9

ZOZO

The consensus is I must have imagined it all.

I must have smashed an entire box of crackers to smithereens.

Why I would’ve done such a thing—and how I could have possibly forgotten doing something so ludicrous—doesn’t seem to factor into their ridiculous explanation.

I might think they’re right, that I’m under too much stress to be thinking clearly.

But none of them can explain the black-and-blue mark on my stomach that’s roughly the size of Edison’s foot. To be fair, I haven’t mentioned the bruise, the proof, to anyone. What good will it do? They’ll only rationalize it, say it happened some other way, and make me feel crazier.

Still, the rest of the weekend was uneventful. We refinished the door and hung it at the attic access. Suddenly, the hallway upstairs came alive, and I saw the space in the way it was meant to be seen. I know what I want to do: a bright-white beadboard wainscot and above it, a rich navy-blue paint on the walls. Once we have the money, I’ll bring in a trim carpenter to wrap the space with a heavy crown molding.

“We’ll paint it next weekend,” Ed says. He’s working from home this week so he can take care of me —his words, not mine—but it’s nice to have him home.

While he’s working in a makeshift office in one of the upstairs bedrooms, I’m unpacking another box. This one is full of framed pictures of our families, which I figure I can place around the house to make it feel more like ours.

He texts from upstairs: Keep it down?

I text in reply: Sorry.

I lower the volume on Sabrina’s show.

“Zo,” Sabrina says through her pacifier. She happily grips a frame and points to a face. “Mama. Zo!”

“What do you have there, pumpkin?” I pull her into my lap and look at the picture.

I smile when I see who’s in the picture.

“Zozo!” Her pudgy finger presses to the glass.

I pull the pacifier from her mouth, so I can hear her more clearly. “Who is this, Brina?”

“Zozo!” She reaches for the pacifier and stuffs it back in her mouth.

“That’s who you’re always talking to?”

Sabrina nods. “Zozo.”

“That’s right,” I say, my fingers a little numb. “That’s my aunt Jolene.”

She was my favorite.

She died when I was a teenager.

I always called her JoJo.