Things You Should Know by A. M. Homes

mother walks past them. She sits at the piano and begins to play. “I’ve started my lessons again.”
    â€œLet’s hear the Schubert,” Ray says.
    Her father proudly shows her more drawings. “I’m taking classes, at the college. Free for seniors.”
    It is incredibly civilized and all she can think about is how bad things are with Steve and that she needs to come up with a slogan for adult diapers by Monday.
    A little later, she is sitting in the den. As her mother knits, they watch the evening news. Her father is in the bedroom, blasting the radio. Ray is in the kitchen with the pots and pans. The smell of garlic and scallions fills the house.
    â€œYou let him just be in the kitchen? You don’t worry what he does to the food—what he puts in it?”
    â€œWhat’s he going to do—poison us?” her mother says. “I’m tired of cooking. If I never cook again that’s fine with me.”
    She looks at her mother—her mother is a good cook, she is what you’d call a food person.
    â€œDoes Ray have a crush on Dad?”
    â€œDon’t be ridiculous—what am I, chopped liver?” Her mother inhales. “Smells good doesn’t it?”
    A noise, an occasional small sound draws her out of the room and down the hall. She moves quietly thinking she will catch him, she will catch Ray doing something he shouldn’t.
    She finds him on the living room floor, sitting on a cushion. There are small shiny cymbals on his first and third fingers and every now and then he pinches his fingers together— ping .
    She goes back into the den.
    â€œHe’s meditating,” her mother says, before she even asks. “Twice a day for forty minutes. He tried to get your father to do it and me too. We don’t have the patience. Sometimes we sit with him, we cheat, I read, your father falls asleep.”
    Again there is the sound of the cymbals— ping .
    â€œIsn’t that the nicest sound?”
    â€œDoes he do it at specific intervals?”
    â€œHe does it whenever his mind begins to wander. He goes very deep. He’s been at it for twenty years.”
    â€œWhere is Ray from? Does he have a family? Does he have a job? Is he part of a cult?”
    â€œWhy are you so suspicious? Did you come all the way home to visit or to investigate us?”
    â€œI came home to talk to you.”
    â€œI don’t know that I have anything to say,” her mother says.
    â€œI need advice—I need you to tell me what to do.”
    â€œI can’t. It’s your life. You do what’s right for you.” She pauses. “You said you wanted to come home because you needed to get something, you wanted something—what was it, something you left in your room?”
    â€œI don’t know how to describe it,” she catches herself. “It’s something I never got. Something from you,” she says.
    â€œI don’t really have much to give. Call some friends, make plans, live it up. Aren’t any of your high school buddies around?”
    She is thirty-five and suddenly needs her mother. She is thirty-five and doesn’t remember who her high school buddies were.
    â€œWhat does Ray want from you? What does he get?”
    â€œI have no idea. He doesn’t ask for anything. Maybe just being here is enough, maybe that’s all he wants. Everyone doesn’t need as much as you.”
    There is silence.
    â€œDamn,” her mother says. “I dropped a stitch.”
    She leaves the room. She goes downstairs. She wants to see exactly what he is up to.
    The door to her brother’s room is cracked open. She pushes it further. A brown cat is curled up on a pillow; it looks at her. She steps inside. The cat dives under the bed.
    The room is clean and neat. Everything is put away. Thereis no sign of life, except for the dent in the pillow where the cat was, and a thin sweater folded over the back of a chair.