One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies by Sonya Sones, Ann Sullivan Page B

and Max
to come bursting through the door,
shouting out my name.
    They find me staring into the bathtub
at the letter Lizzie sent me after Mom died
and Ray’s drawing of
Ruby’s Slipper,

watching them both go up in flames.
    They fling open the windows
so the alarm will stop sounding,
but no one speaks
till the fire burns itself out.
    At which point,
Whip tells me to change out of my pajamas
and get my ass downstairs.
(
Did he say ass?!
)
    I turn to Max to lodge a complaint,
but he just folds his arms across his chest,
raises an eyebrow at me,
and follows Whip out of the room.

    A Few Minutes Later
    I slink downstairs,
fully expecting Whip to deliver
an irritatingly melodramatic lecture
on why bonfires in the bathtub
are in flagrant violation of the house rules.
    But he just pops me into his ’35 Caddie,
and seconds later, Whip and Max and me
are whizzing down Sunset Boulevard
on our way over to the Sunlight Mission.
“To donate a certain turd’s blocks,” Max says.
    When I see the kids there
tear into them like it’s Christmas morning
and start building a city together,
something inside me yawns and stretches
and starts to come back to life.
    Then we drive to The Farms market to buy
three huge turkeys with all the trimmings,
and we bring it over to Turning Point Shelter,
where no one seems at all surprised
when Whip commandeers the kitchen.
    I stand here next to Max,
peeling potatoes,
and watch Whip send away
the television camera crew
that seems to appear out of nowhere.

    I watch Whip stuff those turkeys
like he really knows what he’s doing.
I watch him spend the entire day
playing charades with the people
who live here.
    And when we finally sit down
to Thanksgiving dinner with them,
my father’s eyes are shining brighter
than two of those lights that they
aim up into the sky at movie premieres.
    As if being able
to make these people happy
is making
him
happier
than if he’d just won
an Academy Award.
    And I can’t help thinking
that if I didn’t hate him so much,
I might even be feeling something
almost like
like
for him,
at this particular moment.

    Monday Mourning
    We’re sitting here in our usual circle,
sharing the dreams we had
during Thanksgiving vacation,
when the dean makes an unexpected appearance,
wearing sunglasses
and an oddly grim expression.
    She tells us that last night
some Lakewood kid I never met
lost control of his car.
This kid, Devon, wrapped his Jeep around a palm tree
at the corner of Sunset and Bedford.
And was killed—instantly.
    I listen to the collective gasp.
Then to the stunned silence.
Then to the sound of Feather bursting into tears.
And pretty soon,
everyone’s hanging on to everyone else, weeping.
Everyone but me, that is.
    Big surprise, right?
This not being able to cry thing
is getting to be a real pain in the butt.
Wyatt and Colette and the other kids
must think my heart’s made of cement
for me to just be sitting here like this,
    totally dry-eyed.

    School’s Cancelled for the Rest of the Day
    Waves of kids are spilling out of the buildings
and rolling down the sidewalk,
toward the Tree of Death.
    I watch them drifting off together,
with their arms around each other,
and I feel so left out.
    Left out of their grief.
Left out
of knowing Devon.
    I watch them drift away from me,
thinking about how much I like that name—
Devon.
    Thinking that maybe
I would have liked Devon,
if I’d had the chance to meet him.
    Maybe I even would have fallen in love with him,
and he would have fallen in love back,
and we would have gotten married and had kids.
    Maybe the course of my whole life
has been altered by Devon’s death.
Maybe my entire destiny’s been destroyed.
    And I don’t even know it.

    On My Way Home from School
    I see a broken beer bottle,
its thousand shattered pieces
glittering the sidewalk.
    And completely out of nowhere
this tidal wave of sadness
comes crashing down over me.
    What the heck is the