Baby Read Online Free Page B

during the day, taking them to bed with her that night.
    We ate Thanksgiving dinner in the dining room; the glasses gleaming, candles lighted, Sophie in her red boots. Dr. Fortunato stopped by on his way to see Rollie’s wife, who had a temperature,but he really came to see Sophie. Griffey came to eat with us, and he played his accordion for Sophie. She liked “Roll Out the Barrel” and loved “Amazing Grace.”
    “Mo,” said Sophie. “Mo.”
    “You’d better learn some new songs,” said Byrd.
    “I’m working on it,” said Griffey, insulted. “The sewer business is busy, you know.”
    Griffey began to play “Amazing Grace” again.
    “She loves this song,” he said to Byrd. “She does.”
    Byrd nodded.
    “She has taste, this child,” said Byrd.
    Later we walked to town, everyone coming out to say hello and to wave to Sophie and to call happy Thanksgiving from their porches. The light sat like porcelain on the water; the sea calm, the sky the gray of silver-dollar plants.
    That night Papa danced good-night for Sophie, dancing “Me and My Shadow” over and over. Lalo taught Sophie how to blow a kiss. Mama got out her sketchbook and began to draw Sophie, the lamp spilling light over her work. Ilooked over her shoulder as she drew Sophie, all rounded edges, and then the sharper larger figure of Papa holding her.
    “Do you think she remembers?” I asked her suddenly.
    Mama looked up at me. Her eyes shone bright.
    “Remembers?”
    “Remembers her mother,” I said. “Do you think she misses her?”
    Mama stared at me.
    “I don’t know,” she said after a moment. “But it doesn’t matter, Larkin. We’re doing the right thing.” Mama sat back and looked at me. “You know that, don’t you? Sometimes you have to do what is right.”
    What is right
. I didn’t answer, but I felt my face grow hot with sudden anger. There were words in the spaces between us; those words we had never spoken, words about what
I
thought was right. It was hard to say what I thought without getting rid of those words first. Mama, staring at me as if she knew my thoughts, suddenly straightened her shoulders and went back to her drawing. Conversation was over, that one subject that stood betweenus closed. I watched her sketch, hating the look of her hand slipping across the paper as if she was brushing away all the words I needed to hear. Papa and Sophie came to life on the page, the two of them sitting in a chair by the fireplace now; Sophie imitating Papa—
rock, paper, scissors
—her hands, almost like Mama’s: quick shadows like butterflies in the firelight.

    “They never named him,” I said.
    We stood on Lalo’s favorite place on the island, the north cliffs that stood high above the water. Lalo liked the high places, the dangerous edges of the island that always scared me.
He isn’t afraid of anything
. Lalo looked at me for a moment. His hair blew across his face. He turned, then threw a rock out over the water. He leaned down to watch the rock disappear, a tiny splash from where we stood. I shivered and pulled my hat down over my ears, hooking my fingers in Lalo’s belt as I always did.
    Lalo straightened and smiled at me. This was his favorite cold, windy weather, too, and he only wore a sweatshirt.
    “I won’t fall, Larkin. I never fall, so stop worrying. Remember? Once I slept in a tree.”
    I remembered. His mother had once taken him to a new barber who cut Lalo’s hair too short. Lalo hid from everyone, spending a day and a night up the tree by the pond until his mother lured him down with kale soup and cake.
    “You haven’t fallen yet,” I said. I looked out at the water, gray and dark, whitecaps everywhere. “But things happen when you don’t think they will. Things happen that you’ve never even thought about. Ever.”
    We began to walk the cliff path toward town.
    “So,” said Lalo. I could see his breath hang in a cloud. “It’s only been six months since he”—Lalo looked sideways at