Free Family Night by Maria Flook Page A

was mesmerized by the frothy circle. “Get me a Kleenex!” she yelled, and she slapped the book shut. When she turned back to that page, there it was, a winged blot.
    Margaret went down the hall to find her stepmother. She asked about her father. “I thought he was supposed to be retired?”
    “He’s down there straightening out something for the new owners. They have to learn the inventory.”
    “That’s not easy, let me see—reversible ratchets, speeder handles, dock bumpers, augers, portable sandblasting kits, grease guns, exit signs.” Margaret enjoyed reciting that litany.
    “You can remember all of that?” Elizabeth said.
    “Of course I do. I helped with the spot inventories.”
    Elizabeth set out the glasses and lifted the heavy double-sized bottle of scotch. Perhaps she found Margaret’s gift of memory intrusive. “What about Celeste?” Elizabeth said.
    “Phil is bringing her here on Sunday, and we’ll take the train back.”
    “Back to your friend Tracy?”
    “Of course,” Margaret said.
    “When will I see Celeste?” Elizabeth said.
    “Don’t worry, you’ll see her,” Margaret said. “She’s taller. She’s grown since—”
    “I’m certain she’s a perfect young lady now,” Elizabeth said.
    “She’s just eight, you know, don’t expect miracles,”Margaret said. “I see a change coming, but it hasn’t happened yet.”
    Margaret helped Elizabeth unfold the big padded mats that protected the dining room table. Then she put the linen cloth down and tugged the hem at each end until it was even. Margaret avoided knocking into the glossy magazine scrap as she smoothed the cloth.
    At five o’clock Margaret started watching the clock. The clock’s white face was rubbed silver from years of friction. The hands were bent and could never be corrected no matter how often they tried it. Margaret said it wasn’t the hands that were crooked, it was the
face
, the face of the clock was warped.
    Cam arrived with Laurence. Cam’s eyes looked different, veiled. He must have had a scene with Darcy. Margaret watched to see if her nephew saw the picture on the chandelier, but he was waist-high and didn’t seem to notice. Laurence had his father’s looks, the chin’s deep shaded hollow. She pushed the palm of her hand over the top of his head, combing his hair through her fingers. The boy liked her attention and kept his fists in his pockets as she tugged his cowlick left and right, trying to get it flat. “It’s hopeless,” she told him.
    “No, try it,” he said. “Please try more.”
    Margaret curled her index finger and lifted his chin with her knuckle. “That’s it for now,” she told him.
    She went over to the sink, and she made Laurence a grenadine and seltzer so he could be part of the group, but he didn’t like the flavor.
    “Well, it’s
pretty
, isn’t it?” Elizabeth scolded the little boy.
    When her father walked into the room, Margaret embraced him. She never knew what to say except to mention how green the place looked. She praised the shrubs, the ivy, the old Atlas cedar woven through the power lines. “Is that giant yucca still mine?” she asked him. He liked her teasing.
    “It’s yours,” Richard told her.
    They took their drinks out onto the flagstone terrace, and Margaret slipped out of her shoes to feel the warm, uneven slate. She lifted her glass and toasted Richard. “To your premature golden years.”
    “That’s right. I’m through with industrial supply. The End. I would have stayed with U.S. Steel until they forced me out. You know, all the way—until I got rickety. That’s a different story. I used to
make
steel, not
sell
it.”
    Richard missed the steel industry, which he had left, unwillingly, in order to move out of town to marry Elizabeth. He never wanted to go into selling. Throughout her childhood, Margaret listened to his complex step-by-step narrations about open-hearths melting practices. She was the only student in her grammar school who