Speech now was folded into books, the aging pages polished by the turning of many hands. In the silence, the exile clung to these pages, with their smell of years, their prophecies of doom and of promise.
Doom had come. The exile waited now for the promise.
Do you know how much electricity gets used on the shortest day of the year?” Max asked Susan as he mixed his instant oatmeal at the kitchen counter the next morning.
Susan raised an eyebrow at him. This was Max’s peace offering, she knew, a useful bit of information that he thought would cheer her up.
“Don’t you mean longest night of the year?”
“Same thing.”
“Not exactly.”
“Well, fine. Longest night, then.”
She decided to accept his apology.
“No, how much?”
She scooted over on the kitchen bench to make room for him. Their house was old, and the kitchen seemed older than the rest of it. The short Formica-topped table jutted out from the window, and two benches sat on either side of it, a setup that Dad said was like a diner at a truck stop. To get in or out of the seats closest to the window required climbing over one or two siblings or the high back of the bench, which sat only about half a foot from the side of the fridge. And yet Susan favored it. She loved to sit by the window and rest her head against the cool glass.
Max grinned as he sat down. “Five thousand megawatts. But of course that’s an estimate. But guess when people use even more? In summer. Guess why? Air-conditioning. Much more wasteful than lights. Or at least it was last time I checked.”
Outside, the snow was melting. December never seemed sure it was really winter, no matter what the calendar said, and the day had dawned unexpectedly sunny. Susan pressed her forehead into the glass. Still cold enough to ease the ache there from having an interrupted night’s sleep.
“You okay, Susan?” Mom asked her. She had come into the kitchen with Kate’s backpack, which always managed to get left behind when it was time to go to school.
“Just tired,” Susan said. She didn’t mention why.
“Me, too,” Max said. “I feel like last night lasted longer than normal.”
“Ha-ha,” Susan said.
“No, I mean it. Like it was full of dreams. And not my usual ones.”
“What, no spaceships involved?” Mom asked. She plopped a carton of orange juice down on the table, followed by two small glasses. “Drink up — you’ll feel better.”
“More like a lot of trees,” Max said, pouring himself some juice. “No idea why. Maybe it’s because I’m taking earth science.”
The word dreams pinged like a small bell in Susan’s mind. She paused, thinking of Kate, then for a moment had the hazy feeling that she’d seen . . . she didn’t know what. It evaporated as soon as she focused her attention on it. She shook her head. She almost never remembered dreams, anyway. Probably it was only her imagination, filling things in for her. She poured herself some juice.
Jean came in then, climbing up to sit across from Susan at the table. She set her Barbie doll next to her cereal bowl.
“Kate!” she called. “Barbie’s ready for breakfast! See?” She showed Max. “She’s a birthday Barbie.”
He looked distinctly uninterested.
“She was born in a factory,” Max said. “I doubt she has a birthday.”
Jean wrinkled her nose. “It’s for pretend, Max,” she said. “And so she can have a pretty dress.”
She admired the dress for another minute before standing up to pour herself some cereal, giving Barbie a shower of cornflakes at the same time.
“You’ll get her dirty!” Kate said from the doorway. She carried her own matching doll, which she held against her chest. “And you said you’d keep her nice!”
“We’ll give them baths tonight,” Jean told her. “And maybe a haircut. That’s part of getting ready for the party.”
“No haircuts,” Kate said, looking alarmed.
Susan grinned into her orange juice. Jean had recently restyled one of her skirts (it needed to be shorter), a pair of new shoes (she didn’t like the straps), and her own hair. Where she’d once had longish dark waves, she now had a short bob and bangs that fell half an inch above her winged eyebrows. She’d been on her way to convincing Kate to let her give her a trim when Mom confiscated the scissors.
“Well, a bath, anyway,” Jean conceded.
Susan watched Max roll his eyes, and Jean grinned across the table at him.
“Max, write me a letter.”
Max gave Susan a sidelong glance that begged sympathy for his long suffering.
“Not now.”
“Please? A short one.”
“I don’t have a piece of paper.”
“Letters” was a favorite game of Jean’s, which she’d devised after having received one from Grandpa the year he’d been on a trip and missed her fifth birthday. She’d heartily agreed with him that messages on paper lasted longer than a phone call. She’d then gone on a campaign to get everyone to write her letters, and in a fit of generosity, Max had made the mistake of complying.
“Say one, then. Like, pretend you’re reading it.”
Max grunted, but Susan knew that for all his bluster, he wouldn’t refuse her. He rarely did.
“Dear Jean, Enjoy your breakfast. Your brother, Max.”
Jean beamed at him, and Max drained his juice and finished his oatmeal in silence.
Nell joined them last of all. She, too, looked like she’d had a long night. She glanced moodily out the window. “I wish it would snow again,” she said. “Then I could sleep late.”
“It’s a short day,” Susan told her. “It’ll be night before you know it.”
And it was. Before the afternoon was half over, the sky had turned a deep, evening blue. Susan went into the family room and stood by the big window, looking out at Mrs. Grady’s house next door. It had been another peculiar day. Standing near her locker at lunchtime, she’d been sure someone was looking over her shoulder, waiting for her to turn. When she did, nobody was
