right upstairs. I thought it might wash all of the plants out of the garden, but of course that wouldn’t worry my mother. I took her a sandwich, but she was asleep. I took out the Tolkien set. I had just started reading as the rain came down and down, when out of the drumming pour, like a drenched hobbit, Linda Wishkob arrived again to visit.
Upstairs she went, with hardly a look at me. She had a little package in her hands, probably some of her banana bread—she bought black bananas and was known for her bread. A whole lot of murmuring went on upstairs—so mysterious to me. Why my mother chose to speak to Linda Wishkob might have bothered me or set me on alert or at least made me wonder. I didn’t. But my father did. When he came home and learned that Linda was upstairs, he said to me in a soft voice, Let’s trap her.
What?
You be the bait.
Oh, thanks.
She’ll talk to you, Joe. She likes you. She likes your mother. Me, she’s wary of. Listen to them upstairs.
Why do you want her to talk?
We need every piece of information—we need to know what she can tell us about the Larks.
But she’s a Wishkob.
Adopted, remember. Remember the case, Joe, the case we pulled.
I don’t think it’s relevant.
Nice word.
But finally, I agreed to do it and Dad had fortunately bought some ice cream. It was Linda’s favorite food.
Even on a rainy day?
He smiled. She’s cold-blooded.
So when Linda came down the stairs I asked if she wanted a bowl of ice cream. She asked what flavor. I told her we had the striped stuff. Neapolitan, she said, and accepted a bowl. We sat down in the kitchen and Dad casually closed the door, saying that Mom needed her rest and how good it was of Linda to visit and how much everyone had enjoyed her banana bread.
The spice is excellent, I said.
I only use cinnamon, said Linda, and her pop eyes swelled with pleasure. Real cinnamon I buy in jars, not cans. From a foreign food section down in Hornbacher’s, Fargo. Not the stuff you get here. Sometimes I use a little lemon zest or orange peel.
She was so happy we liked the banana bread that I thought maybe Dad wouldn’t need me to get her to talk, but he said, Wasn’t it good, Joe? And then I said how I’d eaten it for breakfast and how I’d even stolen a piece because Mom and Dad were hogging it all.
I’ll bring two loaves next time, Linda said lovingly.
I spooned ice cream into my mouth and tried to let my father draw her out, but he raised his eyebrows at me.
Linda, I said, I heard. You know I wonder. I guess I’m asking a personal question.
Go right ahead, she said, and her pale features went rosy. Maybe nobody asked her personal questions. I thought quickly and let my tongue fly.
I have friends, you know, whose parents or cousins were adopted out. Adopted out of the tribe, and that is hard, well I’ve heard that. But I guess nobody ever talks about getting . . .
Adopted in?
Linda showed her little rat teeth in such a simple, encouraging smile that I was reassured now, and suddenly found I really wanted to know. I wanted to know her story. I ate more ice cream. I said I really did like the banana bread, and that I was surprised I had, because the truth was usually I hated banana bread. What I mean is suddenly I forgot my father and really started talking to Linda. I went past pop eyes and sinister porcupine hands and wispy hair and just saw Linda, and wanted to know about her, which is probably why she told me.
Linda’s Story
I was born in the winter, she started, but then stopped to finish her ice cream. Once she’d pushed away the bowl, she started for real. My brother was born two minutes before me. The nurse had just wrapped him in a blue flannel warming blanket when the mother said, Oh god, there’s another one, and out I slid, half dead. I then proceeded to die in earnest. I went from slightly pink to dull gray-blue, at which point the nurse tried to scoop me into a bed warmed by lights. The nurse was stopped by the doctor, who pointed out my crumpled head, arm, and leg. Stepping in front of the nurse and me, the doctor addressed the mother,