The pink past-due notice was wedged between the toaster and the ceramic sugar bowl, its red stamp facing the kitchen ceiling. My mother, Evelyn, kept her back turned to me, pretending to wipe down a laminate counter that was already clean.
I reached out and turned the paper over. The name on the envelope was Vanessa, my older sister, and the total overdue was eight hundred and fifty dollars.
Evelyn turned around, her fingers instantly finding the edge of the yellow bread box on the counter. She swiped the pink slip out from under my fingers and slid it beneath the wooden box before I could read the landlord’s return address.
“We do not need to make a mountain out of a molehill, Amanda,” she said, her voice dropping to a low, pleading register.
I rubbed my silver wedding band, the metal cool against my skin. “Is Vanessa behind on her rent again?”
“Everyone has a dry spell,” Evelyn said, leaning her shoulder heavily against the refrigerator door. “She is just going through a transition.”
“She had a transition in June,” I said. “And another one in April.”
My mother did not answer me. She opened the silverware drawer, picked up her heavy silver cake knife, and placed it neatly in the back compartment before sliding the drawer shut with her hip.
“Where is Lily?” she asked, her eyes moving toward the window.
I found my six-year-old daughter sitting on the bottom step of the back patio, her worn yellow cotton dress gathered around her knees. She was twisting the hem of her skirt into tight, wet knots between her fingers.
On her lap lay a plastic baby doll with a deeply scraped cheek and one blue eye pushed back into its head.
“Where did you get that, sweetie?” I asked, sitting down beside her on the warm concrete.
Lily did not look up at me. “Aunt Vanessa gave it to me.”
“Did she?” I reached for the doll, but Lily pulled it closer to her chest.
“She told me I have to keep it in my closet,” Lily whispered, her voice barely carrying over the hum of the kitchen air conditioner. “She said it has a secret inside.”
