The After Party by Anton DiSclafani Page A

and took his hands out of his pockets, then put them back in. “I should get going. I should skedaddle.”
    He walked over and kissed me on the forehead.
    I used to think that my father had married my mother because of me—because she was already pregnant with me. But when I was thirteen I found their marriage certificate in my mother’s files, which proved that was not the case.
    Suddenly he turned halfway around so I could see his profile.
    â€œI asked your mother to marry me after we’d known each other for three weeks. It was 1931. Everything felt like it was falling down all around us. And then there was your mother. She seemed . . . untouched.” He shrugged. “I don’t know, Cecilia.”
    Through the window I watched him leave, tip his hat at the gardener, open his door, and slide into the car. All while my mother lay two doors down, dying her slow and painful death. My father would die painlessly, in his sleep. His wife who loved him by his side. Clean, smooth sheets beneath him. My father wassomeone who moved easily through the world; my mother was not, never had been.
    And who was I? I wondered that, then, sitting on my pink matelassé cover, leaning forward to catch the last glimpse of my father’s blue car as he drove away. How would I move through the world?

Chapter Ten
    1957
    I was standing near the sink, listening to the rain and holding a plate with half a tuna fish sandwich and a cup of fruit cocktail on it, when Maria spoke.
    â€œThere’s a man here,” she said. I joined her by the window, from which you could see the front door; there was a person standing there, in a shapeless coat, soaking wet, trying to shake the water from his hands, his hair.
    We weren’t expecting anyone. Not in weather like this. And nobody dropped by without calling these days, not with children who napped.
    â€œIt’s Joan,” I said. Maria shook her head, but I recognized the way she stood.
    â€œA man,” Maria insisted.
    The doorbell rang.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    I ran my tongue over my teeth to check for bits of bread and tuna as I opened the door.
    I would act a little peeved, I decided. Joan would act sheepish. Just a little bit. She would apologize, tell me where she had been—or maybe she wouldn’t, maybe she would make an easily dismantled excuse—but I wouldn’t care. I would take her into the kitchen, her distinct odor of cigarette smoke and sun trailing us, and she would be kind to Tommy, she would be happy to see him, and I would forgive her.
    When I opened the door she was smoking a cigarette, or trying to; she was too wet to light it properly. She looked awful: thin, mascara running down her cheeks—why was she wearing mascara in the first place?—her hair falling around her face. I leaned forward to hug her and she stiffened but let me touch her anyway, and I confirmed my suspicion: her hair hadn’t been washed in days.
    â€œJoan,” I said, “come in. Right this instant,” I continued, when she stood there, hesitating, as if she were going to stand on my front steps and I were going to stand inside my warm, dry house. She stood there another moment.
    â€œNow,” I said, and something in my voice made her obey.
    I took her wet coat, which was indeed her old Burberry trench—I’d seen it a million times—and led her into the kitchen, where I meant to make her tea, or coffee, something warm.
    â€œIt’s been a few days,” she said, as she sat down at our table, in Ray’s spot, the best spot, with a view of both the kitchen and the big bay window. Her voice sounded completely normal. She plucked a napkin from the holder, her compact from her purse, and went to work on the mascara smudges. She was fine.
    I was suddenly infuriated.
    â€œIt’s been two weeks,” I snapped. Joan looked at me, her face tilted as if she were nothing more than a curious