Family Pictures [antikvár]

_ IT'S my brother Mack's He's fourteen. We're all sitting at the table in the dining room. The curtains are drawn, though you can see the günt of summer evening light through the cracks. When my mother rounds the corner from the kitchen with the glowing cake, we burst into ragged song. Heaped next to Mack's place on the table are his opened presents-odd homemade things from me and my younger sisters; but a nice sweater my mother gave him on behalf of my other brother, and three Roy Orbison forty-fives from my older sister, Liddie. You can alsó see the neck of the guitar my parents have bought him, leaning against the table's edge. It seems to me that color rises to Mack's face as we sing to him, though perhaps it's just the soft light from the candles that makes him look this way-young, and suddenly sweet and shy. When my eyes meet his, I'm embarrassed; I feel a catch in my voice. The moment we've finished the song, Mack leans forward and blows the candles out. In the silent twilit aftermath of our applause, my other brother-my autistic brother, Randall-speaks. "Happy birthday, dear Mackie," he says. We are all silent, and then Liddie, the oldest, laughs. "My God!" she says. "Did you hear him? ry "I wouldn't get excited, Lydia," my father says. "That's about his annual quota ofwords, isn't it?" And my mother's face, which has turnéd in astonishment to her younger son in the dim ; someone gets up