She screeches to a halt before the last syllable leaves my mouth.
This is it. Either her palm will flash across my face, sharp and stinging, or she’ll indulge in a breakdown and we’ll be stuck on this fucking mountain forever.
Instead, she laughs. High and hilarious. “You think you’ve got it real rough,” she says, “don’t you?”
“Don’t I?”
“No, sweetheart.” Hers is a rictus grin, Ipana-toothpaste white. I feel my heart ratchet up higher than this peak. Anything can happen right now, anything.
*
Over the Atlantic, off the Eastern coast, over Kennedy Space Center, the Challenger lifts, explodes, and disintegrates. Teachers roll televisions into our classrooms and we watch while digging into paper lunch bags. Tragedy tastes like kosher bologna and Kraft slices set between slices of wheat bread, cooled by Blue Ice. Life is bigger than I am.
*
I am quieter than a church mouse. I am a synagogue rat. I am a little Jewish rodent chomping quietly on its lower lip.
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