How I Saved My Father's Life (and Ruined Everything Else) by Ann Hood Read Free Book Online Page B

Mom, the one with the goofy grin on his face and the slightly crooked bow tie. He was the one who wrote their wedding vows and had them printed all fancy and framed. He was the one who hung those vows in their bedroom, right above their bed.
    I wanted to yell into the phone, “Of course you remember, Dad!”
    But instead, I turned off the speakerphone. I didn’t want to hear his answer. In some ways, even though I hated to admit it, my mother and I were actually a lot alike.

Chapter Three
AVA POMME, THE TART LADY
    â€œ W hen people die,” Cody said, “they disappear.”
    Our mother concentrated on her own reflection in the mirror, putting on a color of lipstick called Walnut Stain. It sounded like something you used on a piece of furniture getting refinished. She’d dragged us to Nordstrom earlier, where we had to watch her wander around in the makeup department like a zombie. She did fine at the local supermarket. But put her in a place where they sold something other than food and she couldn’t handle it.
    â€œBut when they faint,” Cody continued, “they only half disappear.”
    â€œNot exactly,” she said.
    She put her finger in her mouth, puckered her lips, then pulled her finger out of the tight O of her mouth. This is how you kept lipstick from getting on your teeth, she had explained to me after the woman at Nordstrom had explained it to her. I filed that away for future use.
    As if he hadn’t heard her, Cody said, “But what happens when a person gets divorced? They’re not exactly disappeared, but you can’t exactly see them, either.”
    â€œDon’t stand on the tub,” she said, frowning.
    â€œWhen a person gets divorced,” Cody said, “do they get like sort of frozen?”
    Our mother turned around and lifted him off the edge of the tub, where he stood gripping the shower curtain, an old plastic thing covered with black-and-white images of movie stars from the 1940s. Joan Crawford and Katherine Hepburn and Jimmy Stewart. Our father had picked it out. We used to watch Classic Theater every Friday night on Channel 36. This was before Cody was born. The three of us used to scrunch together on our old sofa, the one the color of eggplants, and share a bowl of popcorn that Dad had made on the stove, not in the microwave, with freshly grated parmesan cheese on top. He could name any movie and who starred init without even thinking very hard. On the other hand, our mother always got Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio mixed up. Never mind old movie stars.
    â€œTomorrow we’re getting a new shower curtain,” she mumbled, more to herself than to Cody, who now stood before her, gazing up into her face.
    â€œNo!” he said, horrified. “I love this one! It has all these people’s faces on it. This lady and this guy,” he added, jabbing at Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart. Poor Cody! By the time he was old enough to watch old black-and-white movies with us, there was no more us.
    She kneeled down in front of Cody.
    â€œI’m divorced and I haven’t disappeared, have I?” she said softly.
    He frowned, trying unsuccessfully to wrap a piece of her hair around his finger. He used to fall asleep that way, curling a strand of her hair around his finger and tugging on it gently. But after the divorce Mom had cut her hair shorter and shorter, first in a chin-length bob, then having the back as short as a boy’s but with the front still long enough to tuck behind her ears, and now all of itin short layers. I hated it. She didn’t even look like herself anymore.
    â€œYou haven’t disappeared but like right now you’re going away,” Cody said.
    â€œNot away,” she corrected. “Just out. For a few hours.”
    â€œWith a man who isn’t Daddy because Daddy is in New York, frozen.”
    â€œThat’s so stupid,” I said, breaking my own ten-minute-old decision to not talk