Rosie Coloured Glasses. Brianna Wolfson

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СКАЧАТЬ animals. Every time she nudged her brother awake and he smiled at the sight of his big sister.

      “Morning checklist, Ash,” Willow said, and kissed her brother on the forehead.

      “Alwight, alwight!” Asher said through a sleepy smile and sloppy cheeks.

      Willow left her brother’s room and completed her checklist.

      Brush Teeth—30 seconds top, 30 seconds bottom

      Wash Face—Face soap only

      Make Bed

      Brush Hair

      Fold Pajamas

      Get Dressed—Clean clothes!

      Pack for School—Do you have all your homework with you?

      Take Vitamins

      Family Breakfast

      Willow had her morning checklist memorized, but Dad insisted that it remained taped to her door next to her afternoon checklist, which was taped next to the nighttime checklist. And Willow was very diligent about completing all but two items on this list up to her father’s standards.

      The first thing Willow had trouble with was “Brush hair.” Because Willow’s hair was too curly and wild, and brushing it only made it worse. Mom told Willow that this was the kind of thing that boys didn’t understand and to just ignore that item on the list. But Willow didn’t like disobeying so instead of skipping the step, she guided the smooth back of the brush over the top of her tight curls every morning.

      And then there was “Get dressed.” And while Willow didn’t have a problem doing so, her father never liked the clothes she chose to get dressed in. And the things she got dressed in were the same every day—shiny purple leggings, a black T-shirt with a silver horseshoe on it and black high-top Converse sneakers. The same thing every day for the last five years. She had several pairs of purple leggings and several of the same T-shirt. And today, a few weeks into fifth grade, she was still wearing that same outfit.

      Her father never said a word about the outfit to Willow. At least not with his mouth. But he didn’t have to because Willow could always tell how he hated seeing her in that outfit. Every morning when Willow said good-morning to her father, she could tell she had disappointed him all over again. He said it with his eyes and a subtle drop of his chin and a faint shake of his head. Maybe it was her outfit or maybe it was her collapsing knees. Maybe it was something else entirely. But no matter what, her father never looked at his daughter in the same way her mother did.

      Rex was posed in the big wooden chair at the head of the breakfast table exactly as he always was. Right leg crossed over left. Reading glasses perched at the tip of his nose. A steaming cup of coffee in his right hand. A pile of furiously scribbled notes scattered across the table. Dressed in a suit that looked like it was brand-new.

      Looking serious. Looking powerful. Looking the same way he always looked.

      Rex Thorpe was tall and broad and his shoulders pressed forward. If you were up close enough, you could see that his black eyes were always tick, tick, ticking back and forth. He was always scanning the room and the people in it. And his lips were always pursed like he was ready to say something. But the way his eyebrows pressed in toward one another and the way he held his jaw tense, you knew you didn’t want to hear what he had to say. But whether he was talking or quiet, looking at you or ignoring you entirely, Rex Thorpe commanded your attention when you shared space with him.

      Willow sat down at the table and poured a bowl of Lucky Charms cereal for her brother and then one for herself as Rex tilted his right arm up and down like a steel machine taking sporadic sips of coffee. Willow and Asher used their heavy silver spoons to scoop the nonmarshmallow bits into their mouths first. They liked seeing the color that the specific mix of horseshoe, pot-of-gold and heart-shaped marshmallows might tint the milk. It was a game they played at their mother’s house too. After the Lucky Charms milk settled into a certain color, they would each scramble through the box of crayons at the center of the table and search furiously for the one that best matched the color in their bowl. Whoever announced the closest color first earned a big red kiss from Rosie.

      When they played this game at their father’s house, Willow and Asher just stirred and observed the milk quietly. But at least they were both having fun.

      Asher broke the silence when he loudly asked, “Can we go bowling this weekend?”

      “Maybe once all your chores are finished,” Rex said without lifting his eyes from the notepad next to the coaster he put his coffee on.

      Willow already knew her dad would say something like this. Because the set of things that Dad said yes to was specific and almost always conditional. You could watch TV for fifteen minutes, if your laundry was already folded. You could have ice cream, two toppings maximum, if you finished every last pea on your plate. You could go outside, jackets zipped all the way up, only after you practiced piano for thirty minutes. You could open a new cereal box when the old one was finished, and then you could fold up the old box so it was efficiently flattened and put it in the recycling bin. It didn’t matter to her father if none of your favorite horseshoe-shaped marshmallows were left in the old box.

      Asher returned to his cereal bowl with an “Oh, man!” and then dipped under the kitchen table to play with his action figures. Which meant that everything went back to quiet at the breakfast table. Back to a quiet that disappointed Willow. She liked noise and chatter and music and games.

      She liked her mother’s house.

      Willow looked up from her bowl and considered whether to ask her father what color he thought the milk looked like. But his temples flared with each chomp on the wad of pink Bubblicious gum in his mouth. He looked so serious sitting there like that. So intense. So engrossed in his notes.

      So Willow took her creased word search book out of her backpack and scanned the page for the next word on the list—ZIPPER. Willow searched the grid for a letter Z. She tapped the Jazzberry Jam–colored crayon on the paper as she stared at the page. Willow smirked at her secret. The secret of how she came upon that crayon. And even though no one even noticed that Willow was smirking or holding a crayon, she was still proud of that dark pinkish cylinder of color in her hand. Proud that she had a mom who loved her so much she met her in the tree house in the middle of the night. Proud that she had a mom who played with her hair every Wednesday night. Proud that she had a mom who always let her win in thumb war.

      Right before the “bus alert” that Rex had set up sounded, Willow found her word. There it was, lettered straight across the middle. Z-I-P-P-E-R. She circled all the letters, closed her word search book and tucked it into her backpack. She needed it to keep her company on the bus. And at her lunch table. And under the slide at recess. And in her mind’s eye.

      Willow brought her and Asher’s empty bowls to the kitchen sink, zipped up her jacket, then her brother’s, then said, “Bye, Dad,” loudly enough for him to hear as they left for school.

      “Bye, guys!” Rex shouted back from his seat at the kitchen table.

      If Willow created a morning checklist for her father and taped it to his wall, it wouldn’t say check your notes or tighten your tie. It would only say one thing:

      Kiss Willow and Asher goodbye.

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