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Show busy hands, he said, and she didn't always know how to control them. She never learned to walk, but dad said she hardly needed to since she moved fast enough on her hands and knees. Sometimes she scooted herself along in a seated position and we would do the same. She loved this game and giggled when we played it. She also loved to hide from us while we tried to find her. We pretended we couldn't see her when she covered her eyes or when she buried her head into dad's chest. She laughed every time we said, "Where's Amy? Where did Amy go?" That was the year we had superhero drinking glasses. The glasses were gifts from Katie, our babysitter; she got them from a fast-food restaurant where she worked part time. Katie called that restaurant her "day job" and said the glasses were part of a promotion but that nobody minded if she took one or two for us. It wasn't long before we had the complete set often or more. Only a couple of those glasses made it through the year, though. Most of them ended up in the kitchen garbage after one of us boys or dad dropped one and then another on the yellow linoleum floor or in the sink. Each time mom heard one of those glasses fall and break, she sighed heavily and said, "Oh, Katie" like Katie had been the one to drop it. And mom was always the one to sweep the shards and small slivers of glass into the dustpan because, she said, there was Amy to think about and she couldn't trust any of the men in the house to do a thorough job. After Amy died, she was still the one to do the sweeping up, but then she said it was because she wanted to feel safe in bare feet. That was the year dad built airplanes for the military. He left on his ten-speed bicycle |