She crosses her arms. “Last week, Wednesday or maybe Thursday, you said Monday you would take me. Today is Monday. That means we’re going.”
“You’re right.” I’m not awake enough to figure out how this will work. I have to be at the restaurant by eleven, and my older brother and sister are already at their jobs. But I really don’t want to take the younger ones to the pottery place. There’s a saying about people being oil and water, but Bekah and Isaac are like oil and a hot frying pan. Put them together, and there’s hissing, spitting, and the occasional burn. They got into a screaming match yesterday morning over who’d get to sit in the recliner while watching TV. Bekah lobbed a pillow at Isaac’s head, missed, and broke a vase. So I grounded them both. I don’t really know what grounded entails for an eight-and an eleven-year-old, but it sounded authoritative at the time.
“So we can go?” Leah asks.
“Yeah, we can go.”
“Yay, yay, yay!”
Lifting a mug from the cabinet, I turn back to Leah. “You want oatmeal?”
“I want peanut butter–banana toast, but Bekah wouldn’t toast the bread for me.”
“How about peanut butter–banana oatmeal?”
She makes a face.
“Fine. Toast it is.” I redirect my hands toward a loaf of bread and then drop one slice into the toaster. I hand Leah the banana and a dull knife. She holds the knife in her right hand and braces the banana with her left, tucking the tips of her fingers under like I taught her. Our dad taught me, in the kitchen of his restaurant. He also showed me what would happen if I did not use this technique to protect my fingers from the blade. The demonstration involved ketchup as fake blood and a lot of dramatics. I was nine. It was the greatest thing ever.
When the bread pops up, I plate it for Leah. She smears the peanut butter. Smiling, she says, “I’m going to paint a coffee cup for Mom at the pottery shop.”
“Good idea.” I pour my coffee. Behind us, Isaac wanders into the kitchen. A chapter book eclipses his face. Isaac can walk while reading. Like, he can walk better while reading than the average person can walk while doing nothing else. He sidesteps street signs, climbs stairs, and dodges pedestrians. It’s almost disturbing. He peers at us, and the refrigerator door is reflected in his glasses.
“Did you say we’re going to paint pottery?”
“We are,” I say.
“Yes, yes, yes!” Leah says.
“Cool! I’m coming, too.”
“Nope. You’re grounded. And look at the chore chart. Who has all their checks for every week this month?”
Isaac squints at the chart, searching for an angle to argue. “Well . . . only Leah. But that’s not fair! She gets all the easy jobs because she’s the littlest. Anybody can sort laundry and set the table.”
Leah scowls. I resist pinching Isaac, hard. “Leah’s only five. She does everything she can, and I never have to ask her twice.”
Nobody argued during the days when my mom handled the chore chart, which is a laminated grid with our six names lining the left side. She managed our eight-person family’s calendar of activities and events. She signed permissions slips. She made waffles every Monday morning to soften the blow of the weekend ending. She put away Christmas decorations on December 31. But that was before we became a seven-person family.
Everything about my dad was big. His height, his laugh, his personality. Now I look at pictures of the eight of us and, when I imagine him not there, the whole picture is off balance. And so are we.
My dad used to joke that he’d forget his head if my mom didn’t sew it on every morning. I was too young to know the saying about forgetting your head if it weren’t attached to your body. Instead, I stared at my dad’s collar. I wanted to see Frankenstein zigzags across his neck. Then he died, and it turned out my mom relied on him for basic function, too. My mom mostly stays in her bedroom now. Sometimes I wonder if she’s whispering to her heart: Beat. Beat. Beat. To her lungs: In, out. In, out. Like it takes all her time and energy to exist.
On my way upstairs, Bekah calls for me from the room she shares with Leah. She’s on her knees, digging through the lowest drawer of her wardrobe. “Have you seen my dark blue shorts?”
“No. Wait—maybe. They’re probably in the wash.”
“Uggghhh.” Groans constitute at least half of Bekah’s interactions with me. She’s eleven, which I don’t remember being nearly as difficult as she makes it out to be. “I wanted to wear them today.”
“Then do your own laundry.”
She moves toward her closet with another groan, stamping her feet. I take a sip of my coffee. It’s moments like these when I savor the bitterness.
“What’s wrong?” This is Silas’s hasty response when I call his number. My older brother works at Cove Coffee as a shift manager, and I can hear the familiar noises in the background: whirring milk steamers and choppy voices.
“Is there any chance you can get off work early?”
“What? I specifically took the early shift so I could be home in time for you to leave for the lunch shift.”
“I know. I forgot I have to take Leah somewhere.”