“Hm?”
“The story? With the shoes? And the closets?”
Dad puts down his demon book for a minute. He flips through his legal pad like he’s looking for something. He adjusts his glasses because he’s serious about the situation.
“I made a list of stories and fables and myths about sisters for you,” Dad says. “That’s not the only one about siblings.” This is typical Dad. Not quite understanding me but really, truly believing that he does. The smile on his face is all kinds of proud of himself, and I know he thinks he gets me, and I don’t want to take that away from him.
“Wow. Thanks,” I say.
“We’re two peas in a pod.” Dad emits a happy sigh, and I wonder if this is the only time all day either of us will be really happy. Who knows what else might happen to make the house sad later today? “We both really get how to look for answers. We’re both curious. We both know the stories in these books are more than pretend. They’re real, they have real things to teach us. Maybe you’ll be a professor like me someday. What do you think, Silly?”
“Professor Silly,” I say, hating it.
“I know things don’t always make sense,” Dad says. He’s taken off his glasses, which means he’s settling in for an important talk. “I know you’re looking for answers to hard questions. But things are getting better now, and I think with how strong our family is and how smart and curious you are, it will all start to make sense for you. The world.”
“You think the world will start to make sense.” I want him to hear how he sounds. His big proclamations. The way he’s gripping the sides of his books like they are anchors, life rafts, in a stormy sea. Doesn’t he hear how hollow it all is?
“Now that we’ve moved here and Mom’s getting better.” He smiles to himself and puts his glasses back on, conversation over.
There are so many things to say that I go mute. It’s annoying, how that happens. The more things I want to say, the less I actually can. Eleanor’s not like this. She gets an uppity, fast-talking voice when she needs to speak her mind. And Marla yells out her temper tantrums. Astrid writes long letters when she’s upset.
I’m Silly. I say nothing, but I blush and look at the clock, which tells me it is way, way too late for Mom to still be asleep.
It’s terrifying that Dad thinks Mom is doing better. If he doesn’t see how bad things are, what are we supposed to do? I think about the mountains and the idea to escape there, and I think Dad would be the first to forget us.
Or Mom, if she’d been drinking all day.
I guess they’d both forget us.
I feel like I have the flu. A very sudden, very painful flu.
“Speaking of sisters, where are mine?” I say. I can’t sit here with him pretending Mom’s getting better when every day she’s getting a little bit worse.
“Let’s see. The beach maybe? Eleanor went to get ice cream. Which is funny—it’s a little early for ice cream,” Dad says like it’s only occurred to him this moment.
“And Mom?” I say, hoping he’ll admit how worrisome it is that she’s sleeping.
“I’m sure she’s reading or something,” he says. “Anyway, I should get to work, chickadee. You’ll hold down the fort for me? I’m going to the office.”
He doesn’t have to go to the office. It’s summer. He could do his research right here. But he wants to leave too. We all need to leave sometimes.
He abandons most of his papers on the table, so when he’s out the door I look through them. There are notes about everything from evil witches in Eastern European fairy tales to Bible verses about the devil to something called The Metamorphosis.
Dad likes reading and pondering and note-taking and concluding things from those books but never actually looking at what’s happening in real life. It’s sort of sad if I think too much about it.
I have an idea.
I rip a bunch of pages out of a copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Dad has a million copies; he won’t miss this one.
I head to the basement. I know exactly what I’m looking for.
In the pile of discarded toys that we moved from Massachusetts to New Hampshire for no reason at all, I discover our old Barbies. Twelve of them. Mom would be livid if she knew we had twelve Barbies, but Dad always used to buy them for us when she was Away.
I come across Halloween costume tiaras and never-used ballet slippers and a pair of pink heels I’m sure Mom never wore but that maybe princesses could have worn. I bring a bowl of water that I hope will turn into a lake, because as I read the pages I ripped out of the book—the story of “The Twelve Dancing Princesses”—I learn that they took a boat across a lake to make it to the dance. I find one toy boat. It’s small and plastic, and we probably used to play with it in the tub.