The Cipher by John C. Ford Read Free Book Online Page A

written:
Pro: I glow for him. Ridiculous, but I do
.
    The bedroom door opened. Smiles pocketed his cell on the way out, looking haunted.
    â€œSmiles . . . what did she say?”
    â€œDo you want to eat?”
    He was avoiding it, of course, but she hated seeing him like this.
    â€œKabobs?” she said. Smiles loved the smelly kabob joint across the street.
    He took her hand on the way out. He almost never did it, and she could have cried at the tender offering.

    The kabob place was the size of a matchbox. It had two tiny booths, and the air was thick with a smell of lamb that stuck to your clothes for days afterward. The grease had yellowed the walls and penetrated a picture frame above them, warping a poster of Cyprus. They ate in silence, scrunched side by side in the booth. Melanie was thankful when Smiles prepared to speak.
    â€œIt was her, you were right.” He was a fast eater and had finished already. He wiped his hands on tissue-thin napkins.
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œYeah. She said it was for the best that I didn’t read the letter.”
    Melanie groaned.
    â€œWhat?” Smiles said.
    His harsh tone took her aback. He hardly ever spoke like that.
    â€œI just . . . I think you deserve to know what it said.”
    Smiles shrugged. “What could she say that’s important now? Whatever—it’s over.”
    Melanie chewed, savoring the extra time to think of how to advance this conversation. It suddenly felt like a minefield. “But after what she did to you—”
    â€œI don’t care what she did to me. I had the best mom I could want.”
    â€œI know. It’s just, like,
accountability
or something.”
    â€œI’m not gonna play judge. I’m not gonna force anybody to deal with me if they don’t want to.” After a while he added, “Anyway, she said my mom knew about the letter.”
    â€œRose?”
    â€œYeah, Rose. You know—my
mom
.” He was angry now, like Melanie had been insulting the memory of the woman who raised him.
    â€œRight, sorry.” Melanie felt like she couldn’t win here. What was she supposed to do, call them Mom One and Mom Two? “But I mean, what does it matter that Rose knew about it?”
    Smiles stared at her like she was dumb. “If she knew and didn’t say anything, then she probably thought it was best for me not to know about the letter, too.”
    â€œOr she was just being respectful. Waiting till you turned eighteen, according to the directions for the message. Did she even read it?”
    â€œYeah.” The harsh voice again. “I guess. They emailed about it and everything, apparently.”
    â€œSmiles . . .”
    He turned to her, gearing to attack.
    Why was he getting like this?
    â€œIf it were me,” Melanie said, “the emailing thing would make me
more
curious.”
    â€œWe’re different people, then. Or maybe I’m just weird.”
    Melanie could feel herself getting hot but couldn’t help it. She could practically see his self-esteem shrinking before her eyes, and it wasn’t right. “She
gave birth
to you, Smiles. Did she even apologize for leaving you and your dad?”
    Smiles balled up his soggy napkins and paper plate.
    â€œI’m done, let’s go.”
    â€œ
I’m
not.” She had half a kabob on her plate.
    â€œYou aren’t eating that.”
    She wasn’t, but now he was pissing her off. “You’re telling me what I’m going to eat? I don’t know why you’re acting like this is all my fault somehow.”
    His stare hardened, his eyes gone bitter and dull. “I’m done with this.”
    And then he left.

    Melanie finished her kabob out of spite. She sat on the sticky red plastic, in the hot greasy air, and she chewed slow bites that piled uncomfortably in her stomach.
    She walked to the apartment building on a storm cloud of hurt. Melanie knew