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The Silver Kiss
Annette Curtis Klause
 
[v0.9 Scanned & Spellchecked by the_usual from dt]
 CONTENTS
1 Zoë2 Simon3 Zoë4 Simon5 Zoë6 Simon7 Zoë8 Simon9 Zoë10 Simon11 Zoë12 Simon13 Zoë14 Simon15 Zoë
To Larry Callen,
 
who talked me into writing a novel; and to the Tuesday Night Writing Group, whokept me going—you know who you are.
 
1 Zoë
 The house was empty. Zoë knew as soon as she walked through the front door.Only a clock ticking in the kitchen challenged the silence.Fear uncurled within her. Mommy, she thought like a child. Is it the hospital again —or worse? She dropped her schoolbag in the hall, forgetting the open door, and walkedslowly into the kitchen, afraid of what message might await her. There was a note on therefrigerator: Gone to the hospital. Don't worry. Make your dinner. Be back when I can. Love,Dad. P.S. Don't wait up. She crumpled the note and flung it at the trash can. It missed. She snorted indisgust. It seemed that lately all her conversations with her father had been carried on witha banana refrigerator magnet as intermediary. The banana speaks, she thought. It defendedthe refrigerator, stopped her from opening the door. She couldn't eat.
 
Zoë the Bird they called her at school. She had always been thin, but now her bonesseemed hollow. Her wrists and joints were bruised with shadows. She was almost as thin asher mother, wasting away with cancer in the hospital. A sympathy death perhaps, shewondered half seriously. She had always been compared to her mother. She had the samegray eyes, long black hair with a slight curl, and deceptively pale skin that tanned quicklyat the slightest encouragement. Wouldn't it be ironic if she died, too, fading out suddenlywhen her look-alike went?Zoë drifted from the kitchen, not sure what to do. How could she wash dishes or wipe counters when God knows what was happening with her mother at the hospital? Sheshrugged off her coat, leaving it on a chair. Dad kept on saying everything would be allright, but what if something happened and she wasn't even there, all because he couldn'tadmit to her that Mom might be dying?She tugged at her sweater, twisted a lock of hair; her hands couldn't keep still. Ishould be used to this by now, she thought. It had been going on for over a year: the longstays in the hospital, short stays home, weeks of hope, then sudden relapses, and the curesthat made her mother sicker than the pain. But it would be a sin to be used to somethinglike that, she thought. Unnatural. You can't let yourself get used to it, because that's likegiving in.She paused in the dining room. It was sparsely furnished with a long antique trestletable and chairs that almost all matched, but the walls were a fanfare to her mother's life.They gave a home to the large, bright, splashy oils that Anne Sutcliff painted; picturescharged with bold emotions, full of laughing people who leapt and swirled and sang. LikeMom, Zoë thought—like Mom used to. And that's where they differed, for Zoë wrote quiet
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