The Sweetest Thing You Can Sing by C.K. Kelly Martin Page A

all the way from Delaware without adequately packing it, would they? I bet I’d have to stomp on the thing to break it, and I bend to pick up the box and prove it to her.
    “Stop!” Mom shouts. “I’ll get it, Serena.” Her cheekbones sharpen as she plucks her precious package from the hall floor.
    “I can pick up a box, Mom. God .” I shouldn’t let her get to me; I should just walk away and let her obsess over her package to her heart’s content, but now I feel like a kid with chocolate milk spilt down the front of her best dress. Do you know what it’s like to feel invisible to your mother, except when she’s forced to deal with you? “Anybody can drop something once in a while. You were the one who didn’t take it in time.”
    “You know how I treasure my things, young lady.” Mom begins walking away in her stocking feet. Her pantyhose have a run in them at the little toe. “Don’t be difficult.”
    “Difficult?” I croak. “You’re calling me difficult?”
    “Not now, Serena,” Mom barks, heading for the kitchen. “I want to make sure it’s not damaged.” I stalk into the kitchen behind her, my stomach growling in recognition of its regular feeding place.
    Difficult? Really? Did I get myself hooked on drugs and sell off a couple of figurines I didn’t think she’d notice missing? Do I hide out in my room 24/7 trawling shopping sites rather than finishing homework and interacting with the outside world? No and no. She must be mistaking me for someone else.
    I lean in the doorway with my arms knotted in front of me. Mom pulls a utility knife from the bottom drawer and slices carefully into the package. My nostrils flare as I watch her.
    Whatever’s inside the box is swaddled in masses of bubble wrap, just like I said it would be, and Mom rips through it swiftly with her fingernails. Then she cradles the glittering naked figurine in her palm and holds it up to the light. A small clear crystal bear offers a golden sunflower to the track lighting above us. He’s cute, but his dazzling perfection annoys me at the same time.
    “I told you it wouldn’t be broken,” I say. “And anyway, it’s not like you don’t have a thousand of these things gathering dust in the den.”
    “Serena.” Mom’s voice has wholly iced over. “Just because you don’t realize the value of my things doesn’t mean they don’t have any.”
    “But it didn’t break.” I point to her palm. “You freaked out over nothing.”
    Mom folds the bear back into the safety of his bubble wrap box. “I’m going to change out of my work clothes. Would you mind sticking some of the chicken breasts from the freezer in the oven? The temperature’s on the box.”
    “I don’t know,” I say. “I might break them or something.” I want to stomp my feet and scream so she’ll really look at me. Devin isn’t dead — he’s just gone — and I’m still here. She could notice me for a change.
    Mom yanks up the box from the kitchen table and shoves it towards me, the cardboard scraping against my arm. “Take the damn box, Serena. Balance it on your head, if that’s what you want to do.”
    That’s not what I want to do. I really don’t want to make her mad either. A lump squeezes down my throat for the second time today. I don’t want to sit at the kitchen table for dinner if she’s going to be mad at me.
    “Calm down,” I tell her, projecting equal parts attitude and regret. “I don’t want the box.”
    Mom’s eyes are lined with a tender-looking pink. She holds the box against her stomach and says, “These are my special things. I just want people to show a little care. Is that too much to ask?”
    It’s not about me dropping the box anymore; it’s about me not being wonder girl. Devin was wrong about not being a golden boy. He must’ve been. Because now that he’s gone it seems obvious that the world revolved around him. My parents and I are just hanging around like movie extras, waiting for the main