King.”
“Bastien, you know there’s no such thing there, right? That you’ll never be a king?” I’m brusque, mean. I’m too impatient to let him down kindly. Why should he be indulged when the rest of us are not?
He gnaws on his thumbnail, and at first I think I’ve upset him. But he’s only thinking. “I know,” he says at last. “But I’ll be able to tell people what to do, right? And they’ll have to do it? And we’ll live in the big house again, right? The palace?” He doesn’t wait for me to respond. “That’s close enough to being a king.” He picks up his comic book, and I am dismissed for a second time.
How can I argue with his child’s logic? In his mind, he
is
a king—he’s been told so his entire life, and the details do seem to support the myth. I start to ask him what this makes me, but I stop myself. It’s better that I answer this question myself.
COMFORTS
It’s after school and we’re in Emmy’s room again. The faces in the pictures—her floor-to-ceiling monument to moments past—are starting to feel familiar. I’m part of the collection now. The photo from the night of the dance stares at me from the lower right corner of the wall. “Laila in Disguise,” it should be captioned.
Emmy has her ear pressed against the door, though that really isn’t necessary. I can hear her parents’ argument perfectly well from the opposite side of the room, where I’m making a show of carefully examining the pictures, pretending not to notice the shouting coming from the kitchen. I think Emmy appreciates this, my little token gift of discretion.
The photos are arranged by theme. Here, near the window, is a section devoted to Outdoor Emmy. I see evidence of a camping trip with friends. Canoeing with one boy, hiking with another. A cluster of girls toasting marshmallows over afire, everyone looking young and prettily windburned. I recognize a longer-haired Morgan in the background.
The next section is less wholesome and slightly more recent. Emmy is a stranger with too much eyeliner and a bleached streak in her bangs, but she’s still wearing the same huge grin. Boys on skateboards flash hand signals and scowls at the camera, all early-teen angst and swagger. The other girls have rows and rows of earrings, five hoops to an ear, and some have studded lips, eyebrows, tongues. A boy in baggy jeans wears one of the
X
’s across his face.
“When was this taken?” I ask Emmy, but she holds a finger to her lips. The argument has grown quieter, and she’s struggling to hear.
I move on. Here is Athlete Emmy. This must be last year, because she looks much closer to the way she does now. I didn’t know she played tennis, but there she sits in a team photo, her smile and her skirt matching those of the other girls. The boys in this section wear uniforms: baseball and soccer. In one picture, Emmy and a boy sit poolside, wearing swim goggles and making funny faces at one another.
The section that includes my photo is clearly the most recent. There doesn’t seem to be an obvious theme, though. Not yet. International Emmy, maybe? In addition to my foreign face, this part of the collage also includes several postcards from other countries.
A door slams somewhere in the house, and Emmy throws herself on her bed. “Aaaah!” She screams muffled frustration into her pillow before rolling onto her back.“How embarrassing. I’m so sorry you had to hear that. My parents suck.”
“Are you okay?”
She doesn’t answer, just scrunches up her face, then picks a crumpled shirt off the bed and throws it to the floor. “My room is a disaster. I can’t even stand to be here. Let’s go to your house instead.”
Now I don’t answer.
Emmy sighs and flings her arm across her face, covering her eyes. “They’re separating. My dad’s moving out. You know what they were just fighting about? Which one of them is going to tell me. Like the entire neighborhood doesn’t already know, with their
“Bastien, you know there’s no such thing there, right? That you’ll never be a king?” I’m brusque, mean. I’m too impatient to let him down kindly. Why should he be indulged when the rest of us are not?
He gnaws on his thumbnail, and at first I think I’ve upset him. But he’s only thinking. “I know,” he says at last. “But I’ll be able to tell people what to do, right? And they’ll have to do it? And we’ll live in the big house again, right? The palace?” He doesn’t wait for me to respond. “That’s close enough to being a king.” He picks up his comic book, and I am dismissed for a second time.
How can I argue with his child’s logic? In his mind, he
is
a king—he’s been told so his entire life, and the details do seem to support the myth. I start to ask him what this makes me, but I stop myself. It’s better that I answer this question myself.
COMFORTS
It’s after school and we’re in Emmy’s room again. The faces in the pictures—her floor-to-ceiling monument to moments past—are starting to feel familiar. I’m part of the collection now. The photo from the night of the dance stares at me from the lower right corner of the wall. “Laila in Disguise,” it should be captioned.
Emmy has her ear pressed against the door, though that really isn’t necessary. I can hear her parents’ argument perfectly well from the opposite side of the room, where I’m making a show of carefully examining the pictures, pretending not to notice the shouting coming from the kitchen. I think Emmy appreciates this, my little token gift of discretion.
The photos are arranged by theme. Here, near the window, is a section devoted to Outdoor Emmy. I see evidence of a camping trip with friends. Canoeing with one boy, hiking with another. A cluster of girls toasting marshmallows over afire, everyone looking young and prettily windburned. I recognize a longer-haired Morgan in the background.
The next section is less wholesome and slightly more recent. Emmy is a stranger with too much eyeliner and a bleached streak in her bangs, but she’s still wearing the same huge grin. Boys on skateboards flash hand signals and scowls at the camera, all early-teen angst and swagger. The other girls have rows and rows of earrings, five hoops to an ear, and some have studded lips, eyebrows, tongues. A boy in baggy jeans wears one of the
X
’s across his face.
“When was this taken?” I ask Emmy, but she holds a finger to her lips. The argument has grown quieter, and she’s struggling to hear.
I move on. Here is Athlete Emmy. This must be last year, because she looks much closer to the way she does now. I didn’t know she played tennis, but there she sits in a team photo, her smile and her skirt matching those of the other girls. The boys in this section wear uniforms: baseball and soccer. In one picture, Emmy and a boy sit poolside, wearing swim goggles and making funny faces at one another.
The section that includes my photo is clearly the most recent. There doesn’t seem to be an obvious theme, though. Not yet. International Emmy, maybe? In addition to my foreign face, this part of the collage also includes several postcards from other countries.
A door slams somewhere in the house, and Emmy throws herself on her bed. “Aaaah!” She screams muffled frustration into her pillow before rolling onto her back.“How embarrassing. I’m so sorry you had to hear that. My parents suck.”
“Are you okay?”
She doesn’t answer, just scrunches up her face, then picks a crumpled shirt off the bed and throws it to the floor. “My room is a disaster. I can’t even stand to be here. Let’s go to your house instead.”
Now I don’t answer.
Emmy sighs and flings her arm across her face, covering her eyes. “They’re separating. My dad’s moving out. You know what they were just fighting about? Which one of them is going to tell me. Like the entire neighborhood doesn’t already know, with their
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