The Worst Thing I've Done by Ursula Hegi Read Free Book Online Page A

leading me in that dance. Her tangled hair against my cheek. That laugh of hers.
    â€œHey…you’re sad again.” Mason stroked my lower lip. “We don’t have to—”
    â€œMaybe it’ll be something we can laugh at…eventually?”
    â€œI knew you’d say yes.”
    â€œI haven’t really—”
    â€œYes? It’ll be a great present for Aunt Stormy. I’ll take the film to the one-hour place, and we’ll pick it up when we leave for Long Island. Say yes?”
    â€œYes.” I shoved him off me. “All right?”
    He pulled on his sweats, headed for Opal’s room, singing, “Happy birthday…”
    From the top shelf of our closet, I pulled the box with my wedding dress.
    Heard the faucet in the bathroom. Mason’s voice: “Do you know it’s your birthday, Stardust?”
    In front of the mirror, I stuffed a pillow into my underpants.
    â€œBetter clean you up, Stardust.”
    As I tugged my wedding dress over the pillow bulge, I pictured my mother—wide shoulders like mine. Wide hips. And that irreverent smile.
    â€œWhat a face,” Mason was telling Opal as he carried her into our bedroom. “May I ask where you got such a funny, beautiful face?”
    She stretched out her arms for me.
    â€œA face like Annie’s! That’s where you got it. Annie is a bride. See? Here you go.”
    I kissed her, propped her on my hip, my naked sister, posing with her for Mason’s camera, thinking of my mother, thinking: Opal is yours…she’ll always be yours.

    I N M ASON’S photos, I’m a very pregnant bride, one child already on her hip.
    â€œOpal has a present for you,” Mason told Aunt Stormy and placed the photo envelope into Opal’s hands, guided toward Aunt Stormy.
    â€œFor me? And here it’s your birthday, Opal.” She pulled out the photos. Laughed aloud. “Brilliant…a bride who may or may not reach the altar before her next child pops out. Whose idea was this?” she asked Mason, as if she already knew.
    He shrugged. Grinned.
    â€œI didn’t think I’d be able to laugh today,” Aunt Stormy said. “Thank you for that, Mason.”
    The instant she hugged me, I was crying.
    So was Aunt Stormy. “At least we’re…together…a ritual to be together…this anniversary of anniversaries…”
    â€œHey—” Mason brought his arms around us. “Aunt Stormy? Doesn’t Annie look beautiful being pregnant?”
    â€œI’m not pregnant.”
    â€œEven make-believe pregnant, you’re beautiful.”
    â€œSure…”
    He swung Opal into his arms. “Let’s you and I go and investigate the ducks.” He went outside, into air so clear that the shadows were crisp.
    â€œHe’s amazing with her,” Aunt Stormy said.
    â€œAmazing…”
    She took my face between her palms. Wiped back my tears. Our tears.

    A UNT S TORMY taught my mother—and later me—how to keep from disturbing trees, even tiny ones, by letting the path wind among them. Taught us how to brace broken trunks and branches with the V-shaped joints of fallen branches. But she was merciless with briers, clipping their bright green stems so they wouldn’t smother trees and bushes. Their thorns would scratch her arms and face. And she’d keep at them till she had them all. Then she’d wind them into big circles and press them into the thicket along the north edge of her land so that birds could use them for nesting.
    Aunt Stormy and my mother weren’t real sisters. They weren’t even from the same town, but at least from the same region by the North Sea in Germany, not far from Holland: my mother from Norddeich, Aunt Stormy from Benersiel. They became sisters-by-choice, as they called it, when they met as au pairs, doing child care for two families in Southampton, on the East End of Long Island. In old