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1 1 5 R S L O W T H E H E A R T K A T E W A L B E R T Maggie suggests they play the game the Obamas used to play in the White House at dinner. (She read it.) Roses and Thorns, she explains to Peter and Grace; the good things of the day the roses and the bad things of the day the thorns. They’re in the kitchen, at the white Formica table, the light in the fixture overhead flickering and too blue – ‘‘But let’s cut the thorns,’’ Maggie says to the two of them, no longer little-little though still children, certainly, still capable of games. ‘‘I mean, seriously, why thorns? Aren’t there enough thorns now in everyday everything? I say we change the rules for our dinner table.’’ ‘‘Jesus, Mom,’’ Grace says – she’s been arranging her lo mein into lopsided circles on her plate. ‘‘Lighten up.’’ ‘‘Exactly,’’ Maggie says. She looks from Grace back to Peter back to Grace. ‘‘See, this is my point. Let’s lighten up. No more news. No more thorns: at this table, we will be genetically modified. Thornless : A genetically modified, thornless family.’’ ‘‘Crikey!’’ says Peter, who since Will left has claimed to be an Australian orphan named Captain Flick. ‘‘I’ll start,’’ Maggie says. ‘‘Peter’s smile is my rose. He is my rose tonight. Tonight there is nothing better than Peter’s smile.’’ 1 1 6 W A L B E R T Y ‘‘I’m Flick,’’ Peter says. ‘‘That’s dopey. Peter can’t be your rose,’’ Grace says, pushing the noodles to the edge of her plate. ‘‘A rose isn’t a smile. You said it’s a thing. It’s supposed to be a thing. A smile isn’t a thing.’’ ‘‘Yes, it is,’’ Maggie says. ‘‘A smile can be a thing.’’ ‘‘A stupid thing,’’ Grace mutters. She stares out the kitchen window at the westward expanse: water tanks and ladders climbing water tanks, glassy high rises, roiling sunset clouds, cirrus, Maggie thinks, so not exactly roiling, more fragile than roiling, composed entirely, she happens to know, of ice, cirrus clouds breaking across our Mary Poppins view, as Will used to say, or rather, sing, when the children were little-little – Chim chim cheree , chim chim cher-ee, chim chim cher-ee, A sweep is as lucky as lucky can be! Grace slowly exhales, expanding her tiny ribcage with no doubt intention and peace, directing her breath to slow the heart. This is how she explained it in Group. Important to slow the heart, she said. The Buddhist monks do, she said. Mrs. Palowski says at Harvard Medical School they have a whole course in the slowness of Buddhist monks’ hearts. (Mrs. Palowski! Always Mrs. Palowski!) Also, at Harvard Medical School, they found that marijuana cream cures cancer and epilepsy. The monks? Maggie had said from her place just beyond the circle, although no one had laughed, not even Will, who sat across from her. Now Grace looks back at Maggie and sets her eyes in that expression she sometimes gets, the dead-end look. ‘‘I’m not playing ,’’ is what she says. Maggie might scream. She might beat her fists against the kitchen table and scream. Not playing? Remember Yahtzee? Remember Clue? Remember Monotony? You always play, Maggie might scream. Play! But she doesn’t scream. Instead, she smiles the mother smile that fools no one, looking out toward the Mary Poppins view and thinking gratitude and peace, exhaling her own breath, willing her own heart to slow. ‘‘It will be fun,’’ she says. The Obamas thought it was fun – (she read it) – and it could be – she and Grace and Peter playing Roses and Thorns, the children regaling one another with fun stories from school, adventures in plaid and gray, thick maroon sweaters rolled past those S L O W T H E H E A R T 1 1 7 R beautiful, blue-veined wrists. Fun stories told here in their apartment kitchen with its stuttering blue light, the array of Chinese takeout on the white Formica table she and...

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