Dad is making breakfast this morning because Mom is… well where is Mom, anyway? It's assumed that she must have gone out early. Either that or she's still upstairs, sleeping late. No one asks questions in this household, that's part of the unspoken pact. At the same time, what questions would you ask? It's hard to say anything is out of the ordinary when nothing is ordinary.
It's pancakes Dad is making. It's a festive atmosphere in the kitchen, the kind that always seems to accompany the making of pancakes, but forced, strained. The whole room is like an elastic band about to snap. We're all pretending not to notice that Dad never makes pancakes.
Suddenly I hear a car engine in the driveway. The opening and closing of a door, then a trunk. Mom's home. I go to the door to let her inside. She's carrying several bulky shopping bags, but its obvious to me from the way she's dressed and made-up that she's just getting home from the day before. She hands me a bag, says hellos all around. The first of the pancakes are ready. "None for me," she says brightly and disappears into the cool dark interior of the house, like a spider.
My hand feels numb. I shift the lumpy bag in my arms to take a closer look. The hand is blue-black, swollen, and the nails are yellow. I can't seem to determine whether its my right hand or left that's afflicted. I already have a doctor's appointment scheduled for later that morning. Is it too late to cancel? I decide to cancel it one way or another, even if I still have to pay the office fee.
At the stove Dad is weeping. Not that you'd ever notice, though. You have to look back thirty years from now to see it.
"No, no, no!" my brother says angrily. "You've got it all ass-backwards, as usual. It's Dad that stayed out all night! Mom made the pancakes!"
But I don't think so.
Upstairs you hear something hit the floor with an awkward, heavy thump.
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