Free 1503951200 by Camille Griep Page B

mother but at the warm, filthy water swirling around my ankles, my aching thighs, and a bruise on my bicep that’s throbbing, though I can’t quite see it, even when I crane myself into a dangerous position and almost meet my death at the hands of my own toilette .
    When the water’s not filthy anymore, Cas hands me a towel and I explain how there was relatively little disorder until the very end. And as I dry off, I tell her about Danny and Agnes and Mina and Buster and our efforts to rebuild.
    I really don’t have time to wax rhapsodic about the City because Cas is steering me toward my bedroom, where we open up my closet and are immediately rewarded by an eruption of sequins we try to stuff back behind the bulging doors.
    “Where did your mom keep the clothes that didn’t fit her anymore?”
    This takes significant brainpower. My mom cleared out the closet she shared with my dad. That much I remember, sitting on the floor, handing her pairs of shoes. “I don’t know if she even . . .”
    “Everyone keeps old clothes that don’t fit,” she declares, oblivious once again to a world somewhat devoid of the divisions of old and new and fit and doesn’t fit . “Guest room?”
    So we come full circle to the very brown room. My new room, I decide, and lo and behold, in the closet there are faded denim shirts and tatty-edged jeans, old bouclé suits—all clean and soft and somehow still smelling of her. I’m crying again and Cas pats me awkwardly. “Do you need a hug?” she whispers.
    “I most certainly do not.” I sidestep away from her, avoiding the shortest route to more tears.
    It takes me a few minutes to understand there’s a range of sizes in the closet, and then to find a suitable pair of jeans and a tank top. Cas shakes her head and hands me a lightweight floral blouse instead. “I don’t see any dresses in here that will work for tonight,” she says, sliding the hangers together back and forth with an annoying clack. “Look at this!” She’s triumphantly hoisting a floor-length velvet ball gown. “It’s so heavy.”
    “I wonder what she wore it to.” I finger the soft, black velvet edged with silver piping. “It’s beautiful.”
    “And you’d look beautiful in it. Right after you stuffed your bra. And everything else,” Cas says, trying to keep from laughing.
    “Oh my god, Casandra Willis, did you just make a joke?” My melancholy is upended by consciously stupid, but contagious giggles.
    “Do you even weigh enough to wear it?” she asks, still laughing.
    “I will after dinner.”
    And, miraculously, we are, for an hour or so, fourteen again. We straggle down the stairs, suggesting all the least appropriate places to wear my mother’s old dress—the diner, the rodeo, the stockyards.
    An hour or so later, we’ve walked to town and pile through the door of the mercantile, still giggling as Cas introduces me to Bill, who now runs things for his parents. I never knew him. Like Cas’s brother Perry, he is one of many lucky enough to have returned to a stable hometown before things went really wrong. He seems like a nice guy, and Cas hands him my grocery list, refusing to add any cigarettes. She tells him to invoice me later. Bill gives me his condolences, but then his attention is on Cas. He’s looking at her like he’s never seen her before, and her face is still lit up and smiling, and the other customers are unable to get his attention.
    Cas is oblivious until I tease her about it out on the wooden sidewalk. Her cheeks deepen into rouge dimples. I am walking backwards, singing old nursery rhymes about trees and kisses, when all the blood drains from her face. I simultaneously back into a something stationary. I spin and come face-to-face with the enormous, solemn Bishop.
    The Bishop nods to Cas, dark robes swirling. “Blessings, children.”
    Cas nods. I hold my hand out, waiting to introduce myself.
    “Remember,” he says, dismissing my handshake, “our streets will stay