it from him.
Since Aaron earned his license, no one has asked him for a ride anywhere. This is probably for the best, as Aaron is an extremely cautious driver, viewing the car as an extension of himself and, therefore, open to attack at any moment. Another person in the car might send his wariness into overdrive.
“If Dad won’t take you, then he probably won’t let me take you either,” Aaron responds to his sister’s request. Aaron started talking softly so long ago that he has forgotten it was originally a conscious choice. Though Eliza has grown used to it, she can remember running through the backyard armed with thwacking sticks while Aaron screamed, “BEWARE, Space Demon, for it is I, CAPTAIN A, who have come to BLAST you into the 13th GALAXY!”
Aaron feels too weird being in front of Eliza without a shirt, but putting one on now might only draw attention to the fact that he was shirtless before. Besides, he really wants to be able to walk around for hours naked from the waist up, even outdoors, and not think about it.
“You’re not listening,” Eliza complains, tossing a sock in Aaron’s general direction but hitting him in the left nipple, an unintentional bull’s-eye. “The bee is in Norristown this afternoon. I need a ride.”
Aaron opts for a shirt after all. “What bee?” asks the blue pocket tee being pulled over his head.
Eliza is grateful for the clothing choice. T-shirted, Aaron seems less like a flip-book construction—bird head, man body, goat legs—and more like her brother again. “I told you already. The district bee.”
“Don’t you have to win your school bee or something to be in that?” Aaron’s voice is a little louder now that his nipples are hidden.
Eliza rolls her eyes and smiles.
“God, Elly, how did you do that?”
Her face falls.
“I mean, God, Elly, that’s great!”
“I guess.” Eliza’s voice has become as soft as her brother’s.
“No, really.” Aaron puts his hand on Eliza’s shoulder. He’s really, really glad he decided on the shirt. “I’m totally impressed. I bet Dad’s in Dad-heaven. He loves that stuff.”
Eliza gives a small shrug and realizes she’s about to cry. She decides it’s time to talk about the envelope.
Eliza follows Aaron downstairs to their father’s study. Even though the door is open, Eliza feels odd stepping over the threshold. She envies the ease with which Aaron enters, as if Saul’s study were just another room.
The room is dark except for a circle of yellow light over Saul’s desk, which illumines an airborne sea of dust. Saul is engrossed in a leather-bound book with stiff pages that, when turned, creak like old bones.
“Hey, Dad?” Aaron’s voice is swallowed up by the dust born of innumerable book pages and spines. To Eliza, the air itself seems heavy with knowledge. Aaron tries again, this time louder.
Eliza recognizes her mother in the way Saul suddenly turns his head toward the sound.
“Hello, Aaron! I was just reading about the mystics’ migration to Israel. Of course, it wasn’t officially Israel yet, but—”
“Dad, did you get an envelope from Elly this week?”
At first Saul’s eyes are blank, as if not even his daughter’s name holds meaning. “Envelope? Was I supposed to receive an envelope?” Eliza feels her stomach tighten and realizes she is unable to speak. With her eyes she implores Aaron to continue.
“Elly says she won the spelling bee.”
Saul’s face lights up. “Why, that’s wonderful! The class bee. You know, when I was thirteen—”
“No, Dad.” Eliza’s voice is impatient. “Not just the class bee. The school bee.” Eliza watches the dust ride the currents of her breath.
“Well, that’s just.…” Saul looks at Eliza as if she has suddenly borne a delicious fruit from her navel. “This is quite a surprise!”
“But I already told you. You’ve known all week.” Eliza spits the words. “And you haven’t said anything.” She feels the pressure of tears against her eyeballs but forbids herself to cry.
“Eliza. Elly-belly. I didn’t know. How could I have known? When did you tell me?”
Eliza’s face is pink. “The envelope. I put it under your door on Monday.”
The room is silent. For the first time Eliza notices the papers that cover the floor like snowfall. Saul grins.
“Then it must be down here somewhere.”
Saul, Aaron, and Eliza sort through the drifts of paper. It is Aaron who finds the envelope, smudged from Eliza’s hands and taped where she had torn it.
“Is this it?”
For a split second Eliza pictures opening the envelope and finding nothing there, the letter having been absorbed into the dense piles of paper around it. She stifles the urge to snatch the envelope from her brother.
Aaron realizes that his standing mental image of Eliza is three years out of date; in his mind she is still a shy second grader quietly insistent upon matching her socks with her shirt every morning. He wonders when she started parting her hair on the left and if she’s always had the nervous habit of sucking in her cheeks.
The way Saul reaches for the envelope reminds Eliza of first-time Torah bearers, stiff-armed with their fear of mishandling the sacred burden. She likes that he uses a letter opener instead of his fingers. The smile that appears momentarily erases years of report card trauma.
“This,” Saul says in a reverent voice, “is a beautiful thing.”
Eliza is halfway through kindergarten when she sees her brother get beat up. What was thought to be a drill has, with the arrival of the McKinley Fire Department, been elevated to the level of a small, real fire. Though the tray of chicken fingers was extinguished long ago, certain protocols need to be followed, granting the students at McKinley a spontaneous recess while the fire department goes through the mandated motions. Eliza, as an A.M. kindergartner, was not expecting to experience recess until first grade and feels particularly lucky to have been given a sneak preview.
Eliza is waiting her turn at the swings. She is fifth in line, but the BONG BONG BONG of the alarm has been off for a while now, the firemen are returning to their trucks, and she is beginning to doubt that she will get a turn before everyone is sent back to class. She decides to abandon the line to investigate the noises coming from behind the line of evergreen bushes across the grass.
She thinks it may be Holly Ermiline and Gina Gerardi, whom she thought she heard talking about collecting red berries from the bushes in order to paint their fingernails, which Eliza thinks is a pretty stupid idea since she’s heard that the berries are poisonous. Even though she doesn’t really like Holly or Gina, she should at least tell them to wash their hands when they’re done.
As Eliza nears the bushes, she realizes there is too much sound and movement to be Gina and Holly. In fact
