temple. God, I thank you that I am not like these sad people. And she despised herself for it.
Women wandered through Abbi’s checkout line, heaping compliments on Benjamin. She said, “Thank you” and “I’ll tell him” and “I know I’m lucky.” But she just wanted to go home, and when her shift ended at six, she hurried to sweep and punch out, wadding her smock into a ball and tossing it on the shelf.
The house was still empty. On the answering machine, a red digital number one pulsed on, off, on. She pressed the Play button and heard static, then a dial tone.
She wasn’t hungry, not really. But there was too much space around her, inside her. She filled it with a sprouted-grain bagel and homemade hummus, two handfuls of raw almonds, a soy yogurt, and a chewy, double carob chip cookie. Before changing into her pajamas, she drank three glasses of prune juice, quickly, one after another, plugging her soft palate with her tongue to dim the taste. Then she snapped on the living-room lamp and made a sandwich for Benjamin—roast beef and Swiss; her stomach lurched as she picked the meat up between her thumb and forefinger, dropped it on the bread—in case he wanted something to eat when he came home.
In case he came home.
Chapter THREE
Other people woke to alarm clocks or crying babies or shouts from the apartments next door. But Matthew Savoie woke in silence, and in the minutes before he opened his eyes, he hid alone within his head, without distraction.
He thought in words, watched them scroll across the backs of his eyelids, ordering him to get up, get going. But the heat ground against him, wet and heavy, a mildewed blanket over his face, provoking his sleepiness.
The sheet stuck to his chest as he managed to turn over; he felt it peel away from his skin like a Band-Aid. Last night, he had taken the three cushions off the couch and lined them up on the floor. A narrow bed, yes, but his body was well accustomed to the width. He’d slept on the sofa here in his aunt’s living room for the past five years. And the floor—where his feet flopped off the end of the cushions, and he could spread his arms for air—was cooler than if he folded his body to fit between the padded gold arms, his skin pressed into the hot velour fabric.
A little cooler, he tried to convince himself.
He felt the floor shake. Someone slammed the bathroom door. He opened his eyes and saw two of his cousins, Jaylyn and Skye. Irish twins, his grandmother called them, born eleven months apart in the same year. Two different fathers.
“Ma said you better get your lazy self up or you’re gonna be late,” Jaylyn said.
Matthew turned onto his stomach again, swept his arm over the carpet and caught his T-shirt on his pinky. He put it on, not wanting the girls to see his bare chest, pale as the moon and puckered with ribs. Too thin for a sixteen-year-old. Too thin for a boy, really. He stood, shrugged.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.
He found his notepads in the denim shorts he’d worn yesterday, a sad pair of jeans Heather brought home from the Salvation Army, cut and hemmed by hand one night when she’d been feeling maternal. He flipped open the red one, spiral-bound on top like a reporter’s, and wrote, What do you care?
“Retard. Come on, Skye,” Jaylyn said, and twirled away, her smooth blond hair fanning around her shoulders.
Skye stood there looking dark and tired. She reached her hand across her chubby stomach and grabbed a knot of skin near her hip and, through her cutoff sweatpants, kneaded it. She seemed more distracted lately, quieter than usual. Matthew doubted anyone else had noticed, a symptom of living packed close together, eyes turned toward the ceiling or floor—at first to give each other a bit more privacy, then to have more privacy of one’s own, until finally all anyone did was look up and inward and away.
Are you okay? he wrote.
“Yeah,” she said, head dripping into her shoulder,
Women wandered through Abbi’s checkout line, heaping compliments on Benjamin. She said, “Thank you” and “I’ll tell him” and “I know I’m lucky.” But she just wanted to go home, and when her shift ended at six, she hurried to sweep and punch out, wadding her smock into a ball and tossing it on the shelf.
The house was still empty. On the answering machine, a red digital number one pulsed on, off, on. She pressed the Play button and heard static, then a dial tone.
She wasn’t hungry, not really. But there was too much space around her, inside her. She filled it with a sprouted-grain bagel and homemade hummus, two handfuls of raw almonds, a soy yogurt, and a chewy, double carob chip cookie. Before changing into her pajamas, she drank three glasses of prune juice, quickly, one after another, plugging her soft palate with her tongue to dim the taste. Then she snapped on the living-room lamp and made a sandwich for Benjamin—roast beef and Swiss; her stomach lurched as she picked the meat up between her thumb and forefinger, dropped it on the bread—in case he wanted something to eat when he came home.
In case he came home.
Chapter THREE
Other people woke to alarm clocks or crying babies or shouts from the apartments next door. But Matthew Savoie woke in silence, and in the minutes before he opened his eyes, he hid alone within his head, without distraction.
He thought in words, watched them scroll across the backs of his eyelids, ordering him to get up, get going. But the heat ground against him, wet and heavy, a mildewed blanket over his face, provoking his sleepiness.
The sheet stuck to his chest as he managed to turn over; he felt it peel away from his skin like a Band-Aid. Last night, he had taken the three cushions off the couch and lined them up on the floor. A narrow bed, yes, but his body was well accustomed to the width. He’d slept on the sofa here in his aunt’s living room for the past five years. And the floor—where his feet flopped off the end of the cushions, and he could spread his arms for air—was cooler than if he folded his body to fit between the padded gold arms, his skin pressed into the hot velour fabric.
A little cooler, he tried to convince himself.
He felt the floor shake. Someone slammed the bathroom door. He opened his eyes and saw two of his cousins, Jaylyn and Skye. Irish twins, his grandmother called them, born eleven months apart in the same year. Two different fathers.
“Ma said you better get your lazy self up or you’re gonna be late,” Jaylyn said.
Matthew turned onto his stomach again, swept his arm over the carpet and caught his T-shirt on his pinky. He put it on, not wanting the girls to see his bare chest, pale as the moon and puckered with ribs. Too thin for a sixteen-year-old. Too thin for a boy, really. He stood, shrugged.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.
He found his notepads in the denim shorts he’d worn yesterday, a sad pair of jeans Heather brought home from the Salvation Army, cut and hemmed by hand one night when she’d been feeling maternal. He flipped open the red one, spiral-bound on top like a reporter’s, and wrote, What do you care?
“Retard. Come on, Skye,” Jaylyn said, and twirled away, her smooth blond hair fanning around her shoulders.
Skye stood there looking dark and tired. She reached her hand across her chubby stomach and grabbed a knot of skin near her hip and, through her cutoff sweatpants, kneaded it. She seemed more distracted lately, quieter than usual. Matthew doubted anyone else had noticed, a symptom of living packed close together, eyes turned toward the ceiling or floor—at first to give each other a bit more privacy, then to have more privacy of one’s own, until finally all anyone did was look up and inward and away.
Are you okay? he wrote.
“Yeah,” she said, head dripping into her shoulder,
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