churchwomen have reorganized the whole interior and left two dozen sandwiches, complete with labels describing the contents, date made, and expiration. What's not there is the milk, and I know we had a full gallon. When things are missing in the kitchen, all roads lead to Aunt Lala.
Gently knocking on Mom's door, I say, “Aunt Lala—have you seen the gallon of milk that was in the fridge last night?”
“Oh dear,” comes the frazzled voice from inside the bedroom. The door opens to reveal Aunt Lala in her nightgown with a complicated set of hair rollers dangling in front of her face and a large circle of pale green cream surrounding each eye.
“Did you check the freezer?” she asks.
“First thing,” I say.
“What could have happened to it?” she asks. “I wasn't able to sleep and went down for some tea in the middle of the night. Do you think I may have put it back in the cupboard with the cookies?”
“I think you could have,” I say with fake cheerfulness. Aunt Lala always feels terrible about making so many mistakes. We hate for her to feel bad and so hide her oversights whenever possible. A knightly quest if there ever was one.
Sure enough, the milk is in the cabinet above the sink, next to the cookies. I sniff it to determine whether it's spoiled. Smells okay to me. Just to be sure, I'll use the first child to arrive for breakfast as a taste tester and if that one vomits or collapses I'll mix up a batch of powdered milk for the rest.
The radio announcer reads a list of local closings in alphabetical order—a 4H club meeting, most of the area private schools, some church activities, and a Hebrew school class. It's alocal joke that the world would have to be ending for our public school system to close. Most of the administrators were once public school students around here, so I often think they want to make sure that today's kids suffer as much as they did before the invention of fleece jackets and waterproof boots.
Darlene shuffles into the kitchen wearing her footsie pajamas. She starts to say something, but I place my finger to my lips and point to the radio just as the announcer says, “Here it is, folks—Patrick Henry School District is closed!” He says this like a game show host declaring a big winner.
Darlene looks up at me expectantly.
“Yup,” I say. “That's you. No school today.”
She races through the house screeching, “Thcool ith clofed, thchool ith clofed!”
I'm reminded that this means there won't be any speech therapy for Darlene today. The lisp is definitely improving, but there's still a ways to go before she's knocking back, Silly Sally sells seashells by the seashore.
THIRTEEN
B Y LUNCHTIME I FEEL AS IF I'M SLEEPWALKING AND THE KIDS’ voices are coming from an echo chamber.
Bernard arrives shortly after one o'clock with a bottle of designer conditioner and a brand-new blow dryer. He hugs and kisses me like we're acting out a tragedy in a movie scene. “Are you surviving?”
“It's really weird.” I grope for the right words to describe the surrealism of the past two days, how it's as if I'm standing at a distance from life. “I keep thinking I'm going to wake up and everything will be back to how it was—but instead it's like being stuck in a science-fiction movie. Only there aren't any killer robots to beat back, no magic ring to get rid of, no time machine to repair, and therefore no way to travel back to yesterday.”
“Courage, mon brave!”
says Bernard, and places his hands on my shoulders while tipping his forehead toward mine as if he's knighting me or transferring some sort of secret powers.
Gazing out the window only adds to the bizarreness of my current situation. It's no longer possible to see the houses across the street, or even the street, for that matter.
“How on earth did you get over here?” I ask.
“It certainly wouldn't have been possible in that fantastically stylish but reliably unreliable vintage Alfa Romeo. Whereas my new
Gently knocking on Mom's door, I say, “Aunt Lala—have you seen the gallon of milk that was in the fridge last night?”
“Oh dear,” comes the frazzled voice from inside the bedroom. The door opens to reveal Aunt Lala in her nightgown with a complicated set of hair rollers dangling in front of her face and a large circle of pale green cream surrounding each eye.
“Did you check the freezer?” she asks.
“First thing,” I say.
“What could have happened to it?” she asks. “I wasn't able to sleep and went down for some tea in the middle of the night. Do you think I may have put it back in the cupboard with the cookies?”
“I think you could have,” I say with fake cheerfulness. Aunt Lala always feels terrible about making so many mistakes. We hate for her to feel bad and so hide her oversights whenever possible. A knightly quest if there ever was one.
Sure enough, the milk is in the cabinet above the sink, next to the cookies. I sniff it to determine whether it's spoiled. Smells okay to me. Just to be sure, I'll use the first child to arrive for breakfast as a taste tester and if that one vomits or collapses I'll mix up a batch of powdered milk for the rest.
The radio announcer reads a list of local closings in alphabetical order—a 4H club meeting, most of the area private schools, some church activities, and a Hebrew school class. It's alocal joke that the world would have to be ending for our public school system to close. Most of the administrators were once public school students around here, so I often think they want to make sure that today's kids suffer as much as they did before the invention of fleece jackets and waterproof boots.
Darlene shuffles into the kitchen wearing her footsie pajamas. She starts to say something, but I place my finger to my lips and point to the radio just as the announcer says, “Here it is, folks—Patrick Henry School District is closed!” He says this like a game show host declaring a big winner.
Darlene looks up at me expectantly.
“Yup,” I say. “That's you. No school today.”
She races through the house screeching, “Thcool ith clofed, thchool ith clofed!”
I'm reminded that this means there won't be any speech therapy for Darlene today. The lisp is definitely improving, but there's still a ways to go before she's knocking back, Silly Sally sells seashells by the seashore.
THIRTEEN
B Y LUNCHTIME I FEEL AS IF I'M SLEEPWALKING AND THE KIDS’ voices are coming from an echo chamber.
Bernard arrives shortly after one o'clock with a bottle of designer conditioner and a brand-new blow dryer. He hugs and kisses me like we're acting out a tragedy in a movie scene. “Are you surviving?”
“It's really weird.” I grope for the right words to describe the surrealism of the past two days, how it's as if I'm standing at a distance from life. “I keep thinking I'm going to wake up and everything will be back to how it was—but instead it's like being stuck in a science-fiction movie. Only there aren't any killer robots to beat back, no magic ring to get rid of, no time machine to repair, and therefore no way to travel back to yesterday.”
“Courage, mon brave!”
says Bernard, and places his hands on my shoulders while tipping his forehead toward mine as if he's knighting me or transferring some sort of secret powers.
Gazing out the window only adds to the bizarreness of my current situation. It's no longer possible to see the houses across the street, or even the street, for that matter.
“How on earth did you get over here?” I ask.
“It certainly wouldn't have been possible in that fantastically stylish but reliably unreliable vintage Alfa Romeo. Whereas my new
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