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My mother gave him a look. That’s so impersonal, she said.

He shrugged. I’m on the spot, he said. Survival is important to me.

My mother looked us all over and I could see the candle flame flickering near her eye. Her gaze held on her mother.

We all waited.

It’s your turn, I said, in case she’d forgotten.

She didn’t look at me. She stood up, breaking the handlinks she had made, and sat close to her mother.

My father began eating his soup.

I have a cake from your funeral, she said.

I felt myself lift inside. I squeezed down on Hannah’s hand. She said Ouch.

Cake? my grandmother said. What kind of cake?

Marzipan cake, my mother said.

My grandmother smiled. Marzipan? she said. That’s my favorite.

I stood up; I wanted to be the one; I went to the freezer, opened it, dug around and found the cake wedged beneath the third ice tray like a small football.

Here, I said. Here it is.

My mother grabbed it out of my hands.

Just a taste, she said.

Let’s all have some! I said. We can all eat funeral cake!

Just a little, my mother said.

Oh come on! I said. Let’s make it: into five pieces.

My mother looked at me.

Okay, she said. Five pieces. Her face looked lined and tired as she cut up the cake. I passed a piece to each of us. My grandmother bit into hers right away.

Mmm, she said. That is good, now that is good.

My mother did not eat hers. She wrapped it back in the plastic.

My grandmother kept eating and oohing. I bit into mine. Hannah gave me hers; she hates marzipan. I nearly hugged her. My father ate his quickly, like an appetizer.

I remember, said my mother, we all thought you would’ve liked it. We said you would’ve loved it.

My grandmother licked her lips. I do love it, she said. She pointed. Are you going to eat your piece?

No, said my mother.

Can I have it? she asked. I haven’t had such good marzipan in I don’t know how long.

No, my mother said, closing her fingers over her piece. I want to keep mine, she said.

Oh come on, said my father, let the lady have her cake. It was her funeral cake for God’s sake.

I finished my slice. I still had Hannah’s.

Here, Grandma, I said, Hannah didn’t want hers. I slid the whitish slab onto her plate.

Thank you dear, my grandmother said.

I want to keep mine, my mother repeated.

Hannah began on her soup. Her spoon made dull clinking sounds on the bowl.

The soup is good, Grandma, she said.

Mmm-hmm, said my father.

My mother sat still at her place. The plastic-wrapped cake sat next to her spoon. She didn’t touch her soup. The hot dogs stopped floating and were still.

I’ll eat yours if you don’t want it, I said to my mother.

She pushed over her bowl. I pretended I was her while I ate it. I imagined I was doing the eating but she was getting nourished.

When I was done, I asked: May I be excused?

No one answered, so I stayed.

PART TWO

Quiet Please

Skinless

Fugue

Drunken Mimi

Fell This Girl

QUIET PLEASE

It is quiet in the rest of the library.

Inside the back room, the woman has crawled out from underneath the man. Now fuck me like a dog she tells him. She grips a pillow in her fists and he breathes behind her, hot air down her back which is starting to sweat and slip on his stomach. She doesn’t want him to see her face because it is blowing up inside, red and furious, and she’s grimacing at the pale white wall which is cool when she puts her hand on it to help her push back into him, get his dick to fill up her body until there’s nothing left of her inside: just dick.

The woman is a librarian and today her father has died. She got a phone call from her weeping mother in the morning, threw up and then dressed for work. Sitting at her desk with her back very straight, she asks the young man very politely, the one who always comes into the library to check out bestsellers, asks him when it was he last got laid. He lets out a weird sound and she says shhh, this is a library. She has her hair back and the glasses on but everyone has a librarian fantasy, and she is truly a babe beneath.

I have a fantasy,