Death Before Facebook

gray.”
    “It’s been gray for years.”
    There was a bump from the other side of the house, followed by a loud wail from Kenny and then the sound of running footsteps. Sighing in unison, Dee-Dee and Skip ran to the back, to what Jimmy Dee was pleased to call the library, because he’d put all his books in there, but what, in fact, was more or less a very elegant TV room. It was full of dark wood and flowing draperies that were almost apple green, but deeper than that, with a golden sheen. It was a room so beautiful Skip thought it would make her weep if she ever saw it uncluttered with toys and schoolwork. And yet she liked the way the kids had made it theirs, doing their homework on the low, broad coffee table, pulling pillows off the sturdy cocoa-colored couches to lie on while watching television.
    Kenny was just changing the channel. He looked up, his face reproachful. “She kicked me.”
    “Sheila!”
    Sheila’s chunky frame appeared in the doorway, feet planted apart, long hair snaky. “What?” She had made one syllable sound a lot like “Want to make something of it?” Her jaw looked as if it would take a team of oral surgeons to get it to move.
    Kenny pointed a skinny finger. “She changed the channel and then when I went to change it back she kicked me and pushed me over.”
    She ran at him. “You kicked me, you little shit!” And this time she did kick him. He fell over howling, holding his injured leg, milking it for all it was worth.
    “God damn it, Sheila!” said Jimmy Dee, going for her, grabbing her arm.
    “You let go of me.” She wriggled loose on her own, unfortunately having built up enough momentum so that she stumbled forward, fell over her huddled little brother, and landed in a heap on top of him. He set up a new howl, and Skip saw Sheila’s face as she rolled over and came up—not merely flushed and angry and sullen, but absolutely miserable. It was a face that said, “No one loves me; I haven’t a friend in the world.”
    “Oh, honey,” said Skip, reaching for her.
    “Leave me alone!”
    Jimmy Dee was trying to comfort the screaming Kenny, whose dignity was no doubt hurt a great deal worse than his leg. Sheila ran from the room.
    Sighing, Skip turned off the TV. “Maybe it’s time for homework.”
    “You’re going to punish me for something she did?”
    “Punish you how?”
    “I was watching a show!”
    “Actually, it’s time to wash up,” said Jimmy Dee. “Dinner in five minutes.”
    “I’m not hungry.”
    Dee-Dee, in the manner of parents, had lied about the five minutes, of course. But in fifteen or twenty, they were all four seated at the kitchen table (the kids much preferred this to the dining room), Sheila and Kenny actually looking combed and fresh, as if they hadn’t just been mixing it up like a couple of street thugs.
    They were an odd contrast, these two, exactly the opposite of everything everyone said about kids. Boys were supposed to be rambunctious and aggressive, yet Kenny was gentle to a fault, the kind of kid a bully could smell a mile away, and wanted nothing more than to please. He had freckles across his nose and neat brown hair that he actually knew how to part and slick down. When he did that, Skip wanted to rumple it and say, “Lighten up, kid.” But he was so proud of this adult skill that she held back.
    She wished sometimes that he’d come home one day with a mohawk, done in pink and purple stripes, and a nose ring.
    Sheila was another story entirely. She was big for her age, tall and carrying baby fat, with a lot of color in the face and wavy blond-brown hair with gorgeous sunlit streaks that she let fall over one eye and that was quite often a little on the greasy side—she wasn’t yet at the hairwashing-every-five-minutes stage. She was big and full of beans and she was one tough customer.
    While Kenny was content to sit on the floor and color, she flounced about the house seemingly from pillar to post, trying to work off energy, at times kicking or hitting anyone who got in her way, sometimes deliberately attacking her little brother, or so it seemed—physically attacking him, as he’d reported tonight.
    If Kenny should lighten up, she should calm down, and Skip had to swallow those words as well. Often, Jimmy Dee didn’t. He lost his temper with her, he yelled at her. These were the reasons she resisted him, but on the other hand, Skip knew perfectly well, she taunted him. He wasn’t used to children; he didn’t