“Yes!”
I took out the entire circular container of Laughing Cow and the carton of milk and placed them on the table beside Izzy. “Have you ever had milk from the carton?” The twins drank milk like that in their house. When I tried it once in my own home, I was swiftly whacked on the back of my head by my mother. The milk spilled, of course, and I had to mop the whole kitchen floor as punishment.
“I can do it if my mom holds it for me. She does it all the time.”
I knew this already, as I’d seen Mrs. Cone stand at the refrigerator and drink milk from the carton. I’d also watched her dip rolled slices of cheese into the mustard jar with the fridge door still open. I opened the cardboard corner of the carton and held it to Izzy’s lips. She guzzled the milk. A bit dripped down her chin. Finding a napkin seemed too labor-intensive, so I wiped her mouth with my thumb. “Can you open the cheese yourself?”
“Yes.” Izzy wiggled out a wedge from the box. “You pull the red string.” She made her concentrating face and went to work.
I waded to the sink cupboard and got out a trash bag and gloves. With my gloved hands, I picked up the food items one by one. If it wasn’t canned or sealed, I threw it away. If it was boxed, I examined it closely for any possible openings where shards of glass could have entered. The idea of Izzy taking a bite of oatmeal and swallowing a nearly invisible sliver of glass made me feel a little panicky. Izzy ate cheese and talked to me while I worked. Every now and then I returned to the table and fed her more milk. She seemed entirely untraumatized by the night before and I thought, If she can handle this, then surely I can too.
It was easy to scoop up the broken dishes with the dustpan. I dumped them into a trash bag. There were more unbroken dishes on the floor than I would have guessed. Probably the second layer, cushioned by what had already been thrown down.
I picked up a white coffee cup and turned it around to make sure there were no cracks. “Coffee mugs have the highest survival rate.”
“What’s a survival rate? Can I have more milk?”
I put the cup in the sink with the other whole dishes and then went to Izzy and fed her milk. “It means they lived through the crash. Through being thrown.”
“Are coffee cups alive?”
I laughed. “No. I’m using lived metaphorically. Or maybe anthropomorphically.” I tried to remember the lessons from English class.
“What does that mean?”
“I’m pretending the coffee cups were alive when I say they weren’t killed. But really what I’m saying is that of all the thrown dishes, they were the ones that most often landed without breaking.”
“Why do you think the coffee cups weren’t killed?”
It was a good question. I went back to the sink and pulled up an unbroken mug. Then I rinsed it to make sure there were no shards of glass in it, and brought it to the table. “Don’t drink out of it until we really wash it. But let’s look at it and see if we can figure it out.”
Izzy took the cup and turned it in her hand. “Maybe a circle is harder to break?”
“Yeah, I bet that’s it. You’re so smart!” I leaned in and kissed the mop of Izzy’s curls.
“But why?” Izzy asked. “Why is a circle harder to break?”
“Hmmm.” I recalled something from school about an arch being the strongest shape. That was why all those old Roman bridges shaped like arches were still around, even though they were two thousand years old. But I couldn’t remember why. Something about force, all sides pushing into each other and creating tension that binds. “When one of the grown-ups wakes up, let’s have them explain it.”
“Okay.” Izzy got down to business on another wedge of cheese and I went back to my task.
At last four Hefty bags were full and lined up in the dining room. The benches around the table were clean, but I kept Izzy on top of the table. I swept the kitchen floor, twice over.
“Can I go on the floor now?” Izzy asked.
“Nope. I have to mop. You can sing to me while I mop.”
“What should I sing?”
“Your number one absolute favorite song.” I loaded the unbroken dishes into the dishwasher and then placed the mop bucket in the sink and poured in some Mr. Clean. Izzy tapped a beat on her forehead with one finger. She was quietly singing the beginning of many songs, like flipping through a card catalog, trying to find the right title. I turned the faucet to the bucket and filled it with water.
“Mary Jane! I have my song!”