Sabine handed Kitty the egg, and Kitty took both the egg and the hand together, squeezed them without enough force to do damage.
"Oh, I love it when you do that," Dot said, and smiled.
"Just like you promised," Kitty said to Sabine. "When I wasn't expecting it." She put the egg in the pocket of her sweater. "I'm going to take a shower with whatever water is available to me."
"Wear your mittens," How said to his mother as she headed down the hall. He waited until she was safely out of earshot before he leaned in towards Sabine. "Can you teach us that one, at least?"
"Palming an egg is no place to start. There can be a lot of mess."
"So a neater trick. Something," How pleaded. "If we're all going to be staying here together, you have to teach us something. It doesn't have to be how to turn someone upside-down on a chair."
Sabine thought over the options. "All right," she said, and put her napkin on the table.
"You don't have to do it while you're trying to eat your breakfast," Dot said. She was now left with two untouched plates of pancakes.
"One minute, that's all." Sabine went down the hall to Parsifal's room, her room, the boys' room. She could scarcely recognize it for the clothes that covered the floor. She only caught the smallest glimpses of her plaid rug. She knelt on the floor and fished the Mr. Mysto set out from under the bed. The magician still gazed at the children with evil intent.
"That old thing?" Guy said, wracked with disappointment. "You think we haven't been through that a hundred times?"
"I'm sure you have," Sabine said, careful not to tear the masking tape off the lid. "But you've never been through it with me. All I need are these." She took out the cups and balls and set them out on the table.
Dot sighed and took away the two extra plates. "If this wasn't educational I'd never let it happen while we were eating," she said.
Sabine hid the balls on the tops of the cups and they watched her do it and did not see her. It was something that Parsifal figured out when he was halfway through his career as a magician: People don't pay attention. They don't know how. They can smell guilt or fear from the other side of the Dodgers' stadium, but if you simply go about your business with authority no one can tell. "Three cups," Sabine said, unstacking the cups with the balls hidden inside them. "One ball." She placed it under the middle cup. "All you have to do is keep your eyes on the cup." She slid them easily-left to right, circle back, part the two, slip the third in the center. "All I have to do is make sure you're wrong." She took away her hands.
"That one," Guy said, tapping the correct choice on the far left. How nodded, sorry that he hadn't beaten his brother to the punch.
"And if there was money here, would you bet money?"
"Sure," Guy said.
"Then you would lose." Sabine lifted the middle cup and the ball rolled obediently forward. "And if you learn to do it, other people will bet you money, and they will lose." She shifted the cups around again, quicker this time. "Now?"
Guy kept still and let his brother tap.
"Incorrect," Sabine said, lifting an empty cup. "And if I add another ball?" She slipped one under the empty cup, let Dot choose this time, and lifted up a cup to show two balls, then did it again, this time uncovering the egg. "I know this set is old hat to you, but I think we can find a way to drum up some interest."
"You can teach us to do that?" How looked longingly at the thin metal cups, the egg, the little rubber balls.
"Can and will," Sabine said.
"Now we're officially late," Kitty said, pulling on a coat as she walked into the kitchen. "Let's move it out."
"We can't go yet," Guy said. "Sabine is finally going to teach us a trick."
"Well, then, won't we be happy to see Sabine later on?" Kitty said.
They moaned together, the sound of a low, lingering belly pain, and shuffled off in search of boots, hats, gloves, and scarves, the extraordinary preparation for a trip outdoors. "Get all your books," she called to them.
"I will see you tonight," Kitty said, and kissed her mother on the cheek. "Tonight," she said to Sabine, and kissed her hard and fast on her forehead. It was a complete surprise, that kiss, as startling and cool as an egg pushed from an ear canal. Kitty was out the door, in a hurry to start the car, while the boys fell into a ragged line behind her.
"Later," Guy said, and slapped Sabine's hand, as if they were happily colluding now.
Dot looked around at the kitchen. It was a wreck of mixing bowls and hot griddles, of bacon that had not yet finished cooking but spit grease on every surface. Vast quantities of uneaten pancakes weighted with syrup littered the plates. "You're going to tell me it's too early for a drink."
"Probably not," Sabine said, picking up a plate and taking a bite, not because she wanted to, but because she knew she should.
"Well, the boys are okay." Dot sighed, defeated by her own maternal instincts. "Kitty seemed happier today than I've seen her since I don't know when."
"You think?"
"It won't last. Howard will come around. The boys will want to go home, but hell, let her have a little rest. She needs one."
"So you think she'll go back?"
Dot cut a triangle of pancakes stacked three deep and delicately mopped up a small puddle of syrup on the side of her plate. "Only if history tells us anything."
"Sometimes things change, every now and then."
Dot nodded, chewing thoughtfully. "Things changed for me and Al. I don't mean that to sound crass, but we kept doing it the same way over and over again, and then Guy stepped in and changed that. Not that I think Howard is like Al. They've got a whole other set of circumstances over there."
"So what could change it for them? Assuming that How or Guy doesn't-"
Dot put up her hand. "Don't even say that."
"No, I don't mean-"
"I'll tell you the one time I had hope was when Howard had himself a girlfriend. He moved out of the house, moved in with her. That made a real difference. He wasn't interested in going back and Kitty wasn't interested in having him. I could see her starting to get on with her life. It lasted more than six months. That was promising."
"So what happened?"
"Well, the girl threw him out, of course. If she'd had a grain of sand in her head she would have figured him out sooner or later. God, I would have given her every cent I had to keep him. She threw him out and then there was no place to go but home. He's got his name on the deed to the house. There's not enough money to buy another house. Howard and Kitty are fighting and he's sleeping on the couch and then one day, bang, he's not sleeping on the couch anymore. What do you say?"
"I don't know," Sabine said, not sure whether the question was rhetorical.
"You say, 'Hello, Howard, haven't seen you around here lately.'"
"How long ago was that?"
"Three or four years now." Dot pushed up from the table and started picking up plates. "There are some little birds around here who'll be mighty happy with these pancakes."
Sabine stayed at the table, tracing lines through her syrup with her fork, her mind full of her sister-in-law.
"Listen to me, Sabine. I know you like Kitty a lot. I knew you would from the first time I met you. I'd like her even if she wasn't my daughter. But you can't let yourself become overly involved with how her life's going to turn out. Bertie and I go around about this all the time. She thinks I should make Kitty leave Howard and come home. She thinks I can do that. But I can't and you can't, either. Kitty's going to play her hand. There's just no saying how long it's going to take her."
Sabine nodded. She had spent the better part of her life in love with one basically unobtainable Fetters. The idea of somehow setting her sights on another one, one that she had no idea what to do with anyway, was ludicrous. "You're right."
"'You're right,'" Dot said. "Now, why don't my own children ever say that to me?"