by Maggie Estep
I had been blowing my sister off for more than a week now. She wanted me to go with her to various prenatal appointments and yoga classes but I kept turning her down in favor of holing up by myself, with just dogs for company.
“I haven’t spoken to Eloise in days,” Joe protested. “Why, is she questioning your sanity?” He entered the kitchen and looked around, like he’d never seen the place before.
“Eloise has always questioned my sanity. But now more than ever. I told her I’m staying here. Going to sell my father’s house in Queens.”
“But that’s fantastic, Alice,” Joe said, his whole face lighting up in a way I hadn’t seen since Mom died.
“It is?” Eloise thought my decision to move to the woods so uncharacteristic she’d asked if I wanted Ava to recommend a therapist.
“I’m really glad, Alice.”
“Do you miss Mom?” I heard myself ask. Just like that. No warning.
Joe flinched.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so abrupt.”
“No,” he said softly, “it’s okay. You have no way of knowing just how badly I miss Kimberly.”
What had possessed me to ask such a question? Of course he missed her.
“Sometimes I need to censor myself,” I said.
“No,” Joe replied slowly, “no. That was one of the things your mother most admired about you and Eloise. The way you both just say whatever comes to mind. Which you got from her.”
“Yeah,” I felt myself smiling, “we did get that from her.”
Joe and I fell silent. I made coffee and offered him some of the wretched banana bread I’d baked earlier. The only person I’d found so far who’d eat anything I cooked was Mom’s NA friend Ida. She was obviously trying really hard to win my friendship.
Joe knew better than to eat anything I’d cooked.
“No thanks,” he said as politely as possible.
“Mickey loves it,” I said. “Jumped up on the counter last time I made it and devoured the entire loaf, including the plastic it was wrapped in.”
“I don’t know how to put this, Alice, but if a pit bull who was just a few months ago dying of starvation on the streets is your arbiter of culinary success, well …”
“You’re lucky my domestic ambitions and accompanying expectations of appreciation are so minimal or I might punch you.”
Joe smiled. I smiled.
Eventually, he actually borrowed a cup of sugar, then pecked me on each cheek and left.
Outside, dusk had come.
It was time to feed the dogs.
Also available from Akashic Books
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Brand new stories by: Maggie Estep, Pete Hamill, Arthur Nersesian, Ellen Miller, Nelson George, Sidney Offit, Ken Bruen, and others.
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“Daring, tough, and deeply compassionate, Achy Obejas’s Ruins is a breathtaker. Obejas writes like an angel, which is to say: gloriously … one of Cuba’s most important writers.”
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THE SACRIFICIAL CIRCUMCISION OF THE BRONX
a novel by Arthur Nersesian
300 pages, hardcover, $22.95
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