LITMIR.BIZ

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      The day her visa arrived she came home to find the pictures on the mantelpiece turned to face the wall. She felt no urge to touch them. They’d looked fine from the front, catching the light in their brushed-nickel bevels, but from the back their inexpensiveness was plain. Puckered gray cardboard, no stronger than paper. These were no sacred relics. They held meaning for three people only, of all the untold billions, believer and unbeliever alike. And not even for those three people anymore.

      She found her mother in the bedroom with the ridgebacks and the pit. The room smelled of old smoke and Lysol and beer. The dogs raised their heads when she opened the door but her mother kept still, both hands slack in her lap, staring out the window at the cul-de-sac. The T-shirt she wore said SANTA ROSA ROUND-UP and she sat upright and prim on the high queen-sized mattress with her bare feet planted squarely on the floor. The girl studied that proud ruined profile from the foot of the bed, trying as she often did to find her likeness there. For the first time in her life, in all their eighteen years together, she had no need to guess what her mother was waiting to hear.

      —It came, she said.

      —What did?

      —You know what did. My visa.

      Her mother made a gesture of dismissal.

      —I thought maybe it wasn’t going to get here in time. I really thought it wouldn’t. If it hadn’t got here—

      —You told me you’d be home by five. Five o’clock at the latest. That’s what you told me and I fixed my day around it.

      The girl looked down at the pit. —I know I’m back late. I went for a drive.

      —Don’t think I don’t know where you’ve been, Aden Grace. Don’t mix me up with somebody who can’t tell shit from taffy.

      —I’m sorry. She reached down to scratch the pit between the ears. —I’m not trying to keep anything from you, Mom. I guess I’m just excited or whatever. Maybe even—

      —I’ve asked you not to lie to me. You owe me that kindness. Don’t you owe me that kindness? I’ve asked you not to complicate my life.

      —I’ll be gone this time tomorrow, said the girl. —I guess that should uncomplicate some things.

      Her mother turned toward her. —You think I’m just counting the minutes till you’re up in that plane? Look over here, Aden. Is that what you think?

      —No. I don’t think that.

      —All right, then.

      —I think you’re waiting for the next bad thing to happen.

      Her mother gave a clipped laugh. —Your old dad said the same thing to me once. You know what your trouble is, Claire? he told me. You’re always expecting some failure. The failure of a person or the failure of a given situation. She laughed again. —The failure of a given situation. Those were his words exactly.

      —You’re drunk.

      —Right again, girl. Pat yourself on the ass.

      —I didn’t even have to tell you. I’m old enough now. I could have packed up my stuff and just walked out the door.

      —That’s exactly what you’re doing, far as I can see. Walking right out the door. Or am I missing something?

      The light above the cul-de-sac lay thick against the hillside and glimmered down through air gone dim with pollen. The same air she’d moved through and breathed all her life. A hummingbird circled the feeder by the pool and found it empty. It had been empty for days. She asked herself how long that small bright bird would keep on coming.

      —Try to remember to fill up the feeder, she said.

      Her mother dragged three fingers through her hair. —You going to see him before you jet off?

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