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By Root 1647 0

up, finally, and sits in the kitchen at the table. What am I trying to think about, she wonders, closing her hands over her face for deeper concentration. It is cold in the kitchen, and she is not so much hungry as empty. Not in the head, she feels like shouting to Lincoln, but in the stomach—somewhere inside. She clasps her hands in front of her, over her stomach. Her eyes are closed. A picture comes to her—a high, white mountain. She isn’t on it, or in the picture at all. When she opens her eyes she is looking at the shiny surface of the table. She closes her eyes and sees the snow-covered mountain again—high and white, no trees, just mountain—and she shivers with the coldness of it.

Dwarf House

“Are you happy?” MacDonald says. “Because if you’re happy I’ll leave you alone.”

MacDonald is sitting in a small gray chair, patterned with grayer leaves, talking to his brother, who is standing in a blue chair. MacDonald’s brother is four feet, six and three-quarter inches tall, and when he stands in a chair he can look down on MacDonald. MacDonald is twenty-eight years old. His brother, James, is thirty-eight. There was a brother between them, Clem, who died of a rare disease in Panama. There was a sister also, Amy, who flew to Panama to be with her dying brother. She died in the same hospital, one month later, of the same disease. None of the family went to the funeral. Today MacDonald, at his mother’s request, is visiting James to find out if he is happy. Of course James is not, but standing in the chair helps, and the twenty-dollar bill that MacDonald slipped into his tiny hand helps too.

“What do you want to live in a dwarf house for?”

“There’s a giant here.”

“Well, it must just depress the hell out of the giant.”

“He’s pretty happy.”

“Are you?”

“I’m as happy as the giant.”

“What do you do all day?”

“Use up the family’s money.”

“You know I’m not here to accuse you. I’m here to see what I can do.”

“She sent you again, didn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“Is this your lunch hour?”

“Yes.”

“Have you eaten? I’ve got some candy bars in my room.”

“Thank you. I’m not hungry.”

“Place make you lose your appetite?”

“I do feel nervous. Do you like living here?”

“I like it better than the giant does. He’s lost twenty-five pounds. Nobody’s supposed to know about that—the official word is fifteen—but I overheard the doctors talking. He’s lost twenty-five pounds.”

“Is the food bad?”

“Sure. Why else would he lose twenty-five pounds?”

“Do you mind . . . if we don’t talk about the giant right now? I’d like to take back some reassurance to Mother.”

“Tell her I’m as happy as she is.”

“You know she’s not happy.”

“She knows I’m not, too. Why does she keep sending you?”

“She’s concerned about you. She’d like you to live at home. She’d come herself . . .”

“I know. But she gets nervous around freaks.”

“I was going to say that she hasn’t been going out much. She sent me, though, to see if you wouldn’t reconsider.”

“I’m not coming home, MacDonald.”

“Well, is there anything you’d like from home?”

“They let you have pets here. I’d like a parakeet.”

“A bird? Seriously?”

“Yeah. A green parakeet.”

“I’ve never seen a green one.”

“Pet stores will dye them any color you ask for.”

“Isn’t that harmful to them?”

“You want to please the parakeet or me?”

“How did it go?” MacDonald’s wife asks.

“That place is a zoo. Well, it’s worse than a zoo—it’s what it is: a dwarf house.”

“Is he happy?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t really get an answer out of him. There’s a giant there who’s starving to death, and he says he’s happier than the giant. Or maybe he said he was as happy. I can’t remember. Have we run out of vermouth?”

“Yes. I forgot to go to the liquor store. I’m sorry.”

“That’s all right. I don’t think a drink would have much effect anyway.”

“It might. If I had remembered to go to the liquor store.”

“I’m just going to call Mother and get it over with.”

“What’s that in your pocket?”

“Candy bars. James gave them to me. He felt sorry for me because I’d given up my lunch hour to visit him.”

“Your brother is really a very nice person.