The Floating Cradle

Six

I can't help myself; I shoot first.

"Allie?" I say, taking a step forward, then pausing as the tantum shifts beside her. He stares at me with spangled irises. Allie breaks into a smile and bridges the rest of the gap, giving me a bear hug.

"Sarah! I can't stand it, you're taller than me!" she laughs, holding me by the shoulders, staring at me like I'm the Venus de Milo, not a pimply string bean.

"Who's your friend, Al?" Lyle asks, nodding—as though any clarification were needed—at the tantum standing with his hands in his pockets.

"I'm sorry, this is Jack," she says, grabbing his arm in a gesture so natural it makes my neck hairs stand on end. He raises a hand in casual greeting.

"Nice to meet you all," he says. I watch his lips move in time with the words, looking for a delay, a moment of desychronization, but he is well practiced. His voice has none of the flat, recorded quality of the tanta I've seen on sitcoms, approximating the sounds of human speech with their sophisticated throat muscles, which are most frequently compared to the syrinxes of birds.

Tanta mimus they are deemed by Homo sapiens. Singular mimic.

To everyone's surprise, Felicity holds out her hand. The tantum shakes it.

"Friendship: the sum of all good things," she says in a formal lilt. I try not to laugh as Jack blinks, nonplussed. If there is a customary response to this greeting, he does not give it.

"Thanks for bringin' our Allie home," Felicity adds in her normal voice, a little put out.

"Okay," Allie says, taking the inch. "So this is my sister-in-law, Felicity, married to Lyle, back there. And there's Pete, my nephew—he and Sarah here are only a few days apart. That's Blake, he's like family, and—I'm sorry, what's your name? Gilberto? Wonderful to meet you. Dan's over there, and of course, here's my dad...and there's Mama."

The tantum's eyes rove lazily over each person in turn; I am sure he has seen pictures of us already, older now but still identifiable.

"You've got gall, missy," Mama says finally. She sets her eldest daughter with a steely stare before throwing her hands in the air. "But I ain't about to turn you out on Christmas Eve."

Allie grins, pushes past the jam of bodies and chairs, and embraces Mama. It's winter and they're hugging and people are smiling and there's a tantum in the kitchen. My vision flashes backward to a summer seven years ago when no one was smiling and Mama was cursing and car tires spun so fast in the driveway they left a crater and Allie was giving the old farmhouse the finger and Allie was gone. How easy time and space have made forgiveness—or maybe I'm confusing forgiveness with something else.

They're hugging like it's some Lifetime movie Christmas miracle, but I feel a weight drop in my stomach, a pendulum swinging, a timer ticking down.

"Get your things out of the car," Mama says, mopping her eyes. "Allie, you can share Sarah's bed. Your...friend can, well, I don't rightly know—do you sleep?"

The tantum smiles, revealing that black slab of teeth, that strange gap behind the canines.

"Yes, Ma'am, I sleep."

"Well, I'd say take Dan's room, but he's feverish, so I'm sorry but that only leaves the couch," she concludes, shooing the bodies closest to her, shuffling to the side to begin preparations.

"Mama," Allie says.

"Get some fresh sheets out of the closet and fix up your bed," my mother barks at me.

"Mama," Allie tries again.

"The couch ain't so bad—Pete, fetch one of your pillows, put a new case on it—"

"Mama, we're married," Allie says, and in the space of a breath, Mama spins on her heel and slaps her across the face.

(I'm pretty sure this is the best Christmas Eve Gilberto's ever had.)

The tantum's scales stand on end and Dan's thermometer falls from his mouth and smashes on the floor and to be frank I'm thinking shit's about to go down when my dad stumps forward, takes his wife's hand, and marches her toward the door.

"We're goin' for a drive," he says.