The Editor by Steven Rowley

Author:Steven Rowley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2019-04-01T16:00:00+00:00

◆ TWENTY ◆

There used to be this popcorn ceiling in Kenny’s room. Stucco ceiling. Whatever people call it. A particular scourge of suburban homes in the 1960s and 1970s. Why bother to fix the cracks when you can slather layer upon layer of ugly crap on top of them and pass it off as style? Look, everyone, what a lovely pastiche of caulk and putty from the local hardware store and diet cottage cheese! Doesn’t everything look just as good as new? These treatments are a lie. They don’t fix the underlying ceiling, the cracks, the weaknesses, the imperfections. They only serve to cover them up. But now somehow the popcorn is gone and I’m trying to remember when it came down, who did the work and why, in a family that apparently loves to cover up faults and deformities with slop and untruths, someone had the foresight to say: No, here we should make things right.

“You awake?” Daniel asks.

We lie on our backs clutching the blanket up to our necks, our eyes wide open in the darkness, both of us afraid to do much more than breathe. I count to fifteen in my head. “Would you be asleep? If you were me?”

Daniel exhales, carbon dioxide and excess oxygen fluttering his lips.

Naomi volunteered to take my bedroom with my old twin bed since she’s alone, and Aaron sleeps in a He-Man sleeping bag on the floor. Kenny and Ellen live close enough to spend the night in their own home, so Daniel and I settled in Kenny’s room, which is bigger and more comfortable for guests. Kenny invited us to spend the night at his house, the big brother finally showing up to walk me home—although where and what home is anymore, I’m not sure—but I told him not to be silly. I am an adult; I stand up to my own bullies now. So they packed up William and Zachary and left, Ellen holding my hand for a few seconds too long, letting go just before it became awkward, and they walked out the door.

The bully is in her own room, just across the hall.

I sat at the dinner table long after everyone left, like I did as a child when I was not dismissed for refusing to eat my peas. My mother retreated to her room; Naomi and Ellen tended to the children. Kenny and Daniel sat with me for a while, but Daniel eventually got up, as someone had to clean up the meal, and Kenny stepped away to gossip with Naomi.

Eventually we all went to bed.

I squint to further study the ceiling, but the only light is from the November moon, whose bluish glow softens the entire room; I can’t tell where the walls end and the ceiling begins—it feels like we’re in an igloo. Winter is a month away, at least by the calendar, but an icy chill seeps through the windowsill, washing over me like a whisper spilling more gut-wrenching secrets. A swift breeze

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