A Face in Every Window by Han Nolan Read Free Book Online Page A

but Tim Seeley fell in love all the time, and the expression he wore whenever he was smitten was similar to the one I saw on Dr. Mike's face that day, and I realized then that no matter how old you got love always wore the same face.
    Watching Dr. Mike made me ill. I knew I needed to do something—attack the man, create a distraction, have a seizure—but these were just thoughts, ideas, plans I knew I'd never put into action.
    I followed Mam and Dr. Mike like a shadow, knowing I was a coward and reminding myself that anytime I did confront something head-on, such as the time I attacked Bobbi Polanski, I came out the loser.
    Mrs. Levi led us from room to room, upstairs and down, and out to the sunporch off the living room, which looked out over the backyard. I counted the fireplaces, making sure there were four, as the ad had said. I counted four, all right, but two of them, said Mrs. Levi, didn't work. The best one was in the kitchen, a tall, wide stone fireplace big enough to stand in, with black pots, the kind used for witches' brews, hanging over a stack of logs. Herbs collected from the garden just outside the kitchen entrance hung down in bunches around that fireplace. The fireplace also had what Mrs. Levi
called a beehive oven. She said she still baked bread in it. Pap stuck his head inside it and called hello. He played with the door latches in every room, ran his finger along the stenciling on the walls, and stood where the wide pine floors creaked and he rocked back and forth on them, humming along with the noise.
    Aunt Colleen, who had strolled through each room with her arms folded and a sour look on her face, decided it was time to take Pap in hand. But Pap had become overexcited by all the people and the trip out, and he broke free of Aunt Colleen, shouting, "Hey, yer not me mam!" and took off running through the house, squealing with delight.
    Mam excused herself and asked if she could walk the grounds again with just Pap. Then she made her way past the rest of us and went to him. I saw the reporters shake their heads and one of them said, "That poor woman," and Dr. Mike replied, "Indeed."
    Seeley and I went out onto the porch and found Larry sitting in one of the rocking chairs, watching Mam and Pap holding hands and walking toward the cabin. He looked up at us when we came out, nodded at his brother, and asked, "How's it going at the homestead?"
    Seeley shrugged, and I could see that he didn't want to talk to his older brother. Larry had always been the misfit of the family, the poet in a family of football stars. Mr. Fresca, one of the sophomore English teachers, used to call him Hamlet because he was always so moody, and the nickname stuck. From there, kids started asking him where his tights were, since Hamlet wore tights, and then the rumor got started that he was gay. Tim Seeley hated his brother for the embarrassment
he caused him at school and the turmoil he caused at home, fighting with his football-coach father all the time. Mr. Seeley called Larry a loser, the black sheep of the family.
    When Larry asked him how it was going at home, Tim didn't answer. He jumped off the porch and headed down toward Bobbi Polanski, who stood at the bottom of the sloping lawn, shading her eyes and staring up at the house.
    I looked at Larry, who watched his brother and fiddled with the hoop earrings in his ear.
    "So, uh, I hear you're not living at your parents' house anymore," I said, preferring to talk to Larry rather than join Bobbi Polanski on the lawn.
    He shook his head. "I'm in the doghouse."
    I nodded, tried to chuckle, be cool.
    He rocked back in his chair and pulled his hair forward and began braiding it. "No, really, I'm in the doghouse," he said. "I'm sleeping back of the McCloskys' place, in their old doghouse."
    "Are you serious?"
    He finished braiding his hair and tossed it over his shoulder. "Hey, I've slept in plenty worse. It's big enough. They used to have a Saint Bernard. I take a crap in the