Algoma by Dani Couture Read Free Book Online

green leather worn down to the beige lining at her fingertips from her constant fidgeting. It had snowed the night before, the silvery powder kind that left the roads slippery even after they’d been plowed. New snow crunched beneath the tires.
    “The snow’s talking,” Ferd said, pressing his ear to the cold window.
    Algoma asked him what it was saying. Call and response. The same routine they’d been doing since Ferd had been old enough to talk. Only the answer ever changed.
    Ferd paused. “It’s saying it wants a doughnut.”
    “Well, tell it that it can have a doughnut if it stays with us at the market,” Algoma said.
    Ferd kicked the back of the driver’s seat again. “Fine.”
    Gaetan looked at his son in the rear-view mirror, his eyes thin black slits. “Or not.”
    Ferd turned away and looked out the window. Row upon row of stacked duplexes that varied little from street to street. It looked like every building in town had been built in the same year, each tired in the same way: sagging porches and rusting metal staircases that led to the upper units. When they passed a mint green duplex with two empty urns on either side of the ground floor unit’s front door, Ferd pounded the window with his mitt. “Can Aunt Soo come, too?”
    “Maybe next time,” Algoma said. She glanced at her sister’s house as the car slid by. She could picture Soo’s yarn-strewn couch. Several afghans in progress. It was nearly impossible to extract Soo from her house in the winter, the clicking of her knitting needles counting down the seconds until spring.
    “Whoa, whoa, whoa, girl,” Gaetan yelled. He commanded the car to stop as it slid into the middle of the intersection.
    “Gae—” Algoma choked, her hands on the dashboard.
    “We’re good, no cars. No cars.” Gaetan smiled. Algoma did not. “I’m doing the best I can,” he said, putting a hand on her thigh. She stiffened under his touch.
    Ferd yelled, “Look, look!”
    Gaetan and Algoma turned their heads to the right. A bride, groom, and seven wedding party members stood on the steps of St. Alphonse church while a photographer in a massive parka snapped photos. Iced taffeta and crinoline. The church was one of a half dozen in town in competition with one another, each steeple reaching higher than the last, like children raising their hands in a classroom where there was only one right answer.
    “We should go more often,” Algoma said, but she didn’t mean it. It was a resolution she made every year, but never kept with the exception of midnight mass and maybe Easter if she felt guilty enough.
    Gaetan pulled the car into the market’s parking lot and parked in one of the only empty spaces left. He undid his seat belt and took the keys out of the ignition. “Now how about some doughnuts, then?”
    The market was only open one day a week: Saturday. Vendors from the area and even a couple hours away ritually converged upon the building to staff the same booths they had for years. Glowing towers of jarred honey. Fat-speckled sausage links hanging from large silver nails. Frosted baked goods carefully arranged under glass. An easy-listening radio station playing over the loud speakers.
    “Don’t mind if I do,” Gaetan said, pouring himself a small paper cup of rum punch. A table with two huge punch bowls was set up at the entrance to the market. Every year, early in the New Year, the market offered complimentary rum punch and a second bowl of fruit punch for the kids. From our families to yours. Health and happiness in the New Year.
    Algoma crossed her arms. “It’s only eleven in the morning.”
    “They wouldn’t put it out if they didn’t want us to enjoy it,” he said, and poured a second cup. “C’mon and have some with me.” He handed her the cup.
    Algoma softened and accepted the punch. She brought the cup to her mouth and sipped, almost choking from the sting of cheap rum against her throat.
    “Can I have one, too?” Ferd placed his hands