Free Silent to the Bone by E.L. Konigsburg Page A

“I’m not sure this is the right time.”
    I took a saucer from the cabinet and returned to the living room as Margaret was saying, “Actually, Vivian, this is a very good time. Think of it as a dress rehearsal for the lawyers.”
    Vivian topped off her glass of wine, settled back into her chair, and said, “I don’t know how to put this delicately.”
    â€œThen try directly,” Margaret said.
    â€œAll right, then,” she said, setting her glass down firmly on the coffee table. “Here goes. Branwell Zamborska seemed to have an unhealthy interest in little Nikki’s nappies.” Still holding her cigarette between her first two fingers, she leaned forward and picked up her wineglass in her cigarette-holding hand. Peering mischievously at me over the rim, she said, “Of course, a lot of it was little-boy curiosity, you know.”
    Margaret asked, “What do you mean?”
    â€œOh, you know. A little boy’s curiosity about what the other sex keeps inside her panties.”
    Margaret looked over at me to see how I was taking this information. I was doing all right even though I had never had a discussion about sex with a mature woman before.
    Margaret said, “Don’t you think it’s a natural curiosity? I remember when Connor here was a baby, I actually asked to change his nappy. Once.”
    Vivian asked, “Did you, really?”
    â€œYes. When he was new, and I was young and curious.”
    Laughing, Vivian said, “What did you find out?”
    Margaret looked at me and smiled. “That God has a sense of humor after all.” I flared my nostrils at her and jerked my head away. I should have stayed in the kitchen.
    Vivian said, “At first I thought it was only the natural curiosity of a thirteen-year-old boy. But after awhile, it became something else. Branwell became absolutely obsessive about changing Nikki’s nappies. That wasn’t  . . . wasn’t . . . natural  . . .” Her voice trailed off as if she had ended that sentence with a comma and not a period. She transferred her wineglass to her other hand and took a long drag on her cigarette before saying, “It seemed to me that Brannie always spread the cheeks of her little bum and spread her little legs and wiped and wiped some more. All that wiping. All that powdering . . .”
    Margaret said, “On the rare occasion when I was requested to change Connor’s nappy, his mother always insisted that I clean all his little bits and pieces.” Margaret was determined to embarrass me. She was pissing me off. “Even though there wasn’t that much to do,” she said, smiling—she was really pissing me off—“the whole process was nothing but a chore.” Really, really pissing me off.
    Vivian said, “I kept thinking that Branwell, too, would find it a chore and just stop, but he didn’t. Even when I was there, he insisted on changing her nappies himself.”
    At last I knew why Branwell rushed home from school every day.
    â€œI tell you, he was always changing her. Whether she needed it or not.” She took a long pull on her cigarette. I held my breath as I watched the ash grow until it seemed ready to drop. But as she took it from her mouth, she held it straight until it was over the saucer. With the tiniest flick of her finger, she made the ash drop. Then with a delicate movement of her wrist, she stubbed it out. “Actually,” she said, “I think that’s when he did it.”
    â€œDid what?” Margaret asked.
    Vivian answered in a hoarse whisper as if the wordshurt her throat. “Dropped her. That’s when he must have dropped her.”
    Margaret asked, “He didn’t take her out of the crib to change her nappy, did he?” It seemed to me that Margaret was saying nappy a lot.
    â€œSometimes he did, actually. And on that day, the poor little thing