surgeons traced the path
of the bullet
through Jonah’s brain.
The bullet,
like the gun,
was evidence.
The surgeon said
there would be
“deficits.”
They didn’t know exactly
what the
“deficits”
would be.
Time would tell.
It was a miracle
he survived.
Speaking of miracles,
me, myself, Liv,
the sometimes good girl,
witnessed
one of Jonah’s miracles.
Johnny knows too,
because he was there
the night
Jonah said it.
I was joking with Jonah,
patting one side of his face
and then the other,
soft gentle pats,
my face close to his,
rubbing noses together.
Oh, Jonah,
I asked him,
are you getting enough attention?
Nose rub
Cheek pat
Do you want more attention?
Smoothing his hair back
Getting in his face
What’s that face?
You want me to go away?
Leave you alone?
You want a boys’ night
just you and Johnny?
No girls allowed?
Jonah took a deep breath.
He looked right back at me,
his mouth worked,
and he said
Li Li Lip
Johnny and I both froze.
If he hadn’t heard it.
If I hadn’t heard it.
If we hadn’t heard it together.
I turned to Johnny,
Don’t tell Dr. Kate
Jonah said my name.
She won’t believe you,
or she’ll try and make him
do it again.
We know we heard it.
He’ll say it again
when he wants to.
Don’t tell Mom, either.
Let Jonah be the one
to show her
someday.
Johnny promised.
We turned back to Jonah
and he was asleep
with his mouth open.
It was just like Jonah
to stop the show
with the audience begging
for more.
It hasn’t happened again,
but that’s fine.
I think it’s greedy
to expect a miracle
twice.
Gun Safe
When the day is cloudy,
the river is dark.
You can’t see below
the surface.
When it’s windy,
the river has waves
that rush past
in a hurry,
thousands of little waves
in a race
to the ocean.
Today it’s cloudy and windy.
I take my hair
out of its ponytail
and let it fall in my face.
Your hair is even longer,
Clay says.
Yours, too.
Are you letting
it grow?
Clay touches his hair.
Did you know that hair
grows about half an inch
a month?
New hair pushes out
the old hair, like teeth.
You can use hair
to test for toxic chemicals
and heavy-metals exposure
as far back
as six months.
It doesn’t surprise me
that Clay
is performing an experiment
on himself.
Using his hair
to check the levels
of Bugz Away chemicals.
I didn’t ask you three things about hair.
And I remember you telling me
that Marie and Pierre Curie
experimented with radium
and died of radium poisoning.
Actually, Clay said,
Pierre Curie died when he fell
under a horse-drawn cart.
But yes, it did make them sick.
I do have a question for you, Clay.
Okay.
Sometimes there is no way
to find out what you need
without just asking.
Where is Gwen’s FIREARM?
Clay trails his hands in the river
like me and Rainie.
What is it about the river
that draws people to it?
Dad locked it
in the gun safe he got
from his brother.
Sometimes she sleepwalks
at night
when she takes her sleeping pills
and he was worried.
GUN SAFE?
That’s a thing?
Yes, a cabinet to
lock up guns,
keep them safe,
so to speak.
To show the judge
he’s being responsible.
Even though Dad’s lawyer said
he won’t bring it up
at the trial.
Dad was never going to
give them up.
He keeps the key
to the gun safe
on his key chain.
So their family
has a lawyer, too.
The Three Things game
got us in the habit
of being honest
with each other.
Right now,
I think I’d rather
have heard
a white lie
from Clay.
Not how his father
is pretending
to be responsible.
I reach out and touch
a piece of his hair.
It feels dry and warm
in my hand.
It doesn’t feel like
a science experiment.
O Man
In the stupidest mistake
ever,
the Oxygen Services Home Delivery truck
turns into
Number 24
instead of
Number 23.
Gwen comes out
(in her bathrobe)
frantically waving
the truck
away.
Does she think
O
is contagious?
The man who carries
the O machine
into the house
asks us where we want to put it.
It comes with twenty feet of
tubing
and makes a rumbling noise
and a hissing sound
when it’s turned on.
It’s like a magic trick—
the O machine
pulls O
out of the air
and sends it through
the plastic tubing
right to Jonah.
The man also brings
green metal canisters of O.
These are portable—
good for short trips
or outings, he says.
Like Jonah would be packing
a lunch
of O
for on-the-go.
When you use O,
you need another machine.
I call it Fire Alarm.
It screeches when Jonah’s O
is low.
Bad timing.
Mom comes home
when the O man
is still here.
What’s all this?
Mom stares at the O machine
like it’s a piece of furniture
that was delivered
by mistake.
Her finger is rubbing
a tooth again, and
an ugg ugg sound
comes out of her mouth.
The O man looks
startled.
It’s your oxygen
concentrator, ma’am.
Hmm, Mom says,
and turns her back on it,
the way she did
when her parents
came to visit.
I’d hear her tell Dad,
I’m not gonna ask them to leave,
but I don’t have to like
them being here.
White Noise
The school counselor
invites me in
again,
to review the results
of my audiology screening.
There is a little machine