American Chordata: Magazine of New Writing Issue One, Spring 2015 | Page 74

56 • FI CTION

“I fed Marky,” she says, “and I let him out.”
My father takes his coffee to the breakfast room. When I sit
down beside him he nods as if I just said something we agreed on.
Mother sets a plate of cinnamon toast in front of me and sets another plate of plain buttered toast on the table. Who is having all
this toast? My father, who never has toast, eats two pieces. Then
he gulps down his coffee, makes a face because he burned his tongue,
gets up. Mother gives the last piece of toast to Marky. She never
did that before. Then my father goes to the lavatory. When he
comes back, the speck of toilet paper on his chin is gone, a tiny red
dot where the blood dried. I look at Mother. She is not looking at
him, she is not asking him anything.
He puts on his jacket, picks up his briefcase, says something I
don’t hear, and goes out the back door, no towns mentioned, no
have a nice day. He doesn’t even turn off the light in the back hall,
which must have been on all night. He walks to his car, puts his
briefcase in the back seat and tosses in his hat, closes the door, and
gets in the front seat. Then he backs out the driveway.
Mother scrubs out Tizzy’s milk pan with the pink SOS pad.
She forgets to turn off the faucet. All these things he is so strict
about—not leaving lights on, not letting the water run, not giving
Marky scraps—totally ignored.

We are in a new phase. I don’t do my homework at the kitchen
table anymore; I go upstairs to my room. Mother writes letters at
her desk, but there are a few nights every week when my father
goes out and she listens to trumpet music on the record player and
plays solitaire. She pulls the coffee table up to the horsehair sofa.
There is not enough room on that table to play solitaire and drink
and smoke, but somehow her martini glass and ashtray never fall
off.
Tonight, when I stand in the doorway, not asking questions, she
snaps down a card and says, “Your father has gone out for a spin in
this dreadful weather.” When I boldly ask where to, she doesn’t
even lift an eyebrow, but snaps down another card and says, as if