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Show Motherlunge a novel 154 "Jack assumes you're going to reconcile! He can't help but think that-he's over every night. Don't you think that's kind of cruel?" I realized I was a little drunk, my own voice clamored flatly in my ears. I took a breath and went on. "Don't you think it's kind of cruel to just roll along like that? And Xavier..." By then Pavia was looking at me two-dimensionally, a snapshot of a person saying / dare you to go on or the image in the rear-view mirror of the animal you just failed to miss running over. "Xavier won't understand. Are mommy and daddy together? Are they not? Is this what a healthy relationship looks like? Is this a normative, functional family dynamic?" Pavia pulled her free hand through her hair and pointed her eyes at me. "Like you would know." "I know the opposite." I put my arm around her and squeezed, incidentally just as my eyes met the Ampersand's. She (my sister) shrugged out of reach and I forced myself to face her. My dark-haired sister looking back at me, her baby strapped like an X of bullets across her chest. I can't really hurt her, I told myself. She has everything! "What?" Pavia asked. "What do you want, anyway?" I looked at my sister, and bitterly I mused. Everything. I gave her a look of understanding. I said, "I just don't want you or Xavier to get hurt." Pavia watched me say this, then she turned away. I followed her. We went from one photograph to another pretending to look. "Or hurt Jack," Pavia said at last, quietly. She hiked X. up an inch by cinching down on the strap. |