Page 63 - 2017 WTP Special Edition

came home.
—Was it, says I, on the feet and getting all high- pitched —everything was fine, was it? This here child sitting on her iPad, going blind, eyes melting from her head, and not-a-sinner paying heed on her? And everything was fine, was it?
Next thing Rosie is plaiting herself between us. And the child, as always, is the valve. I pick her up and march for the hallway. Rita appears in the door of the bathroom, tut-tutting her disgust from her eyes. Anika appears, halfway into a pair of skin-tight jeans and unbalanced with the task of pulling them up.
“I’m not myself. My head won’t quit
playing that game where you’re looping, in hypothe cal-tense, everything you ought to have said.”
—What’s this, I say —a guard of honour? —Where are you going, asks Anika? —Out.
—Out where?
—Just out.
—Don’t be buying her chocolate, Anika says, hop- ping now, on the one foot, and trying to shock her hips down into her jeans —not at this hour.
I pull the door, fairly emphatic, about a note shy of a slam.
—Come on child, I whisper to Rosie. —Where are we going Grandpa?
—For chocolate.
~
So that’s it, I’m out on Hubert St with Rosie now, after dark, all high strung.
And I’m not myself. My head won’t quit playing that game where you’re looping, in hypothetical- tense, everything you ought to have said. We start up the hill, stooped to the task of it, but I’m besieged by these perfected re-enactments of the ruction with Thomas. The whole way to the deli
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