I had no fucking clue what a Doodle was, but it didn't
sound pleasant. 'Fruit. Or some crackers. I'l make dinner
in about twenty minutes, just let me get settled in.'
Arty grumped and groaned and stomped, but came back
out in a minute with a box of cheese crackers. He hurtled
himself into a beanbag placed close enough to the TV he
could have read Braile on the screen, and turned on
cartoons loud enough to make me wince. He wasn't happy
to scoot back or turn it down, but he did. I tried to ignore
the crumbs spewing from his mouth with each guffaw.
I took my bag up the narrow stairs and down the dark,
close hal to the room at the back of the house. My mom
close hal to the room at the back of the house. My mom
had taken the front room, overlooking the street, with a
panel of four large windows. Arty's smaler room was
between hers and the bathroom. The room at the end
should've been a nice den, a sewing room, a playroom, but
for some reason nobody in the house used it.
There was a bed, at least, a creaking twin bed that
matched one of the dressers I'd inherited from my
grandma. The sheets were clean, and the bedspread, and
my mom had laid out clean towels for me, too. I set my
bag on the rickety, spindle-legged chair I'd never have
dared sit on, and I colapsed onto the bed. The ceiling had
cracks in it, and water damage. One high, narrow window
had a blind but no curtain. That would be pleasant in the
morning.
'Paiiiiige! I'm hungry!'
The wail drifted up the stairs and I heaved myself out of
the bed to holer, 'I'l be right down!'
When I yanked the door opposite the foot of the bed,
though, al I did was chip a nail on the knob. The door
stayed stubbornly shut. Not the closet, then. It must have
been the door to the attic. I tried the one next to the
been the door to the attic. I tried the one next to the
dresser, revealing a set of wire hangers I used to quickly
hang my work clothes for the next couple days. Then it
was downstairs to the kitchen, which looked as if it had
been cleaned in preparation for my arrival.
Which meant my mom had wiped down the counters and
cleared out the sink, but the floor was a little sticky in front
of the fridge and crumbs coated the table. When I was
younger, it had never occurred to me that other people
stored leftover food in the fridge or the freezer. When we
got pizza it often stayed out on the counter until it was
gone. Sometimes she put it, stil in the box, in the oven until
we remembered to take it out and throw it away. My mom
cooked but haphazardly, so spaghetti sauce had always
made Rorschach blots on the stovetop and stiff noodles
