The Sixteen Burdens by David Khalaf Read Free Book Online Page A

ailing.
    Out of one home and into another.
    “But we need the funding!” Farrell said.
    “ You need the funding,” she said, looking at his silk robe and the gold chain around his neck. “I suggest you adopt less expensive tastes.”
    She took Gray by the arm again and led him out. Farrell grabbed at his other hand and clutched it like a man drowning.
    “Wait! Don’t trust her! She’s dangerous. She’s…not what you think.”
    Farrell ran his fingers along each scar on Gray’s forearm, as if reminiscing with an old photo album.
    “I’m the one who has taken care of you all these years,” Farrell said. “I’m the reason you’re still alive.”
    “You’re the reason I look like a pin cushion.”
    Gray pulled his hand free from Farrell’s grip. He turned, and followed Pickford out the front door. The heads of two dozen boys popped up in the front windows like prairie dogs.
    In the distance he heard a siren.
    “We need to hurry,” she said.
    Gray ground his heels into the dirt.
    “Wait. How do you know my name?”
    Pickford said nothing for a moment. The warm winter sky outside was clear in a way unlike any of the other seasons. Stars above poked out with amazing clarity.
    “I know your name because I gave it to you. Because I am your mother.”

 
     
     
     
    C HAPTER S IX
     
    “I F IT MAKES you feel better, my mothering would have been disastrous.”
    “Worse than your driving?” Gray asked.
    Mary Pickford was at the wheel, driving like roads were suggestions.
    He was trying to listen, but was too busy grasping the door handle and trying to remember the Lord’s Prayer.
    They had dragged her driver into the back seat; he had been hit over the head and was unconscious but breathing.
    “Shouldn’t we take him to the hospital?” Gray asked.
    “Edward will have to wait,” she said. “I’ll get him medical attention as soon as there’s time.”
    Gray looked back at the older man; he had distinguished, star-quality features.
    “You’re right about one thing,” Gray said. “You’ve got about as much maternal instinct as General MacArthur.”
    Pickford obviously couldn’t see well through her thick veil, and more than once she swerved at just the last moment to avoid hitting another car. At Temple Street they took a right too sharply and clipped the curb, bouncing as if in a bumper car at a carnival. She just kept driving.
    “You have to understand,” she said. “I couldn’t keep you.”
    “Busy schedule?”
    “It was too dangerous. Someone has been after me.”
    “Probably a traffic cop.”
    Two pedestrians stepped out onto the street and Pickford slammed on her brakes, but not before they scattered like pigeons in a park. Pickford resumed driving as if nothing had happened.
    “If you’re my mother, then who’s my father?”
    “He’s dead now.”
    “Who was he?”
    Pickford drove for a while.
    “Harry,” was all she said.
    Gray couldn’t figure out this woman’s angle. If she was lying, why? What did she want from him? Maybe she was just as crazy as everyone said.
    “I should have planned better for this moment,” she said. “It was bound to come. I knew he’d never give up.”
    She fumbled around in her purse near Gray’s feet and removed a flask. She uncapped it with one hand and took a swig from under the veil. Gray stared at her wide-eyed and doubled his grip on the door handle.
    “Listen to what I have to say,” she said. “It’s very important. Do you know why I was such a successful actress back in the Twenties?”
    Pickford ignored a traffic light and ran through the stop signal.
    “You mowed down your critics?”
    “I was the most beautiful actress of my day. I couldn’t act, not at first, but people loved to look at me. They used to call me America’s Sweetheart. The Girl With the Curls. That was before.”
    “Before what?”
    “Before you.”
    Now it made sense. Pickford was delusional and she wanted someone to blame for the decline in her career.