The Other Shoe by Matt Pavelich Read Free Book Online Page B

the teapot left without explanation on the counter or the wildflowers tied to the screen door had been his offering. Among Sunday’s smelly pilgrims, few found the wherewithal even to say thanks, and even Mr. Brusett, who was so very appreciative, would never hazard to say more than that. He had come up in hippie times and must have been one, for he still wore his hair long, tied in back and center-parted, and it was streaked with gray so that his scalp suggested a skunk’s back. But he was not so glossy as a skunk, and not nearly so self-possessed. His right leg didn’t carry him so much as it had to be carried, and to be lifted and thrown forward in every troubling step, and Mr. Brusett was so unwilling to give offense that in company, to be safe, he ceased to acknowledge his own existence.
    Karen saw—could she be the only one?—that Mr. Brusett was embarrassed by the needy whining the Dents shared in prayer. “Lord, please help Slim endure those frostbit fingers, and let Tony find a way back to the loving arms of his Lucinda, for we fear you, Lord Jesus, and from you all things can be given, and to you all thanks is due.” Mr. Brusett, looking away, looking at his feet. A man who spoke only as much as necessary to be polite, he was otherwise a blank slate, and each time he came, Karen imagined some new history for him. As hisSunday appearances became more important to her, Karen grew more and more certain that her parents would soon drive Mr. Brusett away with their loony devotions, with their Let-us-all-join-together-nows, their constant Let-us-now-bow-our-heads. Ordinarily, only very hungry men could stomach much of her folks’ blustery ministry, for the Dents’ preaching was the kind that incites sidelong looks. Galahad worked for the county road department, but he liked to think he was more than that. He owned his own home. He was fully insured. He had a nice wife and a nicer fishing boat, and he’d seen his salvation. It pleased him to lord it over the woebegone, and share his gooey rapture with them, and Pastor Hurlburt called Galahad Dent his great soldier in Christ. Her father, beaming in his certainty of life eternal, would say, “Christ died, boys, died on Calvary for my sins, and he’ll die for you, too, if you let him. He’d be glad to. Christ is Lord.”
    And, worse, there was Karen’s mother, Jean. A mother who, out of sheer, sweet, unwavering incomprehension, had formed the habit of treating people like pets and conferring on them personalities having almost nothing to do with anything to be found in their actual characters. Jean would insist on everyone’s general decency, and that anyone who came through their door became honorary kin, and she called Mr. Brusett “Uncle Henry.” Every time Jean said something of that sort, Mr. Brusett’s head would bob slightly, not in agreement, but another distinction, another little gesture that only Karen seemed to understand. He certainly never agreed to be taken in, but even so, and even though he kept no other company that anyone knew of, Mr. Brusett was their guest more Sundays than not for several years. That was the same set of years, as it happened, when Jean had taken to calling her daughter “Dad.”
    And so Karen would try to meet Mr. Brusett at the door, and when everyone came to the table she’d try to sit across from him or to either side of him, somewhere within the scent of the astringentsoap he used. His knuckles were large and egg-shaped and uneven; she saw that his hands, when not concealed between his legs or under the table, would often clutch at something not there. They were alike, she and Mr. Brusett; they’d made ghosts of themselves and learned how to go unseen. Only in his presence did she ever feel less than completely alone.
    On a Sunday also memorable because she’d been mentioned in church for having graduated junior high, there came a new visitor