him remained reedy and slender, the work he had put in at the foaling barn and as a hot walker at the July sale showed in his arms, which had gone toned, darker from the sun, coarse with golden hair. Knox had been there on a few late afternoons when he stood on the diving board of their parents’ pool, patchy with sweat and complaining that he smelled worse than all the stalls he’d mucked combined, and jumped without taking even his shoes off. He’d swim a couple of lengths and then emerge, heavy and streaming, looking like both the little brother Knox had always known and the person—handsomer than Knox might have predicted—that he had almost become.
“What’s al dente again,” her father said. “Is that the underdone one?”
“It’s the perfectly done one, my darling,” her mother answered from inside the steam that billowed from the colander as she shook it over the sink. Her tongue touched the inside corner of her mouth with effort. “You all can go ahead and sit down. Robbie, fill the water glasses if you don’t mind,” she said, her face reddening from the heat.
“Knox can do it,” Robbie said, even as he heaved himself up and made his way over to the cupboard.
“I didn’t ask her,” her mother said, turning to give Knox a look that was amused, incredulous.
“Poor Rob,” Knox said. “Works all day and slaves all night. I don’t know how he manages.”
“Barely. I barely manage. Would you like one ice cube or two, princess?” Robbie said as he opened the door to the ice maker. The exposed well of ice breathed a whitish smoke into the air that climbed up the middle of Robbie’s body and made him look cold, suddenly unprotected. Knox fought an impulse to cross the room and hug him at the waist, rub at his limbs until they were warm again.
They were waiting for the charter service to call back, and for the next update from Bruce. Her mother had already packed some things in a duffel that sat, looking deflated, at the bottom of the back stairs—packed like a wild woman, her father said, packed for both of us in under five minutes. Charlotte was at thirty-five weeks, early but out of the woods, and the babies were healthy, just ready to come, due to the low fluid.
“Gross,” Robbie had said, from his place in the corner. Knox coughed, partly in laughter, partly to blunt the edge of her brother’s obnoxiousness. Rude was still a function of age for Robbie, rather than a full-fledged personality feature. Knox could tell that it would fall away from him—that it probably already had when he was with people other than family. She could relate; only in this kitchen was she the type to sit on counters, more prone to watch than to offer help with dinner. As a guest in other houses she itched to take over the stirring of sauces, would rather chop than entertain the hosts with talk as they worked. Work was both an offering and an excuse to become more invisible. And yet here she felt compelled toward neither of those possibilities. She sat, in the midst of things, until she was asked to do something, anything, else.
“This is serious, babe,” her mother said to Robbie, though Knox could see that she kept humming, choosing to be more excited than worried, within her current. If she were alone, Knox thought, she might be smiling to herself.
They sat down at the table.
“We might be able to jump on a commercial flight if there’s no jet available,” her father said, rocking back a little in his chair.
“Let’s just wait and see,” her mother said. She reached for Knox’s plate, set it beside the serving bowl, and began tonging helpings of pasta onto it.
“I could call Delta and see if there’s space on the night flight.”
“We’ll know more once the charter company calls back,” her mother said. She ground pepper from the mill over Knox’s plate: crack, crack, crack. Her mouth looked too set, suddenly. Too concentrated. Stop, Knox thought to herself, I don’t want any more.
“I don’t like that much pepper,” Knox said, and immediately flushed. She had sounded, absolutely, like a child. Her mother glanced at her.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll take this one.”
“Your mother is the only one who really likes things spicy,” her father said. “But she forgets.”
“I do,” her mother said. “I forget that you all are total philistines about food.”
Knox breathed. She filled