Family Blessings by Lavyrle Spencer Read Free Book Online Page A

feel angry, Chris?"
    He glanced over at her. "Yes."
    "With whom?"
    "With Greg, for not wearing a helmet. With fate. Hell, I don't know."
    She felt better then, knowing he'd experienced the same feeling as she selfish as it seemed.
    "I keep thinking about how he never got a chance to get married .
    . . to have kids."
    "Yeah, I know."
    "And Mom and all of us. I mean--damn it!--think about birthdays!
    Think about Christmas!" She had begun to cry again. "They're gonna b . . . be awful!"
    She was right. He could only reach over and take her hand.
    He thought he had never witnessed anything more pathetic than the reunion of Lee Reston and her children. He stood by, watching the three of them form a knot of sorrow, and would truly have given a good portion of his own life in exchange for the restoration of Greg to them.
    He heard their weeping, witnessed their ungainly three-way hug, watched the mother's hands stroke her children's heads while their faces were buried against her. He moved away to give them privacy, went into the backyard and sat down on the deck steps leading to the lawn. It was a pretty lawn, deep, reaching 200 feet back toward a row of arbor vitae that divided it from the neighbor's house beyond. At the near end shade trees spread. At the far end flower borders with serpentine edges meandered around three edges of the property surrounding an open stretch of grass that served as a volleyball court during family picnics. He'd been at a couple of these. They lingered in his memory as lucky days, some of the luckiest of his life. Hot dogs and laughter and family and friends-- all the things he'd missed in his own life.
    And Greg had brought him into it all. They'd welcomed him as they'd welcome one of their own-- "Beer's over there. Pop's over there and anybody who doesn't help himself to the food goes hungry without sympathy!"
    Fourth of July was probably off. He supposed there'd be no picnic here this year. He'd asked his captain for the day off clear back in April.
    He'd probably go in and volunteer for duty that day so one of the married guys could be with his family. Hell, he had nothing better to do. He was used to volunteering for holidays. Better than sitting around feeling sorry for himself.
    He remembered one Fourth of July when he was twelve, thirteen maybe.
    Junior high and he'd joined the band, asked to play the tuba because there was no money for instruments at his house, and the school provided tubas and drums. He'd chosen tuba and could remember its weight on his shoulder, the feeling of that big cup-sized mouthpiece against his lips, and the surge of excitement when he'd marched down the street with that big brass bell above his head for the first time.
    There'd been a favorite march: the Klaxon, that was it, and--damn!-how it had stirred his blood when they'd played it. Pum, pum, pum, pum. He and the bass drum setting the rhythm as the band strutted down the street.
    The band director, Mr. Zatner, said the junior band had been invited to march at a parade in the small town of Princeton and they'd all been issued satin capes, maroon on one side, black on the other, and were told to wear black trousers and white shirts.
    He went home with a knot in his gut because he knew he'd have to ask his parents to buy him a pair of black pants. They lived in a sleazy apartment above an appliance store a half block off Main.
    A warped, weathered open stairway led up to it from the alley where the smell of rotting vegetables hung heavy in the warm months from the garbage dollies of the Red Owl store next door. A few times, when there was nothing in the apartment to eat, he'd hung around the back door of the grocery store when the produce people were weeding out the bad stuff.
    "Hey, need some help?" he'd asked, and the man in the soiled white apron had said, "Hey, this is one for the record! A kid offering help?
    Sure, why not?"
    They'd tossed away some discolored cauliflower, some fancy kinds of lettuce that looked