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rushing in with a stream of water. Sometimes, that makes
it worse. In this case, it would spread biohazardous waste all over the place.
I'm thinking we need to keep the furnace closed, and make sure the fire doesn't
get out of the chimney. A fire can't burn forever. Eventually, it consumes
itself.
    “Yes,” I tell him. “I'm going to wait and see.”
    When I work the night shift, I eat dinner twice. The first meal is early, an
accommodation made by my family so that we can all sit around a table together.
Tonight, Sara makes a roast beef. It sits on the table like a sleeping infant
as she calls us for supper.
    Kate is the first to slip into her seat. “Hey baby,” I say,
squeezing her hand. When she smiles at me, it doesn't reach her eyes.
“What have you been up to?”
    She pushes her beans around her plate. “Saving Third World countries,
splitting a few atoms, and finishing up the Great American Novel. In between
dialysis, of course.”
    “Of course.”
    Sara turns around, brandishing a knife. “Whatever I did,” I say,
shrinking away, “I'm sorry.”
    She ignores me. “Carve the roast, will you?”
    I take the carving utensils and slice into the roast beef just as Jesse
sloughs into the kitchen. We allow him to live over the garage, but he is
required to eat with us; it's part of the bargain. His eyes are devil-red; his
clothes are ringed with sweet smoke. “Look at that,” Sara-sighs, but
when I turn, she is staring at the roast. “It's too rare.” She picks
the pan up with her bare hands, as if her skin is coated with asbestos. She
sticks the beef back into the oven.
    Jesse reaches for a bowl of mashed potatoes and begins to heap them onto his
plate. More, and more, and more again.
    “You reek,” Kate says, waving her hand in front of her face.
    Jesse ignores her, taking a bite of his potatoes. I wonder what it says
about me, that I am actually thrilled I can identify pot running through his
system, as opposed to some of the others-Ecstasy, heroin, and God knows what
else—which leave less of a trace.
    “Not all of us enjoy Eau de Stoned,” Kate mutters.
    “Not all of us can get our drugs through a portacath,” Jesse
answers.
    Sara holds up her hands. “Please. Could we just… not?”
    “Where's Anna?” Kate asks.
    “Wasn't she in your room?”
    “Not since this morning.”
    Sara sticks her head through the kitchen door. “Anna! Dinner!”
    “Look at what I bought today,” Kate says, plucking at her T-shirt.
It is a psychedelic tie-dye, with a crab on the front, and the word
Cancer. “Get it?”
    “You're a Leo.” Sara looks like she is on the verge of tears.
    “How's that roast coming?” I ask, to distract her.
    Just then, Anna enters the kitchen. She throws herself into her chair and
ducks her head. “Where have you been?” Kate says.
    “Around.” Anna looks down at her plate, but makes no effort to
serve herself.
    This is not Anna. I am used to struggling with Jesse, to lightening Kate's
load; but Anna is our family's constant. Anna comes in with a smile. Anna tells
us about the robin she found with a broken wing and a blush on its cheek; or
about the mother she saw at Wal-Mart with not one but two sets of twins. Anna
gives us a backbeat, and seeing her sitting there unresponsive makes me realize
that silence has a sound.
    “Something happen today?” I ask.
    She looks up at Kate, assuming the question has been put to her sister, and
then startles when she realizes I am talking to her. “No.”
    “You feel okay?”
    Again, Anna does a double take; this is a question we usually reserve for
Kate.
    “Fine.”
    “Because you're, you know, not eating.”
    Anna looks down on her plate, notices that it's empty, and then heaps it
high with food. She shovels green beans into her mouth, two forkfuls.
    Out of the blue I remember when the kids were little, crammed into the back
of the car like cigars wedged in a box, and I would sing to them. Anna anna
bo banna, banana fanna fo fanna,