The Household Spirit by Tod Wodicka Page B

boots on.”
    “But.”
    “Come on,” he continued. “Going to need your moral support, Em.”
    Maybe he didn’t notice. Maybe if she did like normal he wouldn’t notice. Grabbing the sweater from the backseat would only draw attention, be weird; it was way too warm for a sweater.
    Emily followed him inside, resigned, looking down into the endless parking lot puddle, stepping on the treacherous sun, kicking it a bit, watching it shatter, reform, bobble, follow them regardless. Idiot.
    Peppy had wanted rib-eye steaks and Emily, inside Price Chopperand feeling suddenly contrary, amorphously annoyed, embarrassed, as if the boobs were
his
fault, had demanded pizza. She would eat only frozen pizza. She hated steak, actually, she said, thinking that maybe if she argued ridiculously about dinner, he wouldn’t notice the untrained breasts. This went on for a while and it was never entirely clear, probably to either of them, how much of a comedic routine the argument was. They got that way sometimes. Finally, Peppy gave in. Emily, recognizing that she’d been being a brat, told him that, OK, no, it didn’t really matter. She wanted steak after all. It felt good to be conciliatory. She loved her grandfather and, in a sunny, springtime rush of that, she took hold of his hand. They often held hands in public. Peppy’s hand was just where Emily’s hand naturally went. “I’m sorry,” she said.
    She sensed it immediately. Peppy looked to the right, as if he saw someone annoying there, and he yanked his hand from hers. His eyes caught on her yellow T-shirt.
    Confusion, hurt, something else: a game. It was a game. Emily snatched her grandfather’s hand back. She pulled it back toward her, exaggerating her little-girlhood, squeezing the hand,
mine
.
    “Hey now,” Peppy’s voice rose. They were standing by the ice cream. Swatting her away. “Young lady. Enough. More than enough.”
    With that, he went looking for food: tall, withery, hunched over the empty wheeled cage of the shopping cart, leaving his granddaughter among the freezers, on the verge of tears. It was colder here than it was outside. Emily’s breasts tightened. She saw her reflection in the window of the frozen food door, a bright yellow woman: pointy, painful, braless nipples. She crossed her arms. She walked out of the Price Chopper, head down, glass doors whooshing open before her—ta-da!—thinking: How stupid. How gross. Oh my God I am gross. She got into the backseat, put on her sweater, then her jacket. Then her seat belt. It was so hot. She was sweating, not crying. That’ll show him. She took out a schoolbook. Ten minutes later Peppy returned with frozen pizza.
    “You moping?” he said. “Don’t mope.”
    Emily would not lift her head from the book. “Homework,” she said.
    “Good.”
    Plus moping.
    She never held his hand again, not like that and not until he was too ill to object. You can’t be his little girl forever. It wasn’t a rejection, more like an animal reaction to an animal development, and it was probably hard for him as well—the obliging of a process that time and her body had already begun. This beginning of that end. But still! If only he’d known how to express his feelings a little better—it didn’t have to be such a big deal, the following weeks of thinking Peppy found her body as embarrassing and alien as she did. Was she a second-best granddaughter now? Was there something perverted with her that she still wanted to hold her grandfather’s hand? The boobs were obvious, but did she disgust him with the—with her time of the month as well? Sick, illogical, and indulgent thoughts followed sick, illogical, and indulgent thoughts. Could he
smell
her? Horses could. Becky said so. Or was it where Emily found herself putting her hands that her grandfather couldn’t deal with? Did he know where she sometimes put her hands, her fingers? How could he, she thought.
    How could he not?

8
    Q ueens Falls High School did not