Free This Must Be the Place: A Novel by Kate Racculia

knew—and she found herself wishing, absurdly, that she could go back in time and be a friend to her mother as well. The kind of friend who would’ve told Mona over and over again, You owe it to yourself to get out of this stupid town; you’re a genius; get out, get out! The kind of friend her mother would call When She Got in Trouble. The kind of friend who would say—what?
    Give it up?
    Get rid of it?
    She shuddered involuntarily, a spasm of the stomach and the spine that had nothing to do with the cool breeze ruffling the white kitchen curtains. Maybe that was the core of her true freakishness, what the world at large recognized in her: she wasn’t even supposed to be here. It didn’t matter how much Mona loved her. Her mother had made the wrong choice.
    She set the table and made herself forget that particular truth about herself.
    By the time Anna and Sherman were sitting down, Oneida was calmer. She was a little worried she might remember and put herself off dinner entirely, but the arrival of Arthur Rook, looking slightly rumpled and as though he hadn’t actually meant to stumble into the room at that precise moment, was more than a distraction. It had only been a few days since he’d asked her for detergent, and she was surprised how different he looked from the Arthur Rook she’d built in her mind, the Arthur Rook who had taken on comically mythic proportions: who sat in his room and made cat litter and string art on construction paper, who got drunk in the kitchen in the dark; the corpse she and her mother would have to kick to the curb. Arthur Rook, to Oneida’s surprised eyes, looked tired and distant but overwhelmingly a real person.
    “Hello,” he said. “Is it OK if I, uh, join—”
    Mona pointed to the seat on her left. “Of course,” she said. “Please, Mr. Rook, sit down. We’re having meat loaf. And let me be the first to say that I’m glad you’re not dead.”
    Arthur Rook hesitated slightly, looking from Mona to the chair to the other people at the table, and Oneida thought for a second he might bolt. Mona must have sensed it too, because she said, “Welcome back to the world. Small as it may be.”
    “Arthur.” He took the seat. “Please call me Arthur.”
    “Anna DeGroot,” Anna said, turning to shake Arthur’s hand.
    “Right,” Arthur said. “Thanks again for taking me to the store.”
    “I’m Sherman Russell.” Sherman waved from the other side of the table and Arthur, still looking slightly dazed, returned the gesture.
    “Nice to meet you all.” Arthur unfolded the paper napkin Oneida had placed beside his plate.
    Thursday was always meat loaf night, but Mona had decided to switch the usual mashed potato complement for fresh snap peas and carrots and the first acorn squash of the season. Oneida, as usual, had been in charge of the biscuits and was proudly relieved that not a single biscuit had been scorched that evening.
    It all smelled fantastic, so Oneida wasn’t the least surprised when Arthur, barely concealing the note of desperation in his voice, said, “When are we going to eat?”
    Mona’s face cracked in a wry smile. “We don’t eat it, Arthur. We just like to look at it.”
    Arthur’s brow furrowed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t—”
    Oneida rolled her eyes and blushed when she realized Anna had seen her. She gave Oneida a little disapproving narrow of the eyes and Oneida slumped in her seat.
    Sherman, uncharacteristically, threw himself upon the sword of conversation and asked Oneida how school had been that day.
    Oneida’s ears detected the
clomp
of Bert’s cane—she was on the first floor and would be in the dining room in another thirty seconds or so, and yet the idea of making thirty seconds of conversation with Sherman about school still seemed interminable. Sherman acted as though he and Oneida were fighting the same war, he a general and she a soldier in the same trench day after day, and he frequently talked to her about the