After the Woods by Kim Savage Read Free Book Online

learn-who-your-real-friends-are moment. It’s mutual, because when Erik was being wooed away from her lab by the big Ivy across the Charles River, Mom was beside herself until he rejected their offer.
    How she resists an übersmart, ridiculously fit hottie who’s devoted to her and gave her his guys to produce a fabulous kid like me is another question entirely.
    Mom circles behind me and reaches up to give my shoulders a gentle squeeze. “What’s in the oven? It smells like chicken.”
    â€œBingo.”
    â€œReally lovely, Julia.”
    I should admit it’s precooked supermarket rotisserie chicken, but she’s already yelling into the fridge. “Thanks for getting dinner going! The rain had traffic at a standstill! Did you know the Aberjona overflowed and they closed Main Street?”
    â€œI notice rain, yes,” I say.
    She produces a bruised onion triumphantly. “This should perk up the salad.”
    I take the onion and set to work at the cutting board. The knife gets stuck in the mealy layers. “I don’t care that you were late,” I lie. It’s a fine line, wanting Mom around, but not wanting Mom around as much as in the Berkshires.
    â€œI care.” She cups her hand over mine. “I’ll slice. You finish the salad.”
    I drop the knife and move to the sink. Mom chatters about a dating epidemic among her latest crop of postdocs while I squint through the window. Somewhere in that purple darkness is an improbably gorgeous, rolling grass lawn. We are the last people in the world who should have a backyard, given that Mom spends most of her life under artificial light and I’m afraid of trees in any number. Yet there’s our backyard, a rarity in Shiverton, where grand colonials and Victorians are wedged into lots the size of postage stamps. We even have a deck and Adirondack chairs, price tags still tied to the legs.
    The knife slices, onion to wood, chop , chop , chop , a solid noise that I should like, but it flicks at my belly.
    â€œTruth be told, I had a difficult day,” Mom says. “The rhythm gets lost when the lab director goes on sabbatical. Grievances take root among the more difficult personalities. And obviously I feel guilty about being late for dinner again. Perhaps it’s not the best night to strategize. I’m not thinking clearly.”
    â€œIt’s not like I’m going to call her back,” I say.
    The knife hangs in the air. “Her?” she says.
    â€œHim. I meant him.”
    Mom smiles tightly at the board and starts a vigorous hand-over-hand chop. “The Berkshires are looking better every minute.” She catches my alarm at my slip and misinterprets it. “Don’t worry, we’re not going anywhere.”
    I manage a fake laugh. “Speaking of difficult personalities, I saw Mrs. Lapin today. She hasn’t changed.”
    â€œStill hard on Liv?”
    â€œYou could say that. Actually, she’s worried the reporters are going to start up again, too. Because, you know, they might catch her off guard, when her hair isn’t perfect. Or Liv’s hair isn’t perfect. That would be worse, I think.”
    Mom grimaces, slipping on quilted mitts and pulling the chicken from the oven. Its taut skin crackles. The smell fills the kitchen, and I know it’s heavenly, and that I should feel hunger, but there’s nothing.
    â€œWe all have different coping mechanisms,” Mom says.
    â€œDeborah is a narcissist so obsessed with her daughter’s shiny image that Liv isn’t allowed to cope.” I rinse the cutting board and wash the knife. “She barely gives Liv room to breathe. Now Liv’s seeing Shane Cuthbert, which is wrong on so many levels.”
    â€œLiv was always a bit fickle. Maybe her tastes have changed.”
    â€œShane tastes like rancid meat, trust me. Or like pot. A pot-burger,” I say.
    â€œI remember him as a handsome kid.