Now she leans over and strikes the window, hard, with her palm, just the way she used to. The catch releases; the window shoots upward. The smell of Outside comes sweeping into the room. It is like a shiver, or the touch of someone’s hand.
“Did you see that?” she asks Trenton. “The trick still works.”
Trenton shrugs and puts his hands in the pocket of his sweatshirt. I can’t believe that this awkward, gummy, sullen thing is beautiful, tragic Trenton, who liked to lie in the sunshine on the wooden floor of the dining room, like a cat—curled against me, cheek to cheek, the closest I have come to an embrace since I was alive.
I used to imagine, sometimes, that he could feel me hugging him back.
“Mommy.” Amy has been straining onto her tiptoes, exploring the countertop with her fingers. Now she tugs on the hem of Minna’s shirt. “Is Grandpa here?”
Minna kneels so she is eye level with her daughter. “We talked about that, sweetpea. Remember?”
Amy shakes her head. “I want to say hi to Grandpa.”
“Grandpa’s gone, Amy,” Trenton says. Minna shoots him a murderous look. She places her hands on Amy’s shoulders.
She speaks in a lullaby voice. “Remember the chapter in The Raven Heliotrope, where Princess Penelope gives up her life to save the Order of the Innocents?”
“Oh, God.” Trenton rolls his eyes. “You’re reading her that crap?”
“Did you hear that, Alice?” Sandra says to me. “Crap. No wonder it was never published.”
“I never tried to get it published,” I say, and then regret it. She’s only trying to goad me into an argument.
“Shut up, Trenton,” Minna snaps at him. Then she continues, in a soft voice: “And remember Penelope has to go away to the Garden of Forever?”
Amy nods. “To live in a flower.”
Minna kisses her forehead. “Grandpa’s in the Garden of Forever.”
Trenton snorts. Minna ignores him, stands up, and switches off the faucet. It’s a relief. We’re very sensitive to sound now. The noise of the water is thunderous. Water running through the pipes is an uncomfortable feeling, and it still fills me with anxiety, the way I used to feel when I had to go to the bathroom and was made to laugh: a fear of leaking.
“But will he come back?” Amy asks.
“What?” Minna turns around. For a moment I see that underneath the impeccable makeup, she is just as tired as anybody else.
“In Part Two, Penelope comes back,” Amy says. “Penelope wakes up. And then Prince Thomas joins forces with Sven and saves everybody.”
Minna stares at her blankly for a second. It’s Trenton who answers.
“Grandpa’s not coming back, Amybear,” Trenton says. “He’s going to stay in the garden.”
“As long as the old grout stays away from here,” Sandra says.
Of course she isn’t really worried that he’ll return. It’s just the two of us. It will no doubt always be the two of us, and the spiny staircases, and the ticking furnace, like a mechanical heart, and the mice, nibbling at our corners.
Unless I can find a way to light the fire.