Friday, August 29

"I think Julian looked hot last weekend," Luke Phoenix says to me as I get ready to leave for Cassis on Friday. This is the third Friday that I have gone to visit Adelaide.

"He wasn't wearing jeans," I answer, and Luke Phoenix laughs.

"You can look hot in a suit," he says. "And Julian did."

"Well, maybe," I say. "But he's really not my type even though I like his deep voice. And he is spoiled."

"What?" asks Luke Phoenix.

"He told me he was an only child, and that means he is spoiled," I say. "I'm not sure how he is spoiled because it's probably not polite to ask."

"Spoiled?" Luke Phoenix repeats. "Where did you get that idea?"

"It's what happens when people have no siblings," I say. "My kindergarten teacher thought I was spoiled, but she didn't know about my dead brother. If she had known about Ashton she would not have told my mother that I was spoiled."

"Being spoiled means thinking only of yourself," says Luke Phoenix. "It can happen to anyone. Just because Julian's an only child, doesn't mean he's spoiled."

"Oh," I say. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," says Luke Phoenix. "Why—do you think Julian acts as if he thinks only of himself?"

I deliberate. "Well … no," I say. "He translated that French text for me about bats. In that case he was thinking of me."

"Right," says Luke Phoenix. "There you go." I'm not sure what he means in that last part but I don't worry about it.

"Do you want to come to Cassis and meet my friend Adelaide?" I ask.

"No thanks, I'm babysitting," he answers. "But it's okay. Julian's going to hang out with us."

"It's called personal care," says Martin Phoenix with his Tango.

"Okay, yeah," says Luke Phoenix. "You're right, Martin."

"Martin's always right," says Martin Phoenix.

"Now that's going a little too far," says Luke Phoenix. "Let's thumb wrestle to see who's always right!"

I watch them thumb wrestling, their heads of red hair tilted over their game, and I think of how much I would like them to be my brothers. But not this summer. This is a summer for working, not a summer for my mother and Alan Phoenix to be getting married and me to acquire brothers.

"Julian's going to show you how to do some new experiments," says Luke Phoenix to Martin Phoenix. "He's going to be a scientist too, like you are, and he's got lots of ideas."

"Julian's going to be a biologist," I correct him. "Did you know that the only mammals naturally capable of real flight are bats? Did you know that the rare Bechstein's Bat roosts in woodpecker holes and particularly likes old trees, which is why this species favors our orchard?"

I watch Martin and Luke Phoenix thumb wrestle and then I listen to them talking and not once does Luke Phoenix quote from anything. It's like his brain was stuck on doing that, and now it's not. Now I think it's stuck on Julian—and I think that being stuck on Julian helps Luke Phoenix make more sense. Luke Phoenix likes and maybe loves Julian. If they fall all the way in love and get married, and Alan Phoenix and my mother get married, I will have three brothers: Luke Phoenix, Julian, and Martin Phoenix. If Martin Phoenix marries a girl, I could have a sister. I could end up in a big family after all and this would be okay with me. I actually like the idea of a big family. Just when I thought our small family was permanent, there are new opportunities on the horizon.

That means there are new opportunities coming our way, not anything about the actual horizon.

When I get to Adelaide's, her daughter opens the door. She is wearing a beige pantsuit with high heels and she is not wearing the blue and white dress or the blue and white pantsuit that reminded me of my clock. I can't remember her name but she stands in the doorway and doesn't say anything for a moment. Then she says, "Wait here." I wait for a long time. When she comes back, she has a large flat package that is wrapped in brown paper.

"Ceci est pour vous," she says, and then more slowly, "This is for you."

I take the package.

"Where is Adelaide?" I ask.

"I am sorry," says Adelaide's daughter. "Elle est morte il y a peu de temps. Je vais à l'hôpital en ce moment. A short while ago she is dead. Il fallait s'y attendre. It was to be expected. I am going now to the hospital." Her cheeks are wet. She starts to close the door and then she opens it wider and says, "Goodbye for now. I am—I am sorry." Then she closes the door.

I stand on the front step, holding the package. Adelaide was very old. It is common for very old people to die. Her daughter said that it was to be expected. But I did not expect it.

I walk around to the back yard and I sit on the stone bench, but the little orange fish do not dart to the surface. Maybe they got too big. Maybe the heron came. I see a few species of butterflies, all from the order Lepidoptera. This is the favorite food of the Bechstein's Bat. I look at my atomic watch. I sit for twenty-nine minutes. The little orange fish do not come. I go back to the bus stop and wait for the bus home.

I am used to gerbils dying. Walnut died first, then June, then Charlotte, then Hammy. Before that, my brother Ashton died, but I can't remember that because I wasn't born yet. Last spring, my grandmother died. I hope Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett do not die but I am worried about them. When gerbils are stressed they can eat their own kind and there is a name for this, but I can't remember it right now.

When my grandmother died, she left my mother all her money and that's why my mother could afford to buy a return airplane ticket to France. My grandmother left me a chess set but I gave it away because I don't like to play chess. I don't think Adelaide has left me money or a chess set. What she has left me is this package that I am holding in my arms and I do not know what is in it.

I wonder if she is wearing the butterfly nightgown now that she is dead in the hospital.

Cannibalism. That's what it's called when you eat your own kind.

I saw an online video once showing deer eating birds' eggs that were laid in nests on the ground. I never knew deer would do that. But they showed it in the video. These deer would walk around a field finding nests and then eating the birds' eggs out of them with their wide sharp teeth. I didn't think that could happen but then it was right there on the screen.