One Thing Stolen by Beth Kephart

Author:Beth Kephart [Kephart Beth]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Chronicle Books LLC
Published: 2015-09-20T04:00:00+00:00

39

When I wake, there’s the smell of chocolate rising. Under the one lit lamp in the room, Katherine is working—knocking the end of the flour out of a sifter, sponging the sugar off the counter, stacking measuring cups.

I thought you might be hungry, she says. Two plates. Two forks.

Nearly nine o’clock, she says.

She sits on the striped chair. I huddle beneath the red-gold blanket. She says there are things my dad has said and things my mom has said, and would it be all right if we talked a little about some of what has happened. I turn my fork around the plate, a slow dial. I watch the slow bruising of the skies. I look back at the blur of her. Everything is leaking.

Katherine stands. Walks away and comes back with a box of tissues. She takes my hands in her hands. She holds them until we can talk again.

Your dad says that you’re having some trouble remembering things. Street names. Time. Your phone. That sort of thing. Is he right about that? she asks.

I nod.

He says there are promises you don’t keep, secrets you do. Places you go, things you won’t tell him. Days when you get lost.

It’s—hard

—to talk. So many words in my head, broken words on my tongue.

Yes, she says. Let’s talk about how this began.

I take a deep breath. I say it: With a finch.

She leans back in her chair, lets my hands go, folds hers up beneath her chin. What would you say started with a finch?

Whatever—this is. Whatever I’m—

be—coming.

And what is that, honey? What would you say you are becoming?

Not me.

Tell me, she says, about the finch.

I tell her about nests. I show her, with my hands, how they are made. Purse nests and mud nests and throne nests and thorns. Looms and weaves and pockets. With the loosened threads of the quilt, I show her. With the spill of paper clips. With the blank pages of a journal book that is sitting on the table and the last of the tissues in the box and the glossy pages of magazines, their cover gloss. I tear them, weave them, round them, fold them; she watches, she lets me. Time passes and I don’t know how much, I don’t know why she doesn’t stop me, how she can stand me, how I look to her—this girl who builds nests. She is sitting here, when I finish. She has not gone away. She takes the nest from my hands and places it in hers. She turns it around and upside down and then balances it on her two palms. The paper clips run in a circle around the edge. The bowl is paper, glossies, thread. No tassel. It is impossible. It’s me.

It’s beautiful, she says.

I can’t stop them.

Them? Where are the nests, honey? What have you made them with? How many?

Beneath the bed, I try to say. With stolen things, I show her, somehow. With the boy’s flowers. The boy. Benedetto. I say his name. It takes forever.

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