Another week, and none of it mattered.
Saturday night. Pepperoni pizza with black olives. Enoch Miller, walking in late, wearing date clothes. Galatians, Ephesians. Closing prayer. Ice cracking. The neighbors could probably hear it, how alive Corinne was.
She sat on one side of the coffee table, and Enoch sat on the other, and their knees bumped. His legs were so long that they stuck way out under the table. His white socks. His big, square feet.
“Zelda. My name is Zelda. I am a princess.”
“Shut up, Enoch.”
“Japheth!” from the other room.
“You rolled a twenty-two, Corinne.”
“I rolled a twenty-four.”
“Don’t cheat.”
“Is cheating even possible?”
The clock chimed ten, their moms were still drinking tea and crocheting.
The clock chimed eleven, and they were still deep in conversation in the kitchen. Noah was asleep on Corinne’s mom’s lap.
Corinne couldn’t focus. Enoch rolled the dice without saying anything.
The clock chimed eleven thirty, which was excessive. It was excessive to chime forty-eight times a day.
“It’s so late,” Bonnie finally said. “I never stay up this late. We may as well all call it a night. Come on, boys.”
Enoch didn’t look at Corinne, and Corinne didn’t look at Enoch, but she was screaming inside—no, no, no!—and she thought he might be screaming, too. She thought she might hear him screaming all night, two floors above her.