Free Born Weird by Andrew Kaufman

wasn’t. What threw them was Abba. She stood perfectly still and said nothing, yet some sort of grace radiated from her. Their tomboyish sister had been transformed into a queen.
    The guards stopped, forcing Richard and Lucy to stop too. The log in the fireplace popped. The room was otherwise silent. Having failed to convince the royal guards that they were siblings of the queen, Lucy and Richard had spent several hours locked in a small windowless room. Lucy was upset, but not about that.
    “Eight years?” Lucy yelled.
    “That’s your greeting?’ Abba replied.
    “You don’t call once in eight years?”
    “Hello? You’re not surprised that I’m here? That I strayedand by straying I found her before you did?” Angie asked. All three of them ignored her.
    “If I remember correctly,” Abba said, calmly, “the phones in Canada dial out.”
    “You missed birthdays and Christmases and Mom going nuts!”
    “Well, happy belated birthdays. You always said you hated Christmas. Mom was always nuts.”
    “You didn’t even invite us to your wedding! Were you embarrassed of us or were you just ashamed of your … your … 
provincial
origins?”
    “I was under the impression that you were all dead,” Abba said. She said this in a cold matter-of-fact way, which made even Lucy pause. The fire popped again. “Apparently I was misinformed.”
    “Why did you think we were dead?” Lucy asked.
    “Let’s just leave that for now,” Abba said.
    “It’s great to see you,” Richard said, “but I agree that you have some explaining to do.”
    “Explain yourself!”
    “Don’t act so righteous with me, Lucy Weird,” Abba said. Her voice became solid and firm and sad. “When Dad died you disappeared into yourself and left me on my own. You were my big sister. You should have been there for me. You too, Richard. But neither of you were, so I took care of myself. Don’t blame me if I left you behind. I did what I had to do.”
    Abba continued to stare straight ahead. Lucy and Richard looked at the floor.
    “That doesn’t make it right,” Lucy said. Her eyes watched her hands.
    “No, it doesn’t,” Abba said. “But once I got used to doing it that way there was no going back.”
    “It was a stressful time,” Lucy said.
    “For all of us,” Angie said.
    “As it always is for the Weirds,” Richard said. The guards released him. Pulling out a chair, he sat at the long wooden table. He plucked a red linen napkin off a bone white plate. He spread it over his lap. He did these things with such calmness and confidence that the rest of his siblings had no choice but to follow his lead. This made Angie love him just a little bit more.
    “Can we get these candles lit?” Richard asked.
    Abba looked at a guard. He lit the candles. Waiting until her siblings were in their chairs, Abba sat at the head of the table. Her posture was breathtaking. “How is Kent?” she asked.
    “We don’t know.”
    “We think he’s still living on Palmerston.”
    “Mother?”
    “Living in a nursing home, convinced she’s a hairdresser, but otherwise the same.”
    “Lucy and I just saw her in Winnipeg. She cut our hair! Claimed not to recognize either of us.”
    “That explains how you look.”
    “When do we get to meet the king?” Richard asked.
    “I’m afraid that he’s dead,” she said. Her shoulders slouched.
    “Oh.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “We didn’t know.”
    “How about
your
husband?” Abba asked Angie. The guards began filling their glasses with red wine.
    “She doesn’t have one,” Richard said.
    “Our sister seems to have become a woman of easy virtue,” Lucy said.
    “Look who’s talking,” Abba said.
    “Thank you,” Angie said. “Do you have any children?”
    “Not yet,” Abba said. She exhaled. Her posture straightened. “Should I wait until after dinner to ask why you’ve come?”
    “That,” Richard said, “is an idea as good as this wine.”
    The meal was roast beef, overdone, with