B000FCJYE6 EBOK by Marya Hornbacher Read Free Book Online

poking my toe through the hole in my sock. My father’s face was darkened around the jowls. He smelled like the bar and the brown cigarettes he smoked. At night, he stayed up, so that under my door there was a fan of yellow light on the carpet. I could hear him shuffle the cards, slap them down. Then silence. Then the thunk of his drink on the table, his hard sigh.
    He didn’t yell anymore, almost never. But he cried. At night, when he was up, listening for Esau. It sounded like a broken bird.
    I liked it when he was out there, awake. Keeping watch. Nothing could happen to Esau or me so long as he sat guard. It was like God in his pajamas, playing cards. And when he cried, it was as horrible as if God cried.
    My father pulled himself up on the couch and slapped his hands down on his knees. “Well,” he said. “Better get going.”
    There was nowhere to go.
    He looked out the window that faced onto the yard as if just preparing to leave. Night fell earlier now, and we watched it inch lower in the sky. He leaned back into the cushions and looked at me.
    “How’s school, Little Bit?” he asked cheerfully.
    I shrugged. “S’all right.”
    “Keeping your grades up?”
    “I don’t get grades.”
    He looked at me in confusion.
    “I don’t get grades until later,” I explained. “Fourth grade, I think.”
    “Well,” he said, bewildered. “Whaddaya know. That’s a damn shame.”
    I nodded. He took a drink and gestured with his glass. “I mean, how are you supposed to know what’s what, then?”
    “Progress reports.” I had carefully shredded my own all year so far, their steady row of bad marks in red pen fluttering into the creek, the water lifting the ink away like red threads. Last year in kindergarten, I had gold stars and Es for excellent, except in penmanship, where I had a solitary S for satisfactory. I studied my father, trying to tell how drunk he was, and whether I could disclose this tidbit of information in secrecy.
    “I’m unsatisfactory,” I blurted out, feeling brave.
    “No,” he said, looking concerned. I nodded.
    “How do you figure?” he asked.
    “In ‘Stays on Task.’”
    “Really.”
    “And ‘Listens Well.’” My cheeks blazed, and I watched him closely. He looked as if he was mulling this over.
    “And I hit Sara Mortinson.”
    “Hup. What for?”
    “Said Esau was crazy.”
    “Ach. No good telling stories.” He nodded.
    “See.”
    “Course, hitting’s a problem.”
    “She scratched me.”
    He rubbed his stubble with the palm of his hand and squinched his mouth, considering. “Who hit who first?”
    “I forget.”
    “Well then.”
    We sat a moment.
    “I’m going to be a nurse,” I offered.
    He grinned. “Admirable, admirable.” He huffed to his feet and went to the bar. Sitting again, he said, “A regular Florence Nightingale. Lotta blood, you know. Person’s got to be prepared.”
    “I don’t mind blood. I don’t like the hats, though,” I said.
    “No.”
    “I wanted to be a doctor.”
    “So be a doctor.”
    “Can’t.”
    “Why not?”
    I sighed and rolled my eyes at him. “Daddy, girls aren’t doctors.”
    “Hep! See here now. Oh, say now.” He looked at me in alarm. “Who told you that?”
    “Erick Janiskowski.” I pulled the lever on the La-Z-Boy and lurched backward suddenly. Erick Janiskowski was the smartest, ugliest boy in first grade and my personal nemesis.
    “What’s he mean? Well, that’s a bunch of crap, I mean to say! Ha! That boy’s an embarrassment to his family, and I’ll tell you what’s more, missy.” My father sat up, waving his drink. “Just because his father’s the doctor in Staples and they’ve got enough money to choke a horse doesn’t mean a damn thing, is what. Peter Janiskowski’s been asking for it all these years, and his wife thinks she’s all sorts of special and now that ugly little boy serves them right, is what. I tell you what,” he said in a warning tone, leaning toward me. “You tell that