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Susannah was always calling us children, but the thing was, I didn't even mind Normally I would But the way Susannah said it, it didn't see, not like ere small and babyish Instead it sounded like we had our whole lives in front of us

Chapter twelve

Mr Fisher would pop in throughout the suust He was a banker, and getting away for any real length of ti to him, simply impossible And anyway, it was better without him there, when it was just us When Mr Fisher came to tohich wasn't very often, I stood up a little straighter Everyone did Well, except Susannah andwas,as Susannah had--the three of theether, and their school was small

Susannah always told me to call Mr Fisher "Adaht Mr Fisher hat sounded right, so that's what I called hi about him inspired people to call him that, and not just kids, either I think he preferred it that way

He'd arrive at dinnertiht, and ait for hiinger and Maker's Mark Myon him, but Susannah didn't mind My ht back Maybe teasing isn't the right word It wasThey bickered a lot, but they sued, but they hadn't s, for a dad He was better-looking than my father anyway, but he was also vainer than hi as Susannah was beautiful, but that ht've just been because I loved Susannah more than almost anyone, and who could ever measure up to a person like that? Sometimes it's like people are a million times more beautiful to you in your h a special lens--but maybe if it's how you see them, that's how they really are It's like the whole tree falling in the forest thing

Mr Fisher gave us kids a twenty anytie of it "For ice crea sweet It was always so sweet Conrad worshipped hier thanmy hero when I saw him with one of his PhD students after he and my mother separated She wasn't even pretty

It would be easy to bla--the divorce, the new apartment But if I blamed anyone, it was my mother Why did she have to be so calm, so placid? At least my father cried At least he was in pain MyOur faht

When we got home from the beach that su ways, his chess set, his Billy Joel CDs, Claude Claude was his cat, and he belonged to ht that he took Claude Still, I was sad In a way, Claude being gone was almost worse than my dad, because Claude was so permanent in the way he lived in our house, the way he inhabited every single space It was like he owned the place

My dad took etically, "I'm sorry I took Claude Do you rown out, for ; the lunch was annoying

"No," I said I couldn't look up froot Claude, and ot Steven and me It worked out for everyone We saw my father most weekends We'd stay at his new apartment that smelled like mildew, no matter how much incense he lit

I hated incense, and so did my mother It made me sneeze I think it ht all the incense he wanted, in his new pad, as he called it As soon as I walked into the apart incense in here?" Had he forgotten about y already?

Guiltily, my father admitted that yes, he had lit some; incense, but he wouldn't do it anyh He did it when I wasn't there, out the , but I could still smell the stuff

It was a two-bedroom apartment; he slept in the master bedroom, and I slept in the other one in a little twin bed with pink sheets My brother slept on the pullout couch Which, I was actually jealous of, because he got to stay up watching TV All my room had was a bed and a white dresser set that I barely even used Only one drawer had clothes in it The rest were eht forI'd turn out smart like him, someone who loved words, loved to read I did like to read, but not the way he wanted , like, a scholar I liked novels, not nonfiction And I hated those scratchy pink sheets If he had asked me, I would have told hih In his oay, he tried He bought a secondhand piano and cra room, just for me So I could still practice even when I stayed over there, he said I hardly did, though-- the piano was out of tune, and I never had the heart to tell hied for summer It meant I didn't have to stay at my father's sad little apart him: I did II wished I could see him at our house Our real house I wished it could be like it used to be And since my mother had us ot back Usually it was to Florida to see our grand trip too--Granna spent the whole tiether with my mother, whom she adored "Have you talked with Laurel lately?" she'd ask, even way long after the divorce

I hated hearing her nag him about it; it wasn't like it was in his control anyway It was hu, because it was my mother who had split up with him It was she who had precipitated the divorce, had pushed the whole thing, I knew that much for sure My father would have been perfectly content carrying on, living in our blue two-story with Claude and all his books My dad once told me that Winston Churchill said that Russia was a riddle, wrapped in atoabout my mother This was before the divorce, and he said it half-bitterly, half-respectfully Because even when he hated her, he admired her