Web of Angels by Lilian Nattel Read Free Book Online Page B

emergency, someone could even bring a sick kid to her house in the middle of the night.
    All of this Alec knew though he drew no conclusions from it. He’d been back out in the life for the last two years, observing how it had changed, watching kids in the neighbourhood play, fight, fall out of trees, get soothed, yammer for ice cream when the ice cream truck drove by the playground with its hypnotically cheerful song. And while he was watching he found things to do.
    Last summer Heather had come over one day when he was in the backyard, stripping paint off a table top he’d picked up at a yard sale. She was going door to door, selling raffle tickets for one of her parents’ charities. She was practically bald then; her head looked like a grey stone covered with golden fuzz. People said her parents had had her head shaven because of lice. They said she’d shaven her own head out of spite.
    “Ten dollars each,” she’d said sullenly. He hadn’t known she was pregnant. She wasn’t showing yet. “Your chances of winning are one in five.”
    “That sounds like high odds.”
    “It is.” She’d suddenly grinned. One of her eyeteeth was chipped. “I lied.”
    “Okay, but move. You shouldn’t be standing so close to the chemicals. It’s bad for you.”
    She’d put a hand on her belly as she peered at him suspiciously. “Did my sister say something to Josh?”
    “It’s bad for kids, that’s all. I don’t let them in the yard when I’m using paint stripper.”
    He’d gone into the house to get some money for the raffle tickets, figuring that was expected. When he came back, Heather was still outside, sitting in the girls’ sandbox, overalls rolled up, drawing with a stick. There were no clues in the drawings, just random shapes, triangles, spirals. When she saw Alec, she scratched a tic-tac-toe board into the sand, putting an
X
in the middle. Obligingly, he made an
O
though he had no chance of winning with the
X
placed there. “I’m going for a draw,” he’d said. “Why’d you shave your head?”
    “It’s the antidepressants,” she’d said. “They make me so hot.” She’d laughed then.
    “I get it,” Alec said. “Very funny. But I thought that antidepressants, you know, shut that down.”
    “I guess I won’t make it as a hooker.” And then she’d laughed even harder. She’d stayed in the sandbox, making a tower of sand while Alec went back to working on the table. Now and then he glanced over at her. Once she looked backat him, with eyes as lucid as bright moons. “My sister has sold a lot of tickets. She always does, so, like they wouldn’t put her on pills. You know what I mean? No matter what, she’ll be okay. Thanks for letting me stay here for a while.”
    “No problem.” He’d paused, shaking off bits and pieces of thought from others inside, wanting to see just what was in front of him. It was late afternoon, a half moon rising over the yard, and the wind couldn’t make up its mind, coming from the north, then turning south and west, clouds moving in and out. The girl stood there in her rolled-up overalls, ankles bare and mosquito bitten, new sneakers pristine, her chest already starting to swell, not that he would have noticed that then. What he saw was that her overalls had a lot of pockets and that there were things hidden in them, as if she didn’t trust them as far away as the bag she carried. There was something he wanted to say to this kid. To tell her he’d run off at her age, too, and had driven up to his uncle’s. Only he’d come back because he had a little sister at home. Then he’d ask her where she’d run and why she’d come back. But while he hesitated, unsure of himself in this mom’s life, she’d said goodbye, ducking her head as if the sky was too low.
    On the porch of Heather’s house, Alec bent to pick up two cartons of food, straightened up and walked in. The kitchen was at the back, as in most houses, the front door leading first to what was on