Free Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi Page B

there. It wasn’t just the man and the house, there was more. “I don’t mean much to you, do I?” Arturo teased. “I’m just . . . you know, Snow’s dad.”
    What was it about Snow? Some days she was just another little girl who considered the presence of green vegetables and the absence of a Fluffernutter sandwich on her dinner plate such a great tragedy that she’d cry until her face was swollen. She wasn’t yet seven, but seemed a few years younger. Partly because she hadn’t yet learned to smile even when she didn’t feel like it, and partly because she was inattentive in the way that kids are when they’re still learning to speak—always looking above or behind you while you’re talking to them, their heads wobbling with concentration, as if they’re receiving secret information that’s much more important than anything you have to say. Her eyes were the shade of hazel that doesn’t seem able to decide whether it’s brown or green.
    If Snow was ever worried, if any anxieties ever disturbed her for longer than a day, she rarely showed it. She was poised and sympathetic, like a girl who’d just come from the future but didn’t want to brag about it. She’d pat your arm, and say, “Everything is okay. Everything is normal,” and you took her word forit. Sometimes I think it was a trick of hers, deciding aloud what was going on so that everyone who loved her fell over themselves to make it so. Sometimes I think we needed her to be like that and she obliged. It’s sad if that’s true—I’m thinking of the time she crawled down the staircase on her hands and knees to announce that there was a troll in her room. Arturo asked her where exactly the troll was. Under her bed, in the closet? She said: “It is in all the room. Come see.”
    I would have gone with her, but Arturo got mad at her for not saying please, of all things, and refused to indulge her. That’s enough, Snow. Back to bed with you . I added: “That silly old troll will be gone by the time you get back into bed. You’ll see.”
    She said okay, and went back upstairs slowly, shivering. In the morning I asked her if the troll had disappeared like I’d promised. I asked real quietly, so Arturo didn’t hear. She used a few spoonfuls of applesauce to draw a smiley face on her plate, and when she’d finished, she said: “Mmm hmmm, no more troll.” She was lying, though; I could tell. As far as she was concerned, the troll hadn’t gone anywhere, and would remain just as long as it pleased. All she could do was try to sleep in spite of it. I hate the thought of her trying, trying. Not just with her troll, but with me too, right from the beginning.
    —
    there’s something ominous about being handed an ivory-colored card with scalloped edges that basically says Hello, I’m your boyfriend’s mother and I’ve heard such a lot about you and do please come to tea at half past five tomorrow . I was in a terrible stateabout it, sweaty as anything. The general advice is always be yourself, be yourself, which only makes sense if you haven’t got an attitude problem.
    Olivia lived two doors down from Arturo, in a bigger house than his, a house full of playthings for her granddaughter. Skipping ropes, tin soldiers, all colors of crayons, and toy cars strewn everywhere. I wondered how many falls Olivia Whitman had had and was going to have just for the sake of keeping a little girl amused. Two other women joined us for tea, and I really felt that wasn’t fair, especially since the other women turned out to be Arturo’s younger sister and Julia’s mother. Olivia really had summoned the committee. I wished I wasn’t wearing violet eye shadow, which was funny, because just half an hour before I’d thought of the eye shadow as armor that I couldn’t have stepped out of the boarding house without. It might have been the darkness of the room—they sat with the curtains drawn, and the only real light seemed to come from the silverware—but