She took the flyer off the table, folded it into a small square, and tucked it into her cardigan pocket.
“I have to catch the bus,” she said, already moving toward the screen door.
“Do not leave your lunch on the counter,” I said.
She grabbed the brown paper bag and was gone, the screen door bouncing twice against the frame.
I stood by the sink, my hand resting on my pinky finger, listening to the gravel crunch under her sneakers as she ran for the corner.
The clock on the microwave read ten past eight.
***
By ten o’clock, the morning fog had cleared from the pine trees, leaving the porch railing damp and cold.
My sister, Martha, sat on the wicker bench with her knees pulled together, her gravelly voice cutting through the quiet of our yard.
“She is eighteen, Nora,” Martha said.
She adjusted her reading glasses on the bridge of her nose, sliding them up with a blunt forefinger.
“She is still in high school,” I said.
“She is old enough to register to vote, and she is old enough to know why she does not have a father.”
“We settled that sixteen years ago,” I said, my voice dropping an octave.
“You settled it with a lawyer and a signature,” Martha said.
She leaned forward, her eyes narrowing behind her thick lenses.
“The boy she is talking about, this Ryan, he lives over by the old mill,” Martha said.
“What does that have to do with us?” I asked.
“His stepfather is Arthur,” Martha said.
