The Divine Economy of Salvation by Priscila Uppal Read Free Book Online

nights, drinking hot chocolate with whipped cream even in the summer. It was a tradition that went back as far as I could recall. Mother’s illness hadn’t changed that; she’d get Christine to help her decide how to play out her hand, or we’d play a three-person game instead of one that required partners. Every once in a while I would drink too much and go to bed with a bellyache, suffering through it so that I wouldn’t be scolded for complaining for what was my own fault. Father didn’t mention what he and Mother would do now without us. He also didn’t ask how I liked the new school or how the nights had been without my family. I wanted to tell him I was miserable and this was all their fault. I wanted to tell him I was meant to be at home, that God had made it clear to me that I should be at home. Anything to get out of here. But he didn’t ask.
    When Friday classes finished, I returned to my floor in the dormitory. Bella, a girl who wore her hair in braided pigtails, roomed beside me. She was difficult not to notice, although she wasn’t physically striking in any way, merely pleasant. She had black hair and a smooth, milky whiteness to her skin, a few tiny beauty marks at the corners of her eyes. But if she was not the most popular with the girls, she was clearly the favourite of the nuns in the school. Bella had the right answers. Bella was attentive and responsive to instruction. When they inspected our hands to make sure we had washed, Bella had no dirt under her fingernails. When Sister Aline handed out music sheets for choir practice, Bella was delegated all the solos, though I had yet to hear her sing. It was obvious she liked it here, and the nuns liked her for it. She was polite to the girls too, in areserved adult manner. Passing others in the hall or the washroom she would say hello and carry on her way without fuss.
    With her mother waiting downstairs for her in the lobby, Bella asked me how I liked my first week at St. X. School for Girls.
    â€œIt’s all right,” I replied, noticing that she had packed a book for an assignment handed out that day and not due for a couple of weeks.
    â€œYou staying?”
    I shrugged. “My father works on the weekends.”
    Bella flung her bag over her shoulder, catching her hair. She groaned and lifted the strap to release the braid.
    â€œI’ve heard it can be fun here on the weekends. Mr. M. comes down and takes some of the girls to the movies and stuff.”
    I didn’t yet know whose father Mr. M. was, or if he was someone’s father at all. But it was an indication to me that there might be some advantage to staying at the school and I was interested, although Bella was eager to greet her mother.
    â€œYeah?” She was friendlier to me than some of the other girls, so I wondered why I didn’t feel the urge to befriend her. Perhaps I felt we weren’t the same kind of girl. I had no idea whether to define Bella as a potential friend or an enemy.
    By informing Bella I was staying because my father worked on weekends, I’d hoped to demonstrate my superiority, my parents’ belief that I was capable of being on my own. Instead, Bella saw through me and offered some comfort.
    â€œI’m sure the girls will find something to do together,” Bella replied, and walked off to meet her mother, leaving me at the door of my empty room without any idea of what I was going to do next.
    I watched the other girls packing up their tote bags and small suitcases or simply carrying a few books outside with them to their parents’ cars. They broke out of the gate like horses, sprinting to be on the outside after being kept in. They would have the pleasure of sleeping in their own beds and eating at their dinner tables instead of in the cafeteria. Perhaps they would choose what they wanted to eat instead of being served whatever the staff made. I imagined they had the luxury of two sets of