Valerie steps away from him and holds up her dripping hands. “I didn’t drive all the way from Albuquerque to be verbally assaulted, Amadeo. I don’t need your hostility.”
“Why do you have to be like that, Valerie? Don’t be like that.” He gathers more plates from the table.
“Like what? I just said a nice thing. You read insult into every single comment.”
Assault, hostility, insult. Valerie buries these accusations in her speech, planting them like land mines. If Amadeo were to press on any one of them, uproot or deny it, the word would detonate, and he’d be blamed for the fallout.
Well, he wants to lean on one of those words, wants to let it blow for the sheer pleasure of the explosion. The universe tends toward chaos, he’s heard, and he feels the pull of it, the seductive tug of destruction. He teeters on the edge, and then, with a kind of relief, gives himself to it. “What about you? You feel so great about yourself ’cause you bring some truckload of shit-stained baby clothes. Like Angel’s going to be so grateful for your charity. You think we need your secondhand shit?”
He’s holding the stack of streaked plates—scraps of fat, blobs of mustard. His bandages are grease-spotted. He watches himself look at the plates, watches himself make the choice. He holds them aloft, eyes on his sister, and then lets them fall. The noise is terrific. Shards spray across the kitchen.
For a moment everything is still, and then his sister’s expression makes its way through stages: shock, fear, fury. “You’re drunk. Oh my god, you’re drunk.” Valerie rushes from the room. “Mother!”
Yolanda runs from her bedroom, hand on her heart. “Who’s hurt?”
Angel, Sarah, and Lily cluster around, looking gape-mouthed at Amadeo and the mess he’s made.
In a moment Valerie has gathered her daughters, dragged them outside. “Come now, girls.” Her voice is low and taut with fear.
Yolanda and Angel follow, barefoot, alarmed. The door slams.
Amadeo alone stands in the bright kitchen, surrounded by shards of porcelain, his heart hammering. Around him the counters are bright and glaring and clean: the green teakettle, the row of cereal boxes on the counter, the bowl of new fruit. Beyond the breakfast bar, the television carries on. From the full sink, the sound of quiet settling as the bubbles melt into the cooling water. And outside, voices.
They’re lit by the porch light. Valerie has a daughter pulled tight under each wing. He can’t hear them over the laugh track in the living room, but he knows it’s the same old conversation. “He’s an alcoholic, Mother. He’s an alcoholic and he’s dangerous.”
He leans his forehead against the cool wall. Amadeo doesn’t feel remorse for smashing the dishes; he’s just sad for his mother because once again she’s in the position of having to defend him, to tell Valerie that he’s getting better, that he’s a good boy at heart.
Amadeo closes his eyes, concentrates on the cool solidity of the wall. Around him the black universe spins.
Yolanda takes a sleeping pill and then a second. Breathe, she instructs herself. Usually just being alone in here calms her, in this bedroom that is all hers. All the beautiful objects she wanted as a child and bought herself as an adult: a canopy, a pink satin bedspread, a skirted dressing table.
But her pillow is flat, her blankets too hot, the room too cold. The pain in her head is too large to be contained by her skull. She wants to open a window for the fresh air, but she doesn’t want to hear when Amadeo gets home. Tomorrow, she’ll be firm, tell him he needs to quit drinking and to start earning a living. But god, she dreads it.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he’ll intone, and Yolanda will be expected to tip him back into balance. She wants to skip this stage: the apologies, the begging and remorse and entreaties.
“I hate Valerie,” he’ll whimper into her chest. “She always blames me.”