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Show Motherlunge a novel 60 the door mat-excessively, the way cartoon characters prepare to make a run for it-and then followed them inside. "Whoa," Joseph said. He was standing in the hallway, looking up at the high ceiling, the long stairway going up to the second floor. "Echo!" he shouted. Dorothy laughed and looked to me. "Heh!" I said, pushing past them. I lurched into the living room and set their bags down on the pullout couch. I looked out the front windows. Where was Pavia, anyway-how long could it take to the park the car? I saw two empty spaces on our street, but not the beat-up Eagle. A knocking in my chest started up then, deep and automotive-feeling, unsafe at any speed. I turned around to face our visitors. "Have you guys eaten yet?" I asked, thinking, Where is my sister, goddammit? They had no fixed plan, Dorothy and Joseph explained to me over the sauce-and-pasta I had peevishly prepared; they didn't want to be tied to a plan. They had come to understand that they were meant to be with us at Christmas, that was all, and so they had come. "It just felt right," Dorothy was saying yet again, "So I really wanted to. But Joseph made it happen." "It's your car, Mom," I reminded her. "The car that brought you." And on cue, we heard the front door open and shut, and Pavia-AWOL, MIA, any punitive acronym would do here-re-entered the scene. |