You Are My Only by Beth Kephart Read Free Book Online Page A

“I’ll make it up to you. I promise.”
    â€œHow’s that?” she moans, her words mashed behind her hands.
    â€œTomorrow. You’ll see. I’ll surprise you.”
    She lifts her eyes and squints against the lamplight. She straightens the name on her shirt. “I’m awfully tired,” she says. “Awfully so.” She puts her hands down flat and pushes herself up from the table. She wobbles a little, then stands.
    â€œGetting late,” she says.
    â€œI’ll clean up,” I tell her.
    â€œDo some reading,” she tells me. “Take an interest.”
    It’s a half-moon night. The clouds float low, skimming the rooftops, gauzing the street lamps, and down there, low, past the cradle of the tree, Miss Cloris and Miss Helen swing from the wooden porch chair that hangs from silver chains. The swing creak is an evening song, bigger than their talk, bigger than crow rustle, bigger even than the sound of my mother snoring, one floor below.
    Perfection. Mother uses the word, but nothing ever is; it’s a false-hope word, an illusion. It’s sitting inside Joey’s house like I have a right to be there, like I won’t be erased from this neighborhood if Mother figures her way to the truth. I didn’t write my long essay because I didn’t give it proper time. I didn’t give it time because I didn’t want to. I wanted to stay with Joey and his aunts and the archbishop and the hills. I wanted to stay where the cat Minxy sleeps, where they slip orange slices in with the fresh-squeezed lemonade, where I’m not supposed to be.
    â€œHey,” I hear, and when I look up, I see the shadows that Joey makes, hanging out into the dark from his second-floor window.
    â€œJoey,” I ask. “what are you doing?”
    â€œLooking out,” he whisper-shouts, putting his hands up to his face. He blows the words across the alley of the yard and up so nobody else can hear them. I can’t see more than the blur of him, the flopped, funny wilderness of his uncapped hair.
    â€œMe, too,” I say. “I’m looking out.”
    â€œYou see the moon?”
    â€œSliced right in half.”
    â€œYou see the crows?”
    â€œThey’re black as night.”
    We stay quiet for a while, let the night songs sing.
    â€œJoey?”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œYou like school?”
    â€œIt’s okay enough.”
    â€œYou ever hear of Archimedean solids?”
    â€œNot much.”
    â€œI guess she’s right, then.”
    â€œWho’s that?”
    â€œMy mother.”
    â€œRight on what?”
    â€œHomeschooling,” I say, and nothing more, and the night floats by, and Joey goes nowhere. After a while, he’s talking again.
    â€œBus comes round at seven o’clock,” he says.
    â€œYeah. I’ve seen it.”
    â€œSchool’s not so far down the road.”
    â€œThat’s nice.”
    â€œFunny things happen at school. You should take a ride, see the school from inside.”
    â€œCan’t,” I say. That’s all. Because saying one thing will lead to another and another.
    â€œYou think you’ll ever go to school?”
    â€œMaybe someday.”
    â€œCollege?”
    â€œCollege!”
    â€œI’m aiming for college.”
    â€œWell, good for you, Joey,” I say. “Good for you.” The skin beneath my eyes gets tight.
    â€œSorry we didn’t get around to the throwing lessons,” Joey says after a while.
    â€œI didn’t mind.”
    â€œMiss Helen needed a story.”
    â€œI liked it fine.”
    â€œYou coming back?”
    â€œI probably might.”
    â€œYou’re not mad or anything?”
    â€œNot mad.”
    â€œAll right.”
    â€œMoon’s going away. Getting higher.”
    â€œI’m guessing it’s time.”
    â€œAll right. Night, Joey.”
    â€œNight, Sophie.”
    â€œSee you