gorgeous white finery, racing to get
to the Teatro Amazonas in Manaus in time to hear Caruso sing.”
21
When they are done eating, Adam goes to look for his copy of Fitzcarraldo . Rachida and Myra take Omar upstairs to help him get ready for bed, and Eva clears
the table. Caro follows Adam into the music room, where her mother has set up a table
under the window for him to use as a desk. She watches her brother rifling through
the file boxes he has brought with him, wondering if she should ask how things are
going with Rachida.
“It’s got to be in here. I’d never have left it behind.” Adam splits the tape on a
box labeled The Searchers and begins emptying out cassettes and files. Caro examines the labels on the other
boxes: Contracts & Bills, Screenplays/Books. Only one is unlabeled.
“How about this one? Could it be in here?” she asks, tapping the box.
Adam intercepts her arm so quickly, he lands her a shove. Their eyes lock and her
hands clench. It shocks her, this taste of sibling violence that for them had been
blessedly rare, squashed by her feelings of pity and protectiveness toward her scrawny
brother.
“It’s not in there.” He pushes the box out of her reach, his clutter having already
defiled their mother’s serene order, so that Caro has to fight an urge to chastise
him, to order him to put his things away—the vestigial, bossy, older-sister feeling
that he is hers but also that he is her responsibility.
“I’m going to call it a night,” Caro says.
22
“We’re doing great,” Myra reports when Caro telephones a few days later to inquire.
“On Sunday, Adam took Omar to the park, where he met a child who’ll also be in first
grade at City. The mother told Adam about the camp at the school. Adam and Omar went
over to see if there were any openings, and there was one space left. They let him
start right away. He loves it. They’re doing a unit on reptiles and have two snakes
and a gecko in a terrarium. Adam was thrilled, because it means he can get down to
work now rather than having to wait for September. I was going to call you tonight
to see if you wanted to do pickup on Friday.”
Something about the way her mother’s words are inflected leaves the impression of
an imperative rather than an interrogative. Only once has Caro heard her father, who
has never let go of his mantle as the aggrieved party, as though it were her mother,
not he, who’d busted up their marriage, voice anything that sounds like a criticism
of her. The softest-spoken tyrant you’ll ever meet, he’d said. A will of steel .
On Friday, Caro meets Omar in the classroom that serves as home base for his camp
group. He is sitting at one of the child-sized tables reading a junior encyclopedia,
his head arced over the book so she can see the cowlick at the top of his soft neck.
He doesn’t notice her arrival until she kisses his hair.
“Auntie Caro, can I finish my page?” Caro glances at the book, open to a section on
insects and spiders. A diagram shows the butterfly life cycle: egg, caterpillar, chrysalis,
adult.
“Okay. Where’s your stuff? I’ll gather it up.”
Omar points to a wall of cubbies where a group of boys are gathered like a squirming
beast, poking one another with the action figures they are allowed, with the day now
over, to remove from their camp bags. She retrieves Omar’s bag, damp, with a faint
scent of chlorine from the balled-up bathing trunks inside.
Once they are outside, Caro takes Omar’s hand. They walk to Broadway for ice cream
while Omar describes the way a caterpillar makes a chrysalis, and how when it splits
open—he unfurls his fingers so his hands are pinwheels—there’s no more caterpillar,
just a butterfly!
She watches her nephew’s ice-cream cone, expecting the splatters to which she is accustomed
from her preschoolers, but Omar manages his cone with careful expertise so that the
only
to the Teatro Amazonas in Manaus in time to hear Caruso sing.”
21
When they are done eating, Adam goes to look for his copy of Fitzcarraldo . Rachida and Myra take Omar upstairs to help him get ready for bed, and Eva clears
the table. Caro follows Adam into the music room, where her mother has set up a table
under the window for him to use as a desk. She watches her brother rifling through
the file boxes he has brought with him, wondering if she should ask how things are
going with Rachida.
“It’s got to be in here. I’d never have left it behind.” Adam splits the tape on a
box labeled The Searchers and begins emptying out cassettes and files. Caro examines the labels on the other
boxes: Contracts & Bills, Screenplays/Books. Only one is unlabeled.
“How about this one? Could it be in here?” she asks, tapping the box.
Adam intercepts her arm so quickly, he lands her a shove. Their eyes lock and her
hands clench. It shocks her, this taste of sibling violence that for them had been
blessedly rare, squashed by her feelings of pity and protectiveness toward her scrawny
brother.
“It’s not in there.” He pushes the box out of her reach, his clutter having already
defiled their mother’s serene order, so that Caro has to fight an urge to chastise
him, to order him to put his things away—the vestigial, bossy, older-sister feeling
that he is hers but also that he is her responsibility.
“I’m going to call it a night,” Caro says.
22
“We’re doing great,” Myra reports when Caro telephones a few days later to inquire.
“On Sunday, Adam took Omar to the park, where he met a child who’ll also be in first
grade at City. The mother told Adam about the camp at the school. Adam and Omar went
over to see if there were any openings, and there was one space left. They let him
start right away. He loves it. They’re doing a unit on reptiles and have two snakes
and a gecko in a terrarium. Adam was thrilled, because it means he can get down to
work now rather than having to wait for September. I was going to call you tonight
to see if you wanted to do pickup on Friday.”
Something about the way her mother’s words are inflected leaves the impression of
an imperative rather than an interrogative. Only once has Caro heard her father, who
has never let go of his mantle as the aggrieved party, as though it were her mother,
not he, who’d busted up their marriage, voice anything that sounds like a criticism
of her. The softest-spoken tyrant you’ll ever meet, he’d said. A will of steel .
On Friday, Caro meets Omar in the classroom that serves as home base for his camp
group. He is sitting at one of the child-sized tables reading a junior encyclopedia,
his head arced over the book so she can see the cowlick at the top of his soft neck.
He doesn’t notice her arrival until she kisses his hair.
“Auntie Caro, can I finish my page?” Caro glances at the book, open to a section on
insects and spiders. A diagram shows the butterfly life cycle: egg, caterpillar, chrysalis,
adult.
“Okay. Where’s your stuff? I’ll gather it up.”
Omar points to a wall of cubbies where a group of boys are gathered like a squirming
beast, poking one another with the action figures they are allowed, with the day now
over, to remove from their camp bags. She retrieves Omar’s bag, damp, with a faint
scent of chlorine from the balled-up bathing trunks inside.
Once they are outside, Caro takes Omar’s hand. They walk to Broadway for ice cream
while Omar describes the way a caterpillar makes a chrysalis, and how when it splits
open—he unfurls his fingers so his hands are pinwheels—there’s no more caterpillar,
just a butterfly!
She watches her nephew’s ice-cream cone, expecting the splatters to which she is accustomed
from her preschoolers, but Omar manages his cone with careful expertise so that the
only
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