Mommy only left for work ten minutes ago, but Daddo already calls to me.
Bela, you up there?
Yeah.
Bela?
Yeah!
Come on down. You don’t have to play alone.
I’m not alone.
What?
You’re in the house too.
Come on down. We’ll find something for you to do.
I’m doing stuff.
Daddo comes up the stairs. Other Mommy st eps into my bathroom.
The kids at school say I’m lucky I have a bathroom connected to my bedroom.
What are you doing in here? Daddo asks.
Stuff.
You’re just standing in the middle of your room.
No, I’m not.
Bela.
I was thinking what to do next.
Daddo sniffs the air like he smells something bad. I don’t want him to see Other Mommy in the bathroom. I don’t
want her to talk to him. I don’t want her to ask him what she always asks me.
What’s that smell? Daddo asks.
I don’t smell it.
Are you serious? It’s totally disgusting.
He sniffs again. He goes toward the bathroom.
I’m ready to go downstairs, I say.
Hang on.
Now, Daddo!
No. Hang on.
I hang on as Daddo goes into the bathroom. He goes in far enough so I don’t see him. I wonder if Other Mommy is
making that face at him.
Then I hear the toilet flush and Daddo st eps out again.
He taps my belly.
You okay? he asks. Smells like a gas-station bathroom in there.
What does that mean? I ask.
He looks once back to the bathroom. The noise of the toilet stops. It’s done flushing.
Come on, Daddo says. Let’s hang out downstairs. You can play a game in the den while I work. We got that
amazing Michigan puzzle.
It is a great puzzle. All the roads and cities and the state bird (the robin) and the state flower (the apple blossom)
and the state flag, my favorite flag of
any flag in the world.
Okay, I say.
He smiles, but he looks at me the way Mommy looked at me that one night through the open bedroom door. Like
he thinks there’s more to what I’m saying than what I’m saying.
Behind him, Other Mommy is peeking out of the bathroom.
Let’s go, I say.
You get as restless as your mom, Daddo says. I guess energy needs somewhere to go.
I think of energy going som eplace else. I think of carnations.
Am I wrong in saying you used to play outside more often? Daddo asks.
I don’t know.
I’m not trying to make you feel weird, he says. I just have many memories of you through the den window, seeing
you on the front lawn, running around.
I don’t know.
What’s Deb doing today?
I don’t know.
What about some other friends?
We both just kinda look at each other because we both know I don’t have any other friends. There’s Mommy and
Daddo and Deb. And Kelvin too.
Other Mommy has been my friend as long as I can remember. But lately she won’t stop asking me the same
question. It used to be she’d wait till night to come out of the closet, but now she’s out before I even get out of the
bed in the morning.
Whatever, Daddo says. I just wanna make sure you’re doing as much as you used to do. Exercise. That kind of
stuff.
He’s right. I used to do more. I used to play outside. But then I’d see Other Mommy watching from the windows
upstairs. And what if she came downstairs to talk to Daddo in the den while I was outside?
Daddo rubs the top of my head.
No worries, he says. We all go through phases. I mean, when’s the last time I exercised at all?
He smiles and I try to smile too.
The puzzle, he says. Think of it as... mind exercise. I say that counts.
I follow him out of my bedroom. We head downstairs and I don’t look back because I know she’s still peeking.
It feels like she’s always peeking these days. Night or day.