanne marched right up to her mother and stood there, arms at her sides, practically demanding to be hit. Even Davey looked in from the other room, briefly, before turning away again.
    But Lois didn’t move. She continued to stare at the door, over Joanne’s head, but now let the tears roll.
    â€œThe only thing I can do for you now is to tell you this, Jo. Don’t hold on so tight to being a young thing. Because while you may remain pretty and you may remain smart and you may get rich, the one thing in this world you can be absolutely sure about is that one day, maybe soon, you will not be young anymore. And everybody’s going to know it, and nothing else is going to matter.”
    Joanne stood, quiet, waiting. “Ya, so?”
    When Lois didn’t answer, Joanne just walked around her and went to her room.
    â€œYa, so . . . ,” Lois repeated.
    When Joanne came out an hour later expecting to find her supper, she found instead Lois hugging Davey with both arms while he sat staring blankly at the TV. He wore her as calmly as if she were a parrot sitting on his shoulder. Joanne made macaroni and cheese for all of them and they ate in dead silence.
    Lois was out of bed at dawn the next morning, reading out of an old yellow Betty Crocker cookbook as she tried to make real pancakes. Puffs of flour dust rose gently, then faded to the table or the floor as she first picked out the tiny brown mealybugs then poured carefully into the measuring cup. An eggshell fragment the size of a fingernail trimming was going to have to stay in the mix after Lois buried it deeper by chasing after it. With every flick of the whisk more batter spilled over the side of the bowl, but it was batter. She tasted it with her finger. She was good at this, some time ago, and the taste of the wet batter reminded her of that.
    She pulled a half box of breakfast sausages from the freezer. She didn’t remember buying them. The box was wide open and the links