Mathilda Savitch. Victor Lodato

everyone was clapping. I realized I still had the old lady’s hanky and I threw it on the ground. Ma and Da were by the back door and I wanted to grab onto them but I just stormed past them.

      “Hey hey,” Da said, “slow down.”

      I ran outside. It had turned cold and the wind was snapping some flags.

      “They wouldn’t let us back in,” Da said.

      I looked at Ma.

      “You didn’t see it?” I said. It made me crazy that she might not have seen the snow or the screaming or how I got sick on her seat.

      “We watched it from the back,” Da said.

      “You can’t just disappear,” I said.

      “What are you talking about?” Ma said.

      Da asked me what was wrong.

      “I don’t feel well,” I said.

      Ma touched my forehead but it didn’t mean anything. She didn’t keep her hand there for more than a second.

      “You don’t have a fever,” she said.

      “How would you know?” I shouted.

      Da coughed. “I’ll get the car,” he said.

      I stared at Ma as hard as I could.

      “I thought it was going to be about space,” I said.

      Ma laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said.

      My old feelings came back and I hated her stronger than ever.

      “The acting was good,” Ma said.

      “Drool school,” I said.

      Ma was half-smiling but I could see how fake it was. Cynthia Callis would have done a much better job. Ma’s dress was flapping in the wind and I thought, just fly away if that’s what you want.

      “What did you say?” Ma said.

      “Nothing,” I said. I felt like the streetlights were punching me in the face.

      “Here,” Ma said, and she put her sweater over my shoulders.

      “I’m not cold,” I said. But I was freezing.

      I could seehow scared Ma was that I might start screaming. The way I used to scream the first few months, when I woke up from the dreams. In some ways, I thought, I have Ma in the palm of my hand. I imagined breaking her in a million pieces. I wanted to put my fingers around her throat and make her start singing.

      “Here comes your father,” she said.

      Da came around with the car and I ran over to it. I lay down on the back seat and wrapped Ma’s sweater around my head, which meant, Keep Out, Private Property.

      No one said anything the whole way home. Ma’s sweater had perfume on it, the kind I love that smells like powder, but tonight it just made me sicker. I thought I heard Ma and Da whispering at one point but when I poked my head out of the sweater I realized it was just the radio. Da had put it on real low. It was the voices of strangers.

      I have to get out of here, I thought. I started crying but I swallowed it.

      “What are you eating?” Ma said.

      That’s when I stopped breathing. I made myself into a dead person.

      But then I had to breathe again, I couldn’t help myself.

      When we were pulling into the driveway I saw Da’s eyes in the mirror. I guess he saw me as well. We looked at each other for a second, and with the mirror between us it was almost like the truth was coming out.