Little Bird of Heaven. Joyce Carol Oates

are you smiling, Krista? Is something funny?”

      Quickly I told my mother no. Nothing was funny.

      “I’m glad that someone thinks something is funny. Yes, that’s good to know.”

      When my mother was angry she pretended to be hurt. If you didn’t apologize immediately, and repeat your apology several times, my mother would become angry.

      I told her no nothing was funny. I wasn’t smiling. But I was sorry that I was smiling, if I was smiling.

      My mother drew a deep breath. My mother squeezed my chill squirmy hands as if to keep me from running away.

      “Well, Krista! You know that your father has been staying with your uncle Earl. And maybe you know that your father has been ‘cooperating’ with the Sparta police detectives who are investigating”—my mother’s brave voice began to falter, I couldn’t raise my eyes to her face—“the death of—that woman—the one who was hurt—Mrs. Kruller—you know who she is. Who she was. The one who was—killed.” My mother paused, and drew another deep breath. A vein pulsed in her throat like a frantic little blue worm. “They—the police—haven’t caught him yet—the one who hurt her—Mrs. Kruller—but they will. But, Krista, I wanted to tell you—and Ben—that your father has been—he has ‘cooperated’ with the police—he has told the police—first, he told me—that he had been a—a ‘close friend’ of that woman’s. And he had visited her where she was living…sometimes.” Now my mother was speaking in rapid little bursts and pauses, like one who is running, whose breath comes in pants; like one whose heartbeat has become erratic. She was squeezing my hands to make me wince. “He—your father—had told police at first that he hadn’t visited her—not for a long time—and that they weren’t friends—they had not been friends for a long time—a few years ago yes, but not recently—this is what he’d told the police—and he had told me—but that was wrong of him because it wasn’t true—and it was wrong of him because the police would find out—because he should have known the police would find out—the police are questioning everyone who knew that woman and her family and everyone who worked with her or lived by her or any of the Krullers—any of that family—they are questioning them all, and so it was a mistake for your father to lie to them. Your father lied to the police, Krista, and your father lied to me. He was afraid, he said. He wanted to protect his family, he said. But the mistake was he has made some people think—he has made the police think—that he might have had something to do with…”

      My mother paused, breathing rapidly. The little blue vein fluttered in her throat. Something oily glistened at her hairline. She was wearing her shapeless black stretch-band jersey slacks, a shirt with a twisted collar and a cardigan sweater buttoned crookedly to her neck. Her hair looked matted on one side as if she’d been sleeping on that side of her head and had not checked her reflection in the mirror.