The Replacement Child by Christine Barber Read Free Book Online Page A

Skylark, but she was thinking of trading it in for one of those cute SUVs everyone in town had.
    Claire had even talked her into using a laundry service. “Pat,” Claire had said, “in your lifetime you have hung out more sheets than the town bed wetter.” So Patsy, a former Kansas farm wife, had her laundry sent out. It made her feel mischievous.
    Claire had said that the next thing Patsy needed to learn was how to pay her own bills. And Patsy was thinking about getting her first job. Maybe as a cashier at Hobby Lobby. She was going to stop by and get an application tomorrow, when she and Claire went on their weekly shopping trip.
    Patsy slipped another bead onto the necklace, while Claire started a whole new stream of swearing. Patsy looked at her nervously. One of the other students had complained to the teacher last week that Claire swore so loudly that it made him uncomfortable. Claire did everything loudly because she was deaf in one ear but refused to wear a hearing aid. “I’m not sticking something in my ear where it don’t belong,” she would say with a snort. But Patsy thought she was just being stubborn.
    Claire’s voice was getting louder and a student sitting in front of them turned to stare. Patsy poked Claire in the arm, saying, “Shush.” Claire turned and made a face at her and the two started giggling.
    G il walked into his house, making sure to dead-bolt the door against the broad daylight. He heard the refrigerator open and found his wife making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the kitchen. She wasn’t even startled when he said hello.
    Susan had a part-time job doing accounting work for agravel company in town. They had talked about her going back full-time, but she wanted to be around for their two daughters, Joy and Therese.
    He sat on one of the stools near the counter and listened as she told him about an afternoon field trip she was going on to Bandelier National Monument with Joy’s fifth-grade class.
    Bandelier was only forty-five minutes away. Gil and the girls had been there dozens of times when they were younger. They would walk around the Anasazi Indian ruins, looking for pieces of pottery in the dirt. When Joy was little she had called them Anastazi Indians, making the word sound Italian. When was the last time they had gone there? He couldn’t remember.
    Susan sealed the sandwich in a Ziploc bag and put it into a paper sack with an apple. He handed her the car keys as she grabbed the bag and kissed him a quick good-bye. He reached up and brushed the hair out of her eyes as she moved away, heading out the garage door to her car.
    She called over her shoulder, “Don’t forget to get that St. Joseph statue from your mom when you see her tonight,” then closed the door behind her.
    Susan wanted the statue so that she could bury it upside down in the backyard, to help sell their house. Her sister had done it and sold her home within a week. His cousins had done it and gotten five thousand dollars more than they had hoped. Everyone in Santa Fe knew someone who had quickly sold his house after burying St. Joseph in the backyard.
    Gil glanced around his kitchen. They had remodeled the kitchen and bathrooms when they moved in after he was hired by the city, spending long Sunday afternoons painting and scraping. But even after they were done, Susan said that it was never “homey.” It was not her dream house. Their neighborhood had been built in the 1960s and had been ranch land back when his parents were growing up. The homes had backyards and front yards. Their place wasn’t very big, just threebedrooms. Susan wanted a house with breathing room, one that was new and didn’t need constant repairs.
    They were looking at houses in Eldorado, outside Santa Fe, where all the homes were newly built and spacious. The nearest next-door neighbor was about a block away. The property out there was desert with chamisa and piñon. It didn’t have the tall trees like in Santa Fe or where