“Scarecrow would get the stuffing knocked out of him,” Kate says. “Chynna from the WWF, or the CrocodileHunter?”
Jesse snorts. “The Croc dude. Everyone knows the WWF is fake.” He glances at her. “Gandhi or MartinLuther King, Jr.?”
“They wouldn’t sign the waiver.”
“We’re talking Celebrity Boxing on Fox, babe,” Jesse says. “What makes you think they bother with awaiver?”
Kate grins. “One of them would sit down in the ring, and the other wouldn’t put his mouthguard in.” This isthe moment I walk inside. “Hey, Mom,” she asks, “who’d win on Hypothetical Celebrity Boxing—Marcia orJan Brady?”
She notices then that I am not alone. As the whole crowd dribbles into the room, her eyes widen, and shepulls the covers up higher. She looks right at Anna, but her sister refuses to meet her eye. “What’s going on?”
The judge steps forward, takes my arm. “I know you want to talk to her, Sara, but I need to talk to her.” Hewalks forward, extending his hand. “Hi, Kate. I’m Judge DeSalvo. I was wondering if I could maybe speak toyou for a few minutes? Alone,” he adds, and one by one, everyone else leaves the room.
I am the last to go. I watch Kate lean back against the pillows, suddenly exhausted again. “I had a feelingyou’d come,” she tells the judge.
“Why?”
“Because,” Kate says, “it always comes back to me.”
About five years ago a new family bought the house across the street and knocked it down, wanting torebuild something different. A single bulldozer and a half-dozen waste bins were all it took; in less than amorning this structure, which we’d seen every time we walked outside, was reduced to a pile of rubble.
You’d think a house would last forever, but the truth is a strong wind or a wrecking ball can devastate it. Thefamily inside is not so different.
Nowadays I can hardly remember what that old house looked like. I walk out the front door and never recallthe stretch of months that the gaping lot stood out, conspicuous in its absence, like a lost tooth. It took sometime, you know, but the new owners? They did rebuild.
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