Apologize, Apologize! - By Elizabeth Kelly Page 0,13

limited intelligence and lack of sophistication.”

“What’s it mean, then?”

“It refers to the sweeping powers possessed by a catastrophically ugly female relative.”

“Use it in a sentence.”

“My sister, your maiden aunt Brigid Flanagan, is a classic example of the terrifying phenomenon known as auntiefrankensteinestablishmentitarianism, whereby children, at seeing her hideous visage, instantly turn into turnips. That’s why they’re known as turnips, by the by, just one more thing about which you’re abysmally ignorant.”

“Uncle Tom . . .” I crawled onto my knees and touched him on the shoulder. “Why can’t Bingo breathe?”

“I don’t know. Maybe someone like you put a pillow over his face. Now that I think of it, I don’t much like the malignant shape of your head, and you’ve got the shifty eyes of a murderer.”

“I do not,” I said, unaffected by Tom’s accusations, which were as regular as rain. All the time I was growing up and anytime there was a homicide anywhere in New England, he used to demand that I produce an alibi or he’d threaten to turn me in.

“Well, what about the incident with the boiling water last summer . . . the attempt on your brother’s life . . .”

I lay back down beside him, the back of my head flat against the pillow. “I never did that, Uncle Tom. . . .”

“So you say—that’s what they all say.”

“Uncle Tom, you know I didn’t do that.”

“Maybe I’m just covering for you so you don’t wind up in the penitentiary with all the other desperadoes. Now for heaven’s sake let me alone—and remember, I sleep with one eye open.”

I rolled away from Uncle Tom, putting distance between us, so far from him that my face was pressed against the wall, the plaster cool against the bare soles of my feet as they climbed up along the window frame.

“You’re not funny,” I said.

“All right, Noodle.” Uncle Tom lifted his head and looked over his shoulder in my direction. “I’m only teasing.”

I wasn’t talking. I didn’t want Uncle Tom to know I was crying.

Outside the window, an owl called.

“Parliament’s in session,” Uncle Tom said. I didn’t respond.

“Oh, Jesus,” he said suddenly. “Fine, have it your way. I’ll get under the covers.”

Soon he was snoring away, but I couldn’t sleep. I was afraid that Bingo would die and Ma would tell the police that I had killed him. It wouldn’t be the first time. Ma was having one of her famous political gatherings. It was a bright afternoon the previous year, in June, and Bingo and I were put in charge of the dogs. With everyone talking, gesturing, making points, conversation coming at us from all directions like pockets of small-arms fire, the dogs quickly got out of hand. Giving up on trying to control them, Bingo and I went into the kitchen, where Ma was making tea. I watched as she poured boiling water into several mugs, and then, interjecting loudly, she rushed to rejoin a gathering of three or four people at the end of the room.

I caught sight of one of the missing puppies and bent down to call him over, and at the same time I was looking around for something to eat, when there came this long gasp and a crack, something shattered and then quiet, then a little kid’s sharp scream, then a fulsome silence, all of it seeming to happen at once—and then all hell broke loose, and Bingo was crying in explosive spurts the uncontrollable way that he did when something was really wrong.

Steam rose from his bare arm, scalded a deep red color and soaked. The skin seemed to melt and then bubble up into a transparent bag that filled with fluid. One of Ma’s guests was a doctor, who took a quick look and volunteered to go with her to the hospital since Pop was officially nowhere to be found.

Ma gathered up her stuff and was so unhinged that she was filling up her arms with crazy things, The New York Times, a loaf of bread, a tea towel, until she spotted me over by the window seat, and then she was all focus as she swooped down, grabbed me by the shoulders, and shouted in my face.

“What did you do? What did you do?”

“Nothing. I did nothing,” I said, shrinking into the corner, the hushed murmuring of all those strangers hovering like smoke, settling in like guilt.

“You poured that boiling water on your little brother, didn’t you? He couldn’t have reached it on his own. What did