Freaks and Revelations by Davida Wills Hurwin Read Free Book Online

trouble? I knew things about him too. “But thanks for asking.”
    “Davy’s a good boy,” Mom says. Behind her back, Marianne rolls her eyes. Davy pretends he doesn’t see. He’s the favorite, but it’s not his fault and we’re all used to it. He’s a prodigy; a dancer, like Mom used to be. He could do any dance you showed him from the time he could walk. Mom took him to San Francisco to study at the Conservatory, and a year later, sent me too. I think she was hoping I’d be a star like Davy, but I’m not. Still I liked it, especially the shows—getting costumes and doing makeup and going on tour. I love it now.
    It’s Davy’s and my night to clear the table. Marianne and Kaitlyn wait in the living room. When we’re done, Mom kneels to start. We kneel too. Jesus looks down on us. Jesus watches us everywhere we go in this room. He’s the biggest statue and the first thing you see when you come in our new house. I have nightmares about His eyes following me.
    “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee…”
    “Our Father, who art in Heaven…”
    We say our parts; Mom starts Thanks and Blessings. Davy hits Kaitlyn with a kernel of corn he stowed in his cheek. Kait sticks her tongue out and I squeeze my lips together to keep from laughing.
    “O great and almighty God!” Mom prays on, “we kneel before You to thank You with our whole hearts for all the favors which You have bestowed upon us this day.…
    Kaitlyn pokes Davy, who kicks his foot in her general direction and lands hard on her thigh.
    “UNH!” she grunts. We all hold our breath—
    “…for all those other mercies, which we do not now recall…”
    —but Mom doesn’t hear. Davy spits another kernel; this one smacks Marianne dead on the cheek. My whole body is jiggling from holding in my laughter. Davy pushes Kaitlyn, she leans over onto me. Nobody falls, but the air’s disturbed, movement ripples through. Suddenly, Mom stops praying and stands up, as still as ice.
    “Shit,” Marianne whispers.
    “Excuse me?!?”
    “Nothing, Mama. It slipped out. I’m very sorry, please forgive me?” Marianne says, her face absolutely blank. We’re all good at “blank.”
    I hear a truck grind its gears to a stop at the corner light. I think of my father. The truck starts up. I wonder if it has a sign painted by my dad. If maybe I met the trucker one time, when he came to pick it up. We lower our hands and watch Mom pace slowly back and forth, searching our faces. We do not get off our knees. She doesn’t look beautiful now. She looks mean, like she could do anything at all to us and not care. I hate the feeling in my stomach and the faces of my brother and sisters.
    Dad’s punishments were always a formula—three swats for cussing, six for fighting, more for the older kids, less for the younger, then it was done, over, forgotten. Mom adds them up, keeps track. We don’t make mistakes, we commit sins. That sin attaches to the one before, and those before that, and as the list gets longer, each one of us kids gets closer to HELL. I wish they weren’t divorced.
    “Okay. Who started it?”
    No one answers. Snitching’s okay with small stuff like being late to class, but not this. This was interrupting evening prayers. If we give up Davy, we have to give up Kaitlyn and me, and Marianne. There’s no telling what Mom might do.
    “Last chance.”
    Silence.
    “All right, then, on the wall. All of you.” We stand, our knees imprinted with the pattern of the tile on the fireplace, and find a place along one of the living room walls.
    “This is the Lord’s house.” She pauses, walks across the room like the Nazi guy on Hogan’s Heroes . “Respect that or find somewhere else to live. Do you hear?”
    “Yes, ma’am,” we say as one.
    “Good. Now pray that Jesus forgives you your sins.”
    I stand with my nose an inch away from the shades on the window that faces the street. Mom kneels by the fireplace, next to the statue of Jesus. Mother