Simple Recipes by Madeleine Thien Page B

dirt.
    He laughs, embarrassed. “Can’t stand to see it and I can’t stand not to.”
    Lorraine pulls her knees up to her chest and leans back against the mailbox. Kathleen scatters grass on her own bare skin.
    “There’s a woman inside,” Kathleen tells their father, pointing at the house. “We saw her blabbing on the phone.”
    “Her husband bought the house. Scooped it up. He’s a doctor or something.” He stands, smoothing his pants with both hands,
     then strides quickly across the street and gives the house a once-over. “I don’t like those flowers,” he says when he comes
     back. “Rhododendrons. They’re as common as rain.”
    “Mom liked them,” Kathleen says.
    He looks at her, then crosses his arms across his body as if shielding himself.
    “She used to stand out there, beside the flowers.”
    “Yes,” he says. “I remember that. She had a soft spot for them.”
    “I used to cut them for her and put them in the kitchen when she wasn’t feeling well. I bet you didn’t know that.”
    He shakes his head. After a moment, he says, “I’m glad you did that.”
    Kathleen doesn’t respond.
    Their father sits down beside them on the curb. “I know it’s her birthday today. She never was one to celebrate.” He nods
     at the house. “There’s your lady again.” The blond woman is back at the window, setting the table. A man and a child are sitting
     down to dinner.
    Kathleen leans forward, eyes fixed on them.
    Passing cars blow dust off the road. Their father starts to say something, lifting his hand, but then he stops. He spreads
     his fingers on the curb, his eyes unreadable, and looks up again through the picture window.
    Once, not long after they came to live with Liza, Lorraine woke up to find Kathleen next to her in the bottom bunk, their
     arms wrapped around each other like long-lost relatives. Lorraine lay still and tried not to breathe. She couldn’t understand
     how they endedup like this, tangled together. She prodded Kathleen awake to ask her. Kathleen scrunched her eyebrows, as if she were trying
     to remember too.
    “You were dreaming,” Kathleen finally said. “You were dreaming and saying funny things.”
    “What things?”
    “You were tossing and turning and calling for Mom.”
    “No. I wasn’t.”
    Kathleen shrugged. She loosened her grip around Lorraine’s stomach. “You don’t have to believe me. I was only trying to help.”
    Lorraine took a deep breath. She told Kathleen what she thought. “Mom’s dead.”
    “Don’t be stupid,” Kathleen snapped. “You’ll make it true if you believe that.”
    Three days ago, Kathleen woke up choking and wheezing, her eyes wet with tears. Lorraine stood and reached for her. Then Liza
     was there, her hands on Kathleen’s slippery back. She rocked her and Kathleen said, “Go away,” over and over again, even while
     she held Liza’s wrists, the pressure of her fingers turning Liza’s skin white. “Go away,” she whispered, but the words didn’t
     mean anything. They floated up in the room, above where Liza and Kathleen hunched tangled together in the top bunk, their
     heads brushing theceiling. And Lorraine down on the floor with her hands reaching up, thinking words didn’t mean anything, and least of all
     what they said. These were words:
alcoholic, trauma.
But they never linked up to her life. Only her mother’s loose smile, her damaged face, her purse in her hands. Lorraine remembers
     a windstorm on a hot June night. They watched it from inside, turning the city dusty when the electricity went off. She remembers
     looking at her mother’s mouth, the lips chapped and dry, how they opened to say something, about the storm, about anything,
     but no words came out. On the lawn, the trees swayed forward, leaning to the east.
    Out on the sidewalk, the three of them have not spoken for a long while, and the sun is beginning to set. The street is quiet
     and a chill wind rustles the trees. Her father looks from