status overnight—fear for our well-being, bargaining for our safe return—it’s gone, vanished like a magician’s assistant in an empty box. In its place are split levels of fury (shrieks from upstairs as Jackie shreds Steve behind a closed door inadequate to its task) and Zen (Mom’s thunderclap break indicates she’s working out her feelings in the basement). In between, Dad sulks in silent fatherly disappointment in front of SportsCenter. I head downstairs to find the more familiar Mom of my youth, leaning over the table, still all skinny limbs and angles, fingers dusty with chalk but absent the yellow traces of those long-ago cigarettes. She slams the one ball into the nine ball and it caroms into the corner pocket nearest her and just like that, it’s game over. I gather all the solid balls in the triangle in an easy one-handed sweep, pluck the nine ball from the pocket and add it; forcing them into a diamond is harder—even the two tiny hands of a small boy are preferable to one adult hand—but Mom waits patiently, quietly chalking her stick.
