Dreamsleeves by Coleen Murtagh Paratore

sleep? As it is we’ve got Beck and Dooley bunked up in a room with one tiny dresser. Eddie’s in a crib in the dining room. He should be moving into a bed. Please make an offer on the house be —”
    â€œI’ve got it under control, Maggie,” my father says in an angry voice.
    â€œHow much more money do we need?” Mom says.
    â€œThat’s none of your business,” Dad says.
    â€œWhat, Roe? It is too my business. I …”
    â€œ I run this family,” my father says. “You barely make enough to buy groceries.”
    â€œBut, Roe …”
    â€œI’ve gotta go,” Dad says, and leaves.
    My mother uses the phone in my father’s office. I hear her crying. I’m not sure who she’s talking to. “Another mouth to feed … kids cramped in like animals … drinking all of our money down the drain.” She sobs. “But even if we had the money, he’ll never leave his mother…. She’ll make him feel guilty, he’ll never go…. Roe is all she’s got left here now that Mark’s gone….” My mom sniffles. “All these years he kept promising we’d get our own house…. We’re never going to get that house .”
    I feel like a boxer punched me in the stomach. Can this be true?
    My mother gets dressed for work. Her face is flushed red and there’s sweat on her forehead. “Are you okay, Mom?” I say.
    â€œI’m counting the days to our vacation,” she says.
    We go to my aunt Flo and uncle Tommy’s camp the first week in August.
    Me? I’m counting the days to Sue-Ellen’s party. “Mom?”
    â€œYes?
    â€œDad said I could go to Maizey’s camp the weekend of July twenty-third.”
    â€œHe did?” She sounds surprised. “That’s great, A. You deserve some fun.”
    A cicada drones outside the window. “It’s going to be another hot one,” Mom says. “Please get the hose out later and give the little ones a rain shower.”
    Â 
    â€œWhadaya puttin’ in there today?” Callie asks as I start making the grilled cheese sandwiches.
    â€œI don’t know yet,” I say. “Got any ideas?”
    â€œChocolate,” she says, and starts laughing. She offers me up a plastic yellow Easter egg full of M&M’s. The Easter bunny (Mom) hides so many eggs every year somebody’s always finding one in a closet or under a bed, sometimes two holidays later.
    â€œIt was under the couch,” C says, and she and Beck double over giggling.
    Cheese and chocolate, hmmm , I consider. “Hey, why not? You only live once.”
    â€œCan I pour the milk?” B asks.
    â€œIt’s ‘may I,’ and yes, sir, you may. Just be sure you don’t spill it.”
    â€œMay I set the table?” C says.
    â€œYes, miss, you may,” I say. “Thank you.”
    After everyone eats and goes down for their naps, I will put on my new bathing suit, slather up with Johnson’s Baby Oil with a few drops of red iodine mixed in for color, and climb up the ladder to the black-tarred porch roof to start working on my tropical island tan. It’s a gorgeous sunny day, not a cloud in the sky.
    A tropical tan is such an important mission that I have sacrificed my one and only Beatles album cover to make a sun reflector. I slit along the top and bottom of the album, unfolding it out like an open magazine, and then I covered it with aluminum foil. When I hold it under my chin, the sun will reflect off the foil and tan me, probably just as good as any country club pool, although I have no experience in the matter.
    The phone rings. I turn down the burner on the frying pan and go to answer it.
    â€œHello?” I say.
    â€œHi, A.”
    I freeze. It’s Mike.
    â€œHello, Aislinn? It’s me, Mike.”
    Speak, now .
    â€œMike Mancinello.”
    â€œI know, Mike. Hi.”
    â€œYou said it was okay to