Page 47 - WTP Vol. VIII#2

pleased Claudia because she thought she didn’t much resemble her mother otherwise. Once, Claudia and Macy had squeezed into one of those little booths that automatically takes four photos in quick succes- sion. Claudia insisted they both frown in every shot, and they had, except for the last one when Macy had burst out laughing. Claudia kept the strip of four small pictures taped to her bedstead. But Claudia didn’t like her mother’s frown when it was directed at her.
She stood up, aware that Jim had watched the small interaction between her and her mother with sly amusement. She realized that her expression was mirroring her mother’s and that for some reason this entertained Jim. Annoyed at them both, Claudia ran to join the game of tag.
She found herself running faster and tagging harder than was really necessary. The stretch of her arm and leg muscles, the thud of her feet, and the rhythmic swelling of her lungs simultaneously fed her annoy- ance at Macy and Jim and deliciously released it.
At one point, she stopped to brush her bangs back from her sweaty forehead, and she threw a quick look at the table. Jim had gotten up and moved around the table to stand next to her mother. They were touching glasses in a toast. The screen door slammed as Louise exited the house, with the baby slung on one hip and the chocolate cake in her other hand. Macy stood up and began clearing a space on the table.
Just then, Dan, who was It, side-swiped Claudia vio- lently, causing her to stumble a few steps forward. Earlier, she had tagged him with such force he had sprawled onto the ground. His rough tag now was clearly fair vengeance, but it angered Claudia anyway.
“You’re It,” he screamed, still on the run.
Claudia raced after him helter-skelter through the yard, even plummeting through the off-limits vege- table patch. She was intent on only one thing: catch- ing Dan, defeating him. She didn’t think. She didn’t watch where she was going. She saw only Dan’s back, always just out of reach in front of her.
Dan leaped up onto the porch and into the house, pushing the front door shut behind him. But Claudia was right on his heels. She held out her arm to push aside the half-closed door without breaking speed.
Suddenly there was a crash of shattering glass. The noise stopped both children short, one on each side of the doorway. Claudia stood, perplexed, looking down at the shards of glass on the porch floor. It was as if she had just wakened in the thick of a dream and
was not yet sure which aspects of her surroundings were real and which were dream residue. Then she saw round drops of red liquid falling onto the floor.
“Gross,” Dan was saying, staring at her forearm.
Claudia bent her elbow and looked at her arm. A deep gash was bleeding freely. All at once it began to throb with pain.
“What happened?” her sister called, coming up on the porch.
The glass noise had brought her running, followed by Macy and Louise. The men had already left for the park with the baby and the little kids, who were slow walkers. The Collins brothers had taken the precau- tion of retreating to their own yard.
“Claudia put her hand through the glass door,” Dan said.
Macy took Claudia’s hand and extended the girl’s arm to better inspect the cut. She held her white skirt away from the dripping blood.
“I guess she was going too fast to stop,” Dan added on Claudia’s behalf. Macy shifted her gaze from the wound to her daughter’s face. Claudia felt confused. A part of her wanted to crumple against her mother like a toddler, to hear her mother say everything would
be all right, everything could be fixed. But another part of her wanted, inexplicably, to strike out at her mother, to refuse comfort and stand alone in her distress, and this part was stronger than the other, so that Claudia did not crumple, did not speak or move at all, but only cloaked her face with her mother’s frown. Macy let go of Claudia’s hand.
“Go put a bandage on it,” she said crossly. “I’m not hav- ing my holiday ruined because of your recklessness.”
Macy turned and left the porch.
“Valerie, Dan, are you coming to the park?” she said at the sidewalk without looking back.
“Sure,” Dan said eagerly, clearly glad to escape a pos- sible scolding from his mother.
“See ya,” Valerie said quietly to her sister, following Dan off the porch. “We’ll save you some sparklers.”
“Let’s go inside and wash that,” Louise said efficiently to Claudia.
~
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