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Show Motherlunge a novel 76 She stomped to the sink and switched on the disposal. We heard a wet, shredding sound as the ham was done away with. I looked at Joseph, who looked back at me with the pure sadness of the uninvolved. "I don't think you're rich," our mother said. "I'm sorry." Being a coward I couldn't look at her, of course, but I saw Pavia doing it and staying mad. Pavia wiped her hands on a yellow dishtowel, then draped it from the edge of the counter like a stage curtain pulled closed. She turned and walked out of the kitchen. "Good night," my sister said as she swept past us, and we echoed it back to her in a chorus - '"Night!"-all of us sounding sore, afraid. The next morning I woke up when Pavia pushed my door open. She was leaning against the doorframe wearing pale blue pajamas, the waistband low under her belly like a gunslinger's belt. "Guess what?" she asked, sticking a fist into her newly padded hip. "Joseph is gone. And..." she gave me a lazy smile, "... he took Mom's jewelry, and a bunch of her other stuff, too." "Merry fucking Christmas," I said, throwing back the covers, and Pavia barked her imitative laugh again. |