Free House Arrest by Ellen Meeropol Page A

heard the exasperation in my cousin’s voice, but I couldn’t stop. “She’ll starve. How can you leave your daughter with someone who never cooks?”
    “He cooks.”
    “Yeah, he puts things in the microwave and presses ‘start.’” I stood up. “Come on, the guy drinks instant coffee.”
    “So what? Zoe’s too young for coffee.” Anna stood too. “Why are we arguing about Sam? Maybe Ivan will recover. Let’s see what happens.”
    “We’ll see,” I said. No way, I promised myself.
    “I have papers to grade.” She sighed and left the porch.
    Standing alone, I took several slow breaths to blow away my worries. I was sorry about Grandpa Ivan, but I barely knew my mother’s father. Certainly not well enough to get me back there. My true family was in Springfield, with Anna and Zoe and my patients.
    I looked around for something that needed doing. As I plucked dead leaves from the ficus tree, my hand brushed a thick web. A fat brown spider cozy in the perfect center of her web, a captive fly tucked below her. Safe and snug, with a full pantry. I sat down and wrapped myself in the quilt, still warm from Anna’s body.
    All that talk about Grandpa Ivan and returning to the island. I tried to control myself, to imagine my childhood refuge, the leafy sanctuary of Aunt Ruth’s tree house. But I couldn’t help it. My thoughts tumbled backwards instead to my parents’ kitchen when I was ten. We were eating granola for breakfast.
    •
    The granola has raisins and pecans in it. My favorite. So I take a bite, even though my stomach is jumpy because we’re having auditions today, for the last play of fourth grade. I’m trying out for E.T.
    “Just look at this eggplant.” Momma holds up the purple-black shape for our approval.
    “Nice,” Daddy says without looking.
    She cuts it into chunks and dumps them in the crock pot with the onions and zucchini and yellow squash and barley and broth. Momma gives after-school piano lessons at the Jewish Community Center. This way dinner will be ready when we all get home.
    Daddy’s spoon taps against the edge of his coffee cup to emphasize each point as he reads the lesson plan about Vietnam that he revised last night. It made him and Momma argue in the living room when they thought I was asleep. It made him wheeze too, until he had to go find his inhaler. “They want me to teach what colonial families ate for dinner,” he had said, “as if turnips and sweet potatoes will create good citizens.” I covered my ears with my pillow.
    I arrange my raisins in a row along the narrow rim of the cereal bowl and try to ignore his spoon-tapping. I imagine myself as a wrinkled brown extraterrestrial far from home. Does E.T. like granola?
    The knock at the apartment door is loud. Momma answers it and steps back to let the two men in suits into the kitchen. They show their policeman badges. They mumble some words I don’t understand. They put handcuffs on my father.
    “You have to come with us now,” the short officer says to my father. The cop doesn’t look at us. Momma hands my father his inhaler, then pulls me close. My spine is hard against her chest. I sniff her peach blossom shampoo from the food coop, mixed with a sharp smell that makes me shiver and cross my arms on my chest. Momma puts her arms on top of mine, like double seat belts.
    Daddy says two words to Momma as the men lead him away. “Call Abe,” he says and Momma nods.
    She and I stand still like that for a few moments. Then she drops her arms. And mine. I turn around so I can see her face. She must have bitten herself. A spot of blood hangs, suspended, on her bottom lip. Then it tumbles in a wavy line down her chin and falls onto her yellow Boycott Grapes t-shirt. She doesn’t go right to the sink and flush it out with cold water so the stain won’t set. She goes to the telephone.
    I clear the breakfast table, but I leave my father’s bowl. His granola gets soggy and the milk turns grey.
    That afternoon,