The Other Side of the Island by Allegra Goodman Page A

be back soon,” said Honor.
    “Now.”
    “You’ll have to wait,” said Honor.
    “What can I do?” Quintilian begged.
    She scrambled to her feet. “We’ll clean up.” The children stuffed the clothes back into the closets. They made the beds. Finally, they tried to clean the kitchen. “Oh, the jam!” said Honor. The broken glass on the floor was the special jar of apricot preserves. “Don’t come in!” she warned Quintilian. “You’ll cut yourself.”
    She crouched down and tried to scoop up the apricots, but the jam was too runny. She mopped it all up instead.
    They cleaned as best they could and ate bread and butter for dinner. The clock on the oven was broken, but she could tell time by the color of the sky. Like the stars and moon, sunset came from a projection booth in the City. With its powerful beam, the projection booth sent sky colors overhead. In hour six the sky was palest orange, in hour seven pink. A green flash signaled evening curfew at hour eight. Hour eight was lavender, also called Twilight. After that, night colors filled the sky: purple and indigo. Honor knew from the deep purple in the window that it was now past eight. “Let’s go to bed,” she told Quintilian.
    “No!”
    She began to drag him up the stairs, but he broke away. He cried himself to sleep on the couch and Honor lay down next to him.
    Late, late that night, the key turned in the lock. Honor started up as Will and Pamela slipped inside. She thought, at first, that she was dreaming. Was that really her father walking in the door with his shirt so rumpled and sweaty? Was that her mother with her hair loose and the strap of her purse broken? She ran to them. “Where have you been? What took you so long?”
    “We were held up,” said Will.
    “Who did that?” Honor pointed to her mother’s purse.
    “Shh,” she said. “You’ll wake Quintilian.”
    “We got robbed on the way home,” Will whispered.
    “And our house got searched while you were gone! What did you do?”
    “We’ve done nothing wrong,” Pamela said quietly.
    “You’re lying,” Honor cried. “You do everything wrong. You wear the wrong clothes. You live in the wrong place. You say the wrong things.” She turned on her father. “You buy the wrong jam.” Tears welled in her eyes. “You break curfew! You’re Unpredictable.”
    “That’s enough,” said Pamela. She picked up Quintilian and began carrying him upstairs. “Time for bed.”
    “I’m not going,” said Honor. But her father took her by the hand and dragged her upstairs anyway. She said she wouldn’t brush her teeth. She told her parents she wouldn’t put on her pajamas, but in the end she did. She hung up her school uniform. She only had one other.
    Her father bent down to kiss her good night.
    Tears started again in Honor’s eyes. “Why can’t you just follow the rules?” she demanded.
    Her father whispered, “The question is—whose rules?”
    “What do you mean, whose rules? Her rules.”
    “Is she your parents?” Will asked Honor. “Does she tuck you in at night? You have a mother. You have a father. We’re the ones who raise you; we’re the ones who love you. Don’t forget.”

FOUR
    GRADUALLY, HONOR BEGAN TO SLEEP BETTER, AND Quintilian’s nightmares stopped. Safety Officers did not search the house again. When the children came home in the afternoon, they didn’t jump at every little noise.
    Life improved. Will was promoted at work, and at last the Greenspoons moved to a new house on higher ground. The house was an end unit with a little garden. The kitchen was big enough for a round table.
    The previous tenants had disappeared and left their furniture. There was a green armchair and a couch with a pattern of palm leaves all over it. There were curtains at the picture window next to the front door.
    “Don’t catch the curtain in the door!” Pamela was always telling Honor when she came in or out. If the curtain got caught, it could get grease stains from