Scare the Light Away by Vicki Delany Read Free Book Online

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    I hoisted myself onto the freezer and lifted my flashlight higher in order to see better. I flipped to the last written page. Sampson sat in a far corner, scratching at I didn’t want to know what.
    I hadn’t been home for thirty years, but in all that time my mother had written to me almost every week and often more. Her handwriting was as familiar to me as my own. More familiar. It’s been years since I’ve written anything more involved than a shopping list or directions to a friend’s summer home. Like almost everyone else in my world, I type, and then click “print.”
    It was dated six weeks ago:
    Bit of a pain in my head again today. Came on me sharp as I cleared the front step. But then it passed. Maude keeps saying that she’ll drive me to see Dr.Richardson in North Ridge, if I only make the appointment. That’s kind of her. She’s become a good friend, Maude. But I don’t like to go to Dr. Richardson. He’s pleasant enough but seems much too young to be a doctor. I do miss old Dr. O’Malley. Winter will be over soon, thank goodness. After fifty-some years one would think that I would be accustomed to these horrid Canadian winters. Letter from Rebecca today. So nice to hear from her. She doesn’t write much any more. This was the first letter in months.
    Did I really want to read this? But I could no more climb back up those stairs, turn off the light and go to sleep than Sampson could tell me that she would read them and give me a précis.
    She took Ray’s death so hard. I wanted her to come out here, for a nice long visit. But she won’t. Too proud. It would have been better if she and Ray had had children, then she would have someone to live for now that he’s gone.
    Enough!
    The book slammed shut with sufficient force to distract Sampson from a thorough washing of her private parts. The journal landed with a thud in the open tea chest, and I jumped down off the freezer.
    The treads shook with every step as I stomped up the stairs. The light was switched off so fast that Sampson had to make the last bit of her way in the dark.
    I found it hard to sleep that night. All the years of my accumulated guilt rose to the surface and I tossed and turned until daybreak.
    I was a bad daughter. My mother tried to be a good mother. She was a good mother. I was a bad daughter. I’m a bad person.
    So what, I asked myself? This was my life’s lesson: no good deed goes unpunished. The good finish last. I’d learned that at the hand of the master: my grandfather.
    ***
    Monday morning. For most people, a working day. For me, the day of the dreaded family dinner. I stared up at nothing as the sun conducted dust mites in Viennese waltzes across the ceiling. My parents had slept in this bed. Making love. Yuck! Conceiving Jimmy and eight years later, me. Yuck again! Why were there so many years between Jimmy and myself, when Shirley and Jimmy were fairly close? If I read my mother’s diary I might know.
    I pushed the thought aside. Who wants to know the details of their own conception?
    Not me.
    Of course, I told myself as I padded to the back door to let Sampson out, being my mother she wouldn’t have written such an impolite thing down. Would she?
    “Morning, Dad.” He came in as I was measuring out the coffee I’d purchased yesterday. “Sleep well?”
    “As well as can be expected, Becky. Without your mother beside me. But thank you for asking.”
    “Rebecca,” I said automatically.
    “Coffee. How nice.” He pulled out the remains of yesterday’s newspaper and settled in at the table. No one would see today’s papers until someone walked up to the mailbox on the road to get them.
    I briefly considered doing just that. And telling my dad that I would be back in a few minutes and I would have my eggs over easy, thank you. And lightly on the toast. I don’t like it burned.
    Instead I pulled out sausage and eggs and sliced generous pieces off the loaf of twelve-grain bread. “What time’s the