"You texted," she said.
My mother frowned. Then she reached into the pocket of her uniform shirt and took out her phone, and woke it up, and I watched her read her own message, and I watched her face fall. I knew what it said. I'd gotten it too, at work, at four-twelve, and I'd squealed so loud that Mr. Szczepanski came out of the back room with a mat cutter in his hand. My mother had written it on her break on Pittsburgh Avenue, to the family group chat, which is called KOSTKA GIRLS and which has a little picture of a lighthouse for its icon.
Mr Paik from the paper called!!! He wants to come FRI 6pm to do CLOSE UPS of the roof for a big Sunday story on the finalists!!! He says everyone's asking about the roof!!! Front page of LIVING section!!! I told the whole route!!!
"I was home," Krista said. "By myself. Maren was at the shop. I read it at four-fifteen. Close-ups. Of the roof. In the Sunday paper. The Sunday paper that you carry, Mom. That you put on eight hundred porches." Her voice was rising. "And then it was going to go hang at the Hessler for the whole winter with a little light on it, and everybody I ever went to high school with was going to come see it, and Brianna's mom was going to come see it, and her mom reads everything, she reads the ingredients on cereal, and there it was going to be. My dismissal letter. On a roof. In a museum. With my sister's name next to it. And you standing next to it in your uniform telling everybody about your daughter the Picasso."
She stopped. She was breathing hard.
"So I took the knife," she said. "And I started at the peak and I went across. It took an hour and a half. I didn't think I could get all the words off any other way. And then I got to the bottom row and I just—" She made a movement with her hand. Pushing. "I knocked it over. I kicked the bucket. I don't know. I was so tired. And I looked at myself up in the window, studying, with the chem book, and that one I did on purpose. I did that one on purpose. I couldn't stand looking at it. It's a lie. She's a lie. She's been a lie since June. So I dug her out."
"And then you sat on the stairs and waited for me," I said.
"Yes."
"And said that thing."