Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh Read Free Book Online Page A

only recourse was to drink, naturally. He sat down at the kitchen table. “It’s the mob who’s sent them,” of course. “Why do you think the cops are always here? They’re here to protect me. After everything I’ve done for this town?”
    â€œYou’re drunk,” I said flatly.
    â€œI haven’t been drunk in years, Eileen. This,” he held up his can of beer, “is to calm my nerves.”
    I opened a beer for myself, ate a few more peanuts. When I looked up I asked, “What’s so funny?” because he was laughing. He could do that—turn on a dime from terrorized to cruelly hysterical.
    â€œYour face,” he replied. “You have nothing to worry about, Eileen. Nobody’s going to bother you with a face like that one.”
    That’s it. To hell with him. I recall catching my reflection in the dark glass windows of the living room later that evening. I looked like a grown-up. My father had no right to bully me.Joanie stopped by that night wearing a white faux-fur jacket and a miniskirt and snow boots, her hair coiffed and bouncy, eyes lined in thick black liner. She was a blonde, pouty and lighthearted, back then at least. My guess is she went on to be soured—that pout was on its way somewhere, after all—but I hope she’s healthy and happy and with someone who loves her. Here’s to hoping. She was a special kind of girl. When she moved, she seemed to throw her flesh around as though it were a fur coat, so relaxed and comfortable, I couldn’t understand her. She was charming, I suppose, but so critical, always with this naive way of asking me things like, “You don’t feel funny wearing your dead mother’s sweater?” And sometimes it was more sisterly, such as “Why is your face like that? What’s your problem now?”
    That night I just shook my head, made a ham sandwich. Bread, butter, ham. Joanie clapped her compact shut and came up from behind to poke me in the ribs. “Sack of bones,” she said, grabbing my sandwich off the plate. “I’ll see you,” she said, kissing Dad in his chair. I never saw her again.
    I went up to the attic to lie on my cot with my magazine. Would I miss my sister if she died? I wondered. We’d grown up side by side, but I barely knew her. And she certainly didn’t know me. I pulled chocolates from a tin and chewed and spat them out one by one into the crinkly brown paper they came in. I turned another page.

SATURDAY
    B y noon on Saturday a good six inches of fresh snow had fallen on top of the knee-high blanket already standing. Such mornings were quiet, all sound dampened by the new snow. Even the cold seemed to back off, everything insulated and hushed. Before the furnaces began to roil, logs in fireplaces smoked and burned, and the houses of X-ville all covered in snow and ice started to melt and drip like wax candles, it was peaceful. Cold as it was in my room in the attic, I felt there was nothing to be gained by getting out of bed. Enough of the world could be explored by simply sticking my arm out from under the covers. I lay on my cot, dreaming and thinking for hours. I had a large mason jar for such circumstances and for when my father’s moods forced me to hole up in the attic. It made me feel I was camping, living close to nature and far away from home when I squatted over that jar in my mother’s pilly nightgown and an old Irish wool sweater, breath dribbling out mynose like white smoke from a witch’s boiling cauldron. My pee steamed and stank, a honey-colored poison I poured out the attic window and into the snow-filled gutter.
    The movements of my bowels were a whole other story. They occurred irregularly—maybe once or twice a week, at most—and rarely without assistance. I’d gotten into the gross habit of gulping down a dozen or more laxative pills whenever I felt big and bloated, which was frequently. The