Page 38 of A Better World

“Oh, that’s awful,” Linda said. “I smelled it, but I assumed it was coming from outside.”

“Residential home, southwest side of town,” he said. “What would you like?”

Linda ordered donuts even though she’d intended to branch out and try something new. She was thinking about Gal and her family, on the southwest side of town. “Whose house?”

“No one you’d know.” He handed her three pretty boxes, each containing a half dozen donuts. Hip took these for her, plus the extra glazed donut she’d ordered, which he popped into his mouth.

“Will they like the donuts? Because they didn’t at soccer,” Hip said. They were in the car. She’d started the ignition, softer than a purr, and was still trying to figure out why everyone was so upset, and whose house had been on fire.

“I panicked. Should we get something else?”

Hip shook his head. It occurred to her that something specific was bothering him. The soccer game? His old team hadn’t acknowledgedhim, not even Coach Farah. Later, when she’d tried to broach the subject with him, he’d acted like she’d been picking at a wound.

“What are the exact houses we’re visiting?”

She named the residences.

“Okay,” he said.

“You’re still up for it?”

“Yes,” he said, seeming very serious.

She plugged Rachel Johnson’s house in the GPS and off they went.

As they drove, Hip babbled. “I sit in the back of homeroom, but Josie sits up front because it’s alphabetical, but we got split. The teacher’s a dayworker. He says we’re spoiled, and we don’t know anything, and his daughter Erin is six but is smarter than us. In Language and Literature, it’s also alphabetical but Josie’s not in that class…”

This went on. Back during the worst part of his sad phase last year, when she’d been very worried about him, Hip hadn’t talked much at all. He hadn’t eaten much, either. He’d spent most of his time in his room. His depression got so deep that she’d invented reasons to knock, afraid to leave him alone. This rambling was an improvement. Still, with her hangover, she was having a hard time feigning interest.

“Right,” she said. “You sit alphabetically.”

Rachel’s house was a modern colonial bordered by a white picket fence with two A-class SUV hybrids parked in the garage. “Okay,” Linda interrupted. “I’m just going to run out. You mind waiting in here?”

He thought about it and as he did so, red bloomed along his cheeks and neck. He had Russell’s blond hair but her brown eyes. He was short like her, too. “Do you know Cathy Bennett?”

“Is that Daniella Bennett’s daughter? The one in your year?”

“Can I say hi?” he asked in a rush. “I want to say hi to her. If that’s okay. But don’t make a deal about it. Don’t say anything about it.”

So, not about soccer. Linda felt a warmth toward this Cathy girl, though she’d never met her. A protectiveness toward Hip, too. Her son didn’t sayhelloto girls. Hip was scared of girls, except for his sister.

“I hadn’t planned on going inside any of the houses. I was just going to leave little gifts.”

“Oh,” he said. The red deepened to the color of an overripe strawberry.

“But sure! Let’s do it!” she said.

“Okay,” he said, letting out a ragged, terrified breath. “But you can’t say anything, Mom. Not a word!”

A caladrius peered out at her from its shelter as she headed up Rachel’s walk. It had flipped its bowl full of dried mealworms, which she knew from her own bird meant that it didn’t like the meal and wanted dried jerky.

At the door, she considered knocking rather than leaving the food and note on the stoop, as she’d intended. For one, the donuts would get cold. For another, it would be nice to see Rachel again. She didn’t think Rachel would mind a quick hello. She banged the brass caladrius knocker.

“What isthat?” a deep alto inside the house asked. After a few seconds, a slender Asian man opened the door. Young and fit, he wore a tracksuit made of Omnium and appeared both harried and irritated.

He looked Linda up and down, seemed unable to categorize her. “She’s been home three days in two months, and we get a pooping pastry delivery? What’s wrong with her?”

“Sorry!” Linda yelped, lowering the small, warm box. “I’m not a delivery person.”

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