Beaming Sonny Home by Cathie Pelletier Read Free Book Online

whenever Mattie nudged him awake. You didn’t need to be Julia Child to pull that off.
    â€œWhy can’t you fix your own breakfast?” Mattie asked her son-in-law, remembering something Gracie had told her once, about men pretending they can’t do certain things so that women will do them instead.
    â€œDo I strike you as the Galloping Gourmet?” Henry asked. His voice was still gravelly with sleep. He had been laid off from the paper mill in St. Leonard the month before and had yet to find another job. “Besides, it ain’t my fault Sonny’s robbed a bank.”
    â€œSonny ain’t robbed no bank,” said Mattie. “Is that what they’re saying around Mattagash? Well, you can just tell the next big mouth who says that to go take a flying leap.” She was sitting up in bed now, having been reminded that Sonny was holed up inside a house trailer in Bangor, like a sardine in a tin can. Unless there had been some new developments during the night. That’s the term Gracie had used. “We’ll just have to wait until there’s some new developments ,” Gracie had said, before going into her old bedroom to unroll the sofa bed. Mattie wondered if Wolf Blitzer had ever slept on a sofa bed, maybe when he was over there in the heart of Desert Storm.
    â€œI should’ve known Sonny was too lazy to rob a bank,” Henry said. “And he never did learn how to use a gun.” Mattie heard the sharp metallic click of a cigarette lighter snapping down on itself, and then Henry inhaling. Smoking first thing in the morning. Even when Mattie did smoke, she never lit up her first until after a couple cups of coffee and Good Morning America . “I got two kids sitting out there at the kitchen table about to starve to death,” Henry added. “Would you please give my wife her car keys and send her home?”
    â€œCan’t them two big boys put bread into a toaster?” Mattie asked. “I know they take after you , Henry, but ain’t they smart enough to open a can of cling peaches without spraining their wrists? Besides, them kids’ll keel over from secondhand smoke before they starve to death. Your whole family is gonna have lungs that look like a pan of burnt biscuits if you people don’t give up the cancer sticks.” She had had a dream of Sonny, she just remembered, as bits and pieces of film ran again in her mind. He had turned up on the front porch, a pretty girl Mattie had never seen before hanging on to one of his arms. “How’d you like to meet Princess Di?” he’d asked. Mattie smiled in memory. That’s what Sonny had said the night he took Dr. Pingrey’s daughter to the dance in Watertown, when all three of his sisters had sworn she’d never go out with him. So Sonny had brought her home, just to show her off and to cause his sisters’ mouths to drop open. Ms. Pac-Men is what Sonny called them. “Because when they’re gossiping, their mouths look just like that little yellow Pac monster,” he liked to tell Mattie, causing her to laugh. No, wait, Sonny had brought home two women in the dream, and neither of them was Dr. Pingrey’s daughter. “Lookit what I found, Mama,” he’d said, his crooked smile taking up one side of his handsome face. Only now, with Henry waiting on the other end of the line, did Mattie realize that she’d dreamed of his two hostages.
    â€œOne of them girls has long brown hair,” Mattie whispered. She put a hand to her chest and felt her heart knocking away beneath her ribs. Her nightgown was like a soft, damp skin. She’d perspired heavily. So it hadn’t been a good dream, after all. “Take them girls back to where you found them, son!” That’s what Mattie had been shouting until Henry dialed her number and woke her up. Now she was almost thankful to her son-in-law. Of the three men who had wed her daughters, Henry