Forty-Eight

FORTY-EIGHT

Liz stood. When did I take my shoes off? I don’t remember doing that.

She didn’t remember a lot of things anymore. It was good to be numb—it was like “getting wet”.

Her mother rifled through bags in the study.

Where am I? Liz glanced around. If that’s the study, then I must be in the living room. I know I’ve seen that sofa before. It’s comfy. I’ve wrapped my legs over the arm of that chair before.

Reggie doubled over in the small room, surrounded by torn-open garbage bags bleeding Christmas tinsel. In her hands were two handmade tree ornaments. Little, worn Santas, their faces bent inwards.

A memory of the family at Christmastime. It was one of the years that her father hadn’t been there. He came and went. Sometimes he said he needed a holiday from them. In this memory, Liz and Jed put those ornaments on the plastic tree. Everything smelled of mothballs. They weren’t happy, but at least they weren’t crying or bleeding. This was the children’s barometer: the yardstick