An Ornithologist's Guide to Life by Ann Hood Read Free Book Online Page B

Dora met each person’s gaze with her own expectant one. Her lipstick felt waxy on her lips. Fleetingly she remembered how the undertaker had put a thick coat of lipstick on her friend Madeline Dumfey’s lips, in a dreadful shade of pink. He thought it made her look healthy, as if someone who’d been killed by cancer could look healthy. What an idiot, Dora thought. The flow of people slowed, then stopped. Dora stood on tiptoes, trying to see inside the bus. Was it the wrong day? The wrong bus?
    But then a boy stepped off. He was not like the tattooed and pierced teenagers who Dora saw on Thayer Street. This disappointed her for reasons she did not quite understand. He was more like the private school boys, the ones who dragged lacrosse sticks past her house every afternoon. Except for the dark shadows beneath his eyes and the defeated way in which he slouched off the bus, he could be one of them. Sad and ordinary, those were the words that sprang to Dora’s mind. His hands clutched a piece of bright red American Tourister luggage, the one meant for women to carry their curlers and things. With his fair hair and pale skin, his light blue eyes and perfect pouty lips, he looked exactly like his mother. This disappointed Dora too.
    â€œPeter,” she said, stepping through the crowd waiting for their luggage.
    He barely looked at her. “I’ve got another bag,” he said, and joined the others waiting.
    â€œLet’s get it, shall we?” she said, though he had already gone to do just that.
    The last time she had seen him was five years ago at her son’s funeral, a hot bright sunlit day, even though it was February. That was Houston, she supposed. Relentlessly sunny, even in winter, even at funerals. She had not paid much attention to Peter that day. She’d had enough to deal with. The news of Dan’s death and the way in which he’d died. The flight to Texas in the middle of the night, stopping and changing planes in Newark and then Chicago and then Dallas. Arriving just in time to get to the church, unable to even change her clothes. Peter seemed hardly there that day.
    â€œI’ve got it,” he said.
    Dora blinked as if he woke her up.
    â€œWelcome to Providence,” she said, hoping he didn’t notice her voice trembling.
    His eyes looked like some kind of monster’s eyes they were such a light blue. Dora found herself remembering a little albino girl who’d gone to school with Tillie.
    â€œI don’t want to be here,” Peter said. He swung his other bag, also bright red, the kind men hung their suits in, over his shoulder. The weight of it made him stagger slightly.
    Before Dora could think what to say, he was walking ahead of her, his shadow stretching between them like a bridge.
    S HE PUT HIM in Tillie’s old room. It still had the pink and white striped wallpaper from her childhood, and a bureaudecorated with ballerinas. Even though he frowned when he saw it Dora couldn’t let him stay in Dan’s room. He didn’t seem to deserve it, the smell of boy things, the stamps and coins carefully collected or the models of ships and race cars assembled over many lost Saturday afternoons. This boy seemed removed from any of that, a sullen stranger plunked into Dora’s life.
    Peter tossed his bags on the bed. “Thanks,” he said. Dora heard sarcasm in that one simple word.
    â€œI could get us some doughnuts,” she said without much conviction. “We could have some doughnuts and chat a little.”
    He wasn’t even looking at her. His eyes flitted around the room, searching. “Is there a phone I could use?”
    Dora hesitated. His mother had told her he wasn’t supposed to call the girl.
    â€œThere’s one in the kitchen,” Dora said carefully. “And one in my room. But I’m afraid you can’t call . . .” What was the girl’s name?
    â€œRebecca,” Peter said. “But