Day 55

"I'm sorry Shoshanna."
"Why are you sorry?" Shoshanna sat low, trying to get his eyes, but he ran his hands over his long hair and covered them.
"I'm sorry because I didn't know it would be so bad. I wanted to help. I thought you should do it. I thought it would make you feel better."
"Horace, what are you talking about?"
"When you told me to go away, I wasn't mad. I knew you made Dad mad, both of us. I told you to go find out what they were doing. He wouldn't have gotten mad if I hadn't said. But...But I just wanted to know, and you wanted to stay outside, but I wanted to know. It wasn't your fault."
And for a moment there is the smell of her father's work clothes, paint thinner and acrid things, piled up by the foot of the door, the pressure of wood against her forehead and of two sets of eyes, red and close, watching with mouths that we touching but now pulled a part, each not breathing but looking like they were. And Shoshanna was outside, to the tree, energy pushing her out, to Horace, who was excited and scared as her father stormed out after her.
"I shouldn't have asked." He said, and for the first time that day he looked up at her, eyes red like from crying, but not red, too tired to cry.
Shoshanna took three sucking breaths and blinked her eyes hard. And after a minute of stillness she could see clearly.
"Horace," she said. "That's not your story for today, is it? That's hardly a story worth remembering"
"Oh, no its not." He said, shifting himself to his knees now, hands up and fingers moving. "I have a good one. Its good, I promise."
"Good." she said. "Tell it to me, please. I've been waiting all morning."