Cures for Hunger by Deni Béchard Read Free Book Online Page A

heart seized. Wasn’t it clear that I wasn’t made for school?
    â€œDeni’s acting weird!” my brother complained. My mother came in, and without looking at her, I opened the mangled manual. This was just another thing that would make me stand out in class. I closed my eyes to squeeze back my frustration. I was always the weird kid. The others had colorful backpacks and new clothes while my brother and I had big flannel shirts with brown patches on the elbows and patched pants that hid our shoes. Our backpacks were made by cutting a leg off my father’s jeans, chopping it in two, sewing one end shut and putting a drawstring on the other. All the kids had pointed and said, “What’s that?” and the next morning my father had walked into the kitchen with one naked
leg, hollering, “What the fuck happened to my jeans?” My mother had turned red with strangled laughter and told him, “Oh, I thought you didn’t use that pair anymore.”
    Now he’d undressed by the kitchen door and prowled into the living room. He glanced about like an animal in a box, and my mother retreated to the stove. He sighed and sat in his chair and turned on the TV.
    â€œYou should pay attention to the news,” he told us, interrupting our homework. “It’ll teach you everything you need to know.”
    We joined him in learning how America could deploy nuclear missiles from thousands of underground shelters joined by tunnels beneath the desert. The commentators discussed the importance of surviving a first strike and what had changed since Brezhnev’s death. My father grumbled and said, “Things were getting better until he screwed it all up.”
    A little later, he proclaimed the ayatollah “a mean son of a bitch” and said, “Maybe Reagan can clean up the mess Carter made. That guy didn’t know what he was doing.”
    â€œIf World War III starts,” my brother asked, “can we capture a tank and can I live in it in the backyard?”
    My father turned sharply and looked to where we lay before the TV.
    â€œWell,” he said, “okay, I guess that’s fine.” But he kept studying my brother.
    I tried to picture the camouflage tank beneath the apple tree and wondered if I should ask for one, too, but I could tell from my father’s face that he thought my brother’s request was weird. I’d been compiling a list of all that I shouldn’t mention to him, levitation being at the top. That was the good thing about what was in my mind: no one else could see it, so I couldn’t get in trouble. Still, I often worried that my mother could tell what I was thinking just from looking at me. Or maybe it was because I knew that she believed in telepathy. My father didn’t, so it was easier to make him happy.
    I carried my book into the kitchen and sat across from my sister, who was coloring horse pictures. She wore bell-bottoms and a plaid shirt, her blond hair in a barrette. My mother glanced at me with those blue eyes that saw right into my head. Instantly, I wanted to confess, but my fear was stronger. She’d be angry, and my father would be angrier.
Pepsi, which she’d forbidden, seemed far worse than alcohol. How could she accept that he drank it?
    â€œWhat’s a nuclear missile?” I asked to distract her.
    â€œOh, that’s hard to explain,” she told me. “It’s a terrible, terrible thing, and it could kill all of us. It will probably destroy the planet someday.”
    But she didn’t explain the way she usually did. She paused, staring into the bubbling spaghetti sauce as if seeing this future.
    â€œThe world,” she said more quietly, “is a terrible place. It’s not so bad for boys, but girls have to be strong.”
    My sister looked up. She was six, and I wanted to tell my mother to be quiet.
    And yet I longed to see the fierceness of the world revealed, to witness it