Evelyn was in the living room, listening to a commercial on TV. The volume was so low that when the commercial finished, they could barely hear the dialog in the show that was on. At least Amber could barely hear it. Evelyn’s hearing was legendary.
“Shawn came by. I sent him away.”
“He’s good enough. I don’t see what you hate about him.”
Amber laughed. Cousin Evelyn had a very dry sense of humor. Her jokes were so subtle that a person like Shawn wouldn’t have even picked up on them at all.
“Try dating him and you’ll see. He wants to control every little thing. It’s unbearable.”
“I don’t know anyone else like that.”
Amber smiled.
“When you were gone, he went down to the Croc and Shop twice a week for me. Kept me well-supplied in all the essentials.”
“Lottery tickets and seltzer water?”
“Hush.”
“You know, those lottery tickets weren’t your numbers. He would pull losers from the trash and give them to you like they were fresh.”
“I said hush,” Evelyn said.
“It’s indefensible, tricking a blind lady like that.”
“That’s indefensible? That’s the big crime? Do you know what the odds of winning the lottery are?”
“Minuscule.”
“Thank you,” Evelyn said. “Good word for it. Minuscule. So what good is it to buy lottery tickets?”
“I don’t know,” Amber said. “The hope, I guess. You buy them because it’s fun to hope.”
“Precisely correct. And until you shoved it in my face that they weren’t real, I was able to entertain that hope. Now, I can’t. Who stole that hope from me—was it Shawn or you?”
Amber sighed.
“Me, I guess.”
“You guess correctly. Shawn wasn’t tricking me. He was giving me exactly what I wanted and he was saving a bit of money while doing it. You’re the one who dashed my hope, and for what?”
Amber didn’t have an answer.
Evelyn muttered something under her breath and then cocked her ear back towards the TV. Amber waited until the next commercial and then left her cousin to go to the kitchen and work on dinner. Everything was ready, she just had to get it all on plates. More than eating, Evelyn liked to watch TV with the aroma of food wafting out from the kitchen. That meant that they ate a lot of mushy food that was at least an hour overcooked. Evelyn didn’t have the teeth for anything crispy anyway.
Amber sighed, thinking that she might as well put out straws instead of forks. They would be more useful.
# # #
“You know what you might like?” Amber asked. “Indian food. Everything is like a casserole, and it’s full of spices, and it’s served on top of rice.”
Evelyn made a face.
“You love rice.”
“A person’s body gets used to the things it likes. It’s about sixty years too late for me to try new things. I’ll get the quick steps if I eat any of that Indian food.”
“That’s not dinner conversation, Evelyn,” Amber said, parroting back one of Evelyn’s expressions.
“You brought it up.”
Amber sighed.
Evelyn set her fork down on her plate. She snapped it down into place, making the china ring.
Amber looked up. Her cousin’s glass eyes were looking directly at her. Evelyn had been blind since birth, but she had somehow learned the knack of pointing her eyes at someone when she wanted to say something serious.
“What?” Amber asked.
“You need to tell me why you came back. I know it wasn’t for me, and I know it wasn’t because you’re afraid of snow. The realtor still hasn’t sold the house, so I know it’s not because you didn’t have a place to stay up there. What happened?”
Amber couldn’t look away from Evelyn’s eyes, and she couldn’t speak while they stared at her.
When Evelyn finally turned her face down towards her plate, Amber was able to talk again.
“It was crazy, Evelyn. I don’t think any rational person could believe what happened, so I don’t want to say.”
“You’re not a rational person?”
“I’d like to think I am.”
“But you believe it.”
“I have to believe it—I experienced it. And I promised myself that I wouldn’t let myself forget.”
“Why?”
Amber had to ponder that for a moment to come up with an answer that really felt true.
“Safety? I’m afraid that if I let myself forget, I won’t take the necessary precautions to stay safe.”
Evelyn laughed.
Amber slumped in her chair. She had been afraid that her cousin would laugh at her. She wasn’t prepared for Evelyn to laugh even before she heard what Amber believed to be true.
“What’s funny?” Amber asked.
“You’re afraid that I’m going to think that you’re crazy, is that it?”
Amber tilted her head and shrugged. It was a silent response, but somehow Evelyn got it.
“You throw birdseed on the floor every night before you go to bed and wake up early to clean it up before you think I’ve noticed. What makes you think I don’t already think you’re crazy?”
Amber was still processing the shame that she had been discovered when her cousin Evelyn said, “But we’re all crazy. Please tell me what happened.”
“I can’t.”
Two: Ricky
“Let’s go,” Ricky said, pounding on the door.
“Just a second,” George said. When he finally opened the door, a cloud of pungent smoke rolled out with him.
“George,” Ricky said, frowning.
George shouldered his backpack and led the way down the hall. Calling back to his brother, he said, “It’s legal.”
“Not in the dorm it’s not,” Ricky said. He caught up at the stairwell. “And you’re not twenty-one. I’m an officer of the law.”
George held the door for him.
“Please—arrest me. I dare you.”
“I will, George.”
“That would be hilarious. Mom would kill you.”
Ricky shook his head. When they got to the car, George tried to open the back door to put his bag in. Ricky stood there with his finger on the button.
“Unlock it.”
“Just not around me, okay? Not until you’re legal?”
Eventually, George looked him in the eyes and saw that he was serious.
“Yeah. Okay.”
“Thank you,” Ricky said, unlocking the car.
They climbed into their seats and Ricky smiled and then laughed.
“What?” George asked.
“I guess you don’t realize how much you smell like smoke. I’m not
