Under Shifting Glass by Nicky Singer Page B

then and looks me straight in the eye and I hold his gaze. Si could win an Olympic medal for talking, but he doesn’t talk now. Which makes me want to say I’m sorry about the parent thing, but I don’t know how to, so I just go to the back of the garage and find a pair of blue coveralls. As I roll up the sleeves and the legs, I remember how this man, who is not my father, used to lift me onto his shoulders at the end of a walk too long for my toddler legs. I remember how he was never impatient with me when, with Mom already waiting in the car, I cried for him to take me back into the house so I could check on Spike. And—speaking of monsters—I remember how he would make sure to close the door of my closet at night because he knew I feared the things that lurked there in the dark. I return to Si looking like the Michelin Man. I still don’t say anything to him, but he speaks to me.
    â€œThank you, Jess,” he says. “Thank you very much. I could really use some help today.”
    And he smiles one of those smiles like incense.
    â€œFirst up, the radiator,” says Si.
    He begins by loosening the radiator hoses, talking as he goes, explaining what he’s doing, and I’d forgotten this abouthis maintenance work, how very instructive it is, as though he’s passing on wisdom that will, one day, allow me to construct an entire engine from scrap metal and memory alone.
    I help him lift out the radiator.
    â€œNow for the crank pulley bolts,” he says. “Pass me the wrench.”
    And I do. Like some junior doctor in an operating room.
    Which, of course, makes me think about the twins. Though, in fact, I’m never not thinking about the twins.
    â€œMom told me,” I say, “what the tests said. That they share a liver.”
    â€œYes,” says Si. “Not great news.”
    â€œSo what do the doctors say now?” I ask. “About the operation?”
    â€œDepends which one you ask,” says Si, as he puts metal to metal and turns. “At the last count there were about twenty-two of them.”
    â€œTwenty-two!”
    â€œFour surgeons, four anesthesiologists . . . Can you pass me that hammer?” I pass him the little copper mallet and he begins a soft tap-tap-tapping. “Remember, always go gently on a crank pulley,” he says, tap-tap-tapping. “Although they won’t all be in the operating room at once. They have to work in shifts. Ah, here we go.” The crankpulley comes out. “Now for the timing chain cover. Ratchet, please, and socket.”
    There are about twenty small tubular attachments in the socket tray. “What size?” I ask.
    â€œNine-sixteenths should do it, I reckon.”
    I pass him the right socket and he screws it onto the ratchet head.
    â€œBut when are they going to do it?” I ask. “The operation?”
    â€œNot for a few months still,” says Si. His arm is deep inside the car engine. “It’s safer for the babies if they can grow a bit first. Hmm. I think I’m going to have to go at this from underneath.”
    I get out the jack for him and wheel it under a jack point.
    â€œHaven’t forgotten everything, then, have you?” says Si. And he’s pleased with me, and right now I like him being pleased with me.
    He cranks the car up and then goes to fetch the dolly.
    And with the dolly come the twins, of course, one underneath the car and one hopping about for a wrench.
    â€œAnd what,” I say, “what are their . . .” Only I can’t finish the sentence.
    â€œChances?” says Si. “Good. Basically good, I think. But no one’s really prepared to stick their neck out. There are so many different factors to be taken into consideration.”
    He slips himself under the car and I go with him, elbowing my way along the oily cardboard so I’m lying right beside him. Almost as close, I think, as Clem is to