Lou

My mom put Road Runner back on and went out in the kitchen.

The dog painted the side of the mountain to look like a tunnel so the bird would try to run through it and smash himself into the mountain but the bird ran right through like it was a tunnel, but then when the dog chased after him it was the side of the mountain again and he smashed into it.

I got up and went out in the kitchen.

She had a cup of coffee on the table in front of her. She wasn’t drinking it though, or even holding it. She was just sitting there with her hands in her lap.

I told her about the dog painting a tunnel and how he ended up.

“Huh,” she said.

“We’re all out of bread,” I told her, so she’d get up and get dressed and quit sitting there like that. “I ate the last piece,” I said. “Sorry.”

But all she did was light up a Lucky.

I asked her if she had any money.

She told me I didn’t need any money.

“For you,” I said. “For the store. You’re going, right? Aren’t you?”

She set the Lucky in the ashtray and felt around in her housecoat pocket. “C’mere,” she said. I went over and she turned me around and pulled my hair back into a ponytail and tied it up in a rubber band. Then she did something else, she gave me a quick hug from behind.

So that got me worried some more.

Then she patted me on the bottom and told me to go get dressed. I was still in my pajamas.

“What about you?” I said.

“Me, too.” She squashed out her Lucky.

I could come to the store with her as long as I wasn’t a pest, she said. But I was afraid Ralph would come back while I was gone and go out again. I told her we needed bread and vanilla wafers.

She said we didn’t need vanilla wafers.