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Todd.
    At first Mom complained, smiling, that she never saw her “big, handsome son” any longer. Todd never confided in her as he used to do, and he wouldn’t allowher to come into his room, or tousle his hair and tease him. Saying good-bye, Todd only just let himself be hugged and kissed, standing stiff as a soldier at attention. This past year, Mom had stopped joking. If she spoke of Todd at all, she sounded hurt, and baffled.
    Through May, Mom was smiling. The Freaky thought came to me to ask, Is that smile stapled onto your face, Mom? Does it hurt? I wanted to ask if she smiled like that while she was sleeping. If someone shone a flashlight into her face, waking her, would she be smiling like that? I wanted to ask, but I didn’t.
    I began to resent Mom, that she was acting so strange. I resented worrying about her, I guess. Your mother is supposed to worry about you , not the other way around!
    There was a new stiffness between us. On my part, anyway. I wasn’t her little Francesca any longer; she couldn’t expect me to snuggle up to her and behave like Samantha. I knew she was sensing a change in my attitude, but she didn’t say anything for a while. (Thatwas like Mom, too. Not to speak of something that’s bothering her, like possibly it will go away.) But one day she broke down and asked if something was wrong. “You seem so . . . withdrawn, honey. You haven’t spoken five words to me since you’ve gotten into this car.”
    We were driving home to Yarrow Heights, same as usual. Mom had swung by Forrester to pick me up after swim practice. She’d been doing other errands, too; the rear of the station wagon was crammed with art supplies.
    My father hated the smell of acrylic paints and modeling clay. On my mother’s fingers and beneath her short-filed nails, what looked liked dried mud.
    For God’s sake, Krista. You look like a field worker .
    I was slouched in the passenger seat. Sliding a Laurie Anderson CD into the tape deck, the one that begins with eerie whale music.
    â€œOkay, Mom. ‘Five words to me.’”
    Mom laughed, sounding a little startled.
    We listened to Laurie Anderson’s breathy voice. Strange undersea sounds. It suited the atmosphere ofSeattle in May: mist, threat-of-rain, rain.
    I’ve seen whales in the ocean. Not many, but a few. Killer whales, so-called. In the Juan de Fuca Strait (between northern Washington and British Columbia) and in the ocean, a forty-minute drive to the west. It’s awesome! When you see the whales surface, leap, frolic in the glassy-green water, your heart lifts. You stare and stare at the water waiting for whales to reappear.
    Mom murmured something approving about the music. It was Mom’s kind of music, too. Then she turned the volume down so We Could Talk.
    â€œHow was swim practice?”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œWere you diving?”
    â€œNo. Not today.”
    (I had been diving, actually. I mean, I’d tried. My knees were weak. I had trouble concentrating. “Not a diving day” is what we call it, diplomatically.)
    Mom drove. I wasn’t looking in her direction. Yet I could see that her smile was beginning to slide onone side, as if the staples there had loosened. Her eyes (bloodshot, but I wasn’t going to look) seemed to pucker as she stared into the rearview mirror, driving a little more jerkily than usual. As if this familiar way home to our house on Vinland Circle wasn’t so familiar to her; there might be surprises. Mom said hesitantly, “I wonder if you’re distracted by something, Francesca. At school, or . . .” But here Mom paused. Not wanting to say at home .
    I said, annoyed, “Mom, I really don’t like ‘Francesca.’ It’s so pretentious. Like, are we Italian or something? Samantha is bad enough—it’s such a cliché. But Francesca.” I sighed. I turned the CD volume up, to hear Laurie Anderson