Bela, Mommy says to me. Eat.
I’m not hungry, I say.
But still. Eat.
I’m not— I’ve got minutes, only minutes. Then work. Remember? That’s the place I go to make all the little
money so we can buy things like food. So, you? Eat the food. Help me out here.
Little money? I ask.
Sometimes it feels that way, hon. Like the money I make is physically smaller than what other people get.
I eat. Mommy always gives me oatmeal. Daddo never gives me breakfast because one time he gave me eggs and
sausage and I ate till I threw up and Mommy got mad at him and so now only Mommy gives me breakfast. But
Daddo does the dishes.
I love you, Mommy says. Bela?
My mouth is full of oatmeal.
Say I love you too, Mommy says. Don’t make me ask you to say that, ’kay?
’Kay.
I love you, Bela.
Love you too.
What’s on your mind? she asks.
Nuthin’.
But there is something on my mind. I’m looking at the recycle bin.
Bela, Mommy says. Eat.
Where does it go? I ask.
Where does what— But she looks to where I’m looking.
Are you seriously asking me about recycling right now?
I nod. She looks impatient.
I don’t know where it goes, she says.
Is it a better place?
Better place than what?
Than where we are?
Mommy looks at me the way she does when I say something that surprises her.
I don’t know what that means, Mommy says. The whole point is that it comes back, as... something else, I guess.
Something else.
I think of carnations.
Bela—
But she doesn’t need to tell me again. I eat. Then she’s up from the table.
Be good for your daddo, Mommy says.
When will you be home? I ask.
I don’t know yet. Might be late. I don’t know.
She looks frazzled. That’s the word Daddo uses when Mommy looks like this. She’s wearing her brown leather
coat. Her black pants. I don’t have to go anywhere because it’s still summer. Daddo works all the time. Mommy’s
schedule is all over the place. That’s how she says it.
Bye, Bela, Mommy says.
Bye.
She leaves the kitchen. Daddo is in the den working already, and I don’t hear her say goodbye to him before she
leaves out the front door. I go quietly upstairs to my room. I wait for a second by the table with the flowers in the
hall.
Other Mommy is already standing outside my closet doors.
I don’t want her to make the face I think she’s about to make. She gets impatient like Mommy does.
I know she wants to talk about carnations.
I go into my bedroom.
And I wave at her.
And I sit on the end of my bed, where I know she likes to talk.
She’s been coming out of the closet a lot more lately.
She walks over to me now. Sometimes it’s like she floats.
She sits on the bed too. Slowly. Next to me.
And she asks: Can I go into your heart?