Like Family by Paula McLain Read Free Book Online Page B

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     the window shade to block all light. It might have been the middle of the night in that room; it might have been any time
     at all. Mom’s side of the bed was nearest, and I could make out her nightstand, the cut-glass ashtray full of butts and used
     matches and rock-hard wads of spit-out gum. Beyond that she was sprawled, rumpled as the sheet, her yellow slip yanked down
     and sideways. My dad was the lump to her right. One of them was grinding their teeth a little.
    Back in our room, Penny had climbed into bed, so I did too, though I felt seeing the fire had made us too old for naps. We
     pulled the sheet over our heads and played parachute with it, kicking the blue up as far as it would go.

    I DON’T KNOW HOW long we stayed with Bonnie — a few weeks? a month? — before the phone rang one morning as we were all eating breakfast. It
     was the social worker. I watched Bonnie’s face as she talked, letting my Rice Chex sog up. She nodded yes and yes again, and
     then hung up, flashing us a smile. This was good news. A family had seen our school pictures and wanted us. Mrs. O’Rourke
     would be over in a few hours, so we’d better get hopping. Bonnie put us in the bath and washed our hair — not with the Johnson’s
     baby shampoo but with her own that smelled like melon. We wrestled on dresses and tights, and Bonnie fixed butterfly barrettes
     in our hair. Then, sure we’d get dirty if we went outside, she made us sit, trapped on the couch with nothing to do but smack
     the heels of our good shoes together, pig poke and elbow one another until she had to put the couch cushions between us.
    This was the second time we’d met Mrs. O’Rourke, the first being the day our dad drove us down to the Department of Welfare.
     She came to the door in a nice skirt-and-sweater set. Even her hair looked hopeful, teased up in back to a kind of soufflé,
     a sweep of frosted bangs in front, left to right. Bonnie had put what clothes we had in green garbage bags with twist ties,
     and Mrs. O’Rourke helped us carry them down to the parking lot. It was early afternoon, and the apartment complex was empty.
     Chip was off at school with all the other kids whose lives weren’t starting over that day. The only one to say good-bye to
     was Bonnie, who stood in her doorway in a terry-cloth robe and knee-high stockings. As we pulled out of the lot, she waved
     with the hand that held her cigarette, sending up smoke ribbons, snaking and frayed. It was hard to know what to feel. I would
     miss Bonnie, but she could only ever be our aunt. Up ahead somewhere was a family, a mother, a place not to wait but to stay.

L IKE G RANNY, THE S PINOZAS lived in central Fresno, where donut shops and check-cashing places bloomed under freeways, where the
taquerias,
their menus painted in chunky red letters on the windows, locked and barred their doors at first dark. Off of busier streets
     like Clinton and Olive were avenues and lanes, drives and circles, some ending in cul-de-sacs, some butting up against flood
     controls or supermarket parking lots. Along these, small boxy houses were strung along the sidewalk like lines on a ruler.
     A few had gardens with trolls or plastic flamingos, but most of the yards were sad: dog-chewed, dandelion-blown, flecked with
     trash. The Spinozas’ house was sided white, with a window to each side of the door, like cartoon eyes with x’s. The TV screamed
     as we came up the walk, sirens and a car chase, cops on a megaphone:
Surrender your weapons.
Through the screen door, Mr. Spinoza filled most of a fat recliner, his face washed yellow with TV light. Hearing the doorbell,
     he stood up, yanking on the waistband of his work pants. He shook Mrs. O’Rourke’s hand, ushered us in and hollered for his
     wife, who appeared suddenly from the dark back of the house.
    Mrs. Spinoza’s puckered face was framed by tight gray braids, crisscrossed and fastened flat with pins. She wore a shapeless
     housedress and