What They Wanted by Donna Morrissey Read Free Book Online Page B

tea.”
    I sat in Gran’s rocker, speaking assuredly of Father’s recovery. Fire snapped inside the stove, and I relished its heat. I relished, too, Gran’s wiry frame, her hair all white now and caught at her nape, her darkish brows lending strength to her fading green eyes as she moved about the kitchen in her odd, faltering manner—from bending over in her garden, plucking weeds at every turn, we always teased her.
    “She got a fright, my Dolly, your mother got a bad fright,” said Gran, “seeing him crumple across his boat like that. She was watering her plants when she seen him through the window. Did she tell you?”
    “No. Did you? Did you see him, too?”
    “I was in the room. She never called out at first—didn’t want to frighten me. Poor thing. Wonder she didn’t drown, running over the pan ice like that.” Gran’s mouth quivered— whether from emotion or age I couldn’t rightly say—as she continued telling the horrible story of Mother dragging Father off the boat and onto his back on the ice, screaming out for Chris to run, run, for the doctor. He was conscious by the time the doctor got there, his eyes moving, his breathing short and quick, but he was making no sound, no movement. Pain, he told Mother after he woke up in the hospital, he was locked so hard into pain he thought it was crushing his chest, and he could do nothing but breathe—seen an angel, he said, but then the angel cursed and he saw it was his Addie instead.
    Gran smiled and sat a cup of tea and plate of scones before me, kissing the top of my head. “Lord bless them both. Sugar your tea, I gets some milk.”
    The door opened and Chris came in, his nose watering from the cold, and Kyle behind him. No matter his seventeen years, Kyle looked a boy with his stout, pudgy frame—still carrying his baby fat, we always teased him. His face was rounded, not comely like Chris’s, yet his cheeky grin had always been an instant draw. He looked at me now and I half thought he’d come lumbering over as when he’d been a youngster, pulling his ears or plugging his nostrils with his fingers to garner a laugh. Instead he offered me the saddest of smiles, crossing the room to sit stiffly on the arm of Mother’s rocker.
    Mom won’t like that, loosening the arms of her rocker, I wanted to say, to tease him, to lighten his worry. Instead I dumped two spoonfuls of sugar into the cup of tea Gran laid before me and took it to him.
    “Suppose you still got your sweet tooth,” I said, and ruffled his hair. He smiled a tiny, frightened smile. Keeping his eyes from mine, he took the cup, nervously jiggling his foot. “Hey.” I touched his shoulder. “Dad’s gonna be fine. Truly.”
    “Come on, Kyle, my love, come have tea with Gran.” Gran scraped back a chair beside where Chris was sitting at the table, brooding out the window. I went to the kitchen cupboard, plunged my hand into the cookie canister, thankful it was filled with our favourite ginger snaps, and took a fistful to Kyle. “Here, stuff your face with that,” I said, shoving them at him. I laughed along with him at his clumsy effort to catch them from spilling onto the floor.
    “What’re you brooding out the window for?” I chided Chris, sitting back down in the rocker. “Or is it your face you’re looking at—is that what he’s doing, Gran—admiring himself?”
    Chris shot me a dubious look and turned back to the window, wondering out loud about whether it was wind or rain overtaking the evening.
    “Wind, you silly thing,” said Gran. “Sky’s too thick for rain. Haul back your chair. Stop fretting, as your sister says. You’ll be having bad dreams agin tonight. Kyle, turn on the lights—or light Gran’s lamp instead. Feels warmer with the lamp lit, don’t you think, my Dolly? Where you going—not fit to be out,” she said as Chris scrooped back his chair, heading for the door. She grumbled as he said something about the boat. “Be sick with the flu before