What We Keep Is Not Always What Will Stay by Amanda Cockrell Read Free Book Online Page A

thinks celebrating the Day of the Dead is morbid and/or sort of countrified—but my father might have been from Mexico, or maybe his parents were. I feel entitled to that much of him, at least.
    Once we were past the cemetery, Michael and Sarah let go of Jesse and followed Lily, who said she knew where the best houses were. Jesse and I ended up sitting on a rock at the end of someone’s driveway, waiting for them. I could tell the leg was hurting him but he wasn’t going to say anything else about it, so I developed a blister on my foot. I don’t think he believed me, though.
    But I could see the tension in his jaw loosen up when we sat down and he stuck his bad leg out in front of him. “You look nice in that veil,” he said. “It suits you.”
    “It makes me feel like Zorro’s girlfriend.”
    He reached over and tucked it around my chin, arranging the folds. “Nah. Duchess of Alba.”
    “Who?”
    “By Goya. Famous painting. She reminds me of you.”
    “Really?”
    “Yeah.” He smiled at me. “She’s always been my favorite.”
    I can absolutely get into the idea of looking like a famous painting.
    After a while, Lily and the kids came back with their bags overflowing. Jesse looked sort of horrified—there was enough candy to keep two little kids sick for a month—but Lily, it turns out, had already negotiated the deal with them and they were all pleased with themselves for collecting candy for the shelter. We sat in Lily’s car while they dumped it all out onto the back seat and graded it, putting their favorite stuff back into the pumpkins. They were half asleep and sticky by the time we dropped them off.
    “Thanks, you two,” Jesse said as he hauled them out and put the princess over his shoulder. “’Night, Rudolph. ’Night, Duchess.”
    Lily raised an eyebrow, and I said, “Famous painting.” A little smugly, I expect.
    “Goya,” Jesse said. “You should look her up.”
    So I did, the next day after school. She actually does look kind of like me, and she definitely has my hair. I also looked up the C-Leg online. The manufacturer’s website has a picture of the leg, which looks like something you’d see on the cover of a science fiction paperback. It said the C-Leg is “ideal for people who currently are or have the potential to be unlimited community ambulators.” Only a company that made something like computerized legs would think up a phrase like “community ambulator” to describe someone who wants to get up and walk around.
    Our whole house is wireless—Ben’s a computer nerd—so I took my laptop into his study to show him. His scripts have people getting blown up all the time, and I thought he might know about things like the C-Leg. He was clicking away at his keyboard, but he turned around and smiled when I came in. He’s been acting strange ever since he and Mom had the fight about picking me up, and I wonder if maybe he isn’t as unconcerned about it all as he’s been acting.
    “So why do you want to know about this?” he asked, when I showed him the screen.
    “Jesse says he might get one. I was just trying to picture what it would be like to have to walk around on something like that.”
    “Oh.” Ben gave me a funny look. “How old is Jesse?”
    “I don’t know. I think he’s nineteen maybe. Too young to have to wear something like that.” I jabbed a finger at the screen. I hadn’t thought much about the war really until lately, but now the whole idea of it was making me furious.
    “Are you upset about war or about Jesse?”
    I wasn’t really sure. About people getting blown up, I suppose. That’s real, and pieces of them really come off, not like in Ben’s movies where it’s rubber and fake blood. And there are little kids, like Michael and Sarah, getting blown up too. “It’s just not right,” I said. “Why do we have to do that to each other?”
    Ben nodded. “Oh, Angelfish. It’s pretty painful when you get a social conscience, isn’t