Mom says that I don't need a new brown top to match the tan suede skirt that I haven't worn in six months because there's a dark, oily stain along the right seam -- balsamic dressing (Wishbone) perhaps, or maybe peanut butter, which makes more sense because my bedroom closet still smells vaguely like cold sesame noodles, and that's the last thing my dad ate before he died in the middle of dinner (Bamboo Hut Take-Out) at the beginning of August, at the end of a three-day weekend because Mom took the day off from work. "They can live without me," she'd said, batting her Maybelline eyes for my sake, while I admired her belated Mother's Day gift (black mascara; extra thick), purchased with my leftover baby-sitting money (two bucks) and the three dollars I stole from Dad's change cup in his dresser drawer, next to a box of condoms (ultra-sensitive) and a tie clip that he wore during the McGovern/Shriver campaign while he canvassed door-to-door with Come Home, America potholders and a teen-aged scowl. "He was a knock-out," Mom had whispered, after Dad's body bag made its final exit down our pea-green hallway, flanked by a Leonardo DiCapria look-alike from Crestwood Memorial and a somber bald man who smelled like he'd showered in Shalimar. "A knock-out," Mom repeated, and in my next breath (the only sure thing) I said, "Mom, can we live without him?" And my mother's eyes narrowed like Dad's arteries (a coronary blockage, the autopsy said; Mom filed it next to her recipe for Artichoke Hearts) before she flipped through her date book (Barnes & Noble) to August 10th, and drew a tic-tac-toe board, then another and another, filling each square with thick "Xs" and crying, "Oh, oh, oh!" until the cramps in my belly doubled me over like the snap of Uncle Harry's Jack-Knife off the low-dive at the Linden Pool. And as I crawled on all fours to the bathroom, I recalled other absurd events like the time Grandma Dotsy found a five dollar bill under the mattress in her guest room when we stripped the bed linens, and she turned to me and asked, "Does your father pay your mother?" Or how Aunt Alice had a breast augmentation on her fiftieth birthday. Or how Mom served finger foods at my Sweet Sixteen last year and distributed latex condoms (vanilla flavored) as party favors.

Mom thinks that I don't need a new brown top to match the tan suede skirt that I haven't worn since my dad died. And she may be right. But I think that I deserve one -- just one sure thing that I can live without.