Now, personally, I'm partial to a cocktail lounge or an apartment, someplace where you can control the light a little. Daytime's for the young. But come along, now, your grandma's about to bust out of her panty hose in there.”
Jamal reached up for her hand. Her hand was almost hot, knobby with rings. Flakes blew onto her white jacket, disappeared. As she led him back toward the house he opened his mouth, wide, and ate a little more.
“You turn to stone if you don't get out of Connecticut before nightfall,” Cassandra said. “Now wait a minute, that's not true. I've promised your grandmother I'd quit exaggerating around you, she worries about your sense of reality. So listen, I retract the statement. You do not turn to stone if you stay in Connecticut after dark. You just go on with your life, but in Connecticut.”
Jamal filled his mouth, made footprints. The house came, white, with white lines on its black shutters. Flakes fell past the yellow window squares.
“Here we are,” Cassandra called into the back door. Inside, it was warm and full of rules. His grandmother came from the kitchen, crouched in front of him.
“Here you are,” she said. She made her painful little smile. She was darker than Cassandra, more happy and worried. She and Cassandra had the same mouth.
“Look at you,” his grandmother said. “You were out there without your mittens.”
“Seized by an urge,” Cassandra said.
“His hands are freezing.” Grandma's face gathered in on itself. Worry was something she could taste.
“Come on into the kitchen, Jamal,” Cassandra said. “Let's warm up those little mitts of yours.”
“Honestly,” his grandmother said. “You can't go running out half dressed like this, it's freezing out there.”
“True, true,” Cassandra said. “Thank the lord for central heat.”
“Jamal, are you listening to me? You have to think, you can't just do whatever enters your mind.”
“Oh, Mary,” Cassandra said.
His grandmother's face stopped. She was angry, and she was deciding.
“Really,” she said. “I'm his grandmother.”
“And I'm his godmother. And I think every now and then a four-year-old boy runs out into the snow without his mittens on. It doesn't mean he's embarking on a life of crime.”
“Cassandra—”
Grandma looked down, then up. “All right,” she said. She was sucking a hard ball of anger and worry with a sweet-sour taste. “Let's get going, you two.”
Jamal let his grandmother take his hand and lead him into the room where the party used to be. Balloons still bobbed and josded on the ceiling. Half the cake stood whitely on the white table, circled by the melted stubs of candles. Ben sat in his chair at the head of the table, next to Aunt Susan. Their grandfather stood behind, looking hungrily at the room. He wanted to eat the house. Jamal wanted to eat everything outside the house. Ben ran his new orange truck over the cloth. He looked at Jamal with his hard eyes.
“You're still here,” Ben said.
Jamal nodded. Ben and their grandfather both looked at him and saw that he was small and dark and prone to vanishing. He saw them see him that way.
“Sure you're still here,” Grandpa said. “You wouldn't run away from your own birthday party, would you, buddy?”
“Everybody thought you were lost,” Ben said.
Aunt Susan touched Ben's hair. Then she came over and waited a quarter second before touching Jamal's hair. He felt her hand, waiting, and then he felt her touch.
“We lost track of you, sweetheart,” Aunt Susan said.
Jamal nodded. He'd been eating the frozen air. He'd been nowhere, and everywhere.
“We've got to hit the road,” his grandmother said. “I don't want to be driving in this after dark.”
She spoke to his grandfather, though she didn't look at him.
There were bad roads and darkness. There was something else, a patient appetite that waited.
“Mm-hm,” Aunt Susan said. “Jamal, honey, it was nice having you.”
Uncle Will came in from somewhere else. He was not in the room, and then he was.
“Hey,” he said. “We thought you'd decided to walk home.”
Jamal looked at the rug. It had people hidden in it. There was the fat Japanese woman with her arms out. There was the smiling devil. When he looked up again, Uncle Will was still there. He stood with Aunt Susan. Aunt Susan smiled in her dress that was like his grandmother's but brighter, with more buttons. Aunt Susan wore the gold bird at her breast, the bright silent bird with the sharp beak.
“Come on, gang,” his grandmother said. Jamal looked around, fearfully, for Cassandra. She was gone