Little Bird of Heaven by Joyce Carol Oates Read Free Book Online Page B

now?” meant to be a joke and so I laughed nervously.
    Maybe he wanted me to guess? I guessed Buffalo, Batavia, Port Oriskany, Strykersville…. He said, “I’m between habitats, right now. Left some things in storage in Buffalo. Mostly I’m in motion, y’know?—in this car that’s my newest purchase/investment. Like it?”
    Though I was listening intently to my father yet I seemed not to know what he was asking me. This car? Do I like—this car?
    I had already told my father yes, I liked this car. This was a beautiful car. But he wasn’t living in his car, was he? Was he living in his car?
    The backseat was piled with things. Boxes, files, folders. A pair of men’s shoes, what appeared to be clothing: outer garments. Suitcase. Suitcases. Duffel bag. More boxes.
    Dead to us. Doesn’t he know it?
    Damn dumb ghost wish to hell he’d die.
    “Anywhere I am, Krista. In my—y’know—soul. Like in my thoughts, except deeper. That’s what a soul is. In my soul I’m here, in Sparta. Lots of times in my sleep in our house, on the Huron Road. That’s where I wake up, until—I’m awake and I see hey no— nooooo! —that isn’t where I am, after all.”
    To this, I had no idea how to reply. I was thinking how I loved my Daddy, and how strange it was that a girl has a Daddy, and a girl loves a Daddy, a girl does not judge a Daddy. I was thinking how I hated my brother Ben, who was free of having to love Daddy.
    Ben didn’t love me, either. I was sure.
    “It’s my birthplace here,” Daddy said. “My birthright. Nights when I can’t sleep I just shut my eyes, I’m here. I’m home.” “I wish…”
    “Yes? What d’you wish, Puss?”
    “…you could come live with us again, Daddy. That’s what I wish.”
    Daddy laughed, kindly. Or maybe Daddy’s laugh was resigned, wounded.
    “…wish you could come back tonight…. It isn’t the same without you, Daddy. Anywhere in the house. Anywhere…” I was wiping at my eyes, that ached as if I’d been staring into a blinding light. Maybe one of the guards on the opposing team had thumbed my eye, out of pure meanness.
    Pissy little white girl get out of my face! “I miss you, Daddy. So does Ben. He doesn’t say so, but he does.”
    This was a lie. Why I said it, impulsively, I don’t know: to make Daddy happy, maybe. A little happier.
    “Well, honey. Thank you. I miss you, too. Real bad.” There was a pause, Daddy pondered. “And your brother.”
    I said yes, I’d tell him. I’d tell Ben.
    It had been one of the shocks of my father’s life, how his son had turned against him. His son, against him.
    And maybe he’d loved Ben better than he’d loved me. Or he’d wanted to. Having a son was the card you led with, in Daddy’s circle of men friends.
    “…she’s getting along, O.K.? Is she?”
    She. We were talking about my mother, were we? All along, since I’d scrambled to climb into the Caddie Seville, the subject had been my mother.
    “…to that church? The new one? How’s that turning out?”
    I told him it was turning out all right. My mother had joined a new church, my mother had “new friends” or claimed to have. I had not yet met these “new friends” but one of them was named Eve Hurtle or Huddle, the brassy-haired dump truck–shaped woman who owned Second Time ’Round.
    I was uneasy thinking that my father might ask if my mother was “seeing” anyone—any man—and I prepared what I might say. Daddy I don’t know! I don’t think so. Hoping he wouldn’t ask, this would be demeaning to him.
    But Daddy didn’t ask. Not that. If Eddy Diehl felt sexual jealousy, sexual rage, he had too much manly pride to ask. Though I could sense how badly he wanted to ask.
    “…doesn’t pass on much information about me, I guess? To you and Ben?”
    Information? I wasn’t sure what Daddy meant.
    “It’s like I’m dead, yes? ‘Dead to me’—that’s what she says?”
    It’s over. Finished. That’s what she says.
    Carefully I told