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glanced at the plate directly ahead of her and to her surprise saw that it was empty.
    “Luke?”
    Luke stopped talking to himself and faced her. “Yeah?”
    “Yes,” she corrected him. “What happened to the other slice of pizza that was on that plate?”
    Luke looked at the empty plate, looked back at Elizabeth like she was crazy, and took a bite of his own pizza. “Ivan ate it.”
    “Don’t speak with your mouth full,” she admonished him.
    He spat it out onto the plate. “Ivan ate it.” He began laughing hysterically again at the mush on his plate that was once in his mouth.
    Elizabeth’s head began to ache. What had gotten into him? “What about the olives?”
    Sensing her anger, he waited until he swallowed his food before speaking. “He ate them too. I told you olives were his favorite. Granddad wanted to know if he could grow olives on the farm.” Luke smiled and revealed his gums.
    Elizabeth smiled back. Her father wouldn’t even know what an olive was if it walked up to him and introduced itself. He wasn’t into any of those “fancy” foods; rice was about as exotic as he would get and even then he complained that the pieces were too small and that he’d be better off eating “a crumblin’ spud.”
    Elizabeth sighed as she scraped the remainder of her food from her plate into the bin, but not before checking through the rubbish to see if Luke had thrown the pizza and olives in. No sign. Luke usually had such a small appetite he would struggle to finish a large slice of pizza, never mind two. She presumed she would find it weeks later, moldy and hiding at the back of a cabinet somewhere. If he had eaten the entire thing, he would be sick all night and Elizabeth would have to clean up the mess. Again.
    “Thank you, Elizabeth.”
    “You’re very welcome, Luke.”
    “Huh?” Luke said, poking his head around the corner of the kitchen.
    “Luke, I told you before, it’s pardon, not huh.”
    “Pardon?”
    “I said you’re very welcome.”
    “But I haven’t said thank you yet.”
    Elizabeth slid the dishes into the dishwasher and stretched her back. She rubbed the base of her aching spine. “Yes you did, you said ‘Thank you, Elizabeth.’ ”
    “No I didn’t.” Luke frowned.
    Elizabeth made a face. “Luke, stop playing games now, OK, we’ve had our fun at lunchtime, now you can stop pretending. OK?”
    “No. That was Ivan who said thank you,” he said angrily.
    A shiver ran through her body. She didn’t think this was funny. She banged the dishwasher door shut, too fed up even to reply to her nephew. Why couldn’t he, just this once, not give her a hard time?
    Elizabeth rushed by Ivan with a cup of espresso in her hand and the smell of perfume and coffee beans filled his nostrils. She sat down at the kitchen table, her shoulders sagged, and she held her head in her hands.
    “Ivan, come on!” Luke called impatiently from the playroom. “I’ll let you be The Rock this time!”
    Elizabeth groaned quietly to herself.
    But Ivan couldn’t move. His blue Converse runners were rooted to the marble kitchen floor.
    Elizabeth had heard him say thank you. He knew it.
    He circled her slowly for a few minutes, studying her for signs of a reaction to his presence. He snapped his fingers next to her eardrums, jumped back, and watched her. Nothing. He clapped his hands and stamped his feet. It echoed loudly around the large kitchen but Elizabeth remained at the table with her head in her hands. No reaction at all.
    But she had said, “You’re very welcome.” After several efforts to make noise around her, he was confused to learn of his deep disappointment that she couldn’t sense him. After all, she was a parent, and who cared what parents thought? He stood behind her and stared down at the top of her head, wondering what noise he could make next. He sighed loudly, exhaling a deep breath.
    Suddenly, Elizabeth sat up straight, shuddered, and pulled the zip on her tracksuit top