How Loveta Got Her Baby by Nicholas Ruddock Read Free Book Online Page A

right,” said Aaron Stoodley, “you could say that.”
    Now he had that old carpet at home, part of the inheritance.
    About once a month, in Halifax, Otto Bond had taken the S.S. Caribou rug outside and shook off all the crumbs. Then it was nice to sit on, and three of the boys sat there on the championship night.
    â€œWhat’d they look like, physically?” Henry asked.
    â€œThey were all different, I bet, but in my mind’s eye, at least one of them bore a certain resemblance to my grandmother, Priscilla.”
    It was through the connection to Priscilla Yarn that Aaron came by the money. Therefore someone must have looked a bit like Priscilla, or her long-dead husband.
    It was that Justin Peach who came up with the idea that caused them all to die.
    â€œLet’s order in,” he said, “pizza.”
    That’s how simple it was. They could have decided to go out, they could have had anything they wanted served up. Instead they ordered in, and it was Otto Bond who said, “I’ll do it, let me do it, I’ll call.”
    â€œHold the cod-liver oil,” they heard him say.
    â€œMight come over later,” Bridie whispered over the phone, “but it kind of depends on Mother.”
    â€œOh?”
    â€œThey might need her at the Legion, they might not. I’ll let you know, Otto Bond.”
    Bridie’s mother had to work overtime so Bridie missed the party and after it all happened, and was over with, she consoled herself as best she could, in the middle of her episodes of crying, she said to baby Liam, “Oh my stars!” and she cuddled up with him.
    â€œYou were almost an orphan, my little darling. Wouldn’t that have been a fine state of affairs?”
    Years later, she still thought about Otto Bond on a regular basis, because she knew he was the best of all the boyfriends she ever had. He was the gold standard.
    Justin Peach did it again. While Otto was still on the phone with Bridie, he came over and tapped Otto on the shoulder.
    â€œHey! Order a couple empty blank pizza crusts too, we got that sauce of mine,” he said.
    So, when the pizzas were delivered, there were those three empty crusts that Justin Peach fixed up. He went out of sight from the livingroom, into the kitchen, and it took him a long, long time. He banged around, you could hear the pots and pans. When he came back in, he looked so proud, no one knew they were looking at their last supper.
    â€œJeez, Justin Peach, what you got on there?” they all said.
    Aaron Stoodley could see him there plain as day. Justin Peach stood with his own home-made pizza and held it up, slanted, so they could see it. Steam rose up it was so hot.
    â€œYou’re gonna love this,” he said, “got my own tomato sauce boiled up, sat in the fridge a bit, seasoned it up. Cod tongues and cheeks. Side order, chips and gravy.”
    Now that sounded good. After the soccer game, the victory and the beer, they had plenty of room for the Justin Peach Special.
    That’s what they called it, and they ate it all down but for a piece or two.
    â€œThat’s what did it, what killed them,”Aaron said. “It was the sauce.”
    The little dog wandered around about for five or six hours and sniffed at a couple of slices that were left over. But he was too smart, he turned his nose up and walked away, ate a bit of his dry kibble, crunch-crunch , and he looked at the boys, puzzled, every one of them now dead to the world.
    Aaron said he was detached, emotionally, but he knew how the dog must have felt.
    â€œLucky loved them, every single one,” he said.
    He’d named the dog Lucky himself, later on.
    â€œI think we might’ve been buddies with Otto Bond, Henry, but we never had the chance. None of them knew a damn thing about botulism.”
    â€œBotulism?”
    All of a sudden, Aaron Stoodley was the leading world expert on all the poisons you could get, cooked into food.