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Show Motherlunge a novel 29 a parking lot sparrow. "He got a promotion. He started golfing. He wears knit shirts." She took a deep breath in and held it, and again shook her head. "He was very happy." Pavia said 'happy' and began to cry. She dropped her dark head down into in the bend of her elbow on the table. Her other, rice-cake hand remained aloft in a shape reminiscent of the big city's controversial airport sculpture, Flight of Progress. My sister cried-not loudly, but not softly, either. I waited. I found some ibuprofen in her cabinet and swallowed it and came back to the table and sat down again, still waiting, stifling a weird giddiness. Seeing Pavia like this-emotionally labile and not particularly well groomed-filled me with frightened, sisterly gratitude. In the short-term, as she wept, I needed to figure out what I ought to say. Truthfully, although we had shared a bedroom for fifteen years and logged countless hours side by side in front of the television, we had never talked much to each other. I had acquired the impression that in general, Pavia thought that one's feelings were beside the point. Yet there she was with her head on the table, seeming to want me to say something. I cleared my throat and began to sing quietly. "He's just a poor boy!" I leaned close to her ear, "From a poor family!" I grabbed her salty claw and shook it, hard. Salt sifted down like dandruff, and I shook her arm again. "Scaramouche," Pavia sniffled, her voice both muffled and magnified by the table mere inches from her face. "Scaramouche," she said again mournfully. Then she lifted her head and wiped her reddened face with the back of her clean hand. I unclutched my sister then, stood up, took off my coat, poured us each some coffee. I thought to myself, if Jack's gone, and they have an espresso machine and Pavia |