I poured the pasta into the sieve. Jed finished chopping and went to join Ana and Tom on the couch. Cam stirred the sauce, but he wasn’t looking at it. He was looking at Tom.
And then footsteps, and Liko appeared at the door. In a black shirt with some graffiti words on the front that were illegible. No, he hadn’t brought chocolate or flowers.
“Yo,” he said.
“Yo,” Ana said back, copying his voice exactly.
“Dude,” Jed said, springing off the couch.
“Come in,” I said in my nicest voice.
In the silly voice of a gatekeeper, Ana said, “Name yourself.” She chuckled. “Who are you?”
“Who are you?” Liko said, kicking his last flip-flop into the pile.
“I am Ana,” she said regally.
“Yeah, dude, this is Ana, we adopted her. She’s chill,” Jed said, too nonchalantly.
“Well, I am Liko,” Liko said, and pointed to himself with both hands.
“Can I get you something, Liko?” I was determined to be kind. “Apple juice?”
“It’s good,” Jed said, as though apple juice was a rare drink Liko had never heard of.
“Coo,” Liko said.
Coo? I tried not to judge. Kindness. I poured him some apple juice. The microwave clock said 6:13. Cam had plated the pasta. It would get cold. “Let’s eat,” I said, “Chuck will be here soon.”
“He’s going to show us that ball, yeah?” Liko asked.
“Yeah, man,” Jed assured him.
I looked at the door. If Chuck found that ball, it would be a miracle.
?
Ana dimmed the lights. Liko said, “Like a freakin’ séance in here,” bobbing his head to the syllables. The way he spoke had a particular rhythm to it—everything came out in the same up and down beat.
“Yeah, it’s badass right?” Jed said, to which Liko replied, “Like a voodoo den.”
Cam and Tom sat on one side, Jed and Liko on the other. Ana sat next to me at the head of the table. When Chuck got here, he would sit across from us.
“Yum,” Tom said, looking at the pasta.
“I hope I cooked the sauce right,” Cam said.
“I’m sure you did,” Tom said, and smiled at Cam, who blushed.
“I’m sure you did, sweetie poo.” Liko kissed the air, and then he smiled that joker smile of his.
Before I could form a response to that, Ana said, “Let’s hold hands.”
The twins glanced at each other, a glance that said: What will our friends think of this? But Liko and Tom held out their hands like it was normal. Maybe they said grace at home.
Ana, her face glowing in the candlelight, said, “Breathe.” She inhaled and exhaled deeply. “You are here.”
A pause.
“Some of us will rise and some of us will fall. Some of us have small black hearts. Small blackened black hearts. Some of us will have time to change that. To grow and grow and find love, and our hearts will become big and joyous and they will pump blood through our bodies joyously.”
“Sick,” Liko said.
Ana continued. “We are on a journey. All of us together. We are all surviving. We are all hanging on…to this moment. With our big and tiny and joyous and blackened black hearts, we are all right here, learning to breathe.”
“Ay-men,” Liko said, and Ana repeated it, but she pronounced it like her name. “Ah-men.”
“That was rrrrreal,” Liko said, stuffing his napkin into his lap. “Way more real than how my auntie says it.”
The door clapped shut. “Hey!” Chuck said. I could tell just from that “hey” that he was in full-on Cool Dad mode. He would play his role up tonight and make these boys swoon. He walked through the dark living room and appeared in the flickering candlelight wearing his work clothes—had he really been at work all day?—and he was holding a ball.
“Sorry I’m a little late.” He looked at me almost like he thought he should touch me—how far to take this charade?—but he didn’t touch me. He looked at Ana and his face didn’t fall. He was really trying. Trying to win us over with the same grin he had used on Shelly Two at Patricio’s, and I wanted to kill him just as much as I wanted him to apologize and explain.
“Hey, Liko, hey, Tom,” Chuck said.
“Hey, Mr. Murphy,” they symphonied.
Proudly he held up the ball. “Look what I found.”
Liko grabbed the ball. “No way,” he said, and turned it over to find the inscription. “Dayum, he even wrote your name. ‘Chuck, play hard.’ This is money. Dayum!”
Jed took the ball, looked, repeated, “Dayum!”
I told myself not to ask, but I had to. “Where did you find it, Chuck?”
Chuck took his place at the far end of the table. He scooted in and picked up one of the Buddhas and made a face like: Huh?
When he still hadn’t answered me, I asked again. “Chuck, where did you find the ball?”
He scratched his neck. “The closet.”
“Really? Which closet, hon?” I set my chin on my fist.
Chuck’s clenching smile. I could see him flailing under that smile. I knew the ball was a decoy. Even from here, it looked too new. It also looked like he had done something to it to make it look weathered. Rubbed it on the pavement, maybe. Also, on the real ball, Tony had written, “Play better,” not “Play hard,” which meant that Chuck’s memory was failing, which meant that we were old.
I asked again. “Which closet, hon?”
“Who cares, Mom,” Jed said, passing the ball to Cam. The boys wouldn’t have remembered the original ball. The last time they’d seen it was when they were about ten.
“What kind of pasta is this?” Chuck asked.
I knew Ana would sing it in Italian, and she did. “Pasta all’Amatriciana.”
“Your recipe?” Chuck was grinding his poor teeth to dust in his mouth. He’d been a grinder since I met him. He carried stress in his jaw. And he had a special mouth guard for sleeping, which I knew he wasn’t wearing alone in the ohana without me to remind him.
“Yes,” Ana said. “I hope you like it.”
Chuck picked up the fat Buddha in front of him. “And this is your doll?”
“Those are Buddhas, Chucky,” Ana said, sounding very light and bright.
“Please don’t call me Chucky,” Chuck said, and smiled harder.
“All right, sir.” She saluted him.
Chuck scooted his chair out. “I forgot something in the car,” he said. “Be right back.”
We watched him disappear into the dark.
Tom and Cam were still inspecting the decoy.
“Dude, plate me up some more pasta,” Liko said to Jed, who quickly complied.
“So, boys,” I said, not knowing what I would say next. And then—why?—“How’s school?”
“Fine,” “Fine,” “Fine,” they echoed.
Liko said, “Stupid.”
Ana hovered her fingers above the candle flame. “Liko?”
He grunted. His mouth was full.
“What’s your deeeeal?” she asked him slowly. But then he was still chewing so she went on. “Do you plan on going to college?”
“Ana wishes she went to college,” Jed explained. “That’s why she’s asking.”
Liko swallowed. “I’m going to college, hell yeah,” he said. “That’s where all the hot chicks are. College.” Joker smile, and his teeth were smeared with red sauce.
“Word,” Jed said.
God, I hated peer pressure so much.
Then footsteps. The door clapped. Chuck was back.