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Show Motherlunge a novel 206 "We can't afford to have you lose it," I said. My voice had the authority of an angry infant. "All of you! Stay sane." General, who had had his nose in Pavia's crotch, sat down immediately and looked up at me. While she was gone I had taught him how to stay. "Okay," Eli said finally. He smiled at me gently. "But you know, you're sounding kind of crazy yourself." I stuck my fingers behind my glasses again, and I pressed until the scribbled stars inside my head came out against my eyelids. Eventually, I laughed. When I put my hands down and my vision had clarified, Pavia was looking at me with one hand outstretched and her little finger extended. I reached out to hook my little finger around hers. "Pinkie promise," I said, sniffling. "You won't flip out again." Pavia squeezed my finger tighter. "You, too." She looked at me with a new gentleness, a loveliness, a maternal resignation, a sadness that would last forever. We both have always believed that I am crazier than she is-maybe even more than Dorothy because I am always angry, but maybe we were wrong. "I'll try," she said. I nodded, we shook pinkies on it, and I hugged my sister, compressing her small son between us with dispersed firm pressure. Xavier stayed still, intersticed by genetically similar flesh, his own heart beating and tiny lungs filling and emptying. So far, still, he was in perfect working order. "Break it up," Jack said at last. "This meeting is adjourned." He stepped forward and held his arms out I walked into them before I realized he wasn't trying to hug me. |
